Its bad enough that British Petroleum’s CEO said his massive, endless gushing spill was only a tiny blip in a huge ocean…

Its bad enough that British Petroleum has not mourned the ELEVEN DEAD WORKERS who died in the blast on the oil rig that is responsible for the gushing toxic spill…

One of the youngest workers on the rig, Shane Roshto, 22, is survived by his son and his wife, Natalie, who has filed a lawsuit against BP, Transocean and Halliburton. An inspiration to his friends, he wrote two dates — his wedding day and his son’s birthday — inside of his hard hat, referring to these dates when he was having a bad day.

Its bad enough that the oil rig company has already received $270 million in insurance money as a claim for the lost oil rig, none of which will go to cleanup or to compensate the families of the dead…

Its bad enough that British Petroleum sent its lawyers in within hours of the beginning of the spill to get the widows and residents of coastal Alabama  to sign off any future lawsuit against BP, for a measly $5,000 per life…

But now, on American soil, British Petroleum is in charge of law enforcement, puppet-mastering the local sheriffs’ offices and the Coast Guard, keeping reporters from the beaches.  Americans are being kept from the beaches by a foreign corporation.

So much for the ‘new’ logo, the earth-friendly ‘Beyond Petroleum’ public relations campaign of a few years ago, BP’s attempt to win over environmentally aware consumers, designed to show the company’s commitment to, get this, the environment and solar power…

British Petroleum is firmly an oil company.  It is dodging responsibility for its epic, monumental, continuing spill and  its degradation of the US coastline, AND its running our own sovereign law enforcement agencies.  How can Americans know the extent of damage, if reporters are turned away from American soil by a British conglomerate?

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

He made a big point of the fact that it was mutual (she helped him film his abstinence video – shades of John Edwards and his videographer) and that she works PART TIME for him. You know what that means?

Probably NO HEALTH INSURANCE, no benefits… He was messing with a woman who probably didn’t have a safety net.

That’s not ‘mutual’, buddy, when you’ve got lifetime health benefits and retirement pay…

Oh, and his first response to the affair allegations was ‘it’s revenge politics’.

No, its not, Mark, it’s integrity, which you lack.  YOU’VE GOT HER INTERVIEWING YOU ABOUT TEEN ABSTINENCE EDUCATION!!!  Hmmm, Abstinence, Affair, Adultery.  Mark, get your A words straight.  Don’t let the door hit you on your way out…

He said, “In the poisonous environment of Washington, DC, any personal failing is seized upon and twisted for political gain.’

Um, Mark? No. Your affair, which, once CAUGHT, you now call a personal failing, is seized on because of your epic hypocrisy.  Your affair is used for political gain because you stand for nothing anymore, you’ve gone against every word you’ve uttered.

With your morality politics, through your 8 terms, you’ve made decisions that have impacted the lives of all Americans, yet you can’t even walk your own walk.  You’ve voted for the nuclear family, over other definitions of ‘family’ and yet you betrayed yours.  You filmed yourself talking about abstinence-only education, but committed adultery.  You say marriage can only be between a man and a woman, but you can’t even stay faithful to your own marriage, how can you judge the intent and fidelity of others?

Time for all of you who represent us in Congress to fess up, clean out your closets and act from integrity.

It’s no longer a surprise that the Representative from Indiana had an affair in his office, its so cliché…

Yet he and his brethren are the ‘deciders’ for the morality of the rest of Americans.  We’ve got infidels in charge.

Time to sweep them out and bring in representatives who act from the truth of their lives, caring enough not to throw the PART TIME worker under the bus…

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

Here is a youtube video for you, of their training, including burning the United Nations flag and replacing it with a Christian cross flag. Because Jesus died so they could carry guns…

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

Honey, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

Under current federal law, a first time simple possession of five grams of crack cocaine requires the same five-year mandatory minimum prison sentence as a person in possession of 500 grams of powder cocaine.

Dick Durbin and Jeff Sessions think they did a FANTASTIC job, equalizing the criminal justice playing field 4/5 more, by changing the sentencing disparity, instead of eliminating the unconstitutional disparity between crack and powder cocaine.

“If you ever wonder if anything good ever happens there (in the Congressional Gym? the weights room or the shower?? ed. comment), it appears something good might have happened there,” Durbin said, which may or may not have been an oblique reference to former Congressman Eric Massa’s tale about being lobbied by Rahm Emanuel in the House gym. “Senator [Orrin] Hatch was there to witness it.”

Dick thinks quid pro quo is more important than doing the right thing:

The compromise was that Durbin would accept Sessions’ amendment to change the disparity from 100 to 1 to 20 to 1. In return, Sessions offered to withdraw his amendments that would have narrowed the circumstances under which a judge could reduce penalties for offenders who acted with “fear, impulse or affection,” and would have imposed a 10-year mandatory maximum for simple possession rather than eliminating the five-year mandatory minimum for simple possession entirely.

“My position is for one to one, equity and equality in sentencing, but in order to get things done you have to be prepared to make mutual concessions,” Durbin said. “That’s what we have done.”

Tell that to the poor person with 1/100th the amount of one type of cocaine in their possession, who serves as much time as the wealthier person with the 100x of a different type of cocaine in theirs.  Changing that sentencing law to ‘a poor person with 1/20th the amount of one type of cocaine in their possession serves as much time as the wealthier person with 20x of a different type of cocaine in their possession’ doesn’t seem to be doing much more than moving chess pieces on a board.

And since when is legislation decided between TWO MEN, instead of the entire Senate?  These guys act as though they single-handedly solved the racial crisis in our prison systems, by bartering.  The sad thing is, for those caught in the wrong social strata, these two men create the rules.

We need a rule about qualifying to work for the U.S. Government.  You should have to work in a day-care, deliver food to the elderly, sit with kids in school, and visit the incarcerated AND their families.  You should not be able to legislate in such an impotent way when it harms one racial group more than your own, period.

Then we would have some protection against this kind of ‘wasted time’ legislation.

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

This could be seen as hypocritical, because here are four ‘old white men’ holding up funding to a program that serves a predominately minority constituency of CHILDREN, while these same four ‘old white men’ are NOT PUSHING FOR REFORM on the hundred million dollar bonuses of their ‘old white men’ Wall Street buddies.

Chuck Grassley, R-IA, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla, Jon Kyl R-AZ and John Cornyn, R-TX have joined together to block further federal funding of Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

The allegations against Boys and Girls Clubs of America are:

Roxanne Spillett, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, received a total compensation of $988,591 in 2008, according to the charity’s tax filings. She got a base salary of $360,774, a bonus of $150,000 and other compensation of $83,152, for a total of $593,926. She also received $385,500 in deferred compensation, most of which went to a retirement plan, and $9,165 in nontaxable benefits.

They are concerned that:

the chief executive of a charity that has been closing local clubs for lack of funding was compensated nearly $1 million in 2008. They also questioned why in the same year officials spent $4.3 million on travel, $1.6 million on conferences, conventions and meetings, and $544,000 in lobbying fees.

Hmmm, excessive travel and conference expenses, conventions and meetings and LOBBYING FEES?  Sounds like the typical life of a POLITICIAN.  What these men do not tell you is how many officials were included in that $4.3 million travel spending, whether the $1.6 million spent on conferences were to put on one conference or fifty, and why in all fairness a childrens’ organization NEEDS to spend $544,000 to LOBBY for funding…

Here’s what Boys and Girls Clubs of America accomplish:

• More than 4 million boys and girls served
• More than 4,000 Club locations
• Locations in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and on U.S. military bases around the world
• More than 50,000 trained professional staff

Boys and Girls Clubs of America have helped millions of kids across America, including R&B singer, Usher.

From academic failure and gang violence to poverty, drugs and obesity, America’s youth face a daunting array of problems – with serious consequences and fewer safety nets at home and in the community. According to a 2007 BGCA alumni survey conducted by Harris Interactive, 57 percent of alumni reported, “The Club saved my life,” while another 28 percent credited Boys & Girls Clubs with keeping them in school.

“Growing up in the Club, I had the chance to experience a lot of positive things; it helped reinforce the values I learned at home including good character, leadership and giving back to my community, my country and my world,” said Usher. “It’s where I developed my love of singing and performing, received help with my homework, and it’s where I found a safe place to go after school.”

So how do we begin to have constructive change, when the complainers do exactly what they’re trying to stop?

And why do our kids need lobbyists to fight for money that is channeled to Big Banks whose CEOs’ crazy annual incomes are NEVER LIMITED?

Where is the integrity?

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

I was struck by something Tom Hanks said in his recent interview in TIME Magazine:

How can Americans ask our young men and women to indiscriminately kill a shadowy enemy and then return to their ordered Coca-Cola lives Stateside?  “It’s even worse for our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Hanks says. “At least the Pacific-war soldiers coming back from World War II decompressed on ships for weeks. And then once the troops arrived portside, it was often a long train ride home to Peoria. Today these guys in Afghanistan fight in bloody hell and are flown back in 18 hours. How can they cope with that? How can they suddenly go from Tora Bora to Peyton Place?” Even the legendary Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in World War II, suffered posttraumatic stress disorder after his return from the European theater. During one meltdown, a deranged Murphy held his wife hostage at gunpoint.

Recently, an angry Ft. Stewart soldier, Spc. Marc A. Hall, wrote a rap song about his rage at having been ’stop lossed’, forced again and again to re-enlist into dangerous war zones even though his contracted time in service had expired.  In the song, he describes revenge and vengeful acts on his Commanding Officers for betraying him and forcing him back into combat.

How is the Army handling it?  They want to ship him from the United States of America, where he is currently in military jail in Georgia, to KUWAIT!!! For a military trial.  He wouldn’t be able to put together a strong defense, because most of his civilian attorneys and civilian witnesses couldn’t fly to Kuwait to testify.  Its like he’s being toyed with, after he was toyed with for years of stop loss.

There is no mercy in the military.

So we need to find it in the civilian world.

It turns out that writing about your rage, or your sorrow, or fear, or brokenness actually helps you PROCESS the unthinkable things you might have seen or done in wartime. Author Maxine Hong Kingston has a writers group for US soldiers that has been helpful in their re-entry into their home environments. An anthology, Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace was published with these writings.

There is a courtroom in Pennsylvania that takes into account the extenuating circumstances of a soldier’s service, offering a Veteran’s Affairs mentor and programs to help.

Drugs and addiction account for a significant percentage of veterans’ crimes: nearly half of vets in federal prison, for example, are locked up on drug charges. Fully 61% of veteran prisoners are dependent on or abuse alcohol or drugs. Meanwhile, cases of post-traumatic stress disorder — many left untreated — only compound the problem.

The Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America organization’s tagline is ‘For America’s Newest Generation of Veterans and the People Who Support Them’. They offer a hand to help veterans re-acclimate to their families and their jobs and their lives.

We need to UN-BOOT CAMP our brave men and women in the Military, especially if the Military will not do so.

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

The mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater, now Xe, funded by right wing evangelicals, is accused of  taking WEAPONS from the US Military and Afghan Police forces,

signing them out under the South Park name ‘Eric Cartman‘…

Eric Prince, who runs Xe, has a security division, a fleet of private planes, he’s got Bush’s former head of Counter Terrorism, the man who was charged with finding Bin Laden and failed to do so and is now running a private CIA Total Intelligence Solutions for Xe.  Blackwater is implicated in the murders of Iraqi citizens, (they LOST THEIR LICENSE to operate in Iraq), in gun running, has been paid billions for its private army around the world and is considered ‘armed and dangerous’, supposedly outside the legal protection of the US military.  2/3 of their contracts with the US Government are ‘no-bid’.

And the Republicans are going to host a party for their ‘under 40′ donors at the Blackwater compound.

According to an RNC fundraising document uncovered on Wednesday, RNC “Young Eagles” — party major donors under 40 — will meet at the facility in the spring.

Its dangerous to national security when one political party parties with the assistance of a troubled private mercenary army.

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

Today is a national day of protest for students:

Students, professors, teachers and unions around the country will organize today to protest America’s imperiled system of education with more than 100 events in 32 states.

The movement started in California, where the public college system has been seized by tension and dissatisfaction over proposed tuition hikes, budget cuts and a series of racist events on University of California and California State campuses.

At the same time that we’re upping their educational costs, think about this:

The founding fathers said that our national debt should be paid off every generation. They said it is immoral to saddle the next generation with debt. Today we are saddling not only the next generation but the next and the next. This is taxation without representation because we are putting our posterity in debt when they are not old enough to vote on it.

Its not exactly fair to make students pay more for the ability to discover the ways in which we’ve betrayed them.

In California, Governor Schwarzenegger wants to tie education spending to prison spending, because only 7.5% of the general fund goes to higher education but a whopping 11% goes to the prison system.

So kids, we won’t educate you, but we’ll sure house you for life!

On this day of protest, let’s give students our support.  We’d rather have them smart so they can dig us out of the mess we’re in, so they can provide GOOD FOOD to us when we’re in nursing homes in just a few decades… We’ll be in trouble if they are all uneducated or incarcerated.

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!

According to Lawrence Lessig, there are two places we are in denial:

The first is that things are actually much worse than anyone ever talks about. The pivot points of our financial system — the infrastructure that lets free markets produce real wealth — have become profoundly corrupted. Balance sheets are “fictions,” as Professor Frank Partnoy put it. Trillions of dollars in liability hide behind these fictions. And as expert after expert demonstrated, practically every one of the design flaws that led to the collapse of the past few years remains essentially unchanged within our financial system still. That bubble burst, but we can already see the soaring profits of the same firms that sucked billions in taxpayer funds. The cycle has started again.

You know all about the billion dollar bonuses, but have you forgotten about the billion dollar bailout?

But the second point was even worse. Expert after expert spoke as if the problems we faced were simple math errors. As if regulators had just miscalculated, like a pilot who accidentally overshoots the run way, or an engineer who mis-estimates the weight of cargo on a plane. And so, because these were mere errors, people spoke as if these errors could be corrected by a bunch of good ideas….

But we aren’t in our current double dip recession because of math errors, that’s blind.  We are here because our governmental system is beholden to political interests and guess who has the most money to throw at Congress? The same unregulated corporations who put a gun to the global economy’s head, took obscene profits, got bailed out (remember that you’re not getting bailed out via credit card reform or mortgage reform or healthcare reform) paid themselves bonuses and are now experiencing a bump in their business (WHY? because they’ve again BET AGAINST AMERICA).

Lessig has a solution:

We need to admit our (democracy’s) problem. We need to get beyond this stage of denial. We need to recognize that until we release our leaders from a system that forces them to ignore good sense when there is an opportunity for large campaign cash, we won’t have policy that makes sense. Wall Street continues unchanged because the Congress that would change it is already shuttling to Wall Street fundraisers. Both parties are already pandering to this power, so they can find the fix to fund the next cycle of campaigns.

…privately funded public elections tend inevitably towards this kind of corruption. And until we solve that (eminently solvable) problem, we won’t make any progress in making America’s finances safe again. FixCongressFirst. Only then will sensible policy be possible.

With Billionaires running for office and committing $100 million of their own money IN CASH to their campaigns, with Wall Street and lobbyists funneling billions to keep the current governmental/corporate back-scratching going on and to ensure that NO REFORM HAPPENS, American workers will be bankrupted again and again.  This Congress is incapable of the change we need, because they are so happy to jump on planes and go to vacation spots, on corporate dimes, while you and I think they are working for us.

Post from: Schizo America Thank you for visiting!