RFK's 1968 Gun Control Speech in Roseburg, Oregon

by Janet Ritz

RFK on the campaign trail
in Oregon, 1968

In May 25, 1968, ten days before he would be assassinated in California, democratic candidate, Senator Robert F. Kennedy, called for gun control in Roseburg, Oregon, the site of this country's latest school massacre.

The 1968 British television news magazine, 24 hours, hosted by Cliff Michelmore, gave context to RFK's speech on gun control and reported how he was heckled in Roseburg by protestors who held signs that read: "Protect your right to keep and bear arms." (This was the NRA slogan that earned ridicule from gun control advocates with signs in response that read: Protect your right to keep and arm bears").

"Ever since his brother's death," Michelmore explained, "Robert Kennedy and all his family have been particularly aware of the violence of American society and the ease with which Americans obtain guns."

An excerpt from the 24 Hours program:

Walter Cronkite reported on the same speech in his nightly news broadcast where RFK highlighted the lack of controls on guns purchased through mail order. 

Read more→

by Janet Ritz

ISIS has attacked the Yazidi people - a sect of the Kurds - in Iraq. The jihadists have driven the survivors to the slopes of Mt. Sinjar, where the Yazidi are running out of food, water and hope, while the ISIS militants advance to wipe them out in what would be a genocide. The White House has just authorized air drops and airstrikes to save them and the U.S. and France have committed to helping the Kurds.

Who are the Yazidi? Why is ISIS after them, why have Sunni and Shi'a attacked them in the past, and why are they at risk of genocide now?

Yazidi on Mt. Sinjar, Iraqi/Syrian Border - 1920's
Historically, the Yazidis are a religious minority of the Kurds. They are said to have existed since 2000 BCE. Estimates of the number of Yazidis vary between 100,000 and 800,000, the latter being the claim of their website. According to the same site, Yazidi refugees in Germany number 30,000.

Researchers believe that the Yazidi religion has elements from Zoroastrianism, Manicheism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The Yazidis call themselves Dasin, not Yazidi. The term 'Yazidism' comes from the Persian word 'īzed', 'angel'. The name Yazidism is connected to the 6th caliph, Yazid (680-83), who, from Shi'a point of view, is one of world history's most hated men, and is highly disliked by most Sunnis, as well. There is little evidence to show what role, if any, Yazid m played in the founding or development of Yazidism.

The Yazidis don't call themselves Yazidis and they're not attached to the 6th Caliph. That hasn't stopped the Sunni and Shi'a from hating them for the name they don't call themselves, as well as for the rumors that they worship the devil.

What are their true beliefs?

read more →

President Obama's Speech on the Climate

Analysis of the President's Speech on the Climate

President Obama's Next Four Years

Lost in the election's afterglow for Democrats and deep funk of Republicans is the hard work to be done and how much the president's success -- which, by definition, is the country's success -- depends on how many of us will have the president's back for the next four years.

President Obama referred to this point in his historic election night speech when he said: "So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other."

He then added: "The role of citizen in our democracy does not end with your vote. America's never been about what can be done for us.  It's about what can be done by us, together."

This is the message every American needs to consider, to face the truth that, prior to the election -- over the last four years -- citizens, democrats included, didn't always have this president's back. There are reasons. The recession, people trying to survive. Ideology. Misinformation. Disagreement. There was also a strange abdication, the sense by some who voted for him that now he can make change.

It doesn't work that way.

[ [1] 2 ] read more→

President Obama's 2012 Victory Speech (Video)

President Obama's rousing victory speech after winning reelection:

President Obama's Final Campaign Speech 2012 (Video)

President Obama's final campaign speech of 2012 at Iowa returns to where it all began in 2008.

Be sure to vote! Every vote counts! Polling Places Lookup Site.

Romney's Empty Binder

Photo: Holger.Ellgaard 2007

During the second debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, the ex-governor of Massachusetts made a comment that has now become an Internet meme:

"I went to a number of women's groups and said, 'Can you help us find folks?' and they brought us whole binders full of women," he said.

As pointed out in Laura Basset and Jason Cherkis's article, Romney 'Binders Full Of Women' Female Hiring Boast Falls Apart, Romney's bizarre comment wasn't even true. A collection of women's groups put together a binder of resumes and brought it to him in an effort to get more women in state government. When he did add to his roster of female employees, he put them in less important positions than those occupied by the men in his staff and, two years in, had less women in positions of authority than his first two years as govenor.

In an exchange during the MSNBC Ohio Undecided Voters Focus Group after the debate, Chris Matthews asked whether four still undecided women on the group were surprised that Romney refused to support equal pay for equal work. The answer from one, affirmed by another, was that "she liked the idea that Romney had women in his cabinet and that he went out to find them."

Undecided women voters leaning toward Romney's binder didn't hear that the resumes of women came from women's groups concerned about Romney's male dominated staff. Romney's "binders full of women" lie, as fun as it is on the campaign trail and as an Internet meme, is an empty binder Romney has used to cut into the president's support among undecided women.

[ [1] 2 ] read more

The Romney Negative

The Romney negative, a statistic closely watched by campaign aides and pundits, has been consistently higher than his favorables. Those gaffes, policies, refusal to be transparant and those secret tapes are certainly contributing to those numbers.

"Sixty-one percent in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll hold an unfavorable view of how Romney's handling his presidential campaign, up by 12 percentage points since mid-July. Far fewer, 35 percent, rate Romney's performance positively ..." Link

When I've talked to people who try put into words what bothers them about Romney, both Republicans and Democrats, one answer I've gotten is that he's like those corporate guys who can turn your world upside down. 


To them, at a visceral level, Romney, with his forty-seven percent comment, reminds us of that boss we've all had, the one who comes in, doesn't know who you are, what you've accomplished or your potential and doesn't care. He sees his bottom line, his favorites, cuts coming, and you're in the way.

[ [1] 2 ] read more →

The Oil War at Home

by William S. Becker

Who should we blame for high gasoline prices? The president? Oil companies? Price gougers? Protesters in the Arab Spring? People who drive Hummers?

The answer to that question is one of the first serious issues of the 2011 presidential campaign. It's an issue that could -- and perhaps should -- become an oil war at home, politically speaking.

The issue is heating up because gas prices affect us all, whether we're buying fuel, food or consumer goods. Rising gas prices threaten our recovery from the recession and our ability to put Americans back to work.

To anticipate how the price of oil might unfold as a campaign issue, we can look to California in 2006. One of the initiatives on California's ballot that year was Proposition 87 to establish a new tax on petroleum extracted from the state's oil fields. The tax would have raised $400 million annually to fund alternative energy programs, with the goal of cutting the state's oil consumption 25 percent over 10 years.

Proposition 87 contained a clear prohibition against oil companies passing the cost of the tax to consumers by raising fuel prices. The tax would have to come out of profits. In July 2006, polls indicated that 51 percent of California's voters supported the initiative.

Then in August, opponents launched an aggressive campaign of television ads supported in part by more than $30 million from Chevron. The ads claimed Proposition 87 would result in higher gasoline prices -- despite the prohibition in the initiative.  Continued...

[ [1]  2 ] read more 

Tornado Victims Struggle to Cope with Damage

Mayor Walter Maddox of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, describes the deaths, destruction and injuries following the direct hit on the north side of their city during last Wednesday's swarm of tornadoes across the Southeastern United States.


Tuscaloosa lost a 5.9 mile stretch of their city of 100,000. They lost their city services. President Obama arrived today. He expressed his heartbreak at the loss of life and pledged emergency funds, full support with FEMA, and ways to coordinate through HUD to rebuild.

Officials are calling the tornado swarm to hit the Southeast, US, the 'worst national disaster since Katrina.' Jack Hayes, the director of the National Weather Service is not calling this climate change. He cited prolonged flow of more humid air from the Gulf with a strong Jet Stream from Canada. Heated air was the triggering catalyst.

Massive tornadoes hit populated cities head-on. Forecasters had warned of an "insane" storm system for days, so it's unlikely that the tornadoes caught many by surprise. But with few basements in Dixie Alley, not many places were safe in the paths of tornadoes that had nearly 200-mph (322-kph) winds. Even solidly built houses were swept away. Many entire neighborhoods were completely obliterated.

Though rare, extreme tornadoes have touched down in the southeast in the past. Hayes could not rule out climate change as a factor in the severity or sheer number of tornadoes. April has been one of the worst for tornado deaths in U.S. history. The deciding factor will have to be established over a period of years (climate vs. weather patterns) to determine if the warming of the climate was the catalyst in this extreme event and whether they will continue to grow in frequency.

Some of the storms were a mile wide with wind speeds for over 200 miles per hour (EF5). The people of the Southeast don't have to wonder whether the climate has become unstable. They are at effect of it. Whether it will continue, their need is now. Red Cross Link.

'All of the Above' Is No Energy Policy

by William S. Becker

Even renewable energy hawks -- most of us anyway -- will concede that the United States cannot go cold turkey from oil tomorrow, or shut down all coal-fired power plants this week, or flip the off-switch tonight on nuclear power.

What we should not concede, however, is the need for the most aggressive possible push to get renewable energy on line. It should be our top national energy priority for many reasons, ranging from environmental protection to national security, and from economic vitality to social equity.

President Obama's recent "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future" is as close as he's come so far to issuing a comprehensive national plan for the transition to clean energy. I credit the president for understanding that energy efficiency and renewable energy are a practical, vital and near-term part of our national energy mix.

Not everyone gets that, or admits it. In a recent example of cluelessness, USA Today published a vigorous defense of plastic grocery bags by Jonah Goldberg, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Goldberg panned the president for being "convinced that we can 'win the future' with such boondoggles as high-speed rail and impractical fads such as wind and solar energy (emphasis mine)." USA Today notes that Goldberg is a member of the newspaper's Board of Contributors, as though defending grocery bags and classifying renewable energy as a "fad" qualifies as a contribution to public discourse.

What's really impractical, of course, is the idea that America can compete and thrive in the 21st Century with the same finite dirty fuels that powered us the past 200 years. From childhood asthma to foreign wars, there are myriad reasons fossil energy industries should be, and inevitably will be, dead men walking. Continued...

[ [1] 2 ] read more →

Poor No More! Or That 'Hard-Working Middle Class'

by Sherman Yellen

Protest in Wisconsin, 2011

When have you last heard the term "hard-working poor" coming from any politician? Probably not in the past decade. Nobody is a member of the working poor anymore. Everyone is a member of the over-worked, over-taxed, hard-working middle class. That includes those making $25,000 a year as a Wal-Mart store manager, to those making $450,000 as a hedge fund clipper, to those making $12,000 dollars as a part time hospital cleaning woman. Continued...

[ [1] 2 ] read more→

President Obama's Budget Proposal Would Make Key Climate Investments

by Jake Schmidt

President Obama released his Fiscal Year 2012 budget request that will invest in global efforts to reduce carbon pollution, tap into the growing global demand for clean energy, and make countries more resilient to the impacts of global warming.  It takes a scalpel to the international funding at a time when we need more international climate funding, not less.  But the President’s budget invests in efforts that benefit Americans, while the recent House Republican proposal would gut programs that help America compete and protect its citizens from the damages of carbon pollution.  One budget invests in what is needed, the other turns a blind eye to the opportunities and challenges that are in front of us.      

The President’s budget would (full details here):

Invest in clean energy development and deployment in the developing world. As the President’s budget request states:

“Whoever leads in global, clean energy economy will also take the lead in creating high-paying, highly-skilled jobs for its people.”

In addition to investing at home to create and deploy clean energy technologies, the President’s budget would help create the global demand and market conditions for clean energy deployment throughout the world.  The budget would propose $652 million for efforts to speed up the deployment of clean energy technologies throughout the world. This is a small investment in an effort which could create up to 850,000 American jobs.  After all, this investment unleashes much larger private sector investment so small, targeted investments can reap much larger benefits to the US.  Continued...

[ [1]  2 ] read more...

The Non-Mandated Society: Why Obama's Mortgage Programs Fail

by Janet Ritz

To expect banks to care about Americans over their global shareholders is asking banks to become 'persons' rather than corporate persons. When programs come from Washington as guidelines rather than mandated, banks use them to maximize profits at the expense of those the programs are meant to help.

That would seem a harsh statement until one takes into account disturbing reports that support such a conclusion. It became more evident recently with a multi-billion program the Obama Administration sent to states hardest hit by the recession to provide emergency mortgage loans to the unemployed. It was not altruism. This was initiated to save the tax base in middle class neighborhoods -- an essential ingredient to economic recovery. The program had been anticipated by struggling homeowners who'd waited a year for their states to initiate the program that would give them loans to cover their mortgage payments for up to two years.

President Obama established the Hardest Hit Fund in February 2010 to provide targeted aid to families in states hit hard by the economic and housing market downturn. Each state housing agency gathered public input to implement programs designed to meet the distinct challenges struggling homeowners in their state are facing. States were chosen either because they are struggling with unemployment rates at or above the national average or steep home price declines greater than 20 percent since the housing market downturn.

While investigating the program's implementation in California, I came across what may be the primary reason that the Obama Administration mortgage programs out of their Treasury Department have such an abysmal track record of achieving their stated goals.  Continued...

[ [1] 2 ] read more →

"A Success Story in the Middle East"

by Janet Ritz

Qubad Talabani

In a recent conversation with Qubad Talabani, the Kurdish representative to the U.S. for their regional government, we discussed what the son of Iraq's President Jalal Talabani called the U.S.'s success story in the Middle East. It was during an interview that covered politics, religion, Turkey, Iran, and the Kurdish attitude toward the U.S. for their involvement in Iraq.

As Qubad Talabani stated, "there is a success story in the Middle East that has significant U.S. fingerprints on it and I can't point to too many of those right now in the Middle East. "  Continued...

[ [1] 2 ]  read more →

Obama's Tax Deal: Leaving out the 99ers is a 2012 Mistake

by Janet Ritz

Unemployed or know someone out of work? Relieved the president's tax deal will provide thirteen months of continued unemployment benefits? Sorry to burst your bubble, but not all the unemployed promised a thirteen month authorization of benefits in exchange for the Bush tax cuts will receive those benefits for thirteen months.

The thirteen months is an authorization to fund existing tiers, not an extension beyond those tiers. The eligible unemployed will receive checks only until they exhaust their claims. Those already on the final tiers will see their unemployment benefits end in early 2011. They will join the 99ers -- those whose claims have ended -- in an escalating downward spiral of the middle class that will culminate in a burst of anger at the president when these disenfranchised new 99ers find themselves without a safety net or enough jobs to account for their numbers throughout 2011 -- while the uber-wealthy collect their exponential winnings from the tax cuts right on through 2012. Continued...

[ [1] 2 ] read more and link to video →

BP well is finally dead

So are fish, shrimp, birds, turtles, dolphins, whales, livelihoods... Nearly five months after the largest environmental oil disaster in U.S. history began, the U.S. announced today that the relief well has successfully been plugged with cement.

“We can finally announce that the Macondo 252 well is effectively dead,” Thad W. Allen, the former Coast Guard admiral who leads the federal spill response, said in a statement. The well, he said, “poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico.”

Crews aboard the Development Driller III drill rig conducted a successful pressure test early Sunday on cement that had been pumped into the bottom of the once-gushing well through a relief well. The tests confirmed that the cement formed an effective, and final, seal to prevent oil and gas from coming up from a formation about 13,000 below the seabed.

It is still to be determined how to get BP to take full responsibility for this catastrophe, after their self-issued report that pointed the finger at their sub-contractors (a peek into their legal defense strategy):

With a conclusion unlikely to be taken as seriously as independent investigations, BP has issued its own internal report on the Gulf oil disaster that shifts the blame to its subcontractors -- primarily Transocean and Halliburton -- as the primary potential plaintiffs in the disaster.

There is also an ongoing dispute as to the disposition of the millions of gallons of oil and oxygen depleted-greenhouse gas, methane, that made its way into the Gulf. Continued...

[ [1] 2 ] read more...

President Obama's Vision for the Economy (Video)

President Obama gave a defining speech on the economy where he drew a line in the sand between his policies and those of Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), calling out the congressional minority leader eight times for obstruction, while he defined his own economic vision.

It was a statement of policy and the moment when the president stood up against those who opposed him and said, in essence,  this is what I have been doing and what I'm going to do to revive our economy.  What are my opponents doing other than obstructing?  What are they going to do that's different than what brought us to the brink of a second Great Depression?

This was the choice he presented along with several proposals for tax cuts for the middle class to compensate for declining wages, putting Americans to work here, rather than subsidizing business to send work offshore, and infrastructure investments.  He pointed out that John Boehner and his associates have blocked all of these initiatives and more and that they were also obstructing the tax cuts for the middle class in an effort to preserve the 700 billion dollars in tax cuts for the top two percent.

See: Politifact's analysis of statements by Rep. John Boehner.

Excerpts from the President's remarks:

"With all the other budgetary pressures we have -– with all the Republicans’ talk about wanting to shrink the deficit -- they would have us borrow $700 billion over the next 10 years to give a tax cut of about $100,000 each to folks who are already millionaires. And keep in mind wealthy Americans are just about the only folks who saw their incomes rise when Republicans were in charge. And these are the folks who are less likely to spend the money -- which is why economists don’t think tax breaks for the wealthy would do much to boost the economy.

So let me be clear to Mr. Boehner and everybody else: We should not hold middle-class tax cuts hostage any longer. (Applause.) We are ready, this week, if they want, to give tax cuts to every American making $250,000 or less. (Applause.) That's 98-97 percent of Americans. Now, for any income over this amount, the tax rates would just go back to what they were under President Clinton.

This isn’t to punish folks who are better off –- God bless them. It’s because we can’t afford the $700 billion price tag." Continued...

[ [1] 2 ] link to video and transcript →

President Obama's Labor Day Speech (Video)

President Obama kicked off the 2010 midterm election season with a rousing Labor Day speech in Milwaukee at the annual Laborfest event. The speech is notable for its focus on green and infrastructure jobs and for its tone, which shows a more direct approach to the ongoing obstruction by special interests of programs the president has proposed to revive the economy.

A notable excerpt is where the president when off script to remark that powerful special interests talked about him "like a dog":

"We didn’t come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn’t do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell. We did it with sweat and effort and innovation. (Applause.) We did it on the assembly line and at the construction site.

We did it by investing in the people who built this country from the ground up –- the workers, middle-class families, small business owners. We out-worked folks and we out-educated folks and we out-competed everybody else. That’s how we built America.

...Over the last two years, that’s meant taking on some powerful interests -- some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time. And they’re not always happy with me. They talk about me like a dog. That’s not in my prepared remarks, it’s just -- but it’s true." Continued...

Link to video and full transcript →