Monday, February 29, 2016

Banana Republicans - Would President Trump face a military coup?



"I would be incredibly concerned if a President Trump governed in a way that was consistent with the way Candidate Trump has expressed during the campaign," Hayden said. 
"If he were to order that once in government, the American armed forces would refuse to act,"  
Hayden said, referring to Trump's insistence that the U.S. use torture on terror suspects and go after suspects' families.

"You are required not to follow an unlawful order that would be in violation of all the international laws of armed conflict.”

MORE AT:


Saturday, February 27, 2016

“Hate in America” Discovery Network Monday Feb. 29


About 12 years ago I began using the SPLC as a resource to fight local anti-government extremists and white supremacists in Coatesville, PA. 
SEE:

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2014

Now that extremism is standard Republican Party practice. 

Everyone active in today's politics needs an education in anti-government extremism and white supremacist organizations in order to function in an effective manner. 


"The first episode, premiering at 8 p.m. (Eastern) on Monday, Feb. 29, explores some of the SPLC’s most riveting court cases, including the Michael Donald lawsuit that shut down the United Klans of America.”

MORE AT:

A new, three-part series on the Investigation Discovery network – “Hate in America” – will take an in-depth look at the SPLC’s fight against violent extremists.

Mom worked in “the mills”-“Uprising of 34”

My Grandfather Cavallucci was a baker in Baltimore Maryland. 


He played the violin and sang in the parish choir. My Grandmom Cavallucci played the organ. 

He died of an infection when my mother was 14. 

Asunta Cavallucci and her twin sister Maria had to work in “the mills” to help support the family.

It was 1935. 

My Mom and Aunt never talked about working in “the mills”. 




The textile workers strike was a fast moving guerrilla war between working people, factory owners private armies and state militias, police and U.S. Army units across most of the Eastern United States. 

A few machine guns were used in that strike. But guns were strictly regulated in the twenty and thirties. Most common autoloading firearms used today would be illegal in most states in 1934. 

Modern day firepower, ammunition capacity and numbers of weapons per person in the United States now greatly exceed what was available to the people on all sides in the war on working people of 1934, “The Uprising of 34”


Let's hope we don’t have a second Great Depression. 


The US national textile workers' strike, 1934 - Jeremy Brecher

Friday, February 26, 2016

Extremist Politics are normal Republican politics


Some people are engaged in politics.

Some people are engaged in monitoring extremists and extremist terrorists, and the illegal drug networks that finance extremists.

I do both.


To keep up with the modern day Republican Party politics you need this:



We had a taste of extremists controlling politics in Coatesville. They nearly burned down our city.

SEE:

MONDAY, APRIL 19, 2010

The success of Donald Trump didn’t surprise me. I expected someone like him.

In 2004 when Pat Sellers took control of politics in the City of Coatesville his extremist John Birch Society brand was unusual in Republican politics.




Pat Sellers’ kind of extremism is now mainstream Republican politics. 

Journalist that cover politics are consistently baffled and surprised by Republican politics. They're looking in the wrong places.


Every political reporter should keep up on right wing extremists and right wing extremist terrorism. Otherwise they will be in the dark. 

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Did the City of Coatesville not pay the phone bill?


When you call the City of Coatesville main number 610) 384-0300 you hear this:

"This number is no longer in service"


The Coatesville PD number (610) 384 2300 also doesn't work. 


Did they not pay the phone bill?

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Will President Hillary Clinton repeat President Obama’s wimpy sellout to Republicans?


“Obama proposed cutting Social Security benefits and raising the Medicare age to 67. After initially refusing to negotiate over the debt ceiling, the White House pivoted to a full-scale embrace of austerity in the hopes of taking away the Republican Party’s main talking point ahead of the 2012 election. 
Sanders was one of many members of Congress standing athwart this rush to austerity, though he did go further than any of his colleagues by suggesting a primary. His remarks were only a minor news story at the time, but the basic dispute is now mapping onto the entire Democratic primary, which has become a battle between progressives who are preoccupied with immediate constraints and compromise and those who seek to change the terms of debate using grassroots pressure. 
Obama actually proposed more deficit reduction in the summer of 2011 than Republicans were asking for—$4 trillion instead of the $2 trillion the GOP had been requesting—and at times the White House was reportedly willing to raise revenue only through closing tax loopholes. That meant in addition to the safety net cuts, the Bush-era tax cuts would either be locked in or even lowered in some cases. 
This was a monumental diversion from Democratic Party principles. For years, Democrats ran for office on promises not to cut Social Security and Medicare. They railed against the Bush tax cuts in every election cycle since the tax package was enacted. Republicans already enjoyed bashing Democrats for supposed safety-net cuts; one of the most frequently run advertisements of the 2010 midterms noted the Affordable Care Act cut $700 million from Medicare. (These cuts were mainly on the provider side and did not affect benefits, which was never mentioned in the ads.) 
Aside from being potentially catastrophic politics, the Social Security and Medicare cuts were bad policy. Increasing the Medicare age would have lowered federal health spending but increased overall health spending by much more, and would have left many seniors uninsured. Obama’s method for reducing Social Security benefits by changing the Chained-CPI formula would have resulted in fairly minimal long-term budget savings but would have cost the average senior $28,000 by age 95…

Sanders represented the other view—that there were certain red lines Democrats shouldn’t cross, and that elite opinion had wandered far astray from where most voters actually were. “What [Sanders’s] point was, really clearly, was that there needs to be a progressive alternative that is clarion and clear that people can understand, and that the counterpoint would be to the Tea Party, which was pulling the entire debate to the far right at that time,” said Lawson. 
What happened since has 2011 has left many progressives feeling like Sanders was vindicated. “What Bernie Sanders was describing then is exactly the dynamic that is working out positively for Democrats now, which is a race to the top on popular economic populism issues,” said Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “He wasn’t proposing defeating President Obama, he was proposing moving President Obama in a more economic populist direction. It’s what we’ve had in the primary, and what we had more of in Obama’s second term.” 
The Nation

By George Zornick

Sunday, February 21, 2016

Why I think Trump can win in Pennsylvania

The media talks endlessly about Donald Trump’s 5 second sound bite anti-Mexican/anti-Moslem rants. 

But really big issue in 2016 is what Wall Street did to us. The guys in suits that snort blow and that brought "Death to My Hometown”



Donald Trump's story is the same story that former Pennsylvania steel workers tell.

"I think NAFTA itself will be remembered for as long as this generation draws a warm breath," Richard Trumka said in an interview. "When I talk to people about it, they don't remember that it was a Republican majority that passed NAFTA. They remember that it was President Clinton."

VICE - Danny Gold, And what we hear from a lot of people is anger. 
Eddy Moore, 'Well that's a problem. Washington is not listening. And when I hear a candidate gets up here like Donald Trump.  
I'm not a Trump fan. But he touched a nerve on me when he said he's gonna revisit some of these trade agreements and send them back to congress and do away with em. And bring back our middle class jobs. And let our plants come back here  and build new plants here.  
Yes, I’m listening to him and I’m really, I'm really turned towards him a lot because he understands what’s going on.’ “
MORE AT:


Jeb! is gone. The only Republican left with Wall Street support is Rubio.

And Hillary Clinton has Wall Street support.

The  only populist Democrat is Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders tells the same story Pennsylvania union steelworkers and Donald Trump tell. And Bernie Sanders is not a racist, xenophobe. 

Friday, February 19, 2016

King Terence & Queen Carol, King & Queen of voter suppression in Chester County, PA


In the 2008 elections the Republicans understood their path to victory was voter suppression. In particular voter suppression of new black voters.

“The King and Queen of Voter Suppression: “King Terence and Queen Carol” rode to rescue the Chester County Republican Committee from the Obama Huns.

Terence Farrell voted in Lower Oxford. Without his participation the polling place could not have been moved. The reason he gave for moving the polling place from Lincoln University was that a white woman in Lower Oxford did not feel safe at Lincoln University.

It was the Chester County Republican Party’s way of preventing Lincoln University students from voting for Barack Obama in 2008.

Terence Farrell and Carol Aichele designed the most egregious violation of voting rights in the Northern States:

SEE:

MONDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2014


“As a Chester County Commissioner, Kathi Cozzone has worked hard to protect voter's rights--just ask the Lincoln University students and residents assigned to the Lower Oxford East Precinct. Cozzone, one of three Chester County Commissioners and the lone Democrat, voted her conscience in September 2008 when the Board of Elections considered a petition signed by both local Democrats and Republicans to relocate the polling place from a smaller, inadequate facility to a previously used site in a gymnasium on the nearby Lincoln University campus. Listening to the concerns of her constituents, she voted in favor of the move because the proposed location was safer, more accessible, and overall better equipped to accommodate the 1,000+ voters who were expected to turn out in November. Cozzone explained her decision to the Daily Local:"I think that moving it to Lincoln University gives us the opportunity to provide a safe environment for the voters, to provide a timely environment for the voters and to get all the voters to vote." 
However, Republican Commissioners Carol Aichele (now PA's current Secretary of the Commonwealth) and Terence Farrell both voted against the move for partisan reasons but cited flimsy excuses and exaggerated "concerns" about the relocation plan to justify denial of the petition.  There were 1,556 ballots cast at the Lower Oxford East polling place on Election Night 2008 --- over 500 more than initially projected. Wait times were from six to eight hours because there were only six voting booths, one ballot scanner and one restroom. In April 2009, there was a similar proposal and the Republican Commissioners collectively chose to ignore the legitimate concerns of the people while, once again, Commissioner Cozzone was the only dissenter. Subsequently, the County was sued (see English, et al. v. Chester County) because of the extremely long wait times and hazardous conditions at the polling place, and was settled in favor of the Plaintiffs, wasting thousands of tax dollars on a lawsuit that could have easily been prevented. 
In an August 2010 Daily Local Article, Commissioner Cozzone remarked on the outcome of the case: "When all was said and done, the right resolution to the issue of Lower Oxford East's polling place was reached. The recent settlement will allow all the precinct's residents to vote in a location with good parking, plenty of space and a safe place to wait in line. While I am pleased with the settlement, I would be remiss if I did not point out that this outcome was available to the County before legal action was taken, and taxpayer money was spent." 
Aside from better accessibility for voters, Commissioners Aichele and Farrell should have listened to Cozzone because moving the polling place back to Lincoln University was not only the right thing to do, it would have been more fiscally responsible to take care of the issue before a lawsuit was filed. 
In complete contrast to Cozzone's history of standing up for Voting Rights,Senator John Rafferty has consistently voted to disenfranchise voters in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” 
MORE AT 
DAILY KOS 
PA State 44th Senatorial District Race: Voter Protector vs. Voter Suppressor

By SpringCityPADem  
Monday May 12, 2014
 At least Carol Aichele is not secretary of state with control over elections in Pennsylvania anymore. 


Voter suppression is a primary Republican election strategy. We might not see it on the scale of the Lower Oxford Polls.  But we will see Republican Party voter suppression again in the 2016 elections in Pennsylvania. 

Voter suppression could be subtile:

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2013


Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Trump could easily win PA in November’s Election


When Obama ran in 2008 Gov. Rendell supported Clinton.  Mostly, I think, because he thought Obama would win in Philly but not much of the rest of Pennsylvania.

Governor Rendell’s line of thought dates back to President Andrew Jackson:

“SINCE Donald J. Trump shot to the top of Republican polls last fall, pundits have tried to make sense of his popularity. He has been described as a modern-day product of reality-TV narcissism, or the second coming of European fascism. But as he cruises into the South Carolina primary after beating his rivals by double digits in New Hampshire, it’s clear that neither idea quite explains his strength. 
Mr. Trump’s rhetoric resonates with a particular American political tradition. Voters may not know the details of that tradition, but they feel it viscerally when a politician taps into it. Mr. Trump has done just that by emulating a classic model of American democratic leadership. 
A clue as to just which leadership model can be found on a map. While Trump fans are spread across the country, they are heavily concentrated in and near the Appalachian states — from Mississippi and Alabama all the way to western Pennsylvania and New York. The northwest corner of South Carolina is one of the most pro-Trump parts of the country…

Consciously or not, Mr. Trump’s campaign echoes the style of Andrew Jackson, and the states where Mr. Trump is strongest are the ones that most consistently favored Jackson during his three runs for the White House.”

MORE AT: 
New York Times 
Donald Trump’s Secret? Channeling Andrew Jackson 
By STEVE INSTEP  FEB. 17, 2016

When you look at the 1824 electoral map of Pennsylvania county by county things haven’t changed much. 

See the map at:


Jackson carried Pennsylvania with 76.1% of the vote. 

I don’t believe Trump will get numbers that Jackson did. 

In a Trump vs. Clinton general election, I think Trump would win Pennsylvania. 

Governor Rendell's reasoning that Obama could not win Pennsylvania but Clinton would win has been turned around. 

>————————————————————-<
It’s not a poll, but Republicans that I see when I'm out and about like Donald Trump as president over the other Republicans. They are mostly college educated professionals, not John Birch Society Crackers. 

Chester, Lancaster and Delaware Counties have, by the way, a considerable number of JBS type Cracker White Supremacists. For instance, Colin Hanna, http://letfreedomringusa.com/about/ 

And this guy:



>————————————————————-<

No matter what the DC Beltway says, I think Trump is a shoe in for the GOP Presidential Nominee. 

Republicans have no “super delegates” like the Democratic Party. Primary elections are final on the GOP side.


>————————————————————-
That thing about Governor Rendell thinking Obama would not win Pennsylvania has been turned around in this election.

Donald Trump may have his strongest support nationally and in Pennsylvania from the very same kind of Democrats that, back in 2008, Governor Rendell envisioned voting for Hillary Clinton and not Barack Obama. 

Donald Trump holds a dominant position in national polls in the Republican race in no small part because he is extremely strong among people on the periphery of the G.O.P. coalition. 
He is strongest among Republicans who are less affluent, less educated and less likely to turn out to vote. His very best voters are self-identified Republicans who nonetheless are registered as Democrats. It’s a coalition that’s concentrated in the South, Appalachia and the industrial North, according to data provided to The Upshot by Civis Analytics, a Democratic data firm.”

MORE AT:
New York Times


Tuesday, February 16, 2016

“A new political era. rise of Bernie Sanders"-PLUS: Trump & Cruz & Rubio & Clinton & Bush & Bloomberg.



A TRULY NEW POLITICAL ERA ON THE DEMOCRATIC SIDE:
"How can we interpret the incredible success of the “socialist” candidate Bernie Sanders in the US primaries? The Vermont senator is now ahead of Hillary Clinton among Democratic-leaning voters below the age of 50, and it’s only thanks to the older generation that Clinton has managed to stay ahead in the polls. 
Because he is facing the Clinton machine, as well as the conservatism of mainstream media, Sanders might not win the race. But it has now been demonstrated that another Sanders – possibly younger and less white – could one day soon win the US presidential elections and change the face of the country. In many respects, we are witnessing the end of the politico-ideological cycle opened by the victory of Ronald Reagan at the 1980 elections."

MORE AT:
the guardian



>———————————————————————<



THERE'S A NEW POLITICAL ERA ON THE REPUBLICAN SIDE 

BUT IT'S FUBAR
"In 2003, Mr. Koch convened about a dozen like-minded conservatives in Chicago with the goal of becoming more overtly political. Those efforts took hold early in Barack Obama’s presidency amid voter unease with the bank bailout signed by President George W. Bush and with the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Groups financed by the Kochs and their alliance spent more than $400 million in 2012…In that year’s presidential election, Americans for Prosperity and two other Koch-financed groups spent a total of more than $50 million on television ads. 
The “lack of substance and civility” about which Charles complains began in earnest with the rise of the Tea Party between 2009 and 2010. To the extent that the Tea Party is a centralized movement, it is so because it has been mobilized by the groups Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works, both of which are Koch-financed. As it happens, these groups were formerly a single organization, called Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was founded in 1984 by, you guessed it, the Koch Brothers. 
The Tea Party, from the very beginning, was designed for disruption, and it was a pet project of the Koch brothers (they actually created the first national website for the movement). Charles Koch says he’s interested only in advancing “free-market, small-government ideals,” but what he’s done is manufacture a faux-populist movement that has whipped the conservative base into an anti-government frenzy."
MORE AT:
SALON
SEAN ILLING


>———————————————————————<


AND


the guardian


AND
Huffington Post


>———————————————————————<




SO 
In November maybe:


Sanders vs. Trump

OR

Clinton vs. Trump

OR

Sanders vs Rubio vs Trump vs Bloomberg

OR

Clinton vs Rubio vs Trump vs Bloomberg

OR

Sanders vs Cruz vs Trump vs Bloomberg

OR

Clinton vs Cruz vs Trump vs. Bloomberg

OR

Sanders vs Bush vs Trump v. Bloomberg

OR

Clinton vs Bush vs Trump vs Bloomberg




Sunday, February 14, 2016

Kissinger murdered millions of Cambodians but most people miss the big one, He’s a traitor.



"Nixon's sabotage of the Vietnam peace talks was confirmed by transcripts of FBI wiretaps. On November 2, 1968, LBJ received an FBI report saying Chernnault told the South Vietnamese ambassador that "she had received a message from her boss: saying the Vietnamese should "hold on, we are gonna win."

As Will confirms, Vietnamese did "hold on," the war proceeded and Nixon did win, changing forever the face of American politics—with the shadow of treason permanently embedded in its DNA.

The treason came in 1968 as the Vietnam War reached a critical turning point. President Lyndon Johnson was desperate for a truce between North and South Vietnam.


LBJ had an ulterior motive: his Vice President, Hubert Humphrey, was in a tight presidential race against Richard Nixon. With demonstrators in the streets, Humphrey desperately needed a cease-fire to get him into the White House.


Johnson had it all but wrapped it. With a combination of gentle and iron-fisted persuasion, he forced the leaders of South Vietnam into an all-but-final agreement with the North. A cease-fire was imminent, and Humphrey’s election seemed assured.


But at the last minute, the South Vietnamese pulled out. LBJ suspected Nixon had intervened to stop them from signing a peace treaty.


In the Price of Power (1983), Seymour Hersh revealed Henry Kissinger—then Johnson’s adviser on Vietnam peace talks—secretly alerted Nixon’s staff that a truce was imminent.


According to Hersh, Nixon “was able to get a series of messages to the Thieu government [of South Vietnam] making it clear that a Nixon presidency would have different views on peace negotiations.”


Johnson was livid. He even called the Republican Senate Minority Leader, Everett Dirksen, to complain that “they oughtn’t be doing this. This is treason.”

“I know,” was Dirksen’s feeble reply."

MORE AT: 
Published on Tuesday, August 12, 2014 by Common Dreams
George Will Confirms Nixon's Vietnam Treason
byBob Fitrakis, Harvey Wasserman

"Repeatedly crying wolf over Soviet power, obsessed by a black-white view of the world, failing to understand that Communist-led insurgencies like Vietnam’s were crucially nationalist and anticolonial, Kissinger propelled himself simplemindedly into the heights and depths of a career as courtier-in-chief. It culminated in his partnership with Richard Nixon in steering the last six years of America’s Vietnam War — during which more than 21,000 Americans died, along with between 800,000 and 1.5 million Vietnamese.
Under Kissinger’s guidance of an American bombing campaign kept secret from Americans, Cambodia became — according to leading Southeast Asia scholars — “one of the most heavily-bombarded countries in history.”  
Gravely undermined, the government of Cambodia was overthrown by the genocidal Khmer Rouge. As the by-no-means-left-wing British journalist William Shawcross wrote in noting that Kissinger found no room in his 894-page memoir, "White House Years," to consider the subsequent fate of Cambodia, “for Kissinger Cambodia was a sideshow, its people expendable in the great game of large nations.” Reviewing Shawcross’s "Sideshow" favorably, Kissinger’s former Harvard colleague and co-teacher, the late Stanley Hoffmann, wrote that “the ordeal inflicted on the Cambodian people by its rulers since April 1975 was not merely preceded but prepared by America’s own atrocious policy.” It was neither morally justifiable nor tactically astute."

MORE AT:

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Mary Stoffey of Agora Cyber Charter School has HUGE COGLIONE

There's an Op-Ed in Penn Online:
Gov. Wolf's budget shortchanges charter students: Mary Stoffey 
By Mary Steffey 
"In his 2016-2017 budget address, Gov. Tom Wolf proposed a dream for our state. A promise of more basic education funding for next year, based on the non-existent budget of this year. 
Wolf claims he wants to choose a path that funds our schools, eliminates our deficit, and puts Pennsylvania back on track. What everyone once again ignores, is that his plan is to only fund some of our schools. 
Digging deeper into the numbers behind Tuesday's speech, roughly $488 million would be diverted away from charter school students. 
The anti-charter stance taken by this administration has tried time and time again to reduce or eliminate funding for charter and cyber charter schools in the state.
While the promises add up, without a current budget in place and cash flowing to our students, the increases start to feel a bit like monopoly money."

I think the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should shut down all Charter Schools


Cashing in on Kids
The High Price of For Profit Education and Jeb Bush


"Extreme Workloads for Teachers: As a teacher at Pennsylvania's K12-run Agora virtual academy points out in the article, teachers are often administering classes of 150 or more students with a high turnover of staff and students. 
Michael McNulty teaches online high school math to 150 Agora students, and sometimes more because of "massive staff turnover," he said. "We were scrambling to hire enough teachers." 
As enrollment surged, Agora drew more students who had been truants at regular schools, and they didn't show up online either, neglecting to log on or hand in homework, he said. 
Student-teacher ratios in online schools are "generally higher than traditional classrooms where space constraints and classroom management are issues," K12 said. Agora students' improvement on test scores is "competitive with other Pennsylvania cyber charter schools," K12 said. 
Agora monitors truancy, contacting families and school districts to get students back in class, the company said. It removes students from its rolls after 10 consecutive unexcused absences, it said. 
K12 Inc.'s spokesperson is right that Agora charters perform as well as Pennsylvania virtual charter schools. Since their inception reporters, regulators and parents have complained about the poor performance of Pennsylvania's virtual schools. As Bloomberg makes clear, K12 is putting profit margins and investors over the future of their students--as their performance shows. There's a long history of K12 Inc. trying to squeeze as much money from taxpayers as possible to maximize its profit. 
Made Possible By Jeb Bush: Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education has been a long time booster of K12 Inc.'s expansion, education and business model. He worked to benefit cyber charters and K12 specifically when he was governor of Florida, and in the ensuing years his Foundation for Excellence in Education has been working with ALEC to make it easier for cyber charters, including K12 Inc., to expand nationally." 
MORE AT: 
http://cashinginonkids.com/blogs/high-price-profit-education-jeb-bush/

Center for Media and Democracy 


By Ruth Conniff
"But these are small-time operators compared with Ronald Packard, the CEO of K12, Inc., the scandal-plagued online charter school company. Packard's salary was $4.1 million in 2013. 
K12 has been charged with attempting to falsify records, using unqualified teachers, and booking classes of more than 100 students by state investigators in Florida. 
Education reporter Jennifer Berkshire, aka EduShyster, shared Morningstar data on her blog showing that between 2012 and 2013, executive compensation at K12 grew by $11,399,514. In 2012, executives at K12 earned a total of $9,971,984 in compensation. Last year that figure jumped to $21,371,498.
“According to a lawsuit filed in US district court this spring,”
Berkshire writes, “Packard knowingly inflated the value of K12 stock by making *overly positive statements* about the company, its performance and its prospects, then cashed out, causing his personal numbers to add up to the tune of $6.4 million large.” A spokesperson for K12 said Packard had done nothing wrong.


FROM: 
FBI TracksCharter Schools 
By Ruth Conniff