Where You Been, Girl?!

Uh . . . I'm a grown woman. Respect.

What's it been folks? A week? I've just been doing me. I needed sometime to get back to what I do.

I don't do politics.

Direct from Haiti

Listen, folks. We can't drop the ball on our people. The earthquake is over, but their lives are still shook.

Three in a Million - Voices from the Haitian Camps

by Bill Quigley
Friday, February 19, 2010 by
CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/02/19

The United Nations reported there are 1.2 million people living in "spontaneous settlements" or homeless camps around Port au Prince. Three people living in the camps spoke with this author this week, before the hard rains hit.

Can't Make It to DC?

March virtually.

Lorda mercy!!
I've already signed up. I just think the concept is lazy and racist. Can you imagine a "Virtual March to Selma?" Yeah, we'd still be marching for civil rights. But maybe, instead of being killed, civil rights leaders who've been assassinated virtually.

Joke: France Is Cancelling Haiti's Current Debt to Paris

France has already said it was canceling all of Haiti's 56 million euro (US$77 million) debt to Paris. The aid package also will include reconstruction money, emergency aid and $40 million in support for the Haitian government's budget.

What's so funny?

Oh, Yeah. Yele Haiti

You probably heard that Wyclef Jean's nonprofit Yele can under "fiscal scrutiny." You may have even seen him cry on Oprah. What you probably haven't heard, cause I didn't until I googled just to be sure, is that with the exception of lack of discipline in filing tax returns, there's no cause for concern.

So feel free to donate to Yele. I just did.

Conservativism, Whiteness, Exploitation and More Ways to Help Haiti

I got two different thoughts and at the moment, neither is so long as to elicit its own post. But, share your thoughts and we'll see what happens.

I came across this:

THAT liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;

here.

Now I suppose by "economic freedom" they mean low taxes and little regulation. But it's those very policies that have gotten us to where we are now.

BlueCross BlueShank

Here, make your statement:

Subject: Blue Cross

Hi,

We hear all the time about rising health care costs, but this really takes the cake.

Blue Cross has just announced that it's immediately raising premiums charged to hundreds of thousands of individual customers by as much as 39% -- even though their parent company's profits soared to a record $4.7 billion last year.

What the Haiti?!: CNN

So . . . the Swiss have freezed the assets of two of Haiti's former dictators. (Mostly because Switzerland's Supreme Court ruled the money could be given to them rather than to charities in Haiti.) But there's more to the story. The poverty and problems in Haiti ain't just that black folks "can't never get they act together." After all, the United States supported the Duvalier regime at the time, said CBS News correspondent Bert Quint, out of worries about the spread of communism. Some of that money came from the IMF and World Bank even though lenders knew these funds were used to enrich the Duvalier family and feed their brutal military regime. Rather than seizing his assets after Duvalier fell from grace, the international community has forced the Haitian people to take responsibility for these odious Duvalier debts.

Stand Strong, Black Farmers!!

On the other hand, CNN also did this story:

Mass Murder at Alabama Huntsville

h/t Dr. Joe Feagin of racismreview

I'm sure you knew this:

Amy Bishop, a Harvard PhD who was denied tenure, has been charged with capital murder in the killings. Three other faculty members were wounded, two of them critically, at a faculty meeting on the Alabama campus.

But did you know this:

Stay On Top of Things

As much as possible.

Here're some more ways to help out in Haiti, besides, of course, donating to the We Are the World Foundation. You can download "We Are the World for Haiti," too.

Now of course, concerns of child trafficking out of Haiti continue to grow. So don't entertain any fantasies of adopting any Haitian children until more civic infrastructure has been rebuilt. The best thing you can do is help in other ways.

But another issue still remains: sexual abuse and molestation here in the US.

Hell, No! They Won't Go!

Reading a Salon article by Glenn Greenwald brought me to this:

“The expectation in Washington is that ‘We can kick you around, and you are still going to give us money,’ ”

Need to Know

Rep. John Murtha (PA-D) has died at age 77. I'm actually sad about that. I thought he was a cool guy who stood up for working Americans.

You know who's not standing for Americans, just corporations. The 'Publicans, who just recently gave a chilly reception Monday to President Barack Obama's invitation to discuss health care in a bipartisan, televised setting later this month, part of the White House effort to revive the stalled legislation. I'm sorry. I thought that's one of the things they've been complaining about.

Hartford, Haiti, and Help

Reports are that there're mass casualties, that it felt like an earthquake.

Wow.

My prayers and condolences go out to the families involved. This is just horrific. An explosion at a plant that was just under construction. It's just heartrending.

I don't want anyone to misunderstand me. I really do feel for the families. But I gotta get some stuff off my chest.

A Money Quote, Literally

Combine all that spending to boost home prices with a still-bloated financial industry – too big to fail, expecting to get bailed out, and rewarding executives with huge bonuses in exchange for taking big risks – and, warns Barofsky, the U.S. financial system is headed for The Great Crisis, Part II. "Even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car," cautions the report.

The thing is, though, that we've got to keep people in their homes, right? So let's break up the banks, put caps on bonuses, and, well, it seems like we're gonna have to let the worst of the idiots fail. Or, rather, be foreclosed on. Read the rest of the article here.

Since When Do Creditors Just Sit and Watch While You Don't Pay?

Take this opportunity to speak out against AIG's outrageous bonuses. Honey, they still owe you (taxpayers).

I signed a petition [I actually did.] telling Congress that it's long past time to take real action to stop companies from giving out taxpayer dollars in bonuses. Can you join me at the link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/aigagain/?r_by=18831-8677709-cKNJwwx&rc=comment_paste

Last year, AIG gave out $450 million in bonuses to the very people who wrecked our economy. And despite the uproar that caused, and the fact that AIG still owes taxpayers $182 billion, they're at it again.

They're giving out another $100 to these same people. That's just plain unacceptable.

It's long past time that Congress does something about these obscene bonuses. Tell them that we won't leave them alone until they do.

Some Truth-telling and Devil Shaming on Haiti

Just thought I'd share this with you.

I imagine a media appealing to millions of indignant citizens who regularly take to the streets and offer solidarity with suffering Haitians – demanding not US military- conducted aid programs (after they have “secured” the areas) but empowerment of Haitians and of themselves. I am dreaming of course – the American dream, which happens only when you’re sleeping.

Nailed It!

See?

          Bob McDodo needs to give some explanation for the Republican response! It was like State of the Union-Lite!

Well, okay. I didn't flesh everything out. But I was pretty darn close, h/t Prometheus6:

The Symbolic Politics of the Republicans

State of the Union or Civil War?

By PAUL A. PASSAVANT

The significant symbolic politics of the Republican response to President Obama’s 2010 state of the union address (SOTU) escaped comment except by Stephen Colbert [And, me! ~ No1KState] who got it right.

Sometimes You Gotta Take Your Medicine

It's the truth anyhow.



I like his ideas, too. Let's get up and go on this.

What the Haiti?!: The Saga Continues

As food distribution improves, Haitians want U.S to 'take over'.

Notice I'm linking an article and not poll.

Because I think that even if a few people would want the US to "take over," that doesn't represent any Haitian majority by any means. To lead an article with the claims of a few as though they're the sentiments of all Haitians, as though the US hasn't already done our share of damage to Haitian democracy and economy, is irresponsible, arrogant and racist.

What the Haiti?! 2: Some 'Orphan Rescue' Children May Have Parents

The orphanage where the children were later taken said some of the kids have living parents, who were apparently told the children were going on a holiday from the post-quake misery.

I can't think of the words I want to say about these folks. No, actually I can, but what I really want to say isn't holy. So I'm just going to quote more of the best of the article with new information.