PhotOh! KKK protests workers at Mexican food stand

PhotOh! KKK protests workers at Mexican food stand

"Confessions of a call girl" ... not really

*Not the call girl but I found this great blogger and wanted to share the post!!!

'Confessions of a callgirl', but more sexy

This week in crazy follow-up: The Arizona Hero

I forgot to mention, when I was talking about the people who are respites to all the crazy this week, namely in Arizona, the “awesomest intern ever”, Daniel Hernandez.

Join this group on Facebook so Daniel Hernandez knows how much he is appreciated: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Daniel-Hernandez-Is-The-Awesomest-Intern-Ever/191877124155970

Hernandez had been Gifford’s intern since the start of the legislative week. He was 30 yards away when the shooting began. He saw people being killed and he ran into the firing. He had just seen his boss shot in the head. The instinct most people would have is to believe that said person was dead, and that even if they were alive, they should run to safety. But his instinct, of checking to see the medical conditions of the dead and dying, helped save Gabrielle Gifford’s life, from important steps such as holding her head in his lap to prevent choking on blood, to the more simple steps of holding her hand all the way to the hospital. First off, he is a testament to why we need to treat interns better, and certainly stop them from being unpaid.

The other amazing part of this story is that Hernandez is Latino, and, gay. Mary Williams has talked about it at Salon.com, but it matters because it is another element that is crucial in smashing group stereotypes surrounding the issue of violence, where the instinct was to blame it on either a Mexican drug cartel or a Muslim, and where gay people’s ability to serve is so often questioned, re: the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal held up by Arizona senator John McCain. As for the Latino thing, we don’t need to go into how many racist hissy fits Arizona has been having.

To know why those above details are important, you have to ask yourself, what do you see when you think of an American person. Do you see a fat, white person? When you think of a Latino person, do you see a cleaner, or a sassy backup character in a movie, or a baseball player? When you think of a gay person, do you see someone in designer clothes? Or in all three incidences, do you see a gay, Latino intern who runs into bullets to save his boss?

Daniel Hernandez is not just a testament to gay people, Latino people and even interns, but a testament to how America is always just that bit more complex than you think it is.

Happy F---ing Labor Day, Rahm!

Happy F---ing Labor Day, Rahm!
by Michael Moore
September 7, 2010 |

Happy Fuckin' Labor Day! I read this week that—according to a new book by Steven Rattner, your administration's former "Car Czar"—during White House meetings about how to save the tens of thousands of jobs that would be lost if GM and Chrysler collapsed, your response was, "Fuck the UAW!"

Now, I can't believe you actually said that. Maybe Rattner got confused because you drop a lot of F-bombs, or maybe your assistant was trying to order lunch and you said (to Rattner) "Fuck you" and then to your assistant "A&W, no fries."

Or maybe you did mean, "Fuck the UAW." If so, let me give you a little fucking lesson (a lesson I happen to know because my fucking uncle was in the sit-down strike that founded the fucking UAW.)

You see, Rahm, when people earn a good wage, they spend it on stuff, which then creates more good-paying jobs.

Before there were unions, there was no middle class. Working people didn't get to send their kids to college, few were able to own their own fucking home, nobody could take a fucking day off for a funeral or a sick day or they might lose their fucking job.

Then working people organized themselves into unions. The bosses and the companies fucking hated that. In fact, they were often overheard to say, "Fuck the UAW!!!" That's because the UAW had beaten one of the world's biggest industrial corporations when they won their battle on February 11, 1937, 44 days after they'd taken over the GM factories in Flint. Inspired by their victory, workers struck almost every other fucking industry, and union after union was born. Had World War II not begun and had FDR not died, there would have been an economic revolution that would have given everyone—everyone—a fucking decent life.

Nonetheless, labor unions did create a middle class for the majority (even companies that didn't have unions were forced to pay at or near union wages in order to attract a workforce), and that middle class built a great country and a good life. You see, Rahm, when people earn a fucking good wage, they spend it on stuff, which then creates more good-paying jobs, and then the middle class grows fucking big. Did you know that back when I was a kid if you had a parent making a union wage, only one parent had to work?! And they were home by 3 or 4 p.m., 5:30 at the latest! We had dinner together! Dad had four weeks paid vacation. We all had free health and dental care. And anyone with decent grades went to college and it didn't fucking bankrupt them. (And if you ever used the F-word, the nuns would straighten you out in ways that even you couldn't bear to hear about.)

Then a Republican fired all the air-traffic controllers, a Democrat gave us NAFTA, and millions of jobs were moved overseas. (Hey, didn't you work in that White House, too? "Fuck the UAW, baby!") Unions got scared and beaten down, a frat boy became president and, like a drunk out of control, spent all our fucking money and our children's money, too. Fuck.

And now your assistant's grandma has to work at fucking McDonald's. Ask her for pictures of what the middle-class life used to look like. It was effing cool! I'll bet grandma doesn't say "Fuck the UAW!"

Hey, don't get me wrong, Rahm. I fucking like you. You single-handedly got the House returned to the Dems in 2006. But you and your boss better do something fucking quick to put people back to work. How 'bout making it a crime to take an American job and move it out of the country? In other words, treat it as if it were a fucking national treasure like you would if someone stole the Declaration of Independence out of the National Archives or some poacher stole eggs out of the nest of an American bald eagle.

Or how about arresting some of those Wall Street guys who fucking stole our money, the money that ran the American economy. Now that would take some fucking guts. And maybe, just maybe, that one act of real guts might save your ass come November 2nd.

Oh, I can just hear you now: "Fuck Michael Moore!" No problem. But fuck the UAW? How 'bout if I just leave off the 'A' and the 'W'?

Yours,
Michael Moore

P.S. Here is what Robert Kennedy had to say on Labor Day, 42 years ago, via today's op-ed from Rep. Alan Grayson:

"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that—counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage.

"It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

When Robert Kennedy said these words, the unemployment rate in America was 3.7 percent. Today, it is almost three times as high. Too many of our working brothers and sisters are out of work, thanks to more than a decade of economic mismanagement. Ten percent of us are unemployed, and the other 90 percent work like dogs to try to avoid joining them. Which is just what the bosses want.

But it doesn't have to be that way. I look forward to a Labor Day where every worker has a job, every worker has a pension, every worker has paid vacations, and every worker has the health care to enjoy life. Our Republican opponents call that France. I call it America, an America that is No. 1.

Not No. 1 in wasted military expenditures.

Not No. 1 in number of foreign countries occupied.

No. 1 in jobs. No. 1 in health. No. 1 in education. No. 1 in happiness.

As Robert Kennedy famously said, "I dream of things that never were, and ask, 'Why not?'" Why not? Let's make it happen.

And then all of us who are Americans, including the ones today who are jobless, homeless, sick and suffering, we all can then say, "I am proud to be an American."

The Rewards of Hard Work

The Rewards of Hard Work

Glenn Beck Loonies Not Looking Forward To DC’s Black People

Glenn Beck Loonies Not Looking Forward To DC’s Black People

The Wonkette .... sometimes the only way to keep from weeping is to laugh

We Do Not Put the Bill of Rights Up to a Vote

Nadler Dismantles Right-Wing Arguments Against Mosque: ‘We Do Not Put The Bill Of Rights…Up To A Vote’

This morning on CNN’s State of the Union, New York congressmen Jerrold Nadler (D) effectively dismantled the arguments of his fellow Empire State colleague Peter King (R), who has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the new Islamic center project in lower Manhattan.

King argued that, while he respects Muslims’ “right” to build a new center, “they should listen to public opinion” and “should voluntarily move the mosque away from Ground Zero.” Nadler, the chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, explained, “We do not put the Bill of Rights…to a vote. The reason we have a Bill of Rights is that you have your religious rights…whether majorities like you or not, frankly.”

Nadler then addressed the biggest fallacy of the right-wing argument: namely, that in their opposition to the Islamic center, they are ascribing collective guilt on all Muslims for the terrorist acts of 9/11:

NADLER: [W]hat they are saying essentially is how can you put a mosque there when, after all, Muslims attacked us on 9/11, and this is ripping open a wound? Well, the fallacy is that Al Qaida attacked us. Islam did not attack us. Islam, like Christianity, like Judaism, like other religions, has many different people, some of whom regard other adherents of the religion as heretics of one sort or another. It is only insensitive if you regard Islam as the culprit, as opposed to Al Qaida as the culprit. We were not attacked by all Muslims. And there were Muslims who were killed there, there were Muslims who were killed there. There were Muslims who ran in as first responders to help. And we cannot take any position like that.

Watch a compilation:

King — who has said he thinks there are “too many mosques in this country” and is an advocate of racially profiling all Muslims — claimed that he has been a defender of Islam. But, he added, the 9/11 attack “was carried out in the name of Islam,” and therefore, the new Islamic center would simply be rubbing “salt in the wounds.”

“[O]bjecting to this mosque would be as objectionable if you wouldn’t object to a church or a synagogue in the same place because that’s blaming all Islam and you can’t blame an entire religion,” Nadler explained. He then ticked through three prominent examples of GOP hypocrisy on the “Ground Zero mosque”:

1) Nadler: “One, there is a mosque in the Pentagon, which is also hallowed ground. No one objects to that.” [Link]

2) Nadler: “Second, the people who want to build this facility, which is partially a mosque and partially a community center, have a mosque a few blocks away from there, which no one has objected to.” [Link]

3) Nadler: “I would take the sincerity of many of the Republican critics of this…if they were supporting, as Peter is, but very few other Republicans are, the bill to give health care coverage to the 9/11 heroes and responders which all but 12 Republicans voted against in the House last week.” [Link]

A Leader Upholds the Constitution vs.Going with the Polls

The campaign against this recreational center / mosque is one of the ugliest and most odious controversies in some time. It's based purely on appeals to base fear and bigotry. There are no reasonable arguments against it, and the precedent that would be set if its construction were prevented -- equating Islam with Terrorism, implying 9/11 guilt for Muslims generally, imposing serious restrictions on core religious liberty -- are quite serious. It was Michael Bloomberg who first stood up and eloquently condemned this anti-mosque campaign for what it is, but Obama's choice to lend his voice to a vital and noble cause is a rare demonstration of principled, politically risky leadership. It's not merely a symbolic gesture, but also an important substantive stand against something quite ugly and wrong. This is an act that deserves pure praise.

To anyone wanting to quibble with what was done here -- the timing, the wording, etc. -- I'll just pose this question: when is the last time a President voluntarily entered an inflammatory public controversy by taking a position opposed by 70% of the public?