Colin Bruce Milne/cbmilne33

sarahlee310:

The Senate on Thursday thwarted Democratic plans to strip billions of dollars in tax breaks from the largest oil companies, just an hour or so after President Obama urged the chamber to kill off the deductions.

Lawmakers voted 51-47 to block Sen. Robert Menendez’s (D-N.J.) bill. Sixty votes were needed to advance the measure.

Two Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snow, both from Maine — crossed party lines and voted to repeal the tax breaks. Four Democrats — Sens. Mark Begich (Alaska), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) and Jim Webb (Va.) — voted against the bill.

Even if the bill had gained Senate approval, House passage was extremely unlikely, but the vote will likely play a role in the Democrats’ election-year message. Vulnerable incumbents like Sens. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.) toed the party line on oil subsidies, and it seems likely that voters in Massachusetts and Nevada will be reminded of this morning’s vote in the fall.

This makes me sad…

sinidentidades:

A lot of people seem to think that lynching just involved hanging someone from a tree by their necks. That’s actually a lot more humane than what really went on. There was a lot of ritualistic, sexualized aspects to lynching. People had their breasts removed, their genitals…

joemccarthyblues:

violentopinions:

dez-ray:

orioleorgans:

Primitivism has drawn heavily upon cultural anthropology and archaeology. Within the last half-century, societies once viewed as barbaric have been largely reevaluated by academics, some of whom now…

ftm-communist:

[This is a distillation of the arguments I made at the CPT meeting today. I was particularly proud of my argumentation and I thought it was significant from a theory perspective so I’m posting it.]

I. Introductory Commentary

We are at a breaking point in economics and politics; you can see in…

shanksinatra:

Via Global Research:

The hidden agenda in Uganda, Central Africa and the Horn of Africa is the conquest of oil and strategic mineral resources. Going after Joseph Kony and protecting Ugandan children is a cynical smokescreen, a pretext for a “humanitarian intervention”…

antigovernmentextremist:

A man from Pasco County, Fla., who got nabbed by a traffic camera to catch red light runners believes the camera was wrong — both in snapping his license plate and constitutionally. On the constitutional front, Thomas Filippone now has a county judge’s ruling to back him up.

The Tampa Bay Tribune reports that Filippone received a $158 traffic ticket, but he wasn’t about to pay up and be more careful with the reds next time:

“If they are going to prove I was driving the car, it’s their duty under the law to prove the identity of the driver,” said Filippone, 45, who maintains his 2002 Nissan Altima crossed the intersection a split second before the light turned red on April 15. “It unjustly shifts burden to me and makes me shoulder the burden of having to prove their case.”

Pasco County Judge Anne Wansboro was in agreement and dismissed the case Filippone brought before her stating that use of the cameras ”impermissibly shifts the burden of proof to the Defendant and therefore does not afford due process, and is unconstitutional to the extent due process is not provided.”

occupywallstreet:

When Occupy Wall Street first got the national spotlight they were so worried about the co-option of their message, yet they have no problem co-opting others. A couple of Occupiers recognized me and asked if I noticed some of the nonsense that was happening. I said yes and one of them explained that after this march and two months of working with Occupy, she and her friends no longer wanted to be associated with them.

Every time I attempt to have a conversation about issues within Occupy, I’m told that there are no leaders, and that some people do crazy things, but “that’s not OCCUPY.” I grow weary of actions without consequences and disrespect without anyone being held responsible. Just because a movement did some good doesn’t mean that it’s infallible. Occupy chapters have serious issues and there have been serious discussions about its relations with women and people of color. With incidents like what occurred on Wednesday, I see a clear reason why people of color don’t flock to the movement.

Some more, incredibly important, points.

occupywallstreet:

I saw OWS people trying, not to integrate with but to change the direction of the route. I saw OWS people screaming for everyone to go to Zuccotti Park. After seeing this and then seeing the arguments of people saying that this was not about OWS, only to have the OWS people say that it WAS, I became physically ill. If there was ever a time when you should have worked to keep the focus on the actual cause, this was it […]

He tried to remain calm while he explained what he saw. He saw the same thing that I did. Only in a different form and at a different location. He saw OWS people yelling that it wasn’t about race and that it would be best to incorporate this into the OWS movement. 

This behavior is unacceptable.

These are real concerns. They are legitimate concerns. Listen to what people have to say without being patronizing. That people in this movement are acting like this is a serious problem (and don’t think for a second this is an isolated incident) and this blog will no longer turn a blind eye to it. 

Including concerns of POC, women, queer folk, etc. does not mean making them take a back seat to what you think the “real issues” should be, and it does not mean making them assimilate into what you think the movement should be. It is a racist, imperialist attitude and it is an insult to the democratic ideals this movement was supposed to have been built on.

In no way is the idea that we should figure out economic issues first and get to everyone else later acceptable. In no way is deriding people’s concerns because you think yours come first acceptable.

I care about this movement and I have since the beginning, but it is worthless - absolutely worthless - while these serious problems go un-addressed, and while we continue to let racist, alienating garbage dominate the discussion. Read this post, listen to other concerns, learn what the fuck intersectionality is, and use your goddamn brains.

These concerns aren’t “divisive,” your bullshit is. 

sarahlee310:

liberalsarecool:

Rep. Richard Hanna (R-N.Y.), co-sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment, gave women an unexpected piece of advice: Give your money to Democrats.

“I think these are very precarious times for women, it seems. So many of your rights are under assault,” he told the crowd of mostly women. “I’ll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it. And you need to send your own message. You need to remind people that you vote, you matter, and that they can’t succeed without your help.”

Gonna send him a thank you note.