Thursday, July 28, 2016

Obama's 2016 DNC Speech Made the Fur on My Arms Jump, Made Me Emotional for Nearly the Whole Second Half.

Made me PROUD to BE AN AMERICAN. Made me PROUD of the USA. Made me proud to have voted for him twice -- as most of us did.

Full video of Obama's 2016 DNC speech here or here

What a speech! Miss him terribly already, did not appreciate him enough.* Michelle O, Kaine (!) and Bill Clinton speeches all incredibly worth watching BIG TIME. YouTube them if you can/missed them/are surfing and bored. Anyone who saw Obama's speech tonight and thinks it might be cool to vote for Trump is a very, very, small, small person. Wow, Hillary 2016, now as before, no questions here at all.

*And I appreciated Obama ALOT, and supported and defended him for 8 years. Google search his name on my site and see not if I tell the truth.

Democratic climate hawks look to make waves at the local and state levels | Grist

Democratic climate hawks look to make waves at the local and state levels | Grist 

A movement at the grassroots level, that affects everyone, cannot be stopped. But neither can the work of the movement.

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Hillary's Turn: Bring It Mrs. Clinton!!!

DEM PARTY GROWING PAINS, AND THE STAGNANT STENCH OF THE GOP! My first diary.

Appears in full here too, and on Daily Kos.



The Odious GOP Platform
Ok, obviously alarming is that the GOP is tied to the same repressive and regressive policies election cycle after election cycle. Fear, white and bright America, guns and plain-folk America, no people of color, no immigration, no gays, small government, low taxes… an Ozzie and Harriet America that was partially true at best for a part of our society (read: when the middle class was probably largest) at one point post-WWII. This also denies the major subcultures and realities which were also very much “American” at that same time, but again for brevity I can’t go there.

So today… we still have a low tax, immigration fearing, small government and national GOP platform that insists on: denying abortion, denying meaningful immigration reform (and immigrants in general!), denying the science of climate change, wealth favoring, torture and waterboard advocating, being impatient, being afraid and for the most part being a small minded platform. You have to buy the whole thing.

I mentioned this to a friend of mine at a tailgate party last year: a 60-ish (South African immigrant have you) gentleman who professed to being Republican. “You only want low taxes!” I told him. (He has some money). He also has a gay daughter. “But because you want low-taxes, you have to be a gay hating, environment hating, torture loving guy. It’s a bad deal! You aren’t that guy.” It’s just that the basket lunch, or buffet, is all-inclusive. Take your candidate for low taxes, and you have to eat the rest of the buffet, even if you really don’t like it.* He nodded. Even after some tequila, he nodded to his even more well-off friend, “You know, he’s right.”

(*A major problem in our Democracy: particularly when platforms don’t change, and candidates always must offer essentially the same buffet… to get RNC money, and tired old Koch and other Mr. Burns from the Simpsons type donor money.)

The Changing Democratic Platform
So while the GOP trip over each other scrambling to adopt the nearly impossibly archaic national platform (awkwardly like Trump, and unlike McCain before him who tried to hold out to resist torture and support the environment for an astonishingly long time), the Democratic Platform is changing.

Bernie’s popularity brought publicly-funded college tuition into the platform. It brought support for a better minimum wage. It brought single-payer health care onto the platform. It kicked support for the workers’ and environmental rights’ and national sovereignty snuffing Trans-Pacific Partnership out of the party platform. Among a number of notable additions and subtractions.

So it’s a little rough, but the Democratic Platform is changing. It is modernizing. This cannot be said about the GOP. Their platform, to quote one of several great lines in Bill Murray’s Kingpin, is “about as fresh as a Foghat concert!” (Note to rock and roll naifs: Foghat is a very old, tired, derivative, obsolete sounding rock and roll music. Sorry Foghat fans.) The GOP platform stinks. It is rotting. It actually has a stench, you can almost whiff over your monitor or TV. The GOP desperately needs a new infusion to remain relevant at all: someone who truly embraces pluralism, multi-culturalism, women’s rights to control their bodies, the science of global warming and what we must do to reverse it, etc., etc.,… and… low taxes and smaller government I guess.

So getting away from that and back to the present and future, shame on Debbie Wasserman Schultz for loading the deck for Hillary. It is flat-out shameful, embarrassing and infuriating. Is that really her role, to load the deck? Is that written in the job description? I bet it’s not. Getting in the way of change. I believe she should have no role in a Democratic institution for quite some time after her snake-like malfeasance. She should repent and show up humbly in public somewhere in a year or two (at the earliest) with her ears soundly boxed in my opinion. The dang primaries should be led by the VOTERS. Get those superdelegate votes off the books at the start of things. Don’t rig things for ANYONE. We don’t need to see skewed superdelegate votes early in an election, and we probably shouldn’t see them until after we ordinary citizens vote. Period. And frankly, the superdelegates (if that system is even kept) probably shouldn’t make up their minds that early either, until they become informed of the entirety of the candidates’ positions and personalities. At any rate WE THE PEOPLE must be allowed to choose new directions. And bring new energy into the platform, with new candidates with new ideas that need to bring us up to speed. The world in which and technology with which we are surrounded are making change and progress capable at incredible rates of speed. Note to the DNC: you have to be wholly part of letting the people lead, and to change and modernize in step with us. This is not a Democracy otherwise. Props for adopting some of Bernie’s mojos (and Elizabeth Warren’s) and vision. Bernie even said, “Our job now is to see that platform implemented by a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House and a Hillary Clinton presidency! And I am going to do everything I can to make that happen.”

Hillary now gets to run with this baton. Please get rid of Citizen’s United, and regulate Wall Street further and restore some of this nation’s wealth and prosperity back to the middle class, from which it has been swindled, and back to where it belongs.

Ok, maybe that’s enough. I could elaborate on a few tangents here. Hope this helps.

Here’s to a better, and groovy, future.
Colby

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Hillary's Vice President Candidate Greets Crowd "Bienvenidos a Todo"

Here This is the feel good stuff. An experienced politician whose heart is in the right place.
Who speaks Spanish, champions middle-class people and impoverished people, and is humble and seemingly quite genuinely virtuous. I'm excited about Kaine and have read virtually only good things about him and his record. Looking forward to hearing more about him. This is a cool stage in the story.

Friday, July 22, 2016

Donald Trump Accepts Nomination, Destroys Republican Party?

Is this good? This is probably good? So now ex-KKK leader David Duke wants to run for Senate for the GOP? The floodgates are open.

Here   "We Just Watched the Republican Party Kill Itself" - Daily Beast

















Art by Molly Crabapple, Daily Beast


Fact-checking Donald Trump's acceptance speech at the 2016 RNC

"The dark portrait of America that Donald J. Trump sketched in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention is a compendium of doomsday stats that fall apart upon close scrutiny."

Monday, July 18, 2016

Tech CEO to Donald: Your campaign is un-American - Jul. 17, 2016

Tech CEO to Donald: Your campaign is un-American - Jul. 17, 2016 

More on Donald Trump, and the GOP rolling with him....

"We can disagree on a lot but there are certain things that everyone
does agree with: You should respect women. Immigrants make this country
better. We should be civil to each other. The KKK is a group that is the
personification of evil. There are these basic things that we don't
need to argue about."

And http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-17/trump-is-bernie-madoff-of-politics-clinton-vp-prospect-says

Trump Is Bernie Madoff of Politics, Clinton VP Prospect Says 

And... clipboard to follow:

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/290353-does-the-republican-party-need-an-intervention 

http://freebeacon.com/columns/self-immolation-republican-party/

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Bernie Sanders endorses Hillary Clinton

Bernie Sanders endorses Hillary Clinton - CNNPolitics.com 

I have many thoughts, but the reportage therein is notable enough.

"She walked through a number of policy
issues where Sanders had pulled her to the left during the course of the
election -- minimum wage; the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal,
college affordability -- to make a broader concession: the movement that
Sanders created was nothing short of a political revolution.

"Sen.
Sanders has brought people off the sidelines and into the political
process. He has energized and inspired a generation of young people who
care deeply about our country," she said. "To everyone here and everyone
cross the country who poured your heart and soul into Sen. Sanders'
campaign: Thank you."

Monday, July 11, 2016

NO More OIL BOMB TRAINS

Petition here

Subject: Sign the petition! Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors: Protect LA County: Oppose Philips 66 Santa Maria Crude By Rail Expansion




http://image.oregonlive.com/home/olive-media/width960/img/oregonian/photo/2016/06/05/oil-train-derailment-9b11875ec7d4c71e.jpg

Another Bakken Crude by Rail Bomb Explodes

Oil sheen spotted, 100 residents remain evacuated after Oregon oil train derailment | OregonLive.com 

Past update on the Oregon oil spill: Though not in a creek, oil has
gotten into a nearby creek and is seeping into the river to c. 6 feet
offshore.

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Kelp Forest Roasted to Death in Western Australia

Here This is tragic news. Climate change and global warming of seas taking out entire underwater forests. Worth billions in tourism and fishery value, now GONE. Combined with California's millions of trees die-off (bark beetle, drought, global warming-catalyzed).... and one must seriously consider if we are on a suicide course on this planet. And much faster than nearly anyone really wants to admit, come to terms with, accept, or fight appropriately.

Friday, July 8, 2016

Culture of Police Homicide: To Reform (Clinton) or Accept

Hillary Clinton pledges to reform heinous behavior: way overdue. Wouldn't rubber bullets suffice unless perpetrator was armed 95% of the time? Reserve live rounds for heavily armed interaction? Glad she wants to be out there lockstep with this. Here 

Late breaking add: after five Dallas policemen were shot in retaliation (seemingly), Obama gave an Elegant, moving and powerful speech Here

One wonders how gun control, and racism -- not issues being reformed very dramatically by the GOP -- put the brakes on progress here in America.

Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012

Sunset, Venice 12/20/2012
I've been thinking some about the Winter Solstice, the Mayan end of the 30,000-year-cycle on 12/21/12.

What if in fact the world did end? Even though this probably will not happen, to live consciously it is honest for us to take a bit of an inventory.

Am I happy with how I've lived my life? (Yesterday, I thought mostly yes, with some areas for improvement, as below.) Are there changes I would make?
Would I have tried to forgive those that were hostile or disappointing to me?
Would I spend more time with those I loved the most, telling them that, feeling that more?
Would I be happier, grateful for what I have, what I've experienced, the joy, the beauty in this world?

Maybe the answer is yes to all of the above.
So this time can serve as a point of rebirth for all of us. If we think about it.

Because somewhere along the line I realized I think maybe mankind deserves it. !
The way we are killing each other, killing the planet.
How selfish we are, and snotty to those around us. Petty, competitive. Why is this? Do we have to behave this way? (I say no, it greatly detracts and misdirects energy from the full-time celebration in which we could engage, the great multi-cultural, multi-rhythmic dance we can sustain here.)

Maybe God or the Great Universe is fed up, and will pull the rug out from under us.
Don't think I can say we could blame Him/Her/It.

But it probably won't happen. (Probably not! This time.)

Still we are finite on this ride.

It is a time to think, am I happy with how I've lived my life?
Hopefully most of us can say yes.

For the part of us that have a little worry, a little sadness....
This is the time to be present.
This is the time to be the person you want to be, that can die at peace, that can hope to every day be able to look yourself and the Universe in the eye and say, how beautiful, smiling, and thank you. Let's do that.

Antidotes to Violence, a.k.a., Take Charge of Where Your Head's At - here

Tell Congress to Strengthen Gun Control Laws NOW - here

Good News & Brain Food News -
Christians & Muslims Gather, for Peace here
Good News - Top RIO+20 Summit Posts here
The 'Busy' Trap - NYTimes.com
here