PRAWN
Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network
PRAWN Philadelphia Regional Anti-War Network |
|
| PRAWN Blog Associated website: Economics Blog for UFPJ-DVN Veteran's resources. This page summarizes available governmental, organizational and other resources and makes them easily accessible to those searching for assistance. PRAWN Flyer (PDF) Updated 20Feb2010 Information sheet on Austerity
Ray Torres is the director of the short film Beyond Credit Unions The film is
available for groups to show. Contact Ray at 215 753 9022 Study guide available from Christian-Jewish Allies: “Why Palestine Matters, The Struggle To End Colonialism” Also: Press Release
PRAWN's mission is to:
Local Resource Organizations
National Organizations Marlene
Santoyo's Political Allies Newsletter
30 May 11 19 May 11 18 Apr 11 28 Mar 11 6 Mar 11 16 Feb 11 29 Dec 10 5 Dec 10 4 Dec 10 30 Nov 10 16 Nov 10 11 Nov 10 16 Oct 10 17 Sep 10 11 Aug 10 12 Jul 10 6 Jul 10 5 May 10 21 Apr 10 14 Apr 10 30 Mar 10 27 Mar 10 11 Mar 10 19 Jan 10 10 Jan 10 30 Nov 09 13 Oct 09 3 Oct 09 17 Sep 09 6 Aug 09 7 Jul 09 10 Jun 09 31 May 09 13 May 09 29 Apr 09 9 Mar 09 28 Feb 09 14 Jan 09 6 Jan 09 26 Oct 08 16 Sep 08 15 Aug 08 31 Jul 08 13 Jul 08 20 Apr 08 23 Mar 08 15 Mar 08 6 Mar 08 28 Feb 08 18 Jan 08 9 Jan 08 17 Dec 07 15 Nov 07 5 Sep 07 30 Aug 07 15 Aug 07 2 Aug 07 24 Jun 07 24 Apr 07 20 Apr 07 15 Apr 07 12 Apr 07 21 Mar 07 16 Mar 07 21 Feb 07 16 Jan 07 8 Jan 07 28 Dec 06 13 Dec 06 8 Dec 06 28 Nov 06 17 Nov 06 10 Nov 06 24 Oct 06 13 Oct 06 7 Oct 06 29 Sep 06 19 Sep 06 13 Sep 06 23 Aug 06 11 Aug 06 1 Aug 06 26 Jul 06 7 Jul 06 2 Jul 06 20 Jun 06 6 Jun 06 1 Jun 06 23 May 06 13 May 06 2 May 06 Commentary Archives 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005 Webspace provided by 1&1 Internet Webmaster: Rich Gardner |
Upcoming Events |
Info, articles, etc. We should recall in this case that the President can currently only pardon federal crimes. With the case of Gamble vs the US coming to the Supreme Court very soon, that could change and the President could pardon himself for all of this. "DESPICABLE:
Trump Mocks Dr. Blasey Ford At MAGA Rally, Crowd Roars" Outside counsel Rachel Mitchell, who represented Republican senators during the Ford-Kavanagh hearings, put out a report denying that "a reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee." Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) took strong exception to this conclusion and pointed out that Mitchell had far fewer facts then she should have had before reaching any conclusions. Judge Kavanaugh wasn't able to give much testimony before Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) started hollering and Mark Judge, the alleged third person in the room, has not been interviewed at all. Part 47,635 on the Reverse Midas Touch of our President. How everything he touches turns to %$#@. Now that sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell has put out a highly dubious report that blames Dr. Ford for being attacked. How bad was the report? It'll be used as evidence against her in her own private practice. AZCentral concludes: And we believe
Mitchell made a grave judgment error when — without the benefit of an
impartial investigation — she agreed to question Dr. Christine Blasey
Ford, who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. So the President just did the "old wine into new bottles" trick. He decided he really couldn't improve on NAFTA, so he just relabeled a set of Obama proposals, calling them his own. Boom. Done. Problem solved. Ehh, yeah. Okay, works for me. Updates to post make it clear that the one week "investigation" of Dr. Ford's claims is just a sham to provide some PR cover for a little while. Migrant children taken out of previous facilities and foster homes and moved into expanded tent city. No school in new quarters. September “Lindsey
Graham: I'll Vote For
Kavanaugh Even If FBI Corroborates Sexual Assault” What is the state of Israeli-Palestinian relations? 17-year old Ahed Tamimi received a sports jersey from the Spanish group Real Madrid and Israel is now denouncing Real Madrid. According to Israel, the gift "indirectly encourage aggression and not the dialogue and understanding that we need. Oh, and "Hundreds of Palestinians of the Gaza Strip marched, on Saturday afternoon, in the funerals of seven Palestinians killed by Israeli forces a day earlier during protests at the eastern borders of the besieged strip." Yep, 'cause Israel believes so strongly in "dialogue and understanding." "U.S.
President Donald Trump said he and
North Korea's Kim Jong Un fell in love" Senator Jeff Flake managed to get the confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh delayed until after the FBI investigated. Very good, but the fact that Kavanaugh and the Judiciary Committee kept resisting an FBI investigation was highly suspicious in the first place. The fact that the President is now placing any limits at all on that investigation is equally suspicious and for the same reason. It begs the question: "What are they trying to hide?!?!?!" Excellent discussion on Kavanaugh and credibility. Okay, the stuff he did as a teenager was stupid, but why lie about it? His credibility now is what's important! 15 years after the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the US has to keep a consulate closed there. The US consulate in Basra (Iraq's main port on the Persian Gulf) had to be closed when angry Iraqis attacked it. It wasn't just an anti-US attack, Iran also had theirs burned down, which means that no, the damage was not caused by “Iran-backed militias,” as the US charged. "The
Record Supports Christine Blasey
Ford" So Senator Flake's a "yes." Yeah, he's always struck me as a fellow who enjoys playing Hamlet. "Oh, me. Oh my. What shall I do?" But in the end, he's a loyal soldier for the GOP. According to Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, the
US wants to be
the "sole mediator in the Middle East conflict," and is
offering "a 'very fair' peace plan." So naturally "Senate Republicans To Move Forward On Kavanaugh Confirmation After Emotional Hearing" More consequences of the Ford-Kavanaugh hearing: Chris Wallace on Fox says 2 of his daughters, in the wake of Kav allegations, have told him about things in high school they hadn't told him before. "There are teenage girls who don't tell stories to a lot of people, and then it comes up. I don't think we can disregard that" Also, the National Sexual Assault Hotline saw a 147% increase above normal volume on Thursday. The country: transfixed by the spectacle of the Ford-Kavanaugh hearing: Silence on Wall Street. Tears in a retirement home. Yelling at the TV in a Milwaukee bar. The country watches, transfixed, as Ford testifies LA Times: Roman Catholics speak out: America Magazine — the magazine of the Catholic Church’s Jesuit order — is no longer endorsing Brett Kavanaugh after Thursday’s testimony. The American Bar Association wants to put the brakes on a Kavanaugh appointment to the Supreme Court. Awww! This is heartbreaking! Skyping with a female Afghan lawyer in Kabul as we both watch Dr. Ford's testimony. "So women aren't believed in America either?" she asks. No words. America, 2018. For shame The male GOP senators needed the female lawyer to guard against the appearance of beating up on a woman. Once the questioning got to Judge Kavanaugh, the Republican senators felt free to dismiss the female lawyer. Judge Kavanaugh, in a very seriously disrespectful move (which he later apologized for), asks Senator Klobucher whether she had ever had a black-out from drinking. This isgnored the fact that he was the one on trial. Good! The President's anti-Iran speech was
a complete and utter
flop. Not a single nation spoke up in support. The current world order and how the US treats Palestinians. Rundown on the "female assistant" who will be questioning Dr. Ford. Apparently, Senator Grassley's people will try to make the case that Dr. Ford was confused as to who her attacker was. This ignores the fact that she knew Judge Kavanaugh socially before the attack. The President appears to have some pretty strange ideas as to what the purpose of foreign aid is. Trump: "Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and frankly are our friends." Nawww! Say it ain't so! You mean the Jerusalem Embassy, a diplomatic nightmare, is also a white elephant in terms of cost overruns?!?!?! Tch, tch, tch! President laughed at during his UN speech. One of the things that really bothers me about this is that it shows that there's no one who can tell the President a blunt and uncomfortable truth. An adviser who could give the President straight advice would have told him that the line about his administration accomplishing more than perhaps any in US history would have been fine for a campaign rally full of pre-screened people, all of whom believed he was Our Glorious Leader, but not for any intelligent, critical audience. The fact that he made the statement he did shows he's surrounded by sycophants and yes-men. Update: Especially
amusing here is the statement by Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell: “The Democrats had already made up their minds and
chosen their tactics: delay, obstruct, and resist. Whatever it took –
whatever the truth really was – they were going to do whatever they
could..." "Brett
Kavanaugh Says He Was a Virgin Throughout High School, Never Sexually
Assaulted Anyone" The President has problems at home, but the Iran nuclear deal is strictly a foreign diplomacy problem. The common thread is that it's a self-created problem. The blogger says: "In my whole 65 years I have never heard about 4 members of the UN Security Council meeting without the US and with the express purpose of outflanking Washington Policy! This is both weird and ominous." From Twitter: Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) went into full conspiracy and whine mode on the Senate floor over Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination hanging on the brink of failure. 1. Dr. Ford has requested an FBI investigation. Senator
McConnell,
along with all other Republican senators and the President, has
refused,
even though this is a standard and traditional step to take. The President realizes that many 2018 voters will be voting on his policies and him personally, so he makes the midterm all about him. Every Republican running is of course furious that he's doing that as his unpopularity will drag them all down. Is this a case of moral bankruptcy? When they discovered their candidate was legally vulnerable, they sped up the process as opposed to doing the right thing and carefully examining the charges. Heh! Bob Woodward's book "Fear" has sold 1.1 million copies already! Judge Kavanaugh got rehabilitation without having first been proven guilty or having displayed any sign of remorse? Had he sought out and apologized to Dr. Ford, maybe. As he later joined a club that sounded an awful lot like overactive hormones, I seriously doubt that any rehabilitation took place. Further evidence that Kavanaugh was never rehabilitated. Apparently, Jared Kushner thinks achieving peace between Israelis and Palestinians is just like clearing a building that he wants to tear down so that he can build "something great" in its place. Yesterday's Democratic rally. Great stuff! NY Times engaged in terrible journalism. Also, things to look for when verifying stories. Even the NY Times' right-wing columnist Ross Douthat is beginning to wonder if Dr. Ford isn't telling the truth. Yeah, so on the case of the documents the President wanted to be declassified, seems that someone actually, y'know, read the documents in question and realized it weren't as helpful as was thought. Heh! Dr. Ford sure has some smart lawyers working for her! This
has never, ever happened in the entire history of Supreme
Court nominations. No candidate has ever seen his
support go into the
negative numbers. Seems Judge Kavanaugh belonged to a club at Yale with a perfectly charming name (blech!). Also, Kavanaugh “was known to hire female clerks who had a ‘certain look.’” So the guy who produced 3-D gun printing templates is wanted for sleeping with an underage woman. Was this a "honey trap" as the Infowars announcer says, that is, was she deliberately trying to trap him? The Verge says: "The girl later told a counselor that she had been paid $500 for sex with a 30-year-old man, and the counselor reported the incident to police, who interviewed the girl in late August and identified Wilson from his account profile pictures." meaning no, it wasn't he girl's idea to snitch on Wilson. No, it's not that partisan politics prevent liberals and
Democrats from understanding what the staffer meant in his tweets. It's
that we understand all too well what he meant. . Last time we heard from Senate centrists as a group was in the early days of the Obama Administration when their idea of moderation was to reduce the stimulus as the GOP didn't want to spend anything. Senator Collins has been finding it harder and harder to stay away from being just a straight-up loyal Republican. In their pell-mell haste to get Judge Kavanaugh confirmed, Republican senators are demonstrating what their priorities really are and that's not something we should be comfortable with. Back during the 90s, we had hopes of scanning handwriting and of then producing computer text. I looked at scanning programs a few weeks ago. Nope. We're nowhere near being able to do that. Self-driving cars are pretty much the same thing. Not going to happen for a long time, if ever. Keep in mind that Dr. Ford has requested a full FBI investigation and it appears to be that it's the President who's resisting. The people in this clip are right. If Judge Kavanaugh is to be cleared, the last thing we should want to do is to rush the process. The answer to Bari Weiss' question is, of course, a resounding "Yes!!!" What a Supreme Court nominee did as a 17-year old does matter! Standards should be higher for such a critical appointment. Yes, the North Korean situation has calmed down, but the President's timeline is off! The worry and stress that we were going to go to war with NK arose from the current presidents words and actions, not from anything that Obama did! Very good take on Kavanaugh/Ford. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos illustrates why the choice of First Lady Melania Trump, to take a stand against internet bullying, was such a poorly-thought out idea. "Pharma
chief defends 400% drug
price rise as a ‘moral requirement’" Mr Mulye compared
his decision to increase the price to an
art dealer that sells "a painting for half a billion' dollars” and
said he was in 'this business to make money".
Okay, in this sentence, Mr. Mulye reveals a deep confusion between consumer goods and medical necessities. You buy a consumer good, in this case a painting, because you want that good. You purchase a medical necessity, in this case a drug, because you're literally going to die if you don't get that item. What he demonstrates here is why business and medicine don't mix and why medicine should be treated as a different category entirely. Latest update on sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kevanaugh. "During
Gas Emergency, Mass. State
Police Reveal They're Keeping Tabs On Activist Groups" What struck me about the President's talk here was the repetition of stuff that's simply untrue. He ran out of talking points and then just repeated himself to fill up airtime. Yes, Puerto Rico's power companies had financial troubles. That did not mean there was no power. There was a short-lived bubble of enthusiasm to have Oprah Winfrey run for president because of a speech she made. What Woodward points out is why it's an extremely bad idea to raise up a complete amateur to one of the toughest jobs in the world. Trump is simply unqualified to do the job. The job requires years of relevant experience. "Facebook’s
idea of ‘fact-checking’: Censoring ThinkProgress because conservative
site told them to" Facebook uses the Associated Press, Factcheck.org,
PolitiFact, and Snopes, all of which are fine and reputable
fact-checkers. Problem
is, they also use the Weekly Standard,
which is not a fact-checker at all and is instead a highly partisan
outfit. Further, there's no appealing any fact-checking decision. The problem for "Anonlymous," the author of the NY Times editorial, is that he or she gets it coming and going. Yes, it's improper to frustrate the desires of the President. Don Jr. is right about that. But those who frustrate the President are also really pretty $%#@ing useless, so liberals are right abut that! As someone said, the NY Times op-ed wasn't a DOJ problem, it's an HR problem. It's a problem for the personnel office, not for law enforcement. Dana Loesch uses an obviously irrelevant example to make
a
deceptive point. (emphasis added) “If I see somebody coming into my
house
and I’m not expecting them and they’re walking in like they
own the place … I would act to defend myself." Review of Woodward's book. An incompetent president with strong authoritarian inclinations and a well-meaning, but generally pretty useless staff. Documenting Saturday's Climate March. I'm in 100% agreement with VIPS here. Getting involved in Syria is just a really, really bad idea! Excellent answer to the Trump people's argument that the economy is doing well, so everybody should be happy. Nobody should “like the way the country is going,” for example, when the national deficit is allowed to explode so that the richest Americans can enjoy yet another tax cut. Or when steadfast international alliances are trashed in favor of cozying up to thugs like Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Or when the president works to derail special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Supporters of Judge Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court have a hard time justifying his frequent untruthfulness. "'The United States will always stand with our friend
and
ally, Israel,' Bolton's draft text says." "Colin
Kaepernick just schooled Donald Trump on how capitalism works" Thinkpiece on diversity. Why it's a unique America strength. North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is a clever guy. He kept missiles out of sight during his 70th anniversary parade, earlier sent a message of solidarity to our President and before that, closed down a site in a way that's not terribly difficult to re-open. He's making low-cost moves that seem to be very effective at convincing the President that he's disarming. My own suspicion is that we won't see any further nuclear testing for awhile. "Trump:
If soldiers were ‘real
patriots,’ they wouldn’t take a pay raise" "Kellyanne
Conway Snaps At Chuck Todd For Suggesting Anti-Trump Essay Not Illegal" Media's really good at covering scandal when Democrats are doing something bad. But we've got a judge being nominated for the Supreme Court where only a small portion of his written record is being made available (Republican senators are absolutely correct that the total number of documents that were made availlabe is very large, it's the percentage that's very small). Democrats might very well have agreed to not examine some of the judge's million or so documents, but the GOP made an arbitrary and unilateral judgement on which documents to hold back without even an attempt to get Democratic agreement. This should be front-page, top-of-the-hour news! The fact that Democrats appear to have uncovered perjury by Kavanaugh should have been made even more prominent! And Florence kicks off the hurricane season! It's a tropical storm now and is expected to make landfall Wednesday or so. Wow! Fox News guy takes entirely reasonable and sensible stand on the 100k+ papers that the younger George Bush says can all be released. Oh, good heavens! Delusions of grandeur much?!?!?! Fifty years after [President Lincoln's] death they said [the Gettysburg Address] may have been the greatest speech ever made in America. Pretty good. Pretty good. I have a feeling that’s going to happen with us. And no, the piece describes the reaction to the Gettysburg Address. It was nowhere near as negative as the President suggests. But just because a political decision was unpopular, I'm thinking here of moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, does not automatically mean that it was the right thing to do. Sometimes, when everybody opposes an idea, that's because it's a really bad idea. About a month ago, I did a quickie analysis of a US invasion of Iran. I've expended that into a full blog post with maps and links. Did Judge Kavanaugh receive stolen materials while working for the younger George Bush? Looks like it. Question is: Was he aware they were stolen? At the 1:20 mark, Sean Hannity says liberal heads are exploding because of the positive things that Dr. Loudon is saying about the President. No, my reaction is "What is her evidence?" She speaks of pleasant personal interactions with the President, which I'm sure she has indeed experienced, but I'm curious as to how she explains the time back in May, reported by both the NY Times and the WaPo, when "Trump went on a half-hour rant at [DHS Secretary] Nielsen during a recent Cabinet meeting — an unusually long tantrum even for him (and one that reportedly made other officials in the room uncomfortable)." Update: Not at all surprised to learn that "[Dr. Loudon's] degree looks non-clinical which would preclude assessment of mental health.” In other words, she isn't qualified to make any sort of diagnosis. Aww! That's too bad! Burt Reynolds dies at 82 years old. On the importance of the midterm election coming up. More good, heartening stuff Had Republicans followed procedure and had the National
Archives
been permitted to have done their job, the
files produced by Judge
Kavanaugh would not be available until late October. "No
White House Senior Staffers
Had Copy Of Woodward’s Book When Excerpts Published" The blog Daily Kos is
considerably less than impressed by the op-ed that is
"anonymously
pretending at heroism." Far better to have
simply invoked the 25th Amendment than to engage in back-stabbing like
this. Earlier today, the President tweeted: "Isn’t it a shame
that someone can write an article or book, totally make up stories
and form a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite
of the fact..." "Sen.
Grassley says withheld
Kavanaugh documents are 'irrelevant to his being a judge'" Do Democrats have any realistic chance of stopping Kavanaugh? Nah. Are they putting up a fight anyway? Oh. yeah! The right-wing Daily Caller says the President is not terribly upset about Kaepernick deal. “I think it’s a terrible message. Nike is a tenant of mine. They pay a lot of rent.” To the President then, it's clear that money is all that matters. Good! Democratic Senators made it clear from the first minute of the hearing on Judge Kavanaugh that they considered the hearing to be illegitimate. Not only have well over 100k documents been kept from the hearing by either being restricted to the Judicial Committee or by Executive Privilege, but over 40k documents were released just last night, meaning they couldn't possibly have gotten vetted. Gotta love it! First day of questioning and Judge Kavanaugh turns away from the father of one of the Parkland students who was shot at school a few months ago. Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh and current Justice Gorsuch both used the term "seetled law" to describe Roe vs. Wade. What exactly to they mean when they said "settled law"? Ehh, not much. Bashar Assad moves to stomp out the last remaining rebels in Syria. As not even the Kurds stand with the extremist militias of Idlib, the US has pretty much zero influence here. For those who thought the McCain love was overdone and that there really wasn't that much difference between the President and his Republican critics, Jeet Heer agrees with you. And yeah, by choosing Sarah Palin to be his VP. McCain seriously cost himself a lot of gravitas points. Huh! So the New Yorker thought Steve Bannon remained even vaguely relevant these days? They thought Bannon was a real audience drawer?!!?! The fellow who run the New Yorker tried to jam in Steve Bannon at the festival at the last minute. *Beep* Sorry! Wrong answer! His other guests made it clear that it was him or them. We are basically at the point where if someone says, “we need to put country over self, rise above petty name-calling and division” people think “oh sick burn on Trump.” And they’re right. The holding back of 100,000 documents from examination by Congress in the hearings on Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh is not being done as the result of any sort of consultative or negotiation process, but simply by dictatorial fiat. "Germany
to raise funds for
Palestinian refugee agency" Update: Canada also chipped in. Yeah, I agree with the blogger. I greatly sympathize with Meghan McCain for having lost her father, but have never felt that her high public profile was ever due to anything more than nepotism. I worked in a department store when I was younger and she'd fit right in with the salespeople there. She'd do a perfectly decent job, but I don't think she'd ever get promoted to executive. Very interesting, the President allegedly has 54 million Twitter followers, Alyssa Milano has 3.3 million. Trump usually gets 20k retweets, her latest tweet got over 50k. Hmmm. "Billionaire
Village Voice owner
tells staff he’s closing the paper because it doesn’t earn
enough" Israel's far right wing was absolutely thrilled by the cut-off of US aid to UNRWA. No one else was. Heh! Our historian here was just...suddenly reminded of this event when observing the President playing golf all by himself while every power player in Washington was at Senator McCain's funeral. For MLK’s funeral, national leaders from both parties came to Atlanta to honor him. Nearby, Governor Lester Maddox — a segregationist who had used his opposition to civil rights to win his position — hid inside his office, peeking out at the crowds through the closed blinds. "Stop
trying to rehabilitate the
reputation of George W. Bush" The President's son, Don Jr. suggested conservatives should have their own version of Facebook. Eh, Gab's been around for well ove a year. There's a reason it hasn't gone anywhere and the problem isn't a technical one. With no liberals using it, conservatives can't "own the libs." Archive - sidebar items
|
