• Some talking heads on TV are bellowing now that the war in Afghanistan has passed Vietnam as the longest-running war in US history. They are wrong. From the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964 to the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the war encompassed ten years, eights months, and 23 days. Afghanistan won’t reach that mark until June 30, 2012. The Paris Peace Accord was signed on January 27, 1973. But I dare you to tell the families of more than 1,200 Americans who died from January 1973 to April 1975 that their loved ones didn’t die in that war.
• Those talking heads are really getting on my nerves. The AFL-CIO, along with SEIU, AFSCME, and other unions spent ten million dollars to support Bill Halter in his run against Blanche Lincoln in the Arkansas Democratic Senate primary. An anonymous White House staff coward claims that "Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members' money down the toilet on a pointless exercise." White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and several teevee talking heads agreed. It is not the business of the White House or TV talking heads to decide what is in the best interest of union members. Unlike politicians, union leaders are capable of looking beyond the next election. And they did not spend dues money. Contributions to union political action funds are voluntary.
• So many people whine about the government controlling everything because they think it really does.
• Judging by the way most people write these days, they should sue their third grade English teachers for malpractice.
• Pittsburgh City Council made a big mistake by electing Darlene Harris as its president for this year. Things will only get worse.
• It’s a shame that Ben Roethlisberger’s parents didn’t care enough about him to teach him any manners.
• Children who are babied grow up to be idiots.
• Tea partiers and their followers are a perfect example of the drastic need for our schools to teach financial, political, civic, and employment literacy, along with real sex and contraceptive education.
• When we are charged with a crime, the law guarantees us a jury trial. It does not guarantee a jury of our peers.
• We do not have a legal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That phrase appears in the Declaration of Independence, not in the US Constitution. The Declaration is not a law.
• It is perfectly legal to be a communist in the United States.
• Communism and democracy are not opposites. And they are not mutually exclusive.
• I’m really very tired of candidates and constituents who whine about losing their constitutional rights, when they have never bothered to read the constitution. Really. It only takes an hour. Our rights are in danger from the Republicans, not from Al Qaeda. And our freedom has not been in danger from outside the US since 1812.
• Speaking of the Republicans, people really need to stop proclaiming Rush (Jeff Christie) Limbaugh, Glennie Beck, or anyone else as the “titular head of the Republican party”. The titular head of something is the person who holds the title. That person is Michael Steele, like it or not. Did someone confiscate all of the dictionaries?
• It’s long past time for Arlen Specter to take his magic bullet fantasy, and his hypocrisy, and go home.
• Republican whining about the “death tax” is a farce. No one pays federal inheritance taxes on the first 3.5 million dollars of an estate. If grandma left that much money, you can afford to pay some tax. Even Pennsylvania state inheritance tax is only 4.5 percent to direct descendants.
• Unemployment figures are the last thing to change at the beginning or the end of a recession. There is light at the end of the tunnel.
• That said, classical economic theory is a joke. The first two things they teach in Econ 101 are a) everyone acts in their own best interest and b) human behavior is predictable. If you're over the age of six, you know that those two statements are completely false.
• Eleven men are dead. Thousands of people have lost their livelihoods, perhaps forever. Our planet is suffering an assault from which it may never recover. And BP CEO Tony Hayward wants his life back. I hope he gets it. In prison.
• We recently returned home from a long car trip. We passed several BP stations along the way. I was dismayed to see lines at their pumps. I will never buy anything from BP again. Never. I still won’t buy Marathon Gas.
• The Internet is the most powerful information and research tool ever invented. But still, nothing beats a good newspaper and a nice cup of tea on the front porch early in the morning.
• Every time you walk into a Wal-Mart, you support slavery. WHY would you do that?
• Don’t send your kids to Pitt. They deserve better.
________________________________________
From “Hidden History of the United States 2010 Calendar”, Progressive Magazine.
On June 11
• 1877 – The Great Railroad Strike began.
• 1962 – Students for a Democratic Society issued its Port Huron Statement.
• 1971 – Native Americans left Alcatraz Island after holding the property for 19 months.
• 2007 – US Federal court ruled against the cheneybush administration’s enemy combatant policy. ________________________________________
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Comments
<applause>
Well said.
c.
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