Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings series provides the moose, new and old, a place to visit and share our words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.
In lieu of daily check-ins, which went on hiatus, welcomings diaries will be posted at the start of each week (every Sunday morning) and then, if necessary, on Wednesday or Thursday to finish off the week. To find the diaries, just bookmark this link and Voila! (which is moose for “I found everyone!!”).
The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the day and complaining or bragging about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or just checking in.
Since our earliest days, the American transportation system has comprised our economic backbone — part of what’s made us great as a nation.
But right now, there’s a big problem with our roads and bridges: Over the years, we’ve invested in them less and less. They haven’t kept up with the needs and demands of our growing economy.
That’s why the President has been clear: Investing in our infrastructure is a top priority, and it’s why he’s put out a long-term plan that shows we can invest in our infrastructure and pay for it in part by closing unfair tax loopholes and making commonsense reforms to our tax system.
With funding for surface transportation running out, and hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, we simply can’t afford to stop investing in our transportation.
65% of America’s roads are already in less than good condition, and a quarter of our bridges require significant repair or can’t handle today’s traffic.
The President has a plan to fix our nation’s infrastructure for the long run — making targeted investments in the short term and laying the groundwork for increased efficiency down the road. But in the meantime, he’s calling on Congress to avoid a lapse in funding of the Highway Trust Fund.
His long-term plan to invest in rebuilding our nation’s infrastructure would (among other things):
– Invest $302 billion over four years into our highways, railroads, and transit systems
– Provide certainty that cities, states, and investors need to break ground on major projects
– Build a world-class freight network that gets our products out to overseas markets
[Tuesday] morning, President Obama took a quick trip across the Potomac to visit the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center, a facility in McLean, Virginia that focuses on highway technologies that help make driving safer and smarter.
In the President’s remarks, he talked about the importance of investing in new infrastructure technologies and renewing the Highway Trust Fund, as well as Congress’s continued inaction on important policies that would positively benefit millions of Americans.
We know that in a 21st century economy businesses will set up shop wherever they find the best roads and bridges, and the fastest rail and Internet, the smartest airports, the smartest power grids. First-class infrastructure attracts first-class jobs. And right now, our investments in transportation are lagging the rest of the world.
If Washington were working the way it’s supposed to, Congress would be fixing that. We’d be investing in the things that help America bring more good jobs to our shores. Instead, here’s what’s going on in Washington. There’s something called the Highway Trust Fund — I suspect this crew is familiar with it. It helps states support transportation projects. If Congress fails to fund it, it runs out of money. That could put nearly 700,000 jobs at risk, including more than 17,000 right here in Virginia. More than 100,000 active projects across the country — projects where workers as we speak are paving roads and rebuilding bridges and modernizing our transit systems — those projects would be slowed or stopped. And some states have already had to put some projects on hold because they don’t trust Congress to get its act together. So remember that the next time you see a job site sitting idle.
Now, the good news is there are bipartisan bills in both the House and the Senate that would help with a short-term fix. And I support that. At the very least, Congress should be keeping people on the job who are already there right now. But all this does is set us up for the same crisis a few months from now.
So Congress shouldn’t pat itself on the back for averting disaster for a few months, kicking the can down the road for a few months, careening from crisis to crisis when it comes to something as basic as our infrastructure. Instead of barely paying our bills in the present, we should be investing in the future. We should have a plan for how we’re going to make sure that our roads, our bridges, our airports, our power grid, our water systems — how all those things are going to be funded, and do it in a responsible way so that people can start planning. That also means we can save more money — because we’re not doing it in stopgap measures.
So far, House Republicans have refused to act on this idea — and they haven’t presented their own idea. And I think that’s wrong. We shouldn’t be protecting tax loopholes for a few companies that shift massive profits overseas; we should be creating jobs rebuilding the roads and bridges that help every business right here in the United States. That is a question of priorities. And what I keep hearing from folks all across the country is that if Congress would just shift its priorities a little closer to working Americans’ priorities, we could help a lot of families right now.
This is not an abstract issue. And it shouldn’t be even a partisan issue. Republicans, Democrats, independents — everybody uses our roads. …
But the American people have to demand that folks in Washington do their job. Do something: That’s my big motto for Congress right now. Just do something. And if they don’t like the transportation plan that I put forward, at least come up with your own plan. And then we can compromise. But don’t just sit there and do nothing. We don’t have time. America is on the move.
Wingnuts are at it again-frothing at the mouth about Attorney General Eric Holder. Not that they have stopped since he was confirmed by the Senate on February 2, 2009. But the escalation of their hate has moved from contempt of Congress to cries of “impeach…impeach!”
I refuse to link to right wing sites-take my word for it, the attacks are vile. The comment sections are even worse. I think he is the “2nd most hated by racists” black man in America-after the POTUS.
He knows it. It doesn’t stop him from speaking out-which he did in depth in an interview with ABC News’ Senior Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas, which has escalated the calls for his removal.
I was pleased to hear him go on record about DC’s football team, and the drive to change its racist name. He, like many of us, believes that a name change is “obviously right”.
His terse, concise read of Sarah Palin’s impeach screeches had me chucklin’.
He said of Palin “She wasn’t a particularly good vice presidential candidate, and she’s an even worse judge of who ought to be impeached and why.” Heh. A nice way of saying that Palin should STFU.
He acknowledged that a part of the animus directed toward the both President and himself has to do with race. He then went on to address voting rights, and dismissed the whole Republican “voter fraud meme” as being “belied by the facts”. He pointed out that the DOJ has already filed to stop voter suppression in North Carolina and Texas, and stated that they expect to be filing in Wisconsin and Ohio.
On voting rights he said firmly, “it’s the most basic of all of our rights, it’s the most treasured of all our rights and I’ll use every ability that that I have, every power that I have as attorney general to defend that right to vote.”
The right wing in this country have had it in for Holder from jump street. I haven’t forgotten that it was only 16 days after his confirmation that he delivered his landmark speech on race at the Department of Justice African American History Month Program on Wednesday, February 18, 2009. I decided to revisit it today to refresh my memory, and thought it would be a good idea to post the entire transcript rather than just linking to it, and bolding some of the passages I found noteworthy.
Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race. It is an issue we have never been at ease with and given our nation’s history this is in some ways understandable. And yet, if we are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us. But we must do more- and we in this room bear a special responsibility. Through its work and through its example this Department of Justice, as long as I am here, must – and will – lead the nation to the “new birth of freedom” so long ago promised by our greatest President. This is our duty and our solemn obligation.
We commemorated five years ago, the 50th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. And though the world in which we now live is fundamentally different than that which existed then, this nation has still not come to grips with its racial past nor has it been willing to contemplate, in a truly meaningful way, the diverse future it is fated to have. To our detriment, this is typical of the way in which this nation deals with issues of race. And so I would suggest that we use February of every year to not only commemorate black history but also to foster a period of dialogue among the races. This is admittedly an artificial device to generate discussion that should come more naturally, but our history is such that we must find ways to force ourselves to confront that which we have become expert at avoiding.
As a nation we have done a pretty good job in melding the races in the workplace. We work with one another, lunch together and, when the event is at the workplace during work hours or shortly thereafter, we socialize with one another fairly well, irrespective of race. And yet even this interaction operates within certain limitations. We know, by “American instinct” and by learned behavior, that certain subjects are off limits and that to explore them risks, at best embarrassment, and, at worst, the questioning of one’s character. And outside the workplace the situation is even more bleak in that there is almost no significant interaction between us. On Saturdays and Sundays America in the year 2009 does not, in some ways, differ significantly from the country that existed some fifty years ago. This is truly sad. Given all that we as a nation went through during the civil rights struggle it is hard for me to accept that the result of those efforts was to create an America that is more prosperous, more positively race conscious and yet is voluntarily socially segregated.
As a nation we should use Black History month as a means to deal with this continuing problem. By creating what will admittedly be, at first, artificial opportunities to engage one another we can hasten the day when the dream of individual, character based, acceptance can actually be realized. To respect one another we must have a basic understanding of one another. And so we should use events such as this to not only learn more about the facts of black history but also to learn more about each other. This will be, at first, a process that is both awkward and painful but the rewards are potentially great. The alternative is to allow to continue the polite, restrained mixing that now passes as meaningful interaction but that accomplishes little. Imagine if you will situations where people- regardless of their skin color- could confront racial issues freely and without fear. The potential of this country, that is becoming increasingly diverse, would be greatly enhanced. I fear however, that we are taking steps that, rather than advancing us as a nation are actually dividing us even further. We still speak too much of “them” and not “us”. There can, for instance, be very legitimate debate about the question of affirmative action. This debate can, and should, be nuanced, principled and spirited. But the conversation that we now engage in as a nation on this and other racial subjects is too often simplistic and left to those on the extremes who are not hesitant to use these issues to advance nothing more than their own, narrow self interest. Our history has demonstrated that the vast majority of Americans are uncomfortable with, and would like to not have to deal with, racial matters and that is why those, black or white, elected or self-appointed, who promise relief in easy, quick solutions, no matter how divisive, are embraced. We are then free to retreat to our race protected cocoons where much is comfortable and where progress is not really made. If we allow this attitude to persist in the face of the most significant demographic changes that this nation has ever confronted- and remember, there will be no majority race in America in about fifty years- the coming diversity that could be such a powerful, positive force will, instead, become a reason for stagnation and polarization. We cannot allow this to happen and one way to prevent such an unwelcome outcome is to engage one another more routinely- and to do so now.
As I indicated before, the artificial device that is Black History month is a perfect vehicle for the beginnings of such a dialogue. And so I urge all of you to use the opportunity of this month to talk with your friends and co-workers on the other side of the divide about racial matters. In this way we can hasten the day when we truly become one America.
It is also clear that if we are to better understand one another the study of black history is essential because the history of black America and the history of this nation are inextricably tied to each other. It is for this reason that the study of black history is important to everyone- black or white. For example, the history of the United States in the nineteenth century revolves around a resolution of the question of how America was going to deal with its black inhabitants. The great debates of that era and the war that was ultimately fought are all centered around the issue of, initially, slavery and then the reconstruction of the vanquished region. A dominant domestic issue throughout the twentieth century was, again, America’s treatment of its black citizens. The civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s changed America in truly fundamental ways. Americans of all colors were forced to examine basic beliefs and long held views. Even so, most people, who are not conversant with history, still do not really comprehend the way in which that movement transformed America. In racial terms the country that existed before the civil rights struggle is almost unrecognizable to us today. Separate public facilities, separate entrances, poll taxes, legal discrimination, forced labor, in essence an American apartheid, all were part of an America that the movement destroyed. To attend her state’s taxpayer supported college in 1963 my late sister in law had to be escorted to class by United States Marshals and past the state’s governor, George Wallace. That frightening reality seems almost unthinkable to us now. The civil rights movement made America, if not perfect, better.
In addition, the other major social movements of the latter half of the twentieth century- feminism, the nation’s treatment of other minority groups, even the anti-war effort- were all tied in some way to the spirit that was set free by the quest for African American equality. Those other movements may have occurred in the absence of the civil rights struggle but the fight for black equality came first and helped to shape the way in which other groups of people came to think of themselves and to raise their desire for equal treatment. Further, many of the tactics that were used by these other groups were developed in the civil rights movement.
And today the link between the black experience and this country is still evident. While the problems that continue to afflict the black community may be more severe, they are an indication of where the rest of the nation may be if corrective measures are not taken. Our inner cities are still too conversant with crime but the level of fear generated by that crime, now found in once quiet, and now electronically padlocked suburbs is alarming and further demonstrates that our past, present and future are linked. It is not safe for this nation to assume that the unaddressed social problems in the poorest parts of our country can be isolated and will not ultimately affect the larger society.
Black history is extremely important because it is American history. Given this, it is in some ways sad that there is a need for a black history month. Though we are all enlarged by our study and knowledge of the roles played by blacks in American history, and though there is a crying need for all of us to know and acknowledge the contributions of black America, a black history month is a testament to the problem that has afflicted blacks throughout our stay in this country. Black history is given a separate, and clearly not equal, treatment by our society in general and by our educational institutions in particular. As a former American history major I am struck by the fact that such a major part of our national story has been divorced from the whole. In law, culture, science, athletics, industry and other fields, knowledge of the roles played by blacks is critical to an understanding of the American experiment. For too long we have been too willing to segregate the study of black history. There is clearly a need at present for a device that focuses the attention of the country on the study of the history of its black citizens. But we must endeavor to integrate black history into our culture and into our curriculums in ways in which it has never occurred before so that the study of black history, and a recognition of the contributions of black Americans, become commonplace. Until that time, Black History Month must remain an important, vital concept. But we have to recognize that until black history is included in the standard curriculum in our schools and becomes a regular part of all our lives, it will be viewed as a novelty, relatively unimportant and not as weighty as so called “real” American history.
I, like many in my generation, have been fortunate in my life and have had a great number of wonderful opportunities. Some may consider me to be a part of black history. But we do a great disservice to the concept of black history recognition if we fail to understand that any success that I have had, cannot be viewed in isolation. I stood, and stand, on the shoulders of many other black Americans. Admittedly, the identities of some of these people, through the passage of time, have become lost to us- the men, and women, who labored long in fields, who were later legally and systemically discriminated against, who were lynched by the hundreds in the century just past and those others who have been too long denied the fruits of our great American culture. The names of too many of these people, these heroes and heroines, are lost to us. But the names of others of these people should strike a resonant chord in the historical ear of all in our nation: Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. DuBois, Walter White, Langston Hughes, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Joe Louis, Jackie Robinson, Charles Drew, Paul Robeson, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Vivian Malone, Rosa Parks, Marion Anderson, Emmit Till. These are just some of the people who should be generally recognized and are just some of the people to whom all of us, black and white, owe such a debt of gratitude. It is on their broad shoulders that I stand as I hope that others will some day stand on my more narrow ones.
Black history is a subject worthy of study by all our nation’s people. Blacks have played a unique, productive role in the development of America. Perhaps the greatest strength of the United States is the diversity of its people and to truly understand this country one must have knowledge of its constituent parts. But an unstudied, not discussed and ultimately misunderstood diversity can become a divisive force. An appreciation of the unique black past, acquired through the study of black history, will help lead to understanding and true compassion in the present, where it is still so sorely needed, and to a future where all of our people are truly valued.
Thank you.
From my perspective no matter what critiques we may raise from the left about specific DOJ policies, Holder has not and will not back down from his fundamental support for voting rights. I would argue that since the ALEC, Koch, Teapublican agenda is to remove from many of us our democratic right to vote and elect those who govern, that Holder as a result has become a target second only to Barack Obama. The Senate rejection of Debo Adegbile, in March, for the post of head of the Civil Rights Division at DOJ is part of this attack-and I haven’t forgotten that Chris Coons (Del.),Bob Casey (Pa.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Manchin (W.V.), Joe Donnolly (Ind.) and John Walsh (Mont.) were part of the problem.
I hope everyone will be following DOJ efforts to stop voter suppression in the months and years ahead and perhaps let AG Holder know he has our support in this.
[Speaker John Boehner] plans to secure House approval for a lawsuit alleging that Obama exceeded his constitutional authority by unilaterally delaying the Obamacare employer mandate by one year, to 2015. It’s unclear if the suit has a serious chance of success, legal experts say, but it’s plausible.
The first question is whether Boehner can achieve standing to bring the litigation in the first place. This is uncharted waters for House of Representatives. Never before have the courts granted standing to lawsuit emanating from Congress against a president’s executive actions. There have been previous lawsuits of the sort brought by individual members of Congress, but those have been thrown out for lack of standing.
Some legal experts believe Boehner is destined to lose on the same grounds.
“The House of Representatives as an institution hasn’t suffered the sort of concrete, particularized injury that the courts are constitutionally empowered to review. This is a political dispute, not a judicial dispute, and the courts will properly leave it to the political branches to sort it out,” wrote Nicholas Bagley, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School.
[Constitutional scholar Laurence] Tribe told me yesterday that he is “now convinced that there’s no ‘THERE there.” And that was BEFORE the speaker released language of a bill seeking authorization to sue the president “over the way President Obama unilaterally changed the employer mandate” in the Affordable Care Act. Boehner’s announced action solidified Tribe’s view.
“The very fact that Boehner is willing to say the House of Representatives is injured by the President’s decision to delay the implementation of the employer mandate is bizarre in itself, given how often the House has voted not just to delay it but to scuttle it,” Tribe told me via e-mail last night. “And it’s hard to imagine what conceivable remedy a federal court could possibly issue: an order directing the President to reverse course and implement the employer mandate sooner? Hardly!”
Well, when the purpose of the lawsuit is to raise funds for the mid-term elections, it does not have to make sense.
“We are not working on or drawing up articles of impeachment. The Constitution is very clear as to what constitutes grounds for impeachment of the president of the United States. He has not committed the kind of criminal acts that call for that,” Goodlatte said on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We do believe that the President is not enforcing the law. And there’s a wide array of issues, not just immigration, where we believe that,” Goodlatte said. “And that’s why the speaker, and many of us in the Congress, are getting ready to take legal action to stand up for the people’s right, for their elected representatives to be the part of our government that passes laws, not a president with his pen and his cell phone.”
This is how Republicans destroy their own narrative of the lawless Obama presidency: with a faceplant.
With so many instances of law breaking to choose from, one got the sense that he was working on a fairly meaty complaint, even if the House stood little chance of winning in court.[…]
But on Thursday evening, Boehner laid down his cards. All but one were blank. It turns out Obama’s vast and indisputable misconduct is limited to one act of enforcement discretion: his decision to delay implementation of an Affordable Care Act’s requirement (one Republicans despise) that businesses with more than 50 employees provide their workers health insurance or pay a penalty.
Now, here’s the depressing part: Boehner’s sue first, ask questions later strategy just might work. Not because the suit has merit but because the Supreme Court has several activist Republican justices. They recently rewrote the First Amendment to declare that corporations have souls and thus have freedom of religion.
Unable to marshal the votes to get their legislative agenda through the Senate and unable to earn the votes to recapture the White House, it may be that the Republicans’ strategy for the foreseeable future is to ignore their losses at the ballot box and leave the heavy lifting to the one place where five Republican votes can cancel out tens of millions of Americans’ votes: the Supreme Court.
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Editor’s Note: Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.
Welcome to The Moose Pond, where seldom is heard a discouraging word … wait … that’s The Range. Sometimes a discouraging word is heard at the pond but it is mostly words about the weather. 🙂
The Weeklong Welcomings feature provides the meese, new and old, a place to visit and share our words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit. In lieu of daily check-ins, which went on hiatus, a weekly welcomings diary will be posted every Sunday morning. To find the diary, just bookmark this link.
The format is simple: each day, the first moose to arrive on-line will post a comment welcoming the new day and complaining or bragging about their weather. Or mentioning an interesting or thought provoking news item. Or just checking in.
In this week’s address, the President recapped his visits with folks who have written him letters about their own American stories — their successes and struggles. While congressional Republicans are blocking meaningful measures that would strengthen the middle class, the President continues looking for ways to grow the economy and expand opportunity for more hardworking Americans.
The President again urged Congress to join him, as they were elected to do, in working on behalf of everyday Americans – including those the President spent time with this week – by investing in our infrastructure to support American jobs, and ensuring that the Highway Trust Fund does not expire.
Hi, everybody. This week, I spent some time in Colorado and Texas, talking with people about what’s going on in their lives.
One of them was Elizabeth Cooper, who’ll be a college junior this fall. She wrote to tell me something I hear often: how hard it is for middle-class families like hers to afford college. And she shared something I know many of you feel when you wonder what’s going on in Washington. She said she feels “not significant enough to be addressed, not poor enough for people to worry [about], and not rich enough to be cared about.”
I ran for President to fight for Americans just like Elizabeth – people who work hard, do everything right, and just want a chance to build a decent life for themselves and their families.
And after the worst economic crisis in generations, our businesses have now created nearly 10 million new jobs over the past 52 months. The unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest point since 2008. By almost every measure, our economy is better off than it was five years ago.
But while we’ve created more jobs at this point of the year than any year since 1999, too many families barely earn what they did in 1999. It’s harder to pay for college, save, or retire, because people’s wages and incomes have not gone up. Nearly all the gains of the recovery are going to the very top – and aren’t making a difference in your lives.
And I believe America does better when the middle class does better. And I’ve laid out an opportunity agenda to create jobs, train workers, educate our kids, and make sure hard work actually pays off.
These are the things we should be doing to grow the middle class and help folks work their way into the middle class. And it’s pretty uncontroversial stuff. I hope we can work together on it. And I’m always willing to compromise if folks have other ideas or if it advances generally the interests of working Americans.
But so far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every serious idea to strengthen the middle class. Lifting the minimum wage, fair pay, student loan reform – they’ve said no to all of it. And that’s when I’ve acted this year to help working Americans on my own- when Congress won’t act.
I’ve taken actions to attract new jobs, lift workers’ wages, help students pay off their loans, and more. And the Republican plan right now is not to do some of this work with me – instead, it’s to sue me. That’s actually what they’re spending their time on. It’s a political stunt that’s going to waste months of America’s time. And by the way, they’re going to pay for it using your hard-earned tax dollars.
I have a better idea: do something, Congress. Do anything to help working Americans. Join the rest of the country. Join me, I’m looking forward to working with you.
You know, on Tuesday, I met with Carolyn Reed and her husband David, who own six Silver Mine Sub shops in Colorado. Two days later, they announced they’re giving their hourly employees a raise to ten dollars and ten cents an hour.
They’re not waiting for Congress. Carolyn said, “We are happy to be a part of what I hope will be a growing voluntary trend in increased wages.”
Carolyn and Americans like her all across the country are happy to do their part. Congress now needs to step up and do its part. And next week, I’ll travel to a couple of job sites to talk about how Democrats and Republicans can work together to grow the economy and protect nearly 700,000 jobs by passing a highway bill by the end of the summer.
I’m here because hardworking Americans like Elizabeth and Carolyn. That’s something I’ll never forget – it’s something I’ll never stop fighting for. Thanks, and have a great weekend.
If you look at my diary history, you’ll see that about 90% of mine are about the Walk or the Ride. That’s because I care that there are people who need help & aren’t getting it. AIDS Walk Austin & the Hill Country Ride for AIDS both raise money for what I think is the most important thing in the world — directly assisting sick people. Food bank, subsidies for meds, case management…. these are all things that the Walk raises money for. I’m going to get all mushy & sentimental below the fold, so if you want to avoid that, you can just donate to my AIDS Walk Austin page now.
My Walk & Ride diaries tend toward the sentimental, because I get very emotional about the subject. I heard this song for the first time a few weeks ago & knew I’d use it for my first Walk diary. It’s not U2 (try to get over the shock), but another band, Snow Patrol. In a video I didn’t use, in the introductory banter, the singer says the song is about seeing the world through childlike eyes and see what you really want rather than all the stuff that doesn’t matter. I used this one because you can hear the song more clearly, but if you want, search “Lifening” on youtube & play the one in the Bing lounge – it has quite a bit of pre-song banter.
So this song talks about the important things in life – human contact, a place to live, and a chance to give back. Contributing to my AIDS Walk Austin page makes it possible for AIDS Services of Austin to provide the first things, and you get that last one – to give back.
One of the agencies that benefits from the Walk is The Care Communities, here is what they do (copied from the Walk page):
The mission of The Care Communities is to provide practical and compassionate support for people with serious illness, particularly HAIDS and cancer. The support is provided by Care Teams, which consist of four to seven volunteers, who offer such assistance as light housekeeping, shopping, transportation, meal preparation, yard work. It also provides emotional support and companionship to those who are ill and who might otherwise remain isolated or alone. The vision of The Care Communities is a caring community where no one will face a serious illness alone.
another is the Wright House Wellness Center, here’s their nice little paragraph from the Walk page, but you really should click on their link & see the amazing breadth of what they do: “The Wright House Wellness Center is a haven for people living with or at risk of contracting chronic illnesses, where the mind, body, and spirit are nurtured through prevention, education, care, and compassion in a culturally inclusive setting.”
and here’s me last year, talking about why I walk:
So, please donate at my AIDS Walk Austin page. It will help people, real people who really need help.
It is emblematic of the hyperpartisanship which has our country in a stranglehold that the president has to remind people that the humanitarian crisis on the border is not theater. But apparently, no crisis or incident (BENGHAZIII!), can be addressed without first dousing the follicles set ablaze by the media and their need to fill air time and print to satisfy the 10-minute news cycle.
President Barack Obama on Wednesday said he is not visiting the U.S. border while in Texas because he is “not interested in photo-ops” and urged Congress to approve funding to deal with the surge of minors illegally streaming into the country.
“There is nothing that is taking place down there that I am not intimately aware of and briefed on,” Obama said. “This isn’t theater, this is a problem. I’m not interested in photo ops.”
Obama met with local politicians and religious leaders in Dallas, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to discuss the influx of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border. The White House has asked for $3.7 billion to deal with the crisis, a request that has been panned by some Republicans who say the president’s policies are to blame for migrant children believing they can stay in the country illegally.
Pardon me, the president’s policies??? The Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill that reflected the president’s policies and which would have helped mitigate this crisis, including some of the money that is now part of an emergency request. But the Republican House of Representatives would not take up the bill because they knew it would pass and that would enrage the nativist wing of the increasingly wingnutty Republican Party. And it is more important to keep their base frothing for the mid-term elections than to solve problems.
In a statement, Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) blames “bad public policy” … policies being talked about since 2000, advanced by Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and then disowned by Presidential Candidate John McCain in 2008, giving permission for the rest of the Republican Party to run away from it.
Presidential Candidate Rick Perry sent a press release, er, letter to the president in 2012 complaining about the border crisis and said he never received an answer. The White House said “federal officials briefed the governor’s staff more than once on the administration’s efforts to deal with border security after receiving it.” By working quietly to address the issues, not in dueling press releases.
Apparently, Gov. Perry suggested Wednesday that the president act on his own to solve the crisis. Pardon me again … HAHAHAHAâ„¢ bubbanomics!! Here is what the president replied:
“[Gov. Perry] suggested maybe you just need to go ahead and act and that might convince Republicans that they should go ahead and pass the supplemental. And I had to remind him I am getting sued right now by Mr. Boehner, apparently, for going ahead and acting instead of going through Congress.”
THAT is what passes for problem solving in the Do-Nothing 113th Congress.
Critics of the president complained because he drank beer and shot pool in Denver on Wednesday when he should have been visiting the border. He needs to DO SOMETHING!!! Or maybe not:
Rep. Pete Gallego (D-Tex.), whose district stretches from San Antonio to El Paso and includes the longest stretch of the Mexican border of any House district, defended the White House on Wednesday.
A presidential visit “would create an unneeded distraction by diverting law enforcement and other resources at a critical time,” Gallego said in a statement. “We don’t need photo ops, we need action. The ball is in Congress’s court to do this right.”
And about the party of George W. “I Hire Arabian Horse Guys To Manage Disaster Relief” Bush and Senator John “I Had An Immigration Bill But Was Skeered By The Nativists” McCain complaining about misplaced priorities and socializing when there was a crisis?
Except in that case, there was something that a more engaged president could have done because that crisis did not involve foreign governments and dealing with a recalcitrant Congress; it simply required leadership and caring enough about human beings who were in a desperate situation to put competent people in charge.
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody. I just had a good meeting with Governor Perry, local officials, and faith leaders to talk about the steps that we have taken and that we need to take to address the humanitarian situation on the border. And I want to thank everybody who’s been involved for taking the time to talk to me.
It’s important to recognize two things. First, the surge of unaccompanied children, and adults with children, are arriving at one sector of the border, and that’s the Rio Grande Valley. Second, the issue is not that people are evading our enforcement officials. The issue is that we’re apprehending them in large numbers. And we’re working to make sure that we have sufficient facilities to detain, house, and process them appropriately, while attending to unaccompanied children with the care and compassion that they deserve while they’re in our custody.
While we intend to do the right thing by these children, their parents need to know that this is an incredibly dangerous situation and it is unlikely that their children will be able to stay. And I’ve asked parents across Central America not to put their children in harm’s way in this fashion.
Right now, there are more Border Patrol agents and surveillance resources on the ground than at any time in our history. And we deport almost 400,000 migrants each year. But as soon as it became clear that this year’s migration to the border was different than in past years, I directed FEMA to coordinate our response at the border. Members of my Cabinet and my staff have made multiple trips to facilities there. And we’re also addressing the root of the problem. I sent Vice President Biden and Secretary Kerry and Secretary Johnson to meet with Central American leaders, as well as working with our international partners to go after smugglers who are putting their kids’ lives at risk.
And earlier this week, Mexico announced a series of steps that they’re going to take on their southern border to help stem the tide of these unaccompanied children.
Last week, I sent a letter to Congress asking them to increase penalties on smugglers and to give us flexibility to move migrants through the system faster.
Yesterday, I asked Congress to fund these efforts. About half of the resources would go to border security, enforcement, and expedited removal of people who don’t qualify for a humanitarian claim. About half would go to make sure we’re treating children humanely. We’d also make investments to further tackle the root problems in Central America.
So right now, Congress has the capacity to work with us, work with state officials, local officials, and faith-based groups and non-for-profits who are helping to care for these kids — Congress has the capacity to work with all parties concerned to directly address the situation. They’ve said they want to see a solution. The supplemental offers them the capacity to vote immediately to get it done.
Of course, in the long run, the best way to truly address this problem is for the House of Representatives to pass legislation fixing our broken immigration system, which, by the way, would include funding for additional thousands of Border Patrol agents — something that everybody down here that I’ve talked to indicates is a priority.
The Senate passed a common-sense, bipartisan bill more than a year ago. It would have strengthened the border, added an additional 20,000 Border Patrol agents. It would have strengthened our backlogged immigration courts. It would have put us in a stronger position to deal with this surge and, in fact, prevent it. […]
So the bottom line is, actually, that there’s nothing that the Governor indicated he’d like to see that I have a philosophical objection to. I’ve asked Jeh Johnson to contact his head of Health and Human Services when he comes down for the sixth time at the end of this week to coordinate and make sure that some of the suggestions that the Governor has are technically feasible and what kind of resources might be needed. But what I emphasized to the Governor was the problem here is not a major disagreement around the actions that could be helpful in dealing with the problem. The challenge is, is Congress prepared to act to put the resources in place to get this done.
Another way of putting it — and I said this directly to the Governor — is are folks more interested in politics, or are they more interested in solving the problem? If they’re interested in solving the problem, then this can be solved. If the preference is for politics, then it won’t be solved.
[…]
The final point I’ll make is I just want to thank some of the faith-based groups that I just met with, as well as mayors, commissioners, local officials. Dallas has been incredibly compassionate in looking at some sights, some facilities in which they can accommodate some of these children. And I indicated in hearing the stories of churches that are prepared to not just make donations but send volunteers to help construct some of these facilities or fix them up, and their willingness to volunteer in providing care and assistance to these children — I told them thank you, because it confirmed what I think we all know, which is the American people are an incredibly compassionate people and when we see a child in need we want to care for them.
But what I think we all agreed on is, is that the best thing that we can do is to make sure that the children are able to live in their own countries safely. And that’s why it’s going to be important, even as we solve the short-term problem here, for us to be able to direct attention and resources and assistance — as we’re doing, but not at a sustained and high enough level — back in Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador and other places, so that parents don’t think that somehow it’s safer for their children to send them thousands of miles just so that they don’t get harmed.
Seriously, we should be pissed and in the streets. Have we just decided to accept whatever crumbs are handed to us? Have we become so fearful that we take whatever our employers decide to give us? The 99% by definition outnumbers the 1%; they may have more money and, as a consequence, more power but we have the numbers. We do have the ability to affect how the we are treated if we’d just get UP!
Women’s rights are under assault like we have’t seen in years and yet … where are any women in power to stand up and lead a movement crying out for direction? We seem to show more concern for the rights of women in other countries than we do in our own. Where is Hillary? Hell, any of the women of the Democratic Party? I see tweets from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz talking more about the Congressional Softball game than I do about policy issues. Where is the GOTV effort? Somehow we could lose the Senate despite being smacked in the face because NO ONE is making a giant issue of basic women’s rights. (I have’t decided in my own mind if Mrs. O is a good one at this point in time to be speaking out but in 2016? Hell yeah.)
How about the workers who are now affected by the Hobby Lobby decision? Setting aside for the moment those workers who agree with their employer what about those who don’t? They need that paycheck so bad they’ll accept the decision? I am not unsympathetic but there should be ways to support them should they walk out in protest much like the Occupy folks have bought up mortgages for people in need. But we all seem to be scared. We have heard bits of news about tiny protests, including the pastor who was passing out condoms in front of one Hobby Lobby as a show of support . While not exactly on-point with the decision his larger point was that not all people of faith shun contraception. But for the most part this whole story has been a tiny blip on the radar.
Where are the other public figures speaking out and offering support? Why isn’t anyone looking for out-of-the-box solutions to making this a financial issue for those employers who seek to invade the privacy of their workers? We can raise tons of money for starving children or victims of natural disasters, well, this is a disaster, too but we seem to be more than willing to shrug our shoulders and move on in our day-to-day lives. Because it does not directly affect us; there are no terrible pictures to move us. We’re afraid perhaps of being labeled “sluts” or “whores.” Amanda Marcotte, who writes and tweets extensively on women’s issues, gets innumerable tweets calling her all kinds of vile names while making assumptions about her … all because she believes employers do not have the right to limit what health insurance covers.
This should be a huge issue during the 2014 mid-terms and the 2016 GE. Women make up half of the population and, along with those from the male half, we should be able to make a strong case for the right of women to be treated as equals. But we’ve already moved on to other news as we are being led around by what the media thinks is the issue of the day so we fade into the background much like we used to disappear into the kitchen, accepting whatever the male power structure is willing to give us much like we used to take a household allowance.
I’m angry and I don’t know what to do about it. And, yes, I want someone to tell me; to lead me. To lead US. There are women in power, not many perhaps, who can be a voice to get a real movement started.
As we celebrate 150 years of protecting Yosemite National Park, we have to look closer at how it became ours in the first place.
The name itself — Yosemite — is a slur. It is a Miwok word that means “Those Who Kill.” Sometimes it’s translated as “Some of Them Are Killers,” and it refers to the Ahwanhee people who’d lived in the valley for centuries before the US government ordered its evacuation and later created a national recreation area under the Yosemite Grant Act. But the people who lived there weren’t killers. They just lived in a valley that our government wanted to use for entertaining dignitaries.
That is the untold story of Yosemite National Park.
The complex Mariposa War was brewing outside of the Ahwahnee Valley. “Ahwahnee” refers to the shape of Yosemite Valley, which was thought to look like a gaping mouth. The valley was well concealed and difficult to access, which kept it fortified to some degree. The relevant part of the Mariposa conflict was complicated because it involved tensions between the Indians and the miners, but it also aggravated tensions between the people in the valley and other tribes in the area. There were Miwok who worked with the miners who clearly had a beef with the Ahwahnee — and those Miwok told the white folks that the Ahwahnee were “Yosemite” — killers.
The US-led Mariposa Battalion discovered glacier-carved Yosemite Valley during a rather complex exchange of hostilities over Gold Rush mining in the area outside the valley. Some of the Ahwahnee people vandalized the gold mines, and the battalion discovered the valley when they went to retaliate.
A lot of the Ahwahnee’s story is lost — at least it is not adequately told. But it is clear that the Americans who found the valley thought it was exquisitely beautiful. They reported their discovery to the US government, and were soon ordered to remove the people from the valley and take possession of the land.
The men from the Mariposa Battalion made great fun of the name Yosemite. It caught on and became a battle cry. The soldiers screamed Yo!Yo-semite!!! as they invaded the valley and removed the people who lived there. The surviving Ahwahnee were relocated to a prisoner of war camp near Fresno.
During the fervor of the California Gold Rush in 1851, the valley was slated to be cleared by the United States Army, resulting in a conflict with the tribe. Chief Tenaya put up a resistance and the fight culminated into the Mariposa Wars. The Native Americans eventually relented, were captured, and relocated to a reservation, thus ending the tribal habitation of Yosemite Valley and ushering in the era of the settler.
Detailed accounts of how the Ahwahnee people were relocated are hard to find, although their recalcitrant leader Tenaya, whose namesake is Tenaya Lake, gets some bad press for not wanting to live at the Fresno reservation. He also gets mixed into the war history for fleeing with “his band” to other parts of California. One thing seems likely, though: he eventually surrendered to US forces to save the people who followed him from extermination.
There are several accounts from an interview with a survivor of the Ahwahnee evacuation, Maria Lebrado. Those accounts were not without author bias, though. Mrs. H. J. Taylor writes about her with genuine affection in a series of essays, but the account is more about Mrs. Taylor’s experience of Maria than Maria’s life experience. Historian Carl Parcher Russell cites his interview with her when he writes in One Hundred Years in Yosemite about Major James D. Savage:
In 1928 it was my privilege to interview Maria Lebrado, one of the last members of the Yosemite tribe who experienced subjection by the whites. I eagerly sought ethnological and historical data which was forthcoming in gratifying abundance. Purposely I had avoided questioning the aging squaw about Major Savage; but presently she asked, in jumbled English and Spanish, if I knew about the “Captain” of the white soldiers. She called him ‘Chowwis,’ and described him as a blonde chief whose light hair fell upon his shoulders and whose beard hung halfway to his waist. She has been much impressed by his commanding blue eyes and declared that his shirts were always red. To this member of the mountain tribe of Yosemite the Major was recalled as something of a thorn in her flesh. That he was a beloved leader of the foothill tribes she agreed, but hastened to explain that those Indians, too, were enemies of her people. Maria is the only person I have met who had seen Savage.
From this we get some of the complexity of the conflict, but we also see that Maria’s story is undertold. Her people are called Yosemite — a vicious slur — and she is an aging s#### whose memory was fixed on Major Savage’s long blond hair and commanding blue eyes. “Thorn in her flesh” undersells being torn from her home and held in an internment camp.
History was written by the winners.
One thing is is clear: Yosemite National Park was born from a massive relocation of the people who’d lived in the valley for countless years. When you visit, you can see the grinding stones that remain. The granite is still stained by the fires that cooked their food and kept them warm.
Go there and look. Many of those places are right in the tourist section of the valley. Go with your eyes open.
At the Visitor’s Center, the history begins with, “After the valley was evacuated…” There isn’t a lot about what happened to the original people living there, but if you go to the bookstore attached to the center, you can find bits and snatches about this park’s hostile origins.
