For opinion pieces on any topic.
Ramsey Clark and yours truly believe the great economic power shift Eastward augurs a future grand scenario in which the present and poverty of constructive thought from First World journalists will come to be recognized.
I plan to translate this treatise into various languages spoken in the neocolonial plundered world.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a national leader in efforts to increase affordable housing, welcomed a move today that could free up hundreds of millions of dollars to expand affordable rental housing nationwide.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency ended its temporary suspension of contributions to funds designed to allow more renters to find the homes they need at prices they can afford. The agency that oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ordered those companies to begin to make payments to affordable housing funds next year. The money will go into a fund to provided dedicated revenue for low-income housing. States and local agencies then could apply for the money and use it to finance very-low-income rental housing construction or rehabilitation projects.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 – The Senate today advanced a Department of Defense bill that would authorize $560 billion for the military. The vote was 85-14. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voted “no” and issued the following statement:
“I am voting no because I have very serious concerns about our nation’s bloated military budget and the misplaced national priorities this bill reflects.
“At a time when our national debt is more than $18 trillion and we spend nearly as much on defense as the rest of the world combined, the time is long overdue to end the waste and financial mismanagement that have plagued the Pentagon for years.
Yeah I think I’be been ‘pushed around’ on iBrattleboro just a bit. And I have definitely spoken out quite a bit — and been taken to task for — questioning why people on iBrattleboro would want to debate serious issues under pseudonyms … and especially why they might expect to do so and still be taken seriously. It particularly irked me recently when someone criticized a Town employee by name on this site, but declined to give their own!
Today, we again have news of another persons stabbed, (multiple times), on Elliot Street. My friend was reading the paper. I didn’t have my reading glasses, but I saw the headline had the word stabbing in it, and I immediately knew it was going to be on Elliot Street and in the early morning hours, as happened over and over again on that street, at that time.
What was released today is not the full 6000-page report but rather the redacted executive summary of the report by the Senate Intelligence Committee. IMHO it is only a matter of time until someone releases the entire report.
I thought some here might appreciate links to coverage other than MSM.
The Intercept of course is all over this. Glenn Greenwald is ‘live-blogging’ it:
WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today issued the following statement on a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation which found that the Central Intelligence Agency misled the White House and Congress about the brutal interrogation of terrorism suspects:
“A great nation must be prepared to acknowledge its errors. This report details an ugly chapter in American history during which our leaders and the intelligence community dishonored our nation’s proud traditions. Of course we must aggressively pursue international terrorists who would do us harm, but we must do so in a way that is consistent with the basic respect for human rights which makes us proud to be Americans.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Milne who, for all intents and purposes, lost in his campaign against Peter Shumlin is asking the state legislature to vote for him. Not because he won the election, which he clearly did not, but because the Vermont Constitution sets aside any popular win under 50% and turns the decision over to the legislature.
Without going into precedents where losing candidates concede, this candidate will not lick his wounds graciously.While perhaps, as Milne is reported as saying that “Vermonters are fed up with the governorship of Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin” might be true, not enough of them voted to give Milne the governorship.
BURLINGTON, Vt., Dec. 5 – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the University of Vermont held a Youth Climate Summit today.
More than 150 Vermont high school students and dozens of teachers from 26 high schools throughout the state worked in small teams to create climate action plans for their high schools.
“Global warming is the planetary crisis of our time,” Sanders told the students. “The scientific community is telling us that we have a narrow window of opportunity to address the crisis of climate change and to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and toward sustainable energy,” added the senator, a member of both the Senate energy and environment committees.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the House,
Our Legislators were stirring and beginning to grouse.
Jonathan Gruber had hung them by the media without care,
Terminating single payer before it goes anywhere.
Governor Shumlin was nestled all snug in his bed,
While visions of losing in 2016 danced in his head.
With Mama in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
Were frying our brains on medical Mary Jane crap.
When out on the porch there arose such a clatter,
It must be our state representatives spouting their ideological blather.
Away from the door I flew like a flash,
Avoiding their Montpelier tax and spend dash.
Rules of Thumb are those little unofficial, unscientific statements we hold to be somewhat true in a given circumstance. I use them often. A few small examples of things I’ve heard that sort of hold up:
– stay 4 seconds behind the car in front of you (or 1 car length for very 10 mph)
– an ounce of liquid is about what you pour in a count of one
– to figure out how long you’ll wait in a bank teller line, multiply the number of people ahead of you by 5 minutes, then divide by the number of open windows.
I have one of my own invention: The Tabloid Rule of Truth
The Tabloid Rule of Truth is that if a celebrity is on the cover of a tabloid for some reason, the truth of the story can be determined by how many tabloids have the same story on the cover.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 – The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee held a hearing today on exorbitant prices charged by drugmakers for new treatments for hepatitis C, a liver disease that claims about 15,000 lives a year in the United States.
Gilead, the leading manufacturer of the drugs, refused to testify at the hearing about the $84,000 it charges for a 12-week regimen of Sovaldi and the $94,500 price tag for a newer drug, Harvoni. The price per pill is about $1,000 for Sovaldi $1,125 for Harvoni.
Even with bulk-purchase discounts, the Department of Veterans Affairs spent $370 million in the past year on new treatments. Outlays are projected to soar by an additional $1.3 billion for the next two years.
Hooray! The iBrattleboro Advent Calendar is back. It’s become a yearly tradition.
Thank You!
WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today outlined a progressive economic agenda to reverse a 40-year decline of the American middle class and the growing gap between the very rich and everyone else in the United States.
In a Senate floor speech, Sanders detailed measures to create millions of new jobs, raise wages, protect the environment and provide health care for all. He said the most significant question facing the American people is: “Are we prepared to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?”
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today applauded a Vermont Public Service Department request for an investigation into FairPoint Communications telephone service interruptions, including a nearly six-hour lapse in emergency 911 service on Friday.
A FairPoint equipment failure prevented 45 Vermonters from reaching emergency dispatchers at the Montpelier Police Department and the Vermont State Police in Williston, St. Albans and Middlesex. “That is simply unacceptable,” Sanders said. “FairPoint’s history of bankruptcy and poor service should be cause for real concern in terms of the company’s ability to deliver the emergency services Vermonters need, deserve and are paying for.”
Dear Friends and Neighbors,
Thus far, I am the only volunteer to be re-appointed to the Town of Brattleboro Finance Committee. I was re-appointed shortly following last March’s Representative Town Meeting.
The Town Charter calls for the existence and work of the Finance Committee. This is the wording in the Charter:
For those unfamiliar with Hedges, he has spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.
This essay hit me right between the eyes:
By Chris Hedges November 10, 2014
WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 – Sharp increases in prices for many generic drugs were examined today at a Senate hearing where three pharmaceutical companies refused to testify.
Generic drugs, copies of drugs no longer protected by patents, historically have cost much less than brand-name prescription medicines. But federal records made public at the hearing show the price for 1,215 generic drugs increased 448 percent on average from July, 2013 to July, 2014. During that period, nearly 10 percent of all generic drugs more than doubled in price, according to the analysis of data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 18, – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today that it would be “insane” to construct the Keystone XL pipeline to ship the dirtiest oil on the planet from Canada’s tar sands region to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico.
“The scientific community is telling us that we have a narrow window of opportunity to address the crisis of climate change and to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels and into energy efficiency and sustainable energy,” Sanders said in prepared remarks. “This legislation would move us in exactly the wrong direction toward not only more dependence on fossil fuels but on some of the dirtiest fossil fuel imaginable. That is insane.”
I didn’t vote this year. For the first time in well over a decade, I was too annoyed to participate. Over the last six years, I’ve watched as the Democrats held power but proved unwilling or unable to wield it effectively. To make matters worse, those of us who fall left of center have been effectively stifled. Mainstream Democrats saw to that. So while many on the left fret about the Republicans and their Tea Party antagonists, I would argue that it was this stifling of discussion within the Democratic party that led to the debacle of the 2014 midterms. The Democrats are a party that is silently divided.
