Category: Class War

PA fighting back

~ susie

I love this:

HARRISBURG – A three-story brownstone where former Gov. Tom Ridge has offices for his lobbying firm became ground zero Wednesday in the fight over Pennsylvania’s proposed new budget.
About 250 advocates from organized labor, environmental groups, and social services carried out a surprise ambush on Ridge’s firm, which represents companies drilling for gas in the Marcellus Shale. They delivered this message: If the proposed budget will slice education funding, then it should also make big drilling companies pay taxes on the natural gas they extract.

Clutching signs and chanting slogans, most of the activists swarmed into the Ridge Policy Group, just a block from the Capitol, shortly after 2 p.m. They poured through the unlocked doors and began packing rooms on the first and second floors, demanding that someone from the lobbying firm come speak to them.

With their stomping feet causing the floorboards to creak and groan – and likely breaking fire codes – they finally got the attention of Mark Campbell, a partner in the firm and Ridge’s onetime chief of staff. He talked briefly to organizers and promised to tell his clients that activists wanted to speak with them.

“We’ll be back,” the activists warned as the group finally left about 15 minutes later with chants of “No Free Pass for Oil and Gas.” They left a mock invoice for the millions in taxes they say could have been collected from an extraction tax.

Can we leave now?

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

Please?

The majority of American soldiers undergoing amputation for war wounds last fall lost more than one limb, according to data presented Tuesday to the Defense Health Board, a committee of experts that advises the Defense Department on medical matters.

Military officials had previously released data showing that amputations, and especially multiple-limb losses, increased last year. The information presented to the 20-member board is the first evidence that the steepest increase occurred over the last four months of the year.

In other news, Dennis Kucinich introduces a resolution to end the war…

Whores

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Actually, that’s an insult to whores:

On the heels of their 18-1, Democratic Senator-free vote to roll back collective bargaining rights for thousands of state workers, Republican leaders of the Wisconsin state Senate will head to a high-price fundraiser in their honor in DC.

According to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel key players in the Wisconsin GOP will gather at the downtown DC headquarters of lobbying firm BGR Group March 16 for an event that donors “are asked to give at least $1,000 to the state Republican Party’s federal account” to attend.

It takes $1,000 to get you in the door, but “sponsors” are asked to pony up $2,500 and “hosts” 5,000.

‘If you live within driving distance of Wisconsin, go there now’

~ susie

Michael Moore on Rachel Maddow:

MOORE: “This is war, this is a class war that’s been leveled against the working people of this country… The fact that they think they can get away with this… What happened three years ago in 2008… they realized that they could get away with murder. They realized that they could literally loot the treasury, they could play with people’s pension funds on Wall Street, they could destroy the economy, they could essentially do what they could to eliminate the middle class, and there would be no response from the people. There would be no revolt. People would just take it. And people just took it.”

[…] “These protests do matter – in fact, this is one of the few times I can say that in my lifetime – actually going to a demonstration has made a difference. And people have got to come out of their homes tomorrow… They’re planning a huge rally in Madison on Saturday afternoon…”

[…] “We’re not broke. Wisconsin isn’t broke. America isn’t broke. We have trillions of dollars in our economy. The problem is the money isn’t where it needs to be. Those 400 people – … upper 1% and their allies – took that money out of circulation. They took that money and it’s not there anymore. And they’re not being taxed appropriately, and that’s why that money isn’t there. There’s a revenue problem.

That’s all there is. It’s not because there’s debt. There’s always debt. If you’re making car payments, you’re in debt. That doesn’t mean you’re broke. Wisconsin isn’t broke. America isn’t broke. The money’s just not in the people’s hands. It’s in the hands of the rich. The rich who committed these crimes back on Wall Street and they got away with it.

I brought these with me (SHOWS HANDCUFFS). I’d like anybody who works on Wall Street, anybody who works for one of the banks, just take a look at this. This is what is coming for you. Because the people aren’t going to take it anymore. The people are going to demand justice, they’re going to demand that your ass is in jail.

You’ve taken our money. We want the money back. You’ve taken our jobs overseas. We want those jobs back. Those are a national resource. Those are not yours to do with as you please. They affect all of us as a society. We have a right to those jobs. We have a right to that money that used to belong to the people of this country.

A million people evicted from their homes, foreclosed, this year. Another million expected this year.

How many…? I want to again, if I can, just address the Wall Streeters and the banksters out there: How many more people do you think you can throw out of their homes before they do revolt?”

[…] “It’s mostly all northern states. Because the Republican Party, especially, has controlled pretty much the South for the better part of the past few decades, and now they’re trying to take that philosophy and claim these northern states. And they will win. They will win, if people don’t stand up. The good news is that they really are just tools – the Republicans – for this upper one percent that has all the loot. The good news is that there’s a lot more of us than there are of them…. but if we don’t act, they will take it away.”