Category Archives: Rock on-Peace Out

Do Not Cut Off Senator Kamala Harris, Or Twitter Will Come For You : LAist

Senator Kamala Harris was shut down mid-sentence (and mid-interrogation of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein) by the Senate intelligence committee’s chairman, who clearly did not learn from the “Nevertheless, she persisted” debacle that when you cut off firebrand Democratic senators, Twitter comes for you, and it comes for you hard.CNN has a full transcript of the tense moment, in which Senate intelligence committee chairman Richard Burr interjected as Harris questioned Rosenstein over whether he would sign a letter to give Special Counsel Robert Mueller full independence from the Justice Department. Committee chairman Richard Burr cut Harris off as she pressed Rosenstein for “a yes-or-no answer,” asking her to “provide the witnesses the courtesy…for questions to get answered.” “As a career prosecutor and former Attorney General, Kamala Harris has run countless investigations, and she will follow the facts wherever they lead to get to the truth on behalf of the American people,” a spokesperson for Senator Harris’s office told LAist, adding, “That can only happen if witnesses answer questions.”

Source: Do Not Cut Off Senator Kamala Harris, Or Twitter Will Come For You : LAist

Not falling down – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.

Since the aftermath of 9/11, the US has been in a state of perpetual reeling. The Bushies exploited the pain and fear of 9/11 to pursue their own warped dream of burning the Middle East to its ashes in the hope that a Phoenix (one kowtowing to the US oil and corporate interests) would arise. In the name of the 3000 killed on 9/11, we, as American voters and taxpayers, enabled the massacre of an estimated million in Iraq. The numbers of civilian casualties in Afghanistan are rarely ever talked about. Then as the years went by, with hubris we went to Libya and left another massive chaos. On Syria we equivocated having understood some of the lessons of Iraq and Libya. But somehow that caution vanished when the Saudis threw a hissy fit and demanded an attack on Yemen. We – the Obama administration – went in with them, fuelling their planes, selling them arms – along with the UK and France of course. So today, we are elbow deep in blood and cholera, with no exit strategy.With the election of no. 45, the US is reeling ever more crazed and clumsily around the world, hugging dictators, dropping drones and bombs, and denigrating other leaders. It is all made worse by the fact that the US president wants to project his own ignorance and arrogance on the rest of us.We need a reality check on this 16 years of militarized reeling. Enough. Enough of all the violence. By us, by our governments, with our taxes. Enough of the giddy reeling by the defence and security industry that has become so bloated and deadly. Enough of the cosying up to the Saudis, who are the progenitors of all the warped groups who claim to represent Islam. Enough of the violence by inhumane men who think they’re entitled to kill or believe that terror gives them a fast track to heaven.Enough of all of it. Let’s admit militarism begets extremism that begets militarism that begets more violent extremism. It’s time to stop reeling and get back to the drawing board. Because right now, this US government is caught in an unreal reel that is taking us all closer to the edge of the abyss. That is just. not. tolerable.

Source: Not falling down – sister-hood magazine. A Fuuse production by Deeyah Khan.

The Silencing of the Hillary Clinton Supporter | Dame Magazine

Over the past many months, I have spoken with many middle and lower-middle class women, who shared stories with me about why they voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump, including a 34-year veteran school teacher who is so news-obsessed, she has her friends text her news alerts while she’s on vacation, and a 24-year-old college student who “kind of liked” Bernie until she realized that the U.S. was one of the few civilized countries that had never had a woman leader. We’ve seen the millions of women who took to the streets the day after the inauguration. We’ve learned that it’s older women who make most of the calls to Congress, and we have heard that nearly 13,000 women want to run for office since Hillary lost the election. All this while the media has mostly ignored the 90 percent of Black women—many of them lower, working, and middle class—who voted for Hillary. And yet, six months later, the media continues to fixate on the white working-class voters who didn’t cast theirs for her in the autopsy of the 2016 election.

Source: The Silencing of the Hillary Clinton Supporter | Dame Magazine

Olivia Newton-John puts tour on hold after breast cancer diagnosis | Music | The Guardian

The singer recovered from breast cancer 25 years ago and has devoted herself to helping others with the disease ever since.Last week, she cancelled planned meet-and-greet events for the upcoming concerts because of “severe back pain”.A statement posted on Facebook said: “Olivia Newton-John is reluctantly postponing her June US and Canadian concert tour dates.“The back pain that initially caused her to postpone the first half of her concert tour has turned out to be breast cancer that has metastasised to the sacrum.“In addition to natural wellness therapies, Olivia will complete a short course of photon radiation therapy and is confident she will be back later in the year, better than ever, to celebrate her shows.”Newton-John said: “I decided on my direction of therapies after consultation with my doctors and natural therapists and the medical team at my Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Melbourne.”

Source: Olivia Newton-John puts tour on hold after breast cancer diagnosis | Music | The Guardian

Broken and Brave, Still We Ride the Waves. | Rebelle Society

I feel you, Pain. You are hard. You are brutal. You make my knees buckle and my lungs heave. You slice me open and make me bleed. You are heavy. And cold. And dark. You offer not even a sliver of light. But, know this, Pain: I will survive you because I am filled up with light. The light of love given and received. Love is the golden thread that holds me together and warms me from the inside. It makes me solid. It makes me durable.It makes me believe in God and Goodness and Hope and Healing. You will not destroy me, Pain. You will devastate me. You will leave me ravaged and starving, but you will not destroy me. I will ache and break and simmer and rage and seethe and weep and grieve and then, in time,I will let you go.Because even you, Pain, are not meant to be forever.It all comes and it all goes. All of it.Life exists in waves. It undulates.

Source: Broken and Brave, Still We Ride the Waves. | Rebelle Society

Meet the ‘super mothers’ making a Stockholm suburb safer – The Local

“The young people have reacted differently, but the majority of Fittja’s residents have the same culture and according to our culture you respect mothers, which we have seen a lot of when we’re out walking”.“Many think it’s fun and come up to us to greet us, some think it’s uncomfortable because you’re not supposed to look stupid in front of mums according to our culture. The positive thing is that the kids listen to us, if we say something to them they listen to us and move on or stop

Source: Meet the ‘super mothers’ making a Stockholm suburb safer – The Local

Make no mistake: Donald Trump has fueled violence against journalists | Richard Wolffe | US news | The Guardian

The candidate is of course now president of the United States, who calls the media “the enemy of the American people.”This is not a small development in the long history of shocking Trumpisms.AdvertisementYou don’t need to take the Guardian’s word for it. Here’s the opinion of William McRaven, the former special ops commander and architect of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden: “This sentiment may be the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime,” he told journalism students at the University of Texas earlier this year.Yes, journalists are important. So important that the founding fathers cited the freedom of the press in the first amendment to the constitution. At the start of the Bill of Rights, it’s sandwiched between the freedom of religion and the right to petition the government.Journalism is so important that the Massachusetts constitution says this: “The liberty of the press is essential to the security of freedom in a state: it ought not, therefore, to be restrained in this commonwealth.”

Source: Make no mistake: Donald Trump has fueled violence against journalists | Richard Wolffe | US news | The Guardian

SPLC suit: Mississippi violates binding obligation to provide ‘uniform’ system of public education | Southern Poverty Law Center

Mississippi enshrined this requirement in the education clause of its Constitution, which the state ratified in 1869. The following year, Congress passed a law, commonly called the “Readmission Act,” allowing Mississippi to regain full statehood. The Readmission Act requires that the education rights then granted in the state constitution never be diminished.Over more than a century, however, state lawmakers have diluted the education clause multiple times. The violations began in 1890, at the start of the Jim Crow era, when delegates to the state’s Constitutional Convention crafted new governing documents with the explicit intention of disenfranchising African Americans by withholding education. Each subsequent change has further watered down the education clause. Today, because of this historical malfeasance, the state’s public schools are anything but “uniform.”

Source: SPLC suit: Mississippi violates binding obligation to provide ‘uniform’ system of public education | Southern Poverty Law Center

Dozens of Middlebury Students Are Disciplined for Charles Murray Protest – The New York Times Someone – Dickinson – really does not understand free speech rights are broader than just being polite and not reacting strongly to speech you find offensive and hateful

“They don’t understand the value of free speech at a college and what free speech really means,” Mr. Dickinson said. “I think some people are going to say we should be looking more broadly at the institution and whether we taught these students properly.”In a separate news release Tuesday, the Middlebury Police Department said it would not bring charges in connection with the protest.The department’s chief, Thomas Hanley, said in an interview that it was impossible to identify the protesters who hurt Ms. Stanger or damaged the car.“This was a number of individuals in the dark, wearing masks and black clothing, along with a bunch of college students,” he said. “It was more of a scrum. There wasn’t any assault per se.”

Inoreader – Tuesday Open Thread | Here’s what we do if GOP refuses to impeach Donald Trump for giving classified intel to the Russians

We take over every town hall that every Republican in Congress holds from here on out. When it comes to the cowards who refuse to hold town halls, we peacefully march on their offices in Washington DC. We occupy the National Mall out front of the Capitol, or wherever else we can get permits. We use every legal means possible to take over DC, to the point that nothing happens until these coward Republicans realize their careers are over in 2018 if they don’t do something about Trump now.

Source: Inoreader – Tuesday Open Thread | Here’s what we do if GOP refuses to impeach Donald Trump for giving classified intel to the Russians