“Sons of Wichita”: New Book about Koch Brothers to Be Published This Week

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

SonsofWichitaSUBMITTED BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

A new book titled Sons of Wichita: The Saga of the Koch Brothers by Daniel Schulman, “which delves into the four sons of Fred Koch and the influence their oil industry leader and anti-communist father had on them,” is scheduled to be released today. Jim Kelly of Vanity Fair wrote that Schulman, who was intrigued by “how demonized Charles and David had become,” decided to write “a full-scale biography of the family…” Kelly said the author felt the Kochs were “just as worthy of dissection as the Rockefellers.” Schulman was quoted as saying, “Most people do not know just how influential this family has been, affecting politics, business, and culture in both the 20th and 21st centuries.”

Kelly says that Sons of Wichita “is never less than engrossing, a stylishly written saga that, as Bill Koch would put it, makes ‘Dallas and Dynasty look like a playpen.’” Kelly says that although Schulman is a senior editor for Mother Jones, “the book has little ideological heat other than what emanates from the Kochs.” He adds that the biggest surprise for Schulman was the extent to which Fred Koch’s four sons “remain marked by their father”—a man “whose work on oil refineries in Stalin’s Soviet Union led to his helping found the anti-Communist John Birch Society.”

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Posted in Big Oil, Libertarians, Literature | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Edible Flowers: Slap Ya Mama Spice Mix

Posted on May 20, 2014 by Gene Howington

slapYaMama-Originalby GENE HOWINGTON

To those who know me, it comes as no surprise that blackened fish or chicken and in general Cajun and Creole cooking are part of the wheelhouse.  It also comes as no surprise that when it comes to blackened seasoning, I usually make my own and for what I consider good reason. Most of the store bought Cajun seasoning I’ve tried has way too much salt in it as do most pre-mixed spice blends.  I say “most” having tried a wide variety of brands over the years. However, recently someone suggested a product I was aware of but that I had never tried in no small part due to its name: “Slap Ya Mama” brand.  The name isn’t derived from an admonishment to beat the woman who gave birth to you, but rather from a ubiquitous (yet distasteful for some) saying in the South: “That food was so good it makes you want to slap ya mama!”

The person who suggested this product to me is from the area (Ville Platte, LA) where Walker & Sons makes the “Slap Ya Mama” seasonings and other food products (including such products as fish fry and Etouffee sauce). They knew about my salt concerns and assured me that the product was not too salty.  It was indeed not too salty.

It was also the best pre-made Cajun seasoning mix I’ve ever tried.

Period.

I’ve used the standard flavor (yellow container) for blackened fish and chicken, in red beans and rice and as a component of a dry rub and marinades and been happy with the results every time, but they also make a hot variety (red container) and white pepper blend (white container).  I think I’m going to test drive the white pepper blend next.

You can get it online at http://www.slapyamama.com/ if it isn’t available locally.

Posted in Edible Flowers, Ingredients | 7 Comments

“Collect It All”: Amy Goodman Talks with Glenn Greenwald about NSA Bugging Tech Hardware, Economic Espionage & Spying on U.N. on Democracy Now!

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

glenn_greenwald_portraitSubmitted by Elaine Magliaro

On Tuesday, Glenn Greenwald’s new book No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State was published. According to Democracy Now!, the book contains “dozens of previously secret NSA documents” that include NoPlacetoHidenew details about “how the NSA routinely intercepts routers, servers and other computer hardware devices” that are being exported from the United States.” Leaked documents published in Greenwald’s book reveal how the NSA “implants backdoor surveillance tools, repackages the devices with a factory seal and sends them on”—thus giving the NSA “access to entire networks and all their users.”

Earlier this week, Greenwald sat down with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! He told her of other “new revelations about the NSA, including its global economic espionage, spying at the United Nations, and attempting to monitor in-flight Internet users and phone calls.”

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Posted in Civil Liberties, NSA, United States | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

McCutcheon, Citizens United, the Supreme Court, and “The United States of John Roberts”

Posted on May 14, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

JohnRobertsBY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Back in November of 2010, I wrote an article for Res Ipsa Loquitor titled Citizens United Ruling Brings on “Tsunami of Sewer Money.” In it, I quoted a question posed by Joe Conason in a Salon article he wrote about Citizens United : “Was the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United naively mistaken–or cynically partisan?”

In his Citizens United opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote, “With the advent of the Internet, prompt disclosure of expenditures can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”

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Posted in Conservatives, Free Speech, Government, Justice, Politics, SCOTUS, United Kingdom | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Sandy Hook Truther Steals Peace Sign from Playground Honoring the Memory of Newtown Shooting Victim

Posted on May 13, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

Sandy_HookBY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Conspiracy theories abound in this country. The conspiracy theorists that people are probably most familiar with are the 9/11 truthers and the Obama birthers. What I hadn’t been aware of until recently was the existence of a group of people who claim that the massacre that took place at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012 was just a hoax.

I bring up the existence of this group because it was reported recently that a “Sandy Hook Truther” had stolen a peace sign from a playground in Mystic, Connecticut. The vinyl sign, which weighed 50 pounds and featured a peace symbol, was based on a drawing done by seven-year-old Sandy Hook victim Grace McDonnell. The sign was displayed on a playground that had been dedicated to her memory.

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Posted in Conspiracy, United States, Weird Crime | Tagged , , , | 26 Comments

The Politicization of SCOTUS

Posted on May 11, 2014 by Gene Howington
The U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court

Submitted by Gene Howington

The following is an excerpt from an NYT opinion piece about the manifest political division in the Robert’s Supreme Court. This long standing problem in a branch of government that is, by Constitutional charter, not allowed to make political decisions is a running topic both on this blog and elsewhere.  I encourage you all to read this piece and share your thoughts.

“The Polarized Court by Adam Liptak

May 10, 2014

WASHINGTON — WHEN the Supreme Court issued its latest campaign finance decision last month, the justices lined up in a familiar way. The five appointed by Republican presidents voted for the Republican National Committee, which was a plaintiff. The four appointed by Democrats dissented.

That 5-to-4 split along partisan lines was by contemporary standards unremarkable. But by historical standards it was extraordinary. For the first time, the Supreme Court is closely divided along party lines.

The partisan polarization on the court reflects similarly deep divisions in Congress, the electorate and the elite circles in which the justices move.

The deep and often angry divisions among the justices are but a distilled version of the way American intellectuals — at think tanks and universities, in opinion journals and among the theorists and practitioners of law and politics — have separated into two groups with vanishingly little overlap or interaction. It is a recipe for dysfunction.

The perception that partisan politics has infected the court’s work may do lasting damage to its prestige and authority and to Americans’ faith in the rule of law.

‘An undesirable consequence of the court’s partisan divide,’ said Justin Driver, a law professor at the University of Texas, ‘is that it becomes increasingly difficult to contend with a straight face that constitutional law is not simply politics by other means, and that justices are not merely politicians clad in fine robes. If that perception becomes pervasive among today’s law students, who will become tomorrow’s judges, after all, it could assume a self-reinforcing quality.’

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Posted in Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Corruption, Democracy, Equal Rights, Free Speech, Hypocrisy, Jurisprudence, Justice, Oligarchy, Politics, Psychology, SCOTUS, United States | 14 Comments

Wayne LaPierre and the NRA’s Mission to Terrify America (With a Mark Fiore Video)

Posted on May 9, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

WayneLaPiereBY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Ana Marie Cox wrote a couple of articles about the NRA for The Guardian in late April—at the time of the organization’s annual convention in Indianapolis. Cox said that the NRA “doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about solutions to inner-city gun violence…” She said that’s because it’s “too busy using it to scare people into thinking they need guns.” She added, “To the extent they pose a strategy for ending it, the refrain is simple: ‘enforce existing laws’”.

Cox reported that during his convention speech, Wayne LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, “exhorted the crowd “to a morally obligated vigilantism.” She said that LaPierre drew a vivid picture for the attendees present “of a United States in utter decay and fragmented beyond repair, Mad Max-meets-Hunger Games, divided by Soylent Green.”

LaPierre:

We know, in the world that surrounds us, there are terrorists and home invaders and drug cartels and car-jackers and knock-out gamers and rapers, haters, campus killers, airport killers, shopping-mall killers, road-rage killers, and killers who scheme to destroy our country with massive storms of violence against our power grids, or vicious waves of chemicals or disease that could collapse the society that sustains us all.

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Posted in Politics, Propaganda, United States | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Cliven Bundy, Patrolling Militia Groups in Nevada, and Sovereign Citizens

Posted on May 7, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

BY ELAINE MAGLIARO

A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article titled Sean Hannity, Jon Stewart, and That Racist, Gun Totin’ Welfare Queen Cliven Bundy. I thought I’d write a follow-up post after reading about what has been going on in Bunkerville, Nevada, with some of the out-of-state militia groups that gathered there in order to support Bundy with his standoff against the Bureau of Land Management. It appears that those militia groups have become a cause of concern for some residents, workers, and businesses in the area surrounding Bundy’s ranch.

Militias’ Ongoing Presence in Nevada Creates Fear and Friction

 

KLAS-TV/News NOW (Las Vegas) reported on April 29th that hotels in Mesquite had suffered financial losses of more than $100,000 due to concerns about armed militia groups patrolling in the area. News NOW learned that Mesquite police were investigating death threats made to hotel workers following a bomb threat earlier in April.

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Posted in Conservatives, Government, Law Enforcement, Politics, States | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

Alabama’s “Ten Commandments Judge” Roy Moore Rebuked for Remarks He Made at Pastor for Life Luncheon

Posted on May 6, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

RoyMooreBY ELAINE MAGLIARO

Nine years after he was forced out of his position as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, Roy Moore was re-elected in 2012. Moore—known as the Ten Commandments judge—was first elected to serve as chief justice in 2000. Three years later, however, a state judicial panel removed him after “he refused to obey a federal judge’s order to remove a 5,200-pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the Alabama Judicial Building.”

After being re-elected in 2012, Moore said, “It’s clear the people have voted to return me to the office of chief justice.” He added, “I have no doubt this is a vindication. I look forward to being the next chief justice.” Moore told his supporters to return home “with the knowledge that we are going to stand for the acknowledgment of God.”

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Posted in Christianity, Conservatives, Constitutional Law, Fundamentalism, Politics, Religion, States | Tagged , , | 40 Comments

Hardend Criminal Or Born To Be Wild?

Posted on May 2, 2014 by Gene Howington

submitted by GENE HOWINGTON

As reported by the Ottawa Police Service:

“FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday, April 29, 2014    4:35 pm

(Ottawa) — The Ottawa Police Service Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Section have charged a 62 year old Ottawa man following an incident at Mooney’s Bay Park situated on Riverside Drive. Ottawa Police had received several complaints of an adult male exposing himself in this park since April 14th, 2014.

On April 29, 2014  around 9:00 am, an adult male exposed himself to a person near a pathway in the park. Police were in the area and were alerted. The suspect was arrested at the scene.

On April 29th, 2014, the Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Unit charged Donald POPADICK, 62 years old, of Ottawa, with Indecent Act and Mischief. He is to appear in court on Wednesday.

The suspect is described as a white male in his 60’s, balding with white hair wearing prescription eyeglasses.” [Ed. Note: Emphasis Original]

Destiny or density?

What do you think?

Posted in Canada, Weird News | 6 Comments