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Makes sense: Hillary will share her speech transcripts when hell freezes over

Hillary Transcripts
Source: Vets for Bernie
The Young Turks report on Hillary’s comeback to the New Hampshire debate question: will she share the transcripts of all of her speeches, even the ones she made to Goldman-Sachs? In a nutshell, Hillary’s answer was no, not really. We’ve learned that Hillary’s speaking contract stipulates that they be recorded both digitally and by a hired stenographer; and that she retains full copyright protection for all of her words.

A CNN analysis found that, since 2001, Hillary and Bill Clinton have received $153 million in speaking fees, with at least eight speeches given by Ms. Clinton to big banks for $1.8 million. The media has repeatedly asked Ms. Clinton to release the transcripts, to which she sarcastically responded on ABC’s This Week, “Yeah, you know, here’s another thing I want to say. Let everybody who has ever given a speech to any private group under any circumstances release them all—we’ll all release them at the same time.” read more

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Did NAACP pay Hillary her usual $225K fee to speak at 2015 National Convention?

Bill & Hillary Clinton
Source: BreakingBrown.com
Hillary was the opening speaker at the 2015 NAACP National Convention in Philly last year, and Bill closed out the speaker roster. Were the Clintons there on a freebie basis in order to raise votes for Hillary, or did they get a portion of their customary speaker fees? For Hillary, that’s $225,000 per speech. She earned $9 million from speaking fees in 2013 and since 2001 the couple have netted $153,000,000 (yeah, million) total. At least some of that money came from Goldman Sachs.

Adam Edelman of the Daily News writes, read more

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Hillary Clinton’s record is not the record of a liberal

Orwell poster
Source: unknown
HRC’s record makes her not a liberal. None of the Republican candidates have achieved what she colluded with her husband to do: remove millions from welfare and foodstamps without reducing poverty; spend billions building prisons; create the three-strike sentencing system that would send people to prison for many years even if their offenses were small; lock up millions of black and brown men and women. The inmates became an unpaid prison workforce for clever CEOs.

And the prisons were taken over by private corporations that have demanded 80-98% occupancy rates. When occupancy drops, they extort money from the states they’re located in for breach of contract. read more

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A tale of three travesties of justice and two unfortunate outcomes

https://www.facebook.com/Justice-for-Marvin-Louis-Guy-320199521496316/

marvin louis guy
Source: police photo
This is a series of those completely messed up stories that seem like they can only happen in America. It starts with Marvin Louis Guy. He and his wife became aware that armed intruders were entering their Kileen, Texas home. As they were gun owners, the Guys took the logical step of shooting these dangerous men, killing one of them. But ooops, it turned out that the intruders were police staging a “no-knock” raid on the Guy’s home – where by the way no drugs or any thing illegal, was found. read more

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Wishes to all for a Happy New Year of the Monkey!

xin_nian_kuai_le_by_pyrhaaa-d4ac0kj
Source: Caligraphy by pyrhaaa

year of the monkey

Wishes to all for a Happy New Year of the Monkey! In 2016 the Chinese New Year begins today 08 February and lasts through 27 February. I’ve gathered together some guides for celebrating, which includes various traditions practiced in Asian households around the world and my fun Chinese New Year collection at Pinterest.

Monkey Chinese New Year Stamp
Source: Monkey Chinese New Year stamp 2016 from the USPS
On a national level – the USPS released its Year of the Monkey stamp on 05 February 2016.

The Year of the Monkey stamp is the ninth of twelve stamps in the Celebrating Lunar New Year series. The stamp art depicts two bright reddish orange peonies against a purple background. Peonies symbolize wealth and honor in Chinese culture and often decorate the sides of the traditional drums played during the holiday festivities. Artist Kam Mak created this original painting. Art director and stamp designer Ethel Kessler incorporated elements from the previous series of Lunar New Year stamps — Clarence Lee’s intricate cut-paper design of a monkey and the Chinese character for “monkey,” drawn in grass-style calligraphy by Lau Bun — to create continuity between the stamps in the series. read more

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NYPD uses a little known law to bar minority tenants from their legal homes

Screenshot Daily News article on 297 victims
Source: Screenshot of Daily News article header on 297 Nuisance Abatement victims

A morally questionable rule is being used by the NYPD to harass over 1000 tenants a year and boot several hundred out of their homes, sometimes permanently – without providing victims of this heavy-handed practice with immediate opportunity to enter an enquiry or response to the action in a courtroom and with almost no legal protection and few redress options ever being made available. Pro-Publica shares one woman’s story.

New York City resident Ms. Jameela El-Shabazz became the victim of a, “nuisance abatement action, a little-known type of lawsuit that gives the city the power to shut down places it claims are being used for illegal purposes. In May when police broke into Ms. El-Shabazz’s apartment and arrested her for criminal possession of cocaine, a court-ordered chemical analysis identified the police-seized powder seized as eggshells. Ms. El-Shabazz uses it in a Nigerian religious ceremony. read more

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Female Genital Mutilation alive, well & also practiced on United States girls

razor used for FGM
A woman in Mombasa, Kenya, shows the razorblade she uses to cut girls’ genitals. Photograph: Ivan Lieman/Barcroft Media via The Guardian
A new investigation turned up about 70 million more victims of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) worldwide than previously known, many living in Indonesia. About half a million are girls from the United States of America, sometimes brought overseas by their parents for “vacation cutting”.

The UN shares these key facts about the practice:

  • FGM is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15.
  • FGM cause severe bleeding and health issues including cysts, infections, infertility as well as complications in childbirth increased risk of newborn deaths.
  • FGM is a violation of the human rights of girls and women.

The Guardian’s Jessica Elgot reports,

In Guinea, where 97% of girls aged 15 to 49 are FGM victims despite the practice being outlawed, Unicef staff described seeing girls taken away from their families against their will to be cut, on the orders of village authorities. One five-year-old died from her wounds. read more

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GOP’s Iowa ad: Bernie wants taxes on the rich and health care for all – he’s horrible!

raise taxes on the super-rich
The GOP is running a pro-Bernie campaign ad in Iowa …

Bernie Sanders himself is one of the few American politicians who probably knows exactly why the anti-him ad the GOP is running in Iowa seems more like #FeelTheBern advertising. Is the GOP promoting Bernie’s free college and health care for all / time to tax Wall Street and the rich agenda / because they haven’t noticed these things will help most Americans – or – could they actually be trying to help Bernie get elected, because they think he’ll be easier to beat than Hillary? read more

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Prison-based gerrymandering brings in power & extra money to towns housing prisons

black male incarceration
Source: blackcommentator.com via americantribune.org
The political aspect of prison-based gerrymandering is often presented as being the only aspect of the phenomenon worth discussing. It’s important, of course, but so is the net financial and services gain to a community housing a prison when compared against the net financial and services loss to an inmate’s pre-incarceration community – the community where his children and other family members may still live. The direct negative financial and social impact of prison-based gerrymandering on an inmate’s true “home community” merits attention and discussion as much as the political aspect does. read more

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My affirmation for the year 2016 (and many more years to come)

Ace of Cups from Haindl Tarot
Ace of Cups from Haindl Tarot
I’m sure I’ll be able to put my 2016 personal resolution to use for many more years to come. It’s a good one!

I wish to live in gratitude, with happiness – and put the gifts God has given me to the greatest possible good use

~ Kimi Wei

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The Whitney Plantation, a special place carefully designed to teach about slavery

John Cummings at the Whitney Plantation
Source: The Atlantic video about the Whitney Foundation
John Cummings founded the Whitney Plantation to educate the country about our national legacy of slavery and has spent $8 million over 15 years on this project. He says, “This isn’t black history, this is American history .. it was very shocking to me that I didn’t know about slavery … I had no idea of how deprived they were, not by force of circumstance, but by deliberate planning … We’re not finished.”

Ibrahima Seck
Source: The Atlantic’s video about the Whitney Foundation

The museum and memorial’s Director of Research, Ibrahima Seck, says today, “People need to understand what happened on these plantations … why so many people are in jail, so much poverty, black people being shot and killed like game. All that is rooted in slavery.” read more

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Former Chase employee wants to tell the story of how they defrauded America

bank crash of the 20s
Legacy photo of the 1920s bank crash
Chase has paid billions in settlements to prevent former employee Alayne Fleischmann, Esq. from being summoned to the witness stand where she can reveal under oath the intentional theft of mortgage investors’ money through bad mortgage loans Chase made and sold without violating the gag clauses in her employment contract. With help from Attorney General Eric Holder, Chase enriched itself by millions of dollars and when it was caught with pants down, a small fine was imposed which was substantially funded by the American public via a tax write-off made available to the bank. read more