More animals, less stress

From Twitter: Ladies Home Journal Editors -- @lhjHealthLadies tweeted:

Office dogs really can reduce stress! http://bit.ly/LJubGN Official LHJHealthGent Smuckers knows how to chill out. twitpic.com/aaz48c

No More Bush Tax Cuts Extensions!

Let the Bush Tax Cuts expire (they were supposedly only there in the first place because the USA had a surplus, long gone -- and I am okay with them ALL expiring. Otherwise, Congress will be after the small pieces of the budget pie that benefit the 99% and we lose more than any benefit we'd get from any extension of the tax cut.

The big guys who really benefit from our country and its bounty ought to pay. They offshore their offices to avoid corporate taxes, and outsource the jobs to save money rather than paying US employees, and then use our tax system which the rest of us who still have jobs pay for. WE pay for the massive corporate use of our court systems while these corporations and their executives avoid paying taxes!!

Yes. Let Bush Tax Cuts expire -- and dial the White House comment line 202-456-1111 and tell PBO that We the People, at least We the 99%, benefit more by the tax cuts expiring.

Comment re FOX

Considering the manufactured brouhaha over "Fast and Furious", I think instead of FOX so-called News, as Thom Hartmann refers to them, it is high time we start saying FOX Propaganda Network. [also posted to my Facebook page]

Congressmember Peter DeFazio interviewed

Listen Up: Post Wisconsin, U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio gave his reflections in an interview by Carl Wolfson of Portland's KPOJ. Given the 8 to 1 monetary advantage, one political consultant told the congressman that he could get people to hate Mother Teresa. Both agreed that Citizens United is wrecking our democracy. DeFazio predicts that if the Republicans win a majority in the Senate in 2012 they will laugh and quickly abolish the filibuster which has hobbled the Obama presidency. It is a great back and forth between two progressives -- so go to KPOJ and listen to the full interview. And listen to KPOJ or its podcasts (available online or via iTunes) for more great stuff. Carl in the Morning is one of my favs.

Fugelsang Viewpoint on Romney & FlipFlopping GOP

John Fugelsang's humorous take, his Viewpoint on Mitt Romney and GOP flip-flopping in their love for candidates during the race for their presidential nominee.

Rodney King: Can we all get along?

I thought Rodney King asked Why, and some re-quoting shows it, but it isn't "Why can't we all just get along", per the news tape [start at 42 for intro or 53 for King directly] Rodney King's quotation is a pleading and a request for peace in a time of violence:

I just want to say, you know, Can we, can we all get along, can we can we get along? Umm can we stop making it making it ___ before for the for the older people and the and the and the kids...?.... We've got to quit... It is just not right. ... Please, We can we can get along here, We we all can get along. ... I mean we're all stuck here for a while. Let's try to work it out ....Let's try and work it out.

Engle advice to Rep. Carolyn Maloney

Early feminist Lavinia Engle had this advice for women speaking in public:

"Stand up, speak up, and shut up."

Would that Congressmember Carolyn Maloney had heeded that advice on today's Up with Chris Hayes -- a great show (on MSNBC Saturday and Sunday from 8 AM to 10 AM). Still, perhaps she will accept the advice of show guest Alexis Goldstein on crafting better bills.

FDR: On Monopoly threatening Liberty

Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.

The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living.

Both lessons hit home.

Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

This concentration is seriously impairing the economic effectiveness of private enterprise as a way of providing employment for labor and capital and as a way of assuring a more equitable distribution of income and earnings among the people of the nation as a whole.

~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt [FDR], Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies, April 29, 1938

With thanks to a photo-lead from @The_Anti_Fox on Twitter. Read more at the American Presidency Project: Franklin D. Roosevelt: Message to Congress on Curbing Monopolies. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15637#ixzz1pTJnso3L

"How do we change the world?"

"Change your heart, your life, your community, the system -- in that order."
~ Philip Berrigan's answer to Frank Kromkowski's question -- "How do we change the world?", 1976, Helena, Montana [wisdom hidden in a morning glory]

Compassion / Socialism quotation

“Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.”
~ Hubert Humphrey

Via the awesome compassionate comedian commentator John Fugelsang on Facebook and Twitter and live Fridays on Stephanie Miller's radio show and Nicole Sandler's Thursday show (and his parents' awesome love story on NPR.)