And away we go – off on another crazy cruze with Ted!
Cinch up your seatbelts, for Sen. Ted Cruz (fueled by his flaming jet-powered ego) has gotten a head start on all the other wannabes seeking the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. And what a crazy start Ted made, launching his campaign from Liberty University. Liberty U is the creation of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, the self-promoting Christian theocrat, bigot, liar, and buffoonish pretender to be God’s chosen agent on Earth. Cruz hopes that launching there will make him “God’s candidate” – the chosen one of far-right Christian extremist voters.
But Good Lord – Falwell? The vast majority of Americans remember him as an unholy fool, a non-stop spewer of hate. “I listen to feminists and all these radical gals,” he said. “These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need.” Then, there’s this piece of vicious sermonizing: “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals.” Likewise, the pompous preacher said 9/11 was “what we deserve,” claiming it was God’s punishment for feminism, gays, the ACLU, and other evils. His knowledge of African-Americans was equally insightful: “The true Negro does not want integration,” he explained.
Also, in Jerry’s world, “There is no separation of church and state;” all public schools will be closed and taken over by churches, and “Christians will be running them;” and the Bible is “absolutely infallible,” even “in areas such as geography, science, history, etc.”
You can’t stand in a hog wallow without getting stink all over you. Yet, Crazy Ted Cruz deliberately chose to stand in Falwell’s political wallow, which leaves him reeking with the stench of Falwell’s nastiness and knownothingism. Is Cruz running to be president of the USA – or of Liberty University?
“Controversial comments by leading fundamentalist, Jerry Falwell,” www.religioustolerance.org, 1979-2006.
“Positive Atheism’s Big Scary List of Jerry Falwell quotations,” www.positiveatheism.org.
“Jerry Falwell’s Legacy of Hate,”
www.patheos.com.
“Jerry Falwell quotes” www.politicalhumor.com.

An exciting democracy
movement arises in Chicago

Chicago! City of broad shoulders. Plutocratic hog butcher. Tool maker for progressive change. Stacker of the wheat of grassroots power, wheat separated from the chaff of corporate politicians. Stormy, husky, brawling. Planning, building, breaking, rebuilding. Under its wrist is the pulse and under its ribs is the heart of the people. Laughing! Proud to be hog butcher, tool maker, stacker of wheat.
Apologies to Carl Sandburg for my butchering of his 1914 poetic paean to the rise of this colossus of a working-class city – but I see a promising new movement of broad-shouldered populist change for all of America arising today from the heart of Chicago’s workaday people. Under the banner of “Reclaim Chicago,” a dynamic, politically-savvy progressive coalition has emerged, engaging thousands of grassroots Chicagoans in a people-led democratic movement to reclaim their city from the cabal of corporate elites and corrupt politicians now reigning over them.
These are not just mad-as-hell ranters, but mad-as-hellers with a bold agenda for moving their city toward fairness and justice for all. They’re mad-as-hellers who have a shared vision; a long term plan; a democratic organizational framework; a range of trainers to provide movement skills and tools for all involved; a network for developing, electing, and holding accountable their own office holders; and – most important – both a strong sense of purpose and an energizing sense of fun. After all battling the bastards is about as much fun as you can have with your clothes on!
Reclaim Chicago is not merely an election apparatus, but a democracy movement – building a permanent progressive majority that functions year-’round, year after year, so the people truly can become self-governing. Tune in to these democracy builders at www.ReclaimChicago.org.

Chuck Schumer upchucks
at sight of TPP

Sen. Chuck Schumer, leader of the corporate wing of congressional Democrats, never met a global trade deal too ugly hug. So when even he says, “This is really troubling,” you know his eyes have been singed by something truly hideous.
That “something” is the trade scam called Trans-Pacific Partnership. The scam is that TPP only masquerades as a trade deal, while actually being a gross enlargement of multinational corporate power over our people’s sovereignty. Specifically, a chapter of this secretly-negotiated, 12-nation deal empowers foreign corporations to challenge America’s laws, rules, and court rulings – whether local, state, or national – by suing our governments in private, corporate-run tribunals set up by the United Nations or the World Bank.
That’s what made Chuck nearly upchuck. “Savvy, deep-pocketed foreign conglomerates,” he gasped, “could challenge a broad range of laws we pass at every level of government, such as made-in-America laws or anti-tobacco laws.” Exactly.
Moreover, global corporate giants from Japan, Australia, Mexico, or other nations in the TPP could sue us not just for any actual harm they claim to be suffering because of, say, our clean water law, but for undermining their “investment-backed expectations.” Translated from corporate-speak, that means a foreign conglomerate could haul our clean water law before a tribunal just by claiming the law undermines the profits it expected to make!
Even the corporate and governmental elites who have secretly negotiated this raw deal knew that its uglies would gag you, me, and even Schumer. So they added an extra layer of secrecy, mandating that the sovereignty-busting chapter not be declassified until four years after TPP is approved.
To help stop TPP in its tracks, join the grassroots coalition fighting it. Go to www.StopTPP.org.
“Trade Pact Seen as Door For Suits Against U.S.” They New York Times, March 26, 2015.