Call Congress TODAY – Stop SOPA
Posted by Michelle Moquin on December 15th, 2011
Good morning!
This is the latest on Stop On Line Piracy Act - SOPA. SOPA would imbue the federal government with broad powers to shut down whole web domains on the basis that it believes them to be associated with piracy. That would not only mean “bye bye to my blog” but every other blog out there, including Rachel Maddow’s blog and the Huff Po which is considered one of the biggest blogs, not to mention so many other blogs that we all read and count on to get the current! And really this is not just blog but any website – This is not good and we need to actively stop this from passing.
This is a long…very long article. I am only posting the first two pages. Click on the title below to read the rest. And I suggest you do. And then click here to take action. I already have - Please everyone follow suit- You must do this TODAY!
Stop the firewall of America
This Thursday, a bill that would create America’s first Internet censorship system is going to a full committee for a vote, and is likely to pass. This week, millions of us will protest censorship, censoring our own posts and asking you to call Congress. We need your help – please make a call right now.
SOPA: Washington Vs. The Web
Ryan Grim contributed reporting
WASHINGTON — A month ago, Google lobbyist Katherine Oyama absorbed one of the more unusual congressional tongue-lashings in years when she appeared before a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. Rep. Tom Marino (R-Pa.) joked that Oyama had walked into a “lion’s den.”
After praising representatives of drug giant Pfizer and the Motion Picture Association of America for their aggressive efforts to combat online piracy of American products, a bipartisan cadre of committee members spent much of the hearing berating Google, and Oyama personally, as corrupt, compromised and selfish.
“One of the companies represented here today has sought to obstruct the Committee’s consideration of bipartisan legislation,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said.
“In my experience there’s usually only one thing at stake when we have long lines outside a hearing as we do today, and when giant companies, like the ones opposing this bill, and their supporters start throwing around rhetoric like, ‘This bill will kill the Internet,’” said Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.), glowering at Oyama. “That one thing is usually money.”
It’s not unheard-of for corporate representatives to pay public penance on Capitol Hill, but Google seemed a strange subject for abuse: Unlike recent corporate target MF Global and congressional villain Goldman Sachs, Google’s shaming wasn’t preceded by massive public outcry.
So what raised the committee’s ire? An extremely technical, low-profile bill that isn’t being covered by cable news, but has nearly 1,000 registered lobbyists officially working on it: the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA — a bill with the power to fundamentally reshape the laws governing the Internet.
SOPA would imbue the federal government with broad powers to shut down whole web domains on the basis that it believes them to be associated with piracy — without a trial or even a traditional hearing. It would provide Hollywood with powerful new legal tools to stifle transactions with websites whose existence worries the movie industry.
The bill’s supporters, which also include major record labels, trial lawyers and pharmaceutical giants, call SOPA a robust effort to curb piracy of American goods online.
Opponents, however, have castigated it as an unparalleled attack on free speech online. Civil liberties advocates say SOPA would give the U.S. government the same censorship tools used in China. Those in the technology sector warn that the bill creates enormous new barriers to entry for web startups, threatening innovation and job creation. Farther afield, librarians say that under the letter of the proposed anti-piracy law, they could be jailed for simply doing their jobs.
But with buy-in from powerful members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, SOPA’s backers had hoped for few roadblocks en route to a Thursday committee vote and, from there, the House floor. The bill’s future is in greater doubt, however, given unexpectedly strong opposition from bothgrassroots organizers and corporate players with a vested interest in maintaining the Internet’s status quo.
In fact, SOPA and its companion Senate bill, Protect IP, have splintered the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s preeminent business lobby. In October, Internet portal Yahoo publicly withdrew from the Chamber — an extremely rare move for a big U.S. business. Google lobbyists tell HuffPost they “wouldn’t be surprised” if the leading search giant soon followed Yahoo out the door.
The opposition has succeeded in slowing legislative momentum. Sources in Congress and on K Street now say that Senate is unlikely to vote on its measure by the end of the year. And the bill’s prospects become much slimmer in 2012, an election year in which members will spend much more time away from the Hill.
Yet in the meantime, other legislation has been left sitting idle, including bills to maintain current Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, renew the payroll tax cut for the middle class and maintain the flow of unemployment benefits. So how has a bill this arcane occupied so much congressional attention?
Grassroots lobbying has been a factor, but the SOPA war in Congress has mostly been waged between different corporate elements, each with deep pockets. While bipartisanship has been hard to come by in Washington this year on high-profile issues, it’s been easy to find on SOPA and the other corporate disputes that have taken much of the legislature’s time this year – banks vs. retailers, Silicon Valley vs. Big Pharma. But unlike previous corporate spats on Capitol Hill, voters would quickly see the impact of the year’s final congressional action if the government uses it to give their favorite websites the ax.
* * * * *
Movie studios, cable companies and major record labels have been railing against copied songs and films for decades. In the ’20s, record labels required musicians to sign contracts promising never to appear on a new medium called “radio.” Nearly a century later, the Recording Industry Association of America sued a 12-year old girl for downloading children’s TV theme songs on her parents’ computer. And for the past decade, they’ve hammered Capitol Hill with the same demand: Stop online piracy.
“Hollywood and the recording industry have a one-item agenda. You can’t say to them, ‘If you go softer on this, I’ll give you that,’ because there’s no ‘that’ for them,” says Gigi Sohn, president and Co-Founder of Public Knowledge, the leading nonprofit on Internet freedom issues, and a staunch opponent of SOPA.
The top target has been the Judiciary Committee, a powerful circle of lawmakers that is responsible not only for intellectual property rules, but judicial appointments, bankruptcy law and scores of issues involving constitutional rights.
In recent decades, the line between Hollywood and the Judiciary Committee has blurred. In the early 1990s, then Rep. Sonny Bono (R-Calif.), of Sonny & Cher, drafted a bill for the Judiciary Committee that extended the length of copyright protection by an additional 20 years. Bono’s Southern California district was very close to Disneyland, and the copyrights on Disney’s oldest Mickey Mouse cartoons were nearing their expiration. Bono’s efforts ensured that Mickey’s first appearance in “Steamboat Willie” would not enter the public domain until 2023.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) is Hollywood’s current favorite son in Washington. His top two career campaign contributors are Time Warner and Disney, according to data compiled by Center for Responsive Politics; Time Warner has even given him cameo appearances in Batman movies, an experience Leahy talks of proudly.
Another committee member, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who has repeatedly called net neutrality “the most important free speech issue of our time,” is a co-sponsor of the new anti-piracy legislation.
An aide to Franken says that the issue is personal: “He is … a copyright holder and he has worked with creatives and copyright holders.” Franken has written several best-selling books, and was a longtime star of NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
On the Republican side, former Judiciary Committee aides Allison Halataei and Lauren Pastarnack recently signed on as lobbyists for the entertainment industry, as Politico has reported.
According to an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan government transparency nonprofit, a full 16 former House Judiciary Committee staffers are now lobbying on intellectual property issues, with all but a handful pushing to enact SOPA.
In May Leahy introduced Protect IP, declaring that it “will protect the investment American companies make in developing brands and creating content and will protect the jobs associated with those investments.”
The bill would give the Department of Justice the power to bring down foreign websites “dedicated to infringement” without going through the hassle of a trial — or even a traditional hearing. All DOJ has to do is convince a judge to approve the department’s view that a site is in fact “primarily dedicated to infringement”; the law doesn’t require the judge hear any defense from the website’s operator.
Currently the government can only shut down domestic websites, and only if it plans to go to trial; taking down a website can only occur if a judge is shown probable cause that the site was used in the commission of a crime. The new bill doesn’t require criminal activity for a takedown — only that the DOJ believes the site be “primarily dedicated to infringement.”
Even with its existing powers, the government has improperly shuttered legitimate websites. In late 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement brought down dozens of websites with names like “boxedtvseries.com” and “dvdscollection.com.” Most of those sites quickly moved their operations to identical sites with different domain names. But in the same sting, ICE also knocked out a handful of quite popular music blogs that artists frequently leaked songs to as a promotional tool.
On December 8, 2011, after more than a year, one of those websites, dajaz1.com, went back up. ICE, which declined to comment for this article, decided not to prosecute.
Under Leahy’s bill, the government would have no obligation to ever even pretend to be proceeding toward a trial in order to keep a site suppressed indefinitely.
“Can the government be trusted to get this stuff right?” Asks Andrew Bridges, a lawyer with Fenwick & West who represented dajaz1.com throughout the proceeding. “I think the obvious answer is no. There’s a reason why we have trials.”
Leahy’s bill would also empower corporations to demand that payment processors, advertisers and search engines stop doing business with sites the companies believe to be dedicated to infringement. A Hollywood studio could claim a website is “dedicated to infringement,” and tell Google to stop registering the website in its search results. If Google protested, the company could haul Google into court.
This new set of corporate liabilities — known as a “private right of action” — prompted resistance from Wall Street. Both JPMorgan Chase, which operates a major global payment processing business, and the Financial Services Roundtable, a lobbying group representing the nation’s biggest banks, began pressing Congress to reject the bill, arguing that it was unfair to hold banks accountable for the sins of others. Banks and payment processors didn’t want to have Hollywood telling them who to do business with.
In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton blasted China’s Internet censorship as an “information curtain.”
But the way Protect IP tries to cut off foreign pirates’ access to resources within the U.S. mimics many of the Chinese government’s methods. Even former Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), now chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, invoked China’s methods when challenging Google’s claim that it couldn’t block access to specific websites on its search engine.
“When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn’t do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites,” he told Variety.
The government’s ability to shut down sites would involve federal tampering with the domestic Domain Name System — a basic Internet building block that links numerical addresses where Internet data is stored to alphabetical URL addresses that people actually type into web browsers. The Chinese government censors the Internet for its citizens by engaging in DNS blocking, restricting access to certain domains.
Tech experts warn that giving the U.S. government such powers could hinder the functionality of many web applications, severing the connection between domain URLs and numerical data addresses that many programs rely on. It would also hamper efforts to introduce a new security system known as DNSSEC, which national security programmers have been developing for years.
“The Act would allow the government to break the Internet addressing system,” wrote 108 law professors in a July letter to Congress. “The Internet’s Domain Name System (“DNS”) is a foundational building block upon which the Internet has been built and on which its continued functioning critically depends. The Act will have potentially catastrophic consequences for the stability and security of the DNS.”
Leahy’s bill has whipped Internet advocacy groups into a frenzy. Dozens of nonprofits, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and The Center for Democracy and Technology, issued strong statements condemning the bill. Fifty venture capitalists sent a letter to the Hill warning lawmakers that Leahy’s bill could cripple tech startups with absurd legal fees prompted by Hollywood.
“Either they don’t understand the basic fundamentals of the Internet,” says Fred Wilson, referring to the broad congressional support for the bill, “or they’re just doing this to get the MPAA and the [Recording Industry Association of America] off their backs.” Wilson is managing partner with Union Square Ventures, the New York-based venture capital firm that seeded Twitter, among others.
By the fall, things would get much worse for tech companies. Amid intense lobbying pressure, the House would expand Leahy’s bill, giving the U.S. Attorney General the power to shut down domestic websites without any intent to proceed to trial. Once that news became konwn, a slew of U.S. web companies, including Twitter, eBay and HuffPost parent company AOL, significantly ramped up lobbying efforts against the legislation.
But during the spring and early summer, the response from tech companies to Leahy’s bill, though negative, was relatively muted. Most tech giants simply did not believe that such an extreme bill would ever really pass, according to lobbyists who worked against the legislation and staffers for Senators who oppose it. Leahy had introduced a previous Hollywood anti-piracy bill, known as COICA, in September 2010; that attempt had floundered for six months before he rewrote it as Protect IP. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) responded to pressure from online activists by quickly putting a hold on Protect IP, preventing it from coming up for a vote indefinitely. Tech-friendly lawmaker Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) was tasked with drawing up the House version, which Silicon Valley was assured would be far narrower in scope than Leahy’s effort.
But over the summer, Hollywood ginned up support anywhere it could.
“Hollywood is really putting the screws to just about everybody they do business with. Netflix, the Writers Guild — they’re all coming to me and saying, ‘Can’t you say something good about this?’ ” says Public Knowledge’s Sohn.
Several unions associated with the entertainment industry endorsed the bill, including the Teamsters, a decidedly non-celebrity trucking union that works with Hollywood loading and transporting films and supplies. And since courts would ultimately have to decide what constitutes a site “dedicated to infringement,” Leahy’s bill would create a whole new realm of legal disputes, offering trial lawyers their own slice of the Internet.
The result was a perfect agglomeration of traditional Democratic Party constituencies, enabling Leahy to quickly round up 21 Democrats as co-sponsors — including some of the most progressive and Internet-friendly members of either chamber. Top members of the Democratic leadership, including Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), signed on alongside progressive stalwarts, like Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), to the chagrin of Internet freedom groups who had once counted all of them as allies.
All 22 Democratic co-sponsors of Protect IP previously voted to protect net neutrality, a policy that prevents corporate telecommunications giants from dictating the accessibility and functionality of individual websites.
NBC Universal is one of multiple television behemoths lobbying in support of the bill, as is News Corp., the parent company for both Fox Pictures and Fox News. In the past six months, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC and CNBC have remained silent on Protect IP and SOPA, the house equivalent, according to a HuffPost review of cable TV records. Both Fox and NBC declined to comment for this article. News Corp. Chief Rupert Murdoch has personally lobbied Congress on Protect IP, meeting with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) among others.
AOL Inc., HuffPost’s parent company, is lobbying against the bill; CEO Tim Armstrong has personally met with President Obama.
* * * * *
While Washington has demonstrated little enthusiasm for taking substantive action on the jobs crisis, lawmakers always try to portray to whatever else they’re working on as jobs-oriented. Obama heavily touted a Bush-negotiated free trade pact with Korea as a job-creator, though the government’s own numbers on Korea imply a “negligible” impact on American jobs.
Even in inter-corporate fights, jobs remain the focus of every legislative pitch a lobbyist makes, and piracy provides a natural hook: stopping foreign websites from pirating U.S. goods would create American jobs!
The Motion Picture Association of America — a lobbying group for the dominant Hollywood studios — is pushing that line harder than anyone else in the fight. But amid epic unemployment, few voters are interested in prioritizing the complaints of silver-screen celebrities over the American middle class. So former Sen. Dodd, now the chairman of the MPAA, has embarked on an ambitious lobbying and PR campaign emphasizing the many less glamorous jobs involved in the film industry. During the last Congress Dodd moved more large and complex legislation through Congress than any Senator in modern memory, taking a lead role in the Wall Street overhaul and credit card reform, among other bills. If anybody can lead SOPA through this Congress, it’s Dodd.
“Behind Hollywood’s red-carpet image lays a blue-collar reality. Most of those 2.2 million jobs are held by middle income families and small-business owners, men and women whose names will never appear on a theater marquee, but whose efforts are critical,” Dodd said in a Nov. 16 speech before the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the organization responsible for the “Hollywood Walk of Fame” honoring film and music celebrities.
Dodd’s 2.2 million jobs figure, however, exaggerates Hollywood’s contribution to the American economy. According to supplemental data provided to HuffPost by MPAA, only 272,000 people work for movie studios and television companies. The lobby group claims that an additional 430,000 people work in related “distribution” jobs dependent on Hollywood, legal web streamers like Netflix, the few remaining video store clerks and cashiers checking out DVD purchases.
Readers: Click here to continue.
Thoughts? Concerns? Rants? Blog me. Did you sign and make your phone calls yet? Thank you.
******
R: I like what you had to say as well. I too believe that women are the key to peace…through the sexual liberation of women, the collaboration of women, the equal status of women etc…
Hanan: That is wonderful news about Gulnaz. No surprise the rapist went free. Thanks for reporting.
Zen Lill: I knew you’d get a laugh and have something to say – by the way – Nicely said. Especially the line: “…well my egoistic darling males, make way : ) bc there are some women of ‘tone’ coming your way ; )” Love it.
Kelly: I just briefed the Huff Po and came across an article that was quite shocking to me. U.S. Stats: 1 in 4 women are attacked by an intimate partner.
Doug: Thank you. And thanks for posting the links.
Leon: That is screwed up. I am assuming it is the reason that when some report the unemployment rate they sometimes say that it is skewed and is actually higher. Now I know why – thanks.
Hahaha!!. I just had to stop for a minute and laugh at the sexy side conversation happening amongst all of this serious stuff. Thanks to those that gave me a moment to lighten up.
Another Real Friend: Thanks for chiming in. My thoughts exactly with respect to the loose-lipped men with no common sense – of course common sense would take some thought and care about what comes out of their mouths would be a start – but I’m not counting on the simple idea of thinking before you open your mouth. I know it’s tough for some men. But women are smarter, so yes, I ask myself that same question. This is where women should be sticking together.
Robert,RT: I hear you loud and clear.
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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December 15th, 2011 at 9:48 am
As Michelle said Robert,Rt I hear you loud and clear too. I agree with you 100% Robert. If he signs this bill he no longer has my support. I won’t work against him, but I won’t campaign for him.
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Specifically, the bill would require that the military take custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaeda or its affiliates and who is involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. There is an exemption for U.S. citizens.
House and Senate negotiators added language that says nothing in the bill will affect “existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the FBI or any other domestic law enforcement agency” with regard to a captured suspect “regardless of whether such … person is held in military custody.”
The bill also says the president can waive the provision based on national security.
==========================
The fact that they gave the President the authority to take away our 4th Amendment Rights as opposed to the Secretary of state is shit. How many of those other 43 white boys would have locked up MLK, and the rest of the protestors as terrorists.
The military would still be holding them without them having access to lawyers or anybody else.
Fuck This! I can’t understand the gutlessness of white america. To catch a few arab terrorist they are willing to surrender their $th amendment protections.
There is nothing more hypocritical or gutless than the creatures. If it weren’t for the fact that this country has OTWs, it would have turned into a piece of shit like Britain and the rest of the white world.
The point is who will the president be and what color when the question is put to him/her to decide whether to waive the 14th amendent protections for the American people?
The white boy need only worry if it is an outside terrorist issue. ALL OTWs need be concerned about any issue the white boy deems uncomfortable to him.
Imagine a bush with that power. The Occupiers of wallstreet would be deemed terrorists and just disappear behind military walls. Or the walls of some of those privately managed prisons that keep popping up everywhere.
This is the 1% dream! As was said earlier, republicans love government when it is used to take away the rights of the people.
And as Anonz(bless his heart) said the bought and paid for part of SCROTUS, STARK is poised to sign the bill into law.
Hell an all whiteboy SCROTUS okayed the unlawful imprisonment of the American Japanese. I guess what goes around comes around for the white boy.
But we OTWs had not say in that disgusting behavior by America’s disgusting white citizens. We should not be suffering for it.
Damn Obama get some balls. You are a constitution lawyer. You know what this could mean to the rest of us.
Veto the shit or forget about my support.
December 15th, 2011 at 9:49 am
The ads I have seen on tv promoting SOPA are quite deceiving and it worries me that the “uninformed” will fall for them.
I spoke to a sibling last night about this and he is all for it (he is also a teabagger) so I explained as best I could the implications and sent him tons of links.
He said he would read them. Education and facts are the answer, but I still worry.
December 15th, 2011 at 10:10 am
HI Mischa, you know – the state of hypnosis is a natural state…we do it all the time, drive home and don’t recall bc we were lost elsewhere and thats exactly what’s going on with SOPA, people are under the spell – time to wakey wakey – so I signed, hope everyone else does, too.
Anonz’s info is always dead on, balls accurate ; ) (my cousin Vinney movie reference for ya there…) need I say more?
Misch, hahaha…thanks for your comment above, yes, I guess I say that bc I too am a woman of ‘tone’ and you know what, the more the males I know hear it the better they understand it. You can only educate one at a time, though when I get a group at a party, I love running the rant. I know half of them are busy wondering if the same style of passion extends elsewhere hahaha (and yes) though I’m sure they also walk away with an earful from the convo and things to think about (political/gender equity issues/or a new sex fantasy : )
Luv, Zen Lill
December 15th, 2011 at 10:22 am
WITH DEMENTIA, A LITTLE HUMOR GOES A LONG WAY
The sad truth is that dementia patients don’t just lose their mental acuity — many also lose control of their behavior.
As many as 70% to 80% experience agitation, symptoms of which include irritability, pacing, rummaging, yelling, cursing, hitting, biting and kicking.
These symptoms are often treated with antipsychotic medications, but such drugs have terrible side effects, including sudden death in dementia patients.
And while the drugs may indeed quell symptoms of agitation, they don’t seem to make patients feel any happier — and, after all, shouldn’t that also be a goal?
The good news is that a new Australian study presented in August 2011 at the National Dementia Research Forum in Sydney, Australia, has shown that humor therapy –
which I’m happy to say is exactly what it sounds like, as we’ll see below — can reduce symptoms of agitation in patients with mild-to-severe dementia and do it with no side effects. And the best part of all — it seemed to make them happier.
A STUDY THAT MAKES YOU SMILE
Humor therapy has long been practiced with children in hospitals. To see whether it could also help dementia patients, staff at The Humour Foundation in Australia trained health-care workers in humor therapy and then sent them to three dozen nursing homes in and around the city of Sydney to treat several hundred residents.
All the residents had dementia, some had agitation and some were taking antipsychotic meds. The workers performed humor therapy for two hours a week for 12 weeks, usually one-on-one with a patient.
To learn more about what the health-care staffers did and how effective the therapy was, I contacted one of the lead investigators, Peter Spitzer, MD, medical director and cofounder of the Humour Foundation.
Mainstream humor — like the kind that dementia patients see on TV sitcoms and talk shows — doesn’t really connect with them, said Dr. Spitzer, so health-care workers had to “find the key that would open the door to the patients’ humor.”
During each session, the workers would wear red clown noses and attempt to engage patients by using mime, music, massage, touch, stories and magic tricks.
In many cases, they would ask a simple question like, “Which way is the bathroom?”… and then, after the patient gave the correct answer, the worker would play the fool and purposefully walk in the wrong direction.
This might elicit a laugh — but there was another positive effect, too. For patients who have already lost so much independence, this type of humorous play can give them a brief but uplifting sense of personal power and control, said Dr. Spitzer.
The study didn’t just make patients smile — its results made the researchers smile. Immediately after 12 weeks of humor therapy — and even six months after treatment ended –
frequency of overall patient agitation as measured by standard psychological surveys was down by 20%, on average, compared with measurements taken at the beginning of the study.
Since the patient population included some people who were already being treated for agitation with antipsychotic meds, the results are promising — especially because they seem to last, which is remarkable.
“These findings suggest that humor therapy may be as effective as antipsychotic drugs in reducing agitation –
while providing more happiness and no dangerous side effects,” said Dr. Spitzer.
Controlled studies that compare antipsychotic medications to humor therapy need to be done in the future.
MAKE A PATIENT LAUGH
Right now, one of the few organizations in the US providing humor therapy for seniors in nursing homes is Big Apple Circus’s Vaudeville Caravan in Chicago and Montrose, New York.
Dr. Spitzer suspects that as more “psychosocial” research is done with dementia patients, more resources will become available.
Dr. Spitzer added that humor therapy could be effective in a residential setting, too.
So if you’re caring for a dementia patient at home who has agitation, Dr. Spitzer said to try goofy humor to play and ease symptoms –
even if you don’t have formal training — so you can bring a smile to your loved one’s face.
Source(s):
Peter Spitzer, MB BS, Churchill Fellow, a physician in private practice, and medical director and cofounder of the Humour Foundation, Australia.
December 15th, 2011 at 10:34 am
The value of the internet is in its anarchic structure. That power has allowed it to help entire nations throw off dictatorships.
It has exposed wrongdoing at high levels of government and created a healthy unease among those who had previously thought their power insulated them from public scrutiny.
Weighed against that are the claims from the entertainment industry in regard to the impact of piracy of intellectual property.
Yet, as has accurately been pointed out, a dollar saved on movies in the US would most likely be a dollar spent on something else in the US, so the net effect would be largely on the distribution of that money.
The choice ought to be a simple one.
December 15th, 2011 at 10:42 am
It’s supposed to be a shocking surprise that ObamaCare is murdering private insurance plans, but in truth, its many legislative midwives always knew that would happen. They’re just surprised by the scale.
Consider the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program, or ERRP. This was a program designed to subsidize 80% of the cost for insuring early retirees, whose benefits had been declining for many years, and were among the first items to be placed on corporate chopping blocks after ObamaCare was passed.
The program was given $5 billion in funding, to tide it over until the full magic of the “public exchanges” kicked in, circa 2014.
It’s going bankrupt on December 31st of this year. Be sure to have your favorite national debt clock pulled up on your computer when those public exchanges go online, for even more spectacular evidence that the designers of ObamaCare were wrong about everything.
ERRP is dying two years ahead of schedule because big businesses, state governments, and public employee unions dove into this $5 billion bailout fund and drained it dry.
The top 25 recipients of ERRP money accounted for over half of the total funding. First in line was the United Auto Workers, who already received the gift of General Motors at gigantic taxpayer expense.
All of this will come as a surprise only to the people who still support the President’s doomed and fraudulent heath care “reforms.” I
t’s hard to look at such an astonishing degree of failure without wondering if you behold a program that was intended to fail. Do we really want to find out what happens when the rest of ObamaCare is “overwhelmed?”
—John Hayward
December 15th, 2011 at 10:44 am
This is the second jewel in the neo-con trifecta. The first was the Defense Authorization Act that passed the House earlier.
These two bills are connected at the hip. This one thwarts the Internet to hell & back and will make it a rich man’s game.
No entrepreneurs allowed (almost like now between the big players). The other allows the military to indefinitely detain and imprison anyone they deem to be an “enemy combatant”.
Very vague language but this DOES apply to U.S. Citizens and everyone else on Earth. They can disappear you and you have no right to an attorney or trial.
Indefinitely, as in forever. God help us on what the third part of this is. Could be the crash we’ve all been waiting for.
December 15th, 2011 at 10:57 am
Here is another case of a white boy giving deference to another white boy when he is being covertly racist.
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After blogger John Aravosis wrote that Romney’s slogan “Keep America American” was one that happened to be used by the KKK in the 1920s, anchor Thomas Roberts picked up the story in a short item, calling the phrase “a central theme” and “rallying cry” for the notorious group.
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The gist was that Romney knew he was appealing to the racist white vote when he used the phrase. He also knew that if he was discovered doing it that he would get a pass from the other whites because it was not something said against whites.
And he got a pass from that poster card white boy at MSNBC Chris Matthews when he issued an apology from MSNBC.
If one reads the entire statement by Romney there is no doubt he was appealing to the racist element of the white vote.
But he is white so he gets a pass. Not so Reverend White. No, if an OTW says the slightest thing that could impugn the white race no forgiveness will be forthcoming.
You have to be driven from the media so that you cannot spread those dreadful lies about the creatures.
Thank you Michelle for allowing an open forum. Let’s hope SOPA fails or you will be one of the first to go.
Robert, Rt
December 15th, 2011 at 11:02 am
Romney used the phrase on purpose because he needs to appeal to the fruitcake fringe on the Right.
We all know that the Right hides their absolute bigotry behind religious pretense and as the saying goes you can put lipstick on a pig but… you know it is still a pig.
What this is an example of is the pathetic Left Wing wimpiness.
When has the Right apologized for comparing Obama to Hitler?
Has anyone on the Right apologized for pretending like that idiot Dinesh D’Souza and Newt the nut that Obama is some kind of closet Kenyan Mau Mau who wasn’t born in America.
The correct response would have been to tell them stop the closet calls to bigotry and then we won’t have to call you out.
December 15th, 2011 at 11:11 am
Maria, I got your note about my having the hots for Michelle. But I figure it was a crude response because I accused you of wanting to be or to fuck Robert, Rt.
Your ending your post as him was the gauntlet tossed. I accept. Michelle I am guilty of lusting after a woman for her brains if this comment means that.
We were talking about your blog and I said i wonder what it must be like to lie between the legs of a woman with such power?
Glenda, said “do you mean Clinton?” I said “hell no, I’m talking about that fine Hellion to the enemies of the people Michelle, Hello, the blog we are discussing.”
Maria piped in with, “That would be for Doug to know and for you to shut up about.”
Since then she has been a thorn in my side about it.
Hey, I say you are a big girl and if you felt the need? Not asking just saying. Still it must be some power trip to fuck you!!!!!!
Now do you think that statement of a personal opinion is a come on or can it be said by a person who genuinely believes it without any sexual overtones intended?
Carlos
December 15th, 2011 at 11:15 am
Just a bit of a history leson here. The KKK in the 20′s was not what it is today (or when it started).
There were some anti-black elements in it , but it was mostly anti-immigrant/anti-catholic and pro American.
It was a political party that had about 15% of the vote. There was even a KKK Gov in Ohio or Indiana.
Keep America American was not a major slogan of the KKK. To blast Mit and his handlers for using a it is splitting hairs.
I am sure they had no idea. Senator Byrd was a Klansman. Truman almost joined.
Do the Democrats stand behind what their past leaders have said. If so you have to remember it was the Democrats who instituted Jim Crow laws.
Kennedy said “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” Sure does not seem like a Democrat saying today, does it?
Quit splitting hairs and discuss the issues.
December 15th, 2011 at 11:55 am
What a lying sack of shit you are anon#11. If no white boy will call you on it, I will.
The Ku Klux Klan was formed to suppress, terrorize and victimize newly freed slaves.
It was white boys on horse back who when out to terrorize, rape and kill newly freed slaves. And it has continued racial oppression from one generation to the next.
Your, not so subtle, brag about the KKK having members of every level of the white social hierarchy in its ranks is well noted.
It is what has allowed the KKK to operate above the law. And it is why having a non white president is so important at this moment in America’s history.
You and your ilk miss the ability to carry out your violent racial fantasies which in most cases allowed you to rape black women at will and murder their men with the same impunity.
So what we hear from you concerning the history of the klan is the same lie, similar to the one about the Civil war and that racist flag, only from a different Sack-of-Shit liar.
Alycedale
December 15th, 2011 at 12:15 pm
romney is playing to the openly bigoted BASE of the GOP.
newt did it with his “inner city kids should be janitors so they dont become pimps and drug dealers”
rush did it with his “uppity first lady”
beck does it with every word out of his mouth every day.
bachmann did it with ” id deport 12 million illegals” “gays are barbarians”
cain did it with “id never hire a muslim or have one as a doctor” not that the house nigger would have ever gotten the support of the BASE. But then I think he took a hint from Palin and was playing the suckers for all he could get.
tancredo did it with “we must end this age of multiculturalism” said at tea party convention in Nashville(one of the racist fucking cities in America) back in the movments prime also while wearing out Obamas middle name like it was a slur.
Sill white america refuses to call one of our own on his or her racism. We prefer to accuse the offended OTW or group of “playing-the-race-card.”
ingram, coulter, savage, hannity, valentine all can be quoted with equally appalling comments.
romneys slogan is not comparable but a mirror image of the 1920s. I recognized it as such. So did many others but the game of hypocrisy and deference to members of our race must be played.
Gabrielle
December 15th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
The slogan is legitimately troublesome in WHATEVER political context it is used.
Nothing “appalling” about asking the questions. STOP APOLOGIZING!!
December 15th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
No apology was due. “Keep America American” drips with anti-people-of-color venom.
Of course, that is exactly what underlies the Tea Party and all the other white right-wingers. This is not all that different from KKK — call it KKK-Lite.
That’s why a recent survey showed that only about 35% of white people are Democrats.
Our changing demographics will install a non-white majority in the U.S., probably by mid-century;
the Tea Party and its ilk represent nothing more than a last-gasp attempt to hold on to white power in our country.
It is slipping away and they can’t stop it, only maybe slow it up a little.
Welcome to the 21st Century folks.
December 15th, 2011 at 12:30 pm
I am a democrat and just sick of using the race card, it is so sixties and lame!!!
Why not have Rev. Al do a special on Rev. Wright. Obama listened to a racist and anti-American for twenty years,
it is so sad Obama never heard a word Reverend Wright said. When will whites stop being guilt ticketed by racist blacks?
December 15th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
What is the problem with pointing out a factoid? If the KKK used it and Romney used the same slogan, knowingly or unknowingly, should the media just ignore that point?
Should it be kept a secret only to know? MSNBC is going to the dogs. An apology about pointing out a fact should never happen in the news.
December 15th, 2011 at 12:32 pm
I wonder how Native Americans feel about that phrase.
December 15th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
The period from 1890 to 1930 was the darkest period in American history for black Americans.
Violence, full blown riots and general mayhem was the order of the day as black people suffered what they had to at the hands of the KKK and other white citizens.
The unrelenting violence was part of establishing segregation as the law of the land. 1919 was particularly violent, called “the bloody summer” as klan groups instituted a wave of riots, beatings and lynchings to reinforce the tenets of segregation, especially on returning black veterans from WWI.
The KKK did not consider blacks as Americans. Neither were Jews or Catholics considered Americans in their twisted logic.
Only white, Protestant Christians qualified as American in their eyes.
If “America for Americans” was a slogan of the KKK in the 1920s, it has the same stench and is as hateful as the “work will make you free” slogan the Nazi’s hung over their concentration camps.
Perhaps that slogan, “work will make you free” is one Newt can use in his campaign to turn poor children into janitors, if it’s now okay to adapt old racist slogans.
December 15th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
feel pretty certain that the order to apologize came down from Comcast.
MSNBC’s original report merely reported the facts, facts that Comcast’s owners don’t want circulating too widely.
December 15th, 2011 at 1:36 pm
I keep getting this.
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@blog.michellemoquin.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Additionally, a 500 Internal Server Error error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
December 15th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Debbie, Don’t contact that webmaster. It is a phising site.
December 15th, 2011 at 5:23 pm
All that webmaste and server stuff that seems so deep and important is just mumbo jumbo to get you to believe the BS.
They jammed the comment section to get you to go to their site and give them personal information about you.
Ignore it and continue work the comment and enter buttons to get your message to sen. They cannot hold off every attempt.
December 15th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
An Open Letter To Newt Gingrich From A Black Kid Who Grew Up In A Poor Neighborhood:
http://travonfree.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/an-open-letter-to-newt-gingrich-from-a-black-kid-who-grew-up-in-a-poor-neighborhood/
well said, Travon.
December 15th, 2011 at 5:37 pm
Nearly 4,500 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives in a war that began with a “Shock and Awe” campaign of missiles pounding Baghdad, but later descended into a bloody sectarian struggle between long-oppressed majority Shi’ites and their former Sunni masters.
Saddam is dead, an uneasy politics is at work and the violence has ebbed. But Iraq still struggles with the insurgency, a fragile power-sharing government and an oil-reliant economy plagued by power shortages and corruption.
This is the legacy left by the war criminal bush. Will he ever be tried, I doubt it. But he will never be able to travel abroad as he had before.
He caused the deaths of millions of human beings. The dislocation of tens of millions and the total annihilation of more than a million christian Iraqis living in Iraq.
He enriched his cronies to the tune of tens of billions. He bankrupted the American economy and the economies of many other countries to steal $trillions.
The warcrimes tribunal has a bounty on his head. I hope they get the bastard in my life time.
Tony
December 15th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
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December 16th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Michelle, thank you so much for alerting everyone to SOPA. I signed. I hope all your reads will.
/SB
December 16th, 2011 at 9:46 am
“Illinois is the only state where the present governor rides around in a car whose license plate was made by a previous governor.” –David Letterman
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