Good morning,

Since we’re on the subject of health…

From the Huff Po:

Mutant Superbug Has Been Discovered In The U.S.

The infection resists the treatment of last resort, meaning “the medicine cabinet is empty for some patients,” the CDC director said.

Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) bacteria is pictured in this medical illustration provided by the Centre of Disease Control and Prevention.

The woman hadn’t traveled outside the U.S. in the previous five months, according to the report. Doctors treated the infection using another antibiotic, but said they were alarmed by the discovery of the mcr-1 gene inside the U.S.

“The fear is that this could spread to other bacteria and create the bacterium that would be resistant to everything,” Dr. Beth Bell, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, told ABC News.

“The more we look at drug resistance, the more concerned we are,” Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC director, said Thursday. “The medicine cabinet is empty for some patients. It is the end of the road for antibiotics unless we act urgently.”

At least 2 million people become infected in the U.S. each year with antibiotic-resistant bacteria, according to the CDC. Those infections result in at least 23,000 deaths annually.

The Pennsylvania woman’s case, while not deadly, is the first U.S. discovery in a human of bacteria resistant to colistin, a drug held in reserve to treat serious infections that resist another major class of antibiotics called carbapenems. Bacteria that could resist colistin and carbapenems would be unstoppable,according to The New York Times.

In a study last year, the CDC warned that drug-resistant infections would continue to rise. And while the medical community has been anticipating the strain’s arrival, the troubling part is that “this case seems completely home-grown,” according to Dr. Nasia Safdar, an associate professor of infectious diseases at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.

Multi-drug-resistant bacteria are found elsewhere in the world, frequently in agriculture. This particular colistin-resistant strain, for instance, was first discovered in people and livestock in China in November 2015. Since then, it has turned up in Europe and Canada. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said Thursday it had detected the bacteria in a single sample of a domestic pig’s intestine.

When it comes to spreading resistant bacteria, “food-producing animals are of particular concern,” the CDC says. “Antibiotics must be used judiciously in humans and animals because both uses contribute to the emergence, persistence, and spread of resistant bacteria.”

The CDC, Defense Department and Pennsylvania Department of Health are working to identify close contacts of the Pennsylvania woman to determine if others have also been exposed to the bacteria. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf(D) said his administration was taking the discovery “very seriously” and promised to “take necessary actions to prevent mcr-1 from becoming a widespread problem with potentially serious consequences.”

*****

Thoughts?

Blog me.

✌🏽 & ❤

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 :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Good morning!

Readers: We’re heading into a holiday here in America. Which means you’ll possibly be doing things to your body in excess. If you have a sweet tooth you might just reconsider what the sweets are doing to your health as you party into the 3-day weekend and beyond.

Here’s the write:

Sweetened to Death: Exposing Sugar for What It Is

What you don’t know IS hurting you… and I don’t just mean weight problems. I mean chronic disease. I mean a whole generation dying younger than their parents for the first time in modern history.⁽¹⁾ If you were ever looking for a single smoking gun for obesity and health problems, this is it. And you’re about to learn how to dodge the bullet and come out on top.

Poison.

Addictive substance.

Alcohol without the buzz.

Worse than cocaine.

The reason we can’t stop eating.

The culprit behind the chronic disease epidemic of our times.

These are just a few of the things it’s been called.

And that’s not by extremists or fanatics… but by some of the most influential and respected medical experts on the planet.^2,3,4

But you know it as sugar.

And right now, we’re all eating it in unprecedented amounts, often without even knowing it.^5,6

And it’s doing far worse things in our bodies than just making us fat… though it’s definitely doing that, too.

Sugar is killing people. And I’ll prove it in this article.

I’ll show you how it managed to dominate your diet and how unnatural it actually is.

I’ll show you how it behaves in your body like both cocaine and alcohol. (It does this in your children’s bodies, too.)

I’ll also show you how to overcome the need for it. It’s very doable… and very necessary.

And no, this doesn’t mean you can’t have anything sweet. Trust me on this. I’ll explain everything.

Really quickly, though… Before I get down and dirty on sugar, let me address something a few people have asked me about the articles I’ve been writing lately:

April 1973.

Senator George McGovern was presiding over the Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. This was the Committee’s first meeting on diet and disease.⁷

However, just a couple of years prior, he’d retired to write a controversial book titled Pure White and Deadly: The Problem of Sugar.⁹ In it, he proposed that sugar — not fat — caused obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.¹⁰ This flew right in the face of the popular low-fat diet advice of the time.^11,12

After Yudkin explained his sugar theory to the Committee, Senator McGovern, in utter disbelief, asked:

Yudkin responded in his usual polite, precise manner:

Yudkin went on to insist that cutting dietary fat was not the answer to the growing public health concerns. But McGovern, unable to accept this, responded:

And after the hearing, things went straight downhill for Yudkin. He was shut out of international nutrition conferences, and several prominent scientists who supported the the low-fat theory publicly blasted him.¹⁴

One of these scientists was Ancel Keys, the most famous nutritionist in America. He published a scathing critique of Yudkin, calling his research “propaganda.”¹⁵

Scientists everywhere then began to distance themselves from Yudkin and his theories. Almost overnight, he went from being England’s premier nutritionist to being a complete outsider.¹⁶

After all, he’d contradicted the establishment. Right or wrong, he had to pay the price. And no one else wanted to end up like him.

Sheldon Reiser, another prominent nutritionist of the day, later recalled:

By the time Yudkin died in 1995, his book was out of print, and he had faded largely into obscurity.¹⁸

Meanwhile, the low-fat diet advice of Keys and his colleagues became mainstream and was treated as gospel, giving rise to dangerous U.S. Government health recommendations.¹⁹

The food industry responded with sugary low-fat and fat-free foods. The American public responded with growing waistlines and declining health.^{20,21,22,23,24}

In fact, it wasn’t until 36 years later that everyone finally started to realize that Yudkin had been right all along. And it was largely thanks to a prominent endocrinologist named Robert Lustig.^25,26,27

And this brings us to…

May 2009.

Professor Robert Lustig was just over a half an hour into a lecture on sugar at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). A charming public speaker, he’d gotten a few laughs from the crowd over the past 30 minutes. But now, the lecture hall was dead silent.²⁸

UCSF was one of the top-ranked medical schools in the world.²⁹ And Lustig, its star pediatric endocrinologist, had just steamrolled over the past 30 years of undisputed nutrition guidelines. He was going against the grain with a vengeance.³⁰

-Dr. Robert Lustig on Keys’ Seven Countries Study

You see, most nutrition advice had been based on Ancel Keys’ legendary Seven Countries Study — the one that landed him on the cover of Time Magazine.³¹ And Lustig had just spent the past several minutes pointing out flaw after flaw in that study’s science.

And this was only a third of the way in. The lecture was almost 90 minutes long. Lustig was just getting warmed up.

He spent the next hour using a mountain of research to thoroughly make the case for sugar being most damaging toxin of our time.

Two months later, UCSF posted a video of the lecture on YouTube, and it promptly went viral. To date, it has more than 6.4 million views.³²

Lustig had clearly struck a nerve. People were tired of being fat and sick. The nutrition advice they’d gotten their whole lives hadn’t been working at all.

In the aftermath, several New York Times bestsellers emerged highlighting the dangers of sugar.^33,34,35 Articles on the topic appeared in multiple newspapers and journals.^36,37,38,39 News programs like 60 Minutes did stories on it.⁴⁰

book — Pure White and Deadly — was re-released to a more welcoming public.⁴¹ After all, Lustig had made several references to it in the lecture.⁴²

The tides had finally shifted. Sugar — in all its forms, including high-fructose corn syrup — was now being called out for the poison it was.

And on that note, it’s about time we got into the nitty-gritty of sugar’s toxicity.

Natural?

Lately, I’ve heard many people say, “Cane sugar is natural. How can it be poisonous?”

Red kidney beans are natural, too. Yet, as the FDA’s own Bad Bug Book points out, eating just five of them raw can land you in the hospital.⁴³

Natural doesn’t mean healthy. Most toxins are natural. Cyanide is perfectly natural.

And I should also point out that sugar manufacturing starts with this:

…and ends with this:

What’s natural about a man-made process that turns dirty sticks into sweet, paper-white, granulated crystals?

The truth is that it’s an extensive operation that involves multiple rounds of high-temperature treatment, evaporation, filtering, and spinning.⁴⁴ Not to mention, industrial chemicals like sulfur dioxide are bubbled through the sugar to bleach it.⁴⁵

Long story short: You won’t find this stuff anywhere in nature.

And yet you’re likely eating it at every meal.

However, as bad as this all sounds, simply being unnatural isn’t what makes sugar so harmful. You’re about to find out what is, though. Read on.

The devil’s in the details.

I’ll get right to it. There’s one thing above all else that makes sugar poisonous. And that thing is fructose.

You see, sugar, otherwise known as sucrose, is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. Fructose is the sweetest part of sugar. It’s the thing that makes your favorite candy irresistible.⁴⁶

And it’s not just in sucrose. Fructose is highly present in high-fructose corn syrup (55%), agave syrup/nectar (84%), honey (50%), and any other syrup/added sugar you can think of.^47,48,49

And why is fructose so bad?

Well, unlike glucose, which is mostly broken down by insulin, fructose is 100% processed by the liver. This is very similar to how alcohol behaves in the body.^50,51 In the process, the following things happen:

• Fat deposits in your liver increase, which ultimately leads to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.⁵² (Hint: It’s essentially the same effect as alcoholic liver disease.⁵³)

• Insulin resistance increases, which makes your pancreas start producing way too much insulin. This shortchanges your brain’s ability to read signals that you’re full, causing you to overeat.^54,55 It also leads to Type II Diabetes.⁵⁶

• The insulin resistance elevates insulin-like growth factor (IGF), which can dramatically increase your risk for multiple types of cancer.⁵⁷

• The fats in your blood rise out of proportion, skyrocketing VLDL — the worst cholesterol in human nutrition. This condition is known as dyslipidemia, and it’s a MAJOR marker for heart disease.^58,59,60

• Uric acid, a byproduct of fructose metabolism, rises in your blood. This cranks up your blood pressure (hypertension). It also increases your risk for developing gout.⁶¹

And here’s something that will really shock you…

30% of the fructose you consume becomes fat in your body.^62,63

Yep, you read that right. 30%. And that’s compared to around 2% of glucose (think potatoes and rice) turning into fat.^64,65

So, take a look at that sugar cube next time you want to drop it into your coffee. You can actually see the portion of it that will become fat inside you.

And there’s another feature of fructose that makes all of this much, much worse…

Sweet Cocaine?

Perhaps the most insidious part about sugar is how hard it is to stop eating it. Sugar is, in fact, genuinely addictive.^66,67

And much of this addictiveness has to do with reward signals in your brain — specifically, the sweet reward, which is supplied directly by fructose.^68,69

The effect is so powerful that scientists in France, the U.S., and Canada have observed cocaine-addicted rats demonstrating a clear preference for the sweet reward over the cocaine they were addicted to.^70,71,72

And it doesn’t stop there. Fructose actually reprograms your body to overdose on sweet food.

You see, fructose messes up two things your brain uses to regulate your eating:⁷³

1. It blinds your brain to leptin, the hormone that makes you feel full.
2. It fails to stop ghrelin, the hormone that makes you feel hungry.

This brutal 1-2 punch turns you into an unstoppable eating machine. Combine this with the drug-level addictiveness of the sweet reward, and you have a serious problem on your hands.

To experience this effect in the real world, eat your fill of raw vegetables. When you feel like you can’t eat anymore, grab a piece of your favorite chocolate or candy and put it in your mouth. Chances are, you’ll reach for seconds.

In fact, if you’re anything like me, your eyes probably dilated at the thought of tasting that candy just now. Perhaps you even considered going and getting some.

Now you know why you can’t stop eating.

And now you know that what you can’t stop eating is a toxin.

And it gets even worse…

It’s everywhere you turn.

The absolute worst part about sugar (and the fructose it carries) is that food manufacturers put it in so much of what you eat. Here’s a few of the less obvious things that have added sugar in one form or another:

Sneaky Sugar Foods:

Beef jerky hides a surprising amount of sugar.

Bread
Beef Jerky
Yogurt
Pasta Sauces
Barbecue Sauces
Pretty Much ANY Sauces
Salad Dressings
Canned Soup
Peanut Butter
Coleslaw
Ketchup
Dried Fruits
Canned Fruits
Smoothies
Instant Oatmeal
Granola
Anything labeled “lowfat” or “fat free”
Anything processed

And then, there’s the matter of what we drink, which is one of the main ways we’re getting way too much fructose.

Sodas, for example, are loaded with fructose. And fruit juice has even more fructose than sodas.⁷⁴ Both drinks are bad news. And do you like to sweeten your coffee? How about your tea? Do you like flavored waters?

Thanks to the food industry’s penchant for feeding us sugar, fructose is coming at us from all angles.

You see, for most of our existence, we consumed 16-20 grams of fructose per day. Most of that came from whole fresh fruits. However, we’re now consuming 85-100 grams per day.⁷⁵

And most of that has happened in the last 30-40 years.⁷⁶ Is it any wonder we’re having so many health problems?

(Click here to share this with others on Facebook while you keep reading!)

So, what do I do?

You’ve stayed with me through the bad news, so here’s the good news:

While the problem is complicated, the solution is not.

Lustig made key suggestions I agree with in his presentation, and I’ve added some of my own. Here’s the combined list:⁷⁷

1) Cut out sugary drinks. This includes fruit juice.

This will remove a HUGE amount of fructose from your diet. If you do nothing else, do this. And avoid sugar in your coffee and tea. If you must sweeten it, use stevia. Drink water (regular, unflavored) more than anything else.

2) When you eat carbs, eat them with fiber.

3) When you’ve eaten, wait 20 minutes before going back for seconds.

4) For every minute you spend watching videos/movies/shows, exercise for one minute.

• Decreases stress and cortisol release, helping to keep you from stress-eating and storing fat.
• Speeds up metabolism. Basically, you burn off the sugar before it can turn into fat.
• Reduces insulin resistance, and all the problems that come with it.

5) Drink MORE water. PLAIN water.

And there you have it. The truth about sugar, and how to deal with it.

I urge you to start acting on these steps today. But don’t worry… You don’t have to do the whole list on the first day.

Many people incorporate these 7 steps one at a time. Take your time, and pay attention to how you feel. And don’t forget to congratulate yourself on your progress!

And as always, I hope you’ve found this enlightening. Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below. And if you’ve found this information helpful…

Don’t forget to share it with your friends and family!

So…what do you think of sugar now?

Blog me.

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 :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

Hey, Everyone,

From Newswire.com

UN Say United States Must Pay Compensation For Slavery

A UN panel of experts has issued a vividly horrific account of the plight black people have suffered in the United States, urging American authorities to establish a body that would be responsible for making reparations to the descendants of Africans who were brought to the US and sold into slavery. 

Vice News reports:

Speaking at a press conference in Washington, DC, three members of the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said that Congress should pass the Commission to Study Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act, a bill that Michigan Representative John Conyers last introduced in 2015.

Mireille Fanon Mendes-France, the working group chair and a French human rights expert, told VICE News that the US hadn’t properly addressed the legacy of enslavement or adequately provided necessary redress for those who are descended from Africans forcibly resettled in bondage.

“It’s been absolutely insufficient,” she remarked. “They are excluded, they are invisible. There is structural racism and structural discrimination, and they face that because of the pigmentation of their skin.”

Mendes-France, the daughter of the Martinique-born writer and leading black intellectual Franz Fanon, clarified that she is not in favor individual payments, as the idea of reparations is often presented in America. She applauded efforts in the Caribbean to sue the British government for centuries of slavery, and recommended that reparations in the US be funneled through the financing and “full implementation of special programs based on education, socioeconomic, and environmental rights.”

Mendes-France and fellow working group members Sabelo Gumedze of South Africa and Ricardo A. Sunga III of the Philippines spoke in the US capitol after an 11-day tour of the country, with additional stops in Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and Jackson, Mississippi. The panel, staffed with different experts, last visited the US in 2010.

Though the group will not release a full report of its findings until a Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva in September, each member read from a lengthy preliminary statement that touched on mass incarceration, police brutality, lack of housing, and the US government’s failure to ratify a number of international human rights treaties.

“Despite substantial changes since the end of the enforcement of Jim Crow and the fight for civil rights, ideology ensuring the domination of one group over another continues to negatively impact the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of African-Americans today,” said the group’s preliminary report. “The persistent gap in almost all the human development indicators, such as life expectancy, income and wealth, level of education and even food security… reflects the level of structural discrimination that creates de facto barriers for people of African descent to fully exercise their human rights.”

The three experts roundly criticized what they called a lack of gun control and the passage of stand-your-ground laws in several states, saying that they demonstrated how “the state is also not acting with due diligence to protect the rights of African-American communities.”

Citing the killings by police of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray, Laquan McDonald, Oscar Grant, and Marlon Brown — among others — the panel added that they were “concerned about the alarming levels of police brutality and excessive use of lethal force by law enforcement officials committed with impunity.”

The working group said it was unacceptable that there remained no “national system to track killings committed by law enforcement officials.”

Among its recommendations, the working group said that Washington should allow the independent monitoring of jails and prisons in the US and consider inviting the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as well as a separate working group focused on arbitrary detention, to evaluate conditions at detention facilities.

The preliminary report recognized several initiatives undertaken nationally since 2010, including a recent executive order aimed at reducing the number of federal prisoners that are kept in solitary confinement. It also highlighted the work of a congressional task force determining that punitive mandatory sentences for drug crimes led to prison overcrowding. The group also noted that the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration’s healthcare overhaul, had allowed 2.3 million black people to obtain health insurance.

But the panel added that “despite the positive measures… the Working Group is extremely concerned about the human rights situation of African-Americans.” Despite pushback against mandatory minimum sentencing, the group said that the war on drugs has led “to mass incarceration that is compared to enslavement, due to exploitation and dehumanization of African-Americans.”

The preliminary report highlighted pollution and other environmental concerns — including the ongoing scandal over lead contamination in Flint, Michigan’s water supply — which the experts said disproportionately affect minority communities across the country.

As it did in 2010, the panel also heavily censured US states that prevent individuals from voting based on their criminal histories, and those that have in recent years implemented stringent voter-ID laws. According to the Sentencing Project, 5.85 million Americans cannot cast ballots due to felony convictions, including one out of every 13 blacks.

“Especially considering that people of African descent are being targeted for racial profiling and disproportionate sentencing, in our view the right to vote is so important that it must be guaranteed to everyone,” Sunga said.

Sunga added that he was particularly concerned about policing in schools, where “children are being charged with misdemeanors… leading to the school-to-prison pipeline, this vicious cycle.”

“That actually creates the conditions, recreates the current situation, and we’d certainly like to have that matter addressed,” he said.

Several activists who had spoken with the working group this year or during past visits were present in Washington on Friday. Michael Scott, the CEO of Equity Matters, a nonprofit in Baltimore that promotes access to healthcare, said that the experts had this year inquired about the gap between existing policies aimed at curbing discrimination and their enforcement.

“There are many laws on the books, like affirmative fair housing, that do not get enforced,” he said.

The working group noted that because the US has failed to ratify so many international human rights treaties — among them those concerning the rights of women and children and a protocol of the Convention Against Torture that allows for international inspection — “African-Americans do not have the possibility to bring their cases or individual complaints to regional and international bodies when they have exhausted all domestic remedies at the state and federal level, as they are not party to the protocols which would allow them to bring complaints.”

“Furthermore, international human rights treaties cannot be invoked in national courts as there is no enabling legislation,” the group added.

Also in attendance was Baltimore attorney and activist Stephanie Franklin.

“People see us as very different,” she said of black people in the US. “They see us as not facing the same issues. But we are. It’s poverty, healthcare issues, cultural issues, housing issues, environmental justice issues, reproductive justice issues — clearly, criminal justice issues. It runs the gamut.”

“Now the question is what is the US government going to do with the recommendations,” she added, “and how we as activists of civil society are going to hold the US accountable for all the human rights violations that are happening to black people in this country.”

 *****

Readers: Of course there is no national system to track how many thugs with guns have killed OTWs. Now, why would they want to track that? Because the numbers would be staggering and a pattern would be visible. It should be unacceptable and something needs to be done about it.

Hooray for Obamacare. It has given so much to so many people. And more still needs to happen.

Mass incarceration = Modern day enslavement.

Lots more to say here. Your turn. Blog me.

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 :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"

 Good morning!

After all Trump says and does, did you ever imagine he would be in the position of running for president? Whoever thinks Trump has the country’s best interest at heart is either stupid or thinks they’re going to make it to the 1% to do what he’d like to do. Or both, with the latter proving the former. 

Here’s the write from NY Mag:

Donald Trump in 2006: ‘I Sort of Hope’ the Housing Market Crashes’

At least once a week for the past 11 months, Donald Trump has offered the public a new, lurid reason why he should never be president. The litany has become (perilously) familiar: He stigmatizes vulnerable minorities, advocates for war crimes, demeans the disabled, displays contempt for women as often as he blinks, encourages political violence, brags about the size of his penis on national television, contemplates nuking Europe, etc., etc.

But all of the rhetorical sewage that’s forever spewing from Trump’s gaffe hole has obscured a more mundane — but no less important — disqualification for the Oval Office: Trump has no intention of divesting himself from his corporate empire upon inauguration, despite the myriad conflicts of interest his businesses will inevitably produce.

On Thursday night, CNN unearthed a ten-year-old Trump quote that highlights the danger of electing a real-estate-mogul-in-chief:

Two years before the housing market collapsed in 2008 and millions of Americans lost their homes, Donald Trump said he was hoping for a crash.

“I sort of hope that happens because then people like me would go in and buy,” Trump said in a 2006 audiobook from Trump University, answering a question about “gloomy predictions that the real estate market is heading for a spectacular crash.”

“If there is a bubble burst, as they call it, you know you can make a lot of money,” Trump went on to explain in an audio textbook from his con of a business school. “If you’re in a good cash position — which I’m in a good cash position today — then people like me would go in and buy like crazy.”

In 2o12, Mitt Romney placed his complex private-equity investments into a blind trust, to assure the public that their president would not be influenced by private financial incentives. Trump, by contrast, plans to cede control of his diverse holdings to his immediate family members, and the Donald has never been one to delegate — this is a billionaire who does his own publicity.

If President Trump decides he can’t trust the kids to watch the shop, there’s little anyone could do to stop him from effectively running his company and country at the same time. American law bars regular Executive-branch employees from participating “personally and substantially” in any government matter that could affect their own financial interests. But, incredibly, the president is exempted from that rule. According to CNBC, Trump would be within his legal rights to remain his company’s chief executive, even while serving as America’s commander-in-chief. At that point, the only thing that could restrain Trump from putting his financial interests ahead of the public good would be his own sense of shame.

In 2006, the Donald “sort of” hoped for a housing-market crash. What will President Trump sort of hope for in 2017?

 *****

Great question. I plan on never having to think about it or even care. Trump will not make it to the white house.

Readers: Thoughts? Blog me.

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 :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

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Good Morning!

Wow…I haven’t said this in awhile…

From the Huff Po:

This Congressman’s Story Perfectly Illustrates GOP Obstructionism Toward Obama

Two weeks after Tom Perriello took office, he was being hit with attack ads.

Tom Perriello embraced Obama’s agenda, even in a conservative-leaning Virginia district. But while he did fairly well, he lost his seat in the 2010 tea party wave.

Even with President Barack Obama’s triumph on election night in 2008, Tom Perriello needed a recount to squeak out a victory in his House race. He ended up winning by roughly 700 votes in a district the size of New Jersey — a margin that infuriated Republicans and shocked political observers.

A progressive wasn’t supposed to be elected in Virginia’s 5th. And Perriello’s victory was quickly celebrated as template for other Democrats residing in rural places stung by factory closings. Conviction politics had worked south of the Mason-Dixon line.

But just as Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised to make Obama a one-term president, GOP activists applied a similar strategy to Perriello. Within two weeks of taking office, he faced his first attack ad.

“I’m pretty sure it was about the stimulus and this idea that we were gonna steal your money and spend it all on lavish palaces for Nancy Pelosi,” Perriello recalled in this week’s episode of The Huffington Post’s Candidate Confessional podcast.

*****

Nice to see so many of you here with me. Blog me.

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 :)

If you love my blog and my writes, please make a donation via PayPal, credit card, or e-check, please click the “Donate” button below. (Please only donations from those readers within the United States. – International readers please see my “Donate” page)

Or if you would like to send a check via snail mail, please make checks payable to “Michelle Moquin”, and send to:

Michelle Moquin PO Box 29235 San Francisco, Ca. 94129

Thank you for your loyal support!

All content on this site are property of Michelle Moquin © copyright 2008-2016

“Though she be but little, she be fierce.” – William Shakespeare Midsummer Night’s Dream 

" Politics, god, Life, News, Music, Family, Personal, Travel, Random, Photography, Religion, Aliens, Art, Entertainment, Food, Books, Thoughts, Media, Culture, Love, Sex, Poetry, Prose, Friends, Technology, Humor, Health, Writing, Events, Movies, Sports, Video, Christianity, Atheist, Blogging, History, Work, Education, Business, Fashion, Barack Obama, People, Internet, Relationships, Faith, Photos, Videos, Hillary Clinton, School, Reviews, God, TV, Philosophy, Fun, Science, Environment, Design, The Page, Rants, Pictures, Church, Blog, Nature, Marketing, Television, Democrats, Parenting, Miscellaneous, Current Events, Film, Spirituality, Obama, Musings, Home, Human Rights, Society, Comedy, Me, Random Thoughts, Research, Government, Election 2008, Baseball, Opinion, Recipes, Children, Iraq, Funny, Women, Economics, America, Misc, Commentary, John McCain, Reflections, All, Celebrities, Inspiration, Lifestyle, Theology, Linux, Kids, Games, World, India, Literature, China, Ramblings, Fitness, Money, Review, War, Articles, Economy, Journal, Quotes, NBA, Crime, Anime, Islam, 2008, Stories, Prayer, Diary, Jesus, Buddha, Muslim, Israel, Europe, Links, Marriage, Fiction, American Idol, Software, Leadership, Pop culture, Rants, Video Games, Republicans, Updates, Political, Football, Healing, Blogs, Shopping, USA, Class, Matrix, Course, Work, Web 2.0, My Life, Psychology, Gay, Happiness, Advertising, Field Hockey, Hip-hop, sex, fucking, ass, Soccer, sox"