Whole Foods and Religious Persecution bad recipe.

Here’s a message I got from my friends at Change.org:

Everything changed for Glenn Mack Jr. when his supervisor at Whole Foods found out he’s Muslim.

Glenn had been a rising star at Whole Foods, recruited to work in a prestigious Philadelphia store and even winning a special meeting with the company’s CEO. But when his supervisor found out Glenn would be spending his vacation making pilgrimage to Mecca — for which vacation time was approved months in advance without any questions — his boss suddenly had a change of heart.

“You can choose. It’s either your job or your religion,” Glenn was told. He was subsequently demoted, harassed and wrongfully terminated in November.

Glenn’s not bitter, though — he honestly just wants his job back. So Moein Khawaja, who is working with Glenn to get Whole Foods to do right by him, started a petition on Change.org calling on Whole Foods to reinstate Glenn and create sensitivity training for all staff. Will you sign Moein’s petition calling on Whole Foods to reinstate Glenn Mack, who was harassed and fired for being Muslim, and end religious discrimination in the company?

It’s time for House Speaker Boehner to get Control of a run-away base.

President Obama sets the record straight about the real issues surrounding the payroll tax cut extension and rightfully calls on House Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans to stop playing politics with our pocketbooks.

What’s clear is House Speaker Boehner has no control whatsoever of his own party. He’s following them instead of leading. Boehner and House Republican leadership need to get serious and reign in an out of control Republican base.

In June, Sen. John McCain, while speaking primarily about the U.S.’s commitment overseas, repeatedly warned his party’s presidential candidates about becoming a party of isolation. In November, McCain expressed his disappointment over GOP presidential candidates’ stance on water boarding: “Very disappointed by statements at SC GOP debate supporting waterboarding,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) tweeted. “Waterboarding is torture.” Most recently in response to the House Republican debacle over extending payroll tax cuts, McCain said:

It is harming the Republican Party. It is harming the view, if it’s possible anymore, of the American people about Congress. And we’ve got to get this thing resolved and with the realization that the payroll tax cut must remain in effect. [....]

Republicans need to stop playing with the economy and start listening to Sen. McCain. The Republican Party earned the title the Party of No last year. This year, they are fast earning the title, the Party Of Isolation and Despair. What happened this past weekend over the tax payroll extension is sinister. I can’t wait to get to the polls in 2012!

Jackie Mason’s slam on Pres O over Hanukkah: Bad joke, wrong punchline.

Comedian Jackie Mason’s slam on President Obama for honoring Hanukkah at the White House has no basis in fact or history. It’s just an emotional, public outburst by a public figure who, quite frankly, hasn’t seen much public interest of late. Looking for factual proof of my claim? Go to Mason’s website (the only one I could find) and instead of finding content, a bio, some event dates, a tour or a show, you get this response:

Site Suspended – This site has stepped out for a bit.

Mason’s comedy material is all about Jews and Gentiles. That’s why he’s considered the King of Jewish Comedy.  Getting serious on this issue should have caused him to be a little more thoughtful. Had Mason done a little studying before blurting out his rant, he would have found that honoring Hanukkah by U.S. presidents began long before President Obama took office.

• 1979: President Jimmy Carter was the first president to officially recognize Hanukkah. Carter “walked from the White House to Lafayette Park to deliver brief remarks as he lit the new “National Menorah” erected by the Jewish group, Chabad-Lubavitch.”
• 1983: President Ronald Reagan visited the Rockville, Maryland Jewish Community Center and offered remarks after the Hanukkah menorah was lit.

Voter Suppression in the Blue State of Connecticut. Really.

This story needs no lead in other than the fact that it is happening in a state that elected a Democratic governor for the first time in over 20 years, along with all of its Congressional and state officers. This story appears in the New Haven Register, Dec. 19, 2011.

‘Voter suppression’ charged at redistricting meeting Monday | Published: Monday, December 19, 2011; Last Updated: Monday, December 19, 2011 5:04 PM EST | By Jordan Fenster, New Haven Register

HARTFORD — After having gathered almost 2,000 signatures for a petition intended to convince lawmakers that Bridgeport should remain in the 4th Congressional district, a group activists presented those signatures to members of the reapportionment commission Monday, calling the proposal “an attempt at voter suppression.”

Republican members of the reapportionment commission, charged with redrawing Congressional district lines, had presented a proposal that would have done just that — moved Bridgeport into the 3rd district with New Haven and, among other changes, moved Danbury from the 5th district to the 4th.

Mitt Romney’s version of free enterprise: job creation or annihilation?

MSNBC’s Morning Joe first had Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) on the show this monring. The man gives arrogance a new meaning. Hence, I will not waste time and ink on him. Following his endorser, Mitt Romney takes a seat at the table with Mika, Joe and the rest of the crew and talks about his campaign.

Romney’s comments confirms why we cannot afford to have him running this country. First, he talks at length about how he’s the only Republican candidate who can oust President Obama. The American people are suffering because Republicans are stuck on getting rid of the president instead of working to solve problems. That’s not what we want.

Then the question of Bain Capital comes up and Romney is questioned about the jobs that were lost under his tutelage of head of that company. Romney’s answer is nothing more than pure political rhetoric that starts and ends with delusion. He focuses on free enterprise saying not all companies are successful. Sounds like a truism but it’s not.

Boehner held hostage by the Tea Party. Payroll tax cut extension falls apart.

House Speaker John Boehner just held a press conference on the debacle over the payroll tax cuts. The deal struck by Republicans and Democrats in both houses has clearly fallen apart due to the Tea Party. My advice to speaker Boehner and other Republicans, careful what you wish for. You brought the Tea Party to the table and not you’re stuck with them.

This is why Republicans can’t be trusted. Suddenly, once there is a joint agreement across both sides of the aisle, the Tea Party kills the agreement. Ironically, this is a bill that the Tea Party should be for in a big way. Instead, they’re forcing Republicans to take a stand that will be a dark stain on the Party and none in the Party, including the speaker, can control them.

No doubt, whatever new bill comes out of the house will be filled with more items that shouldn’t be in it. The Keystone pipeline project should not be tied to a payroll tax extension that is critical for so many. That’s not governing, that’s hostage taking.

There’s an old saying that while the lion is the king of beasts, it is the parasite in his bowels that will kill him. If Republicans don’t stand up to the Tea Party base, they will lose in 2012 — as they should.

It’s not Romney’s success, it’s how he got there that makes him untrustworthy.

Mitt Romney, Bain Capital Partners celebrate raising 1st fund

When someone at Americans United for Change found this photo and posted it on the Internet, Mitt Romney was quick to say that Democrats would use it against him. Most likely, Romney sees the wisdom in the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.” In this photo, it was worth $37 million.

The photo shows a young Mitt Romney surrounded by six of his fellow partners at Bain Capital celebrating their achievement of raising $37 million for their first fund in the 1980s.

Romney’s counter to any negative portrayal of this photo is to claim that Democrats and the President Obama as those who don’t like people who are successful. Here’s where arrogance slips a veil of conceit and illusion over the eyes of Romney and those who support him.

Stop SOPA and PIPA: Internet Blacklist Legislation

Stop Online Privacy Act (House) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) sound like the right thing to do. What’s behind these two bills, in my opinion, is greed and a push back on the voice of the people. If either of these bills get passed, the voice of the people would be dealt a serious blow. Media firms are all for it. We all know how much Rupert Murdoch dislikes blogs; he has said so publicly.

Joining the growing chorus of opposition that includes civil liberties unions, journalists and others are a group of prominent engineers who built the Internet. Yesterday, they submitted a compelling letter to Congress in opposition to these bills. Read their letter and then contact your Congressperson and tell them to vote no:

We, the undersigned, have played various parts in building a network called the Internet. We wrote and debugged the software; we defined the standards and protocols that talk over that network. Many of us invented parts of it. We’re just a little proud of the social and economic benefits that our project, the Internet, has brought with it.

Last year, many of us wrote to you and your colleagues to warn about the proposed “COICA” copyright and censorship legislation. Today, we are writing again to reiterate our concerns about the SOPA and PIPA derivatives of last year’s bill, that are under consideration in the House and Senate. In many respects, these proposals are worse than the one we were alarmed to read last year.

If enacted, either of these bills will create an environment of tremendous fear and uncertainty for technological innovation, and seriously harm the credibility of the United States in its role as a steward of key Internet infrastructure. Regardless of recent amendments to SOPA, both bills will risk fragmenting the Internet’s global domain name system (DNS) and have other capricious technical consequences. In exchange for this, such legislation would engender censorship that will simultaneously be circumvented by deliberate infringers while hampering innocent parties’ right and ability to communicate and express themselves online.

All censorship schemes impact speech beyond the category they were intended to restrict, but these bills are particularly egregious in that regard because they cause entire domains to vanish from the Web, not just infringing pages or files. Worse, an incredible range of useful, law-abiding sites can be blacklisted under these proposals. In fact, it seems that this has already begun to happen under the nascent DHS/ICE seizures program.

Affordable Care Act works. 2.5 million young adults get health insurance.

One of the greatest drains on our health care system is having to give emergency treatment to the uninsured at extremely high costs. The Affordable Care Act’s provision of insuring young adults 19-26 (under certain limits) is a welcome relief to parents and their young adults, and to the rest of us.

The number of young Americans ages 19-25 lacking health insurance has shrunk by 2.5 million since President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul took effect, the administration announced in an analysis released Wednesday. … Under the health care overhaul, adult children can stay on a parent’s plan until they turn 26, a provision that has proven popular in an otherwise divisive law. … Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the numbers show the law is making a big difference for families with adult children. [....]

Young adults, while less costly to give health care to, represent the largest number of the uninsured. This kind of progress is solid proof that the health care law is working. Still, Republicans want to chip away at the law, striking down mandated coverage. That’s because they’re still stuck on winning an election and not winning for the American people.

Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act of 2011

Remember what Rick Perry said at a local university in New Hampshire about voting? On November 29, “At Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire, Perry told the crowd, “Those who are going to be over 21 on November 12th, I ask for your support.” [....] We called it another Perry gaffe. But was it really a gaffe or a signal to a far right-wing element that would stop at nothing to suppress the vote that Perry is on board with their agenda?

Telling students they’re not old enough yet or giving out the wrong date are the real voter fraud problems we face in this country and not voter identification. U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) have introduced a bill that would outlaw such practices:

CARDIN, SCHUMER INTRODUCE BILL TO PROHIBIT VOTER INTIMIDATION AND VOTER SUPPRESSION [....]

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Washington, DC – Less than three weeks before the first voters cast ballots for the 2012 elections, U.S. Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) have introduced their bill to create tough new criminal and civil penalties for those who create and distribute false and deceptive voting information and campaign literature. Respecting provisions of the First Amendment, the 1 is narrowly tailored to apply to only a small category of false communications that occur during the last 90 days before an election, such as literature listing the wrong date or time for the election, giving inaccurate information about voter eligibility, or promoting false endorsements of candidates.

Democrats almost got it; then they fumbled the ball.

What makes me sick to my stomach is this notion that brokering a deal means giving away the store. We know what the problem is and yet Democrats in step away from the one item that they should stand steadfast for; everyone pays their fair share. AP reports this morning that:

Democrats are abandoning their demand for a surtax on millionaires to help finance payroll tax cuts in a sign that lawmakers are trying to broker a compromise on Congress’ highest-profile year-end dispute.

Even so, there is no clear path to quick bipartisan agreement on the legislation, which would prevent an automatic Social Security tax increase on 160 million workers and the expiration of jobless benefits for people out of work the longest. Both would occur Jan. 1 without congressional action.

Lawmakers are also embroiled in a squabble over a huge, separate spending bill, a dispute that would force a shutdown of most of the government on Saturday unless it is resolved. Neither party wants to risk the wrath of voters by shuttering government doors. [....]

This, in light of the President’s statement over the past few weeks that he will do the right thing by the American people. This isn’t a deal. This is just another ploy by Republicans to make Democrats look bad and continue their efforts to try and keep the economy from getting better. Meanwhile, the President’s efforts on righting a wrecked economy are working. Why? Because the rest of us understand what Republicans are up to and we’re had enough. This is like watching an excellent set up on the football field. Everything is lined up for a game-winning goal and the star team fumbles the ball.

MyTake: Republicans on Foreign Policy and a nonworking President

Let me start with my summation: Since the only mission that Republicans have is to “make sure President Obama is a one term president,” they have no valid, meaningful, substantive, policy on foreign affairs. Further, since focusing on saying no to anything the President proposes, they have nothing to do. To wit:

Republicans Go After…Obama’s Ambassador to Belgium? ”GOP presidential candidates are demanding President Obama fire his ambassador to Belgium (Howard Gutman) over remarks suggesting that Muslim anti-Semitism is related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Romney campaign … sent out a statement demanding … Obama fire Gutman “for rationalizing and downplaying anti-Semitism and linking it to Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.” MyTake: Who best to understand the Middle East conflict as it relates to anti-Semitism but a Jew who’s a son of a holocaust survivor?

Mitt Romney hits President Obama over Hawaiian vacation for the holidays ”Mitt Romney, who is running in part on the slogan “Obama isn’t working,”on Monday hit the president — hard — over a planned Christmas vacation in Hawaii, saying the president intended on “going off for golf in the sun.”