jimrigby.org

Jim Hightower shares some of the actual complaints from the rich having to cut back after the Wall Street scandals.

“A hedge-fund manager, for example, says it’ll now be a strain for him to keep his $7,500 annual membership dues in the Trump National Golf Club. Plus, he worries about food, health care, and boarding. Not for him, but for his two dogs – he’s been laying out $17,000 a year for upkeep of his labradoodle and bichon frise, including around $5,000 to hire a daily dog-walker for them.”

To read, click here.

Public education is a cornerstone of democracy.  There is a permanent caste system if children are born into ignorance at the same time they are born into poverty. What follows is an invitation to an event this weekend to stand in solidarity with children and the people who teach them.

Anyone who thinks feminists lack a sense of humor needs to read this story. Since Governor Perry seems to think he knows more about what a woman should do with her uterus than she, some women are writing to him for advice. It’s pretty wonderful stuff. To read, click here.

The conversation about “Kony 2012” on the continent has been fascinating. After years of colonial exploitation and more modern exploitation disguised as help, the African people are used to living between a rock and a hard place. What follows is a essay seeking to balance the pros and cons of Western efforts to “help” Africa using “Kony 2012” as the example.
To read article, click here.

The US has a long and dishonest relationship with Iran. Our covert wars against democracy in Iran, while unknown to most Americans, are common knowledge in the Middle East. American citizens have a duty to admit that our leaders have told too many lies for us to put a blindfold on and follow them to any new wars. Reports surfacing about the IAEA’s relationship might bear the same scrutiny. Is that agency really independent or are they, like NATO and The UN Security Council, an extension of Western colonial power? Iran needs to be held to account for its inflammatory remarks, but the US and Israel have zero credibility to chastise Iran for wanting to have the same weapons we are pointing at them.

To read story, click here.

It is a strange fact of our species that we know more about Mars than we do about the deepest parts of our own oceans. One creative inventor is hoping to speed up exploration of deepest parts of the ocean with a submersible “rocket”.
To read, click here.

Al Jazeera has a way of finding and sharing the faces and voices of the invisible ones. If you have a moment today, it behoves us to stop and grieve these innocent victims of the American Empire. In such brutal times we may feel helpless, but whatever hope there is for humanity depends on us keeping our hearts open.

colorofchange.org reports:

Three weeks ago, 17-year old Trayvon Martin was gunned down by self-appointed neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman. Despite Zimmerman admitting to following, confronting, and killing Trayvon, he has yet to be arrested or charged with any crime.1

Just minutes before Trayvon was killed, Zimmerman had called police stating that Trayvon looked “suspicious.” Trayvon was unarmed and walking back to his father’s home in Sanford, Florida when Zimmerman accosted him.

At the crime scene, Sanford police botched their questioning of Zimmerman, refused to take the full statements of witnesses, and pressured neighbors to side with the shooter’s claim of self-defense.2 As it turns out, Sanford’s police department has a history of failing to hold perpetrators accountable for violent acts against Black victims, and the police misconduct in Trayvon’s case exemplifies the department’s systemic mishandling of such investigations.3 And now, the State Attorney’s office has rubber-stamped the Sanford police’s non-investigation, claiming that there is not enough evidence to support even a manslaughter conviction.4

Trayvon’s family and hundreds of thousands of people around the country are demanding justice.5 Please join us in calling on the Department of Justice to take over the case, arrest Trayvon’s killer, and launch an independent investigation into the Sanford police department’s unwillingness to protect Trayvon’s civil rights. It takes just a moment:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/Trayvon

Walking home from the store shouldn’t cost you your life, but when Black youth are routinely assumed to be violent criminals, being randomly killed is a constant danger.6 Before Zimmerman decided to get out of his parked car — gun in tow — to pursue Trayvon on foot that night, he called the police to identify Trayvon as a “suspicious person” — apparently because he was wearing a hoodie and walking too slowly in the rain for Zimmerman’s liking. Despite being instructed not to follow Trayvon, Zimmerman proceeded to confront and fatally shoot the boy in the chest within a matter of minutes.7

The case has been compromised from the beginning. When Sanford police arrived on the scene, Zimmerman was first approached by a narcotics detective — not a homicide investigator — who “peppered him with questions” rather than allowing him to tell his story without prompting. Another officer “corrected” a witness giving a statement that she’d heard Trayvon cry for help before he was shot, telling her she had heard Zimmerman instead.8 And beyond the questions of professional competence or even the police’s disregard for the facts, Florida’s notorious “Shoot First” law takes a shooter’s self-defense claim at face value — incentivizing law enforcement not to make arrests in shooting deaths that would lead to murder charges in other states.9

Sanford has a history of not prosecuting when the victim is Black. In 2010, the white son of a Sanford police lieutenant was let go by police after assaulting a homeless Black man outside a downtown bar. And, in 2005, a Black teenager was killed by two white security guards, one the son of a Sanford Police officer. The pair was arrested and charged, but a judge later cited lack of evidence and dismissed both cases.10

Please join us in calling on the Department of Justice to arrest Trayvon’s killer and launch an investigation into the Sanford police department’s mishandling of the case and when you do, ask your friends and family to do the same:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/Trayvon

Thanks and Peace,

— Rashad, Gabriel, Dani, Matt, Natasha, Kim and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
March 19th, 2012

Help support our work. ColorOfChange.org is powered by YOU—your energy and dollars. We take no money from lobbyists or large corporations that don’t share our values, and our tiny staff ensures your contributions go a long way. You can contribute here:

http://www.colorofchange.org/donate

References

1. “Witnesses in Trayvon Martin death heard cries before shot,” Miami Herald, 03-15-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1228?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=7

2. “Orlando Watch Shooting Probe Reveals Questionable Police Conduct,” ABC News, 03-13-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1219?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=9

3. “Trayvon Martin Case Salts Old Wounds And Racial Tension,” Huffington Post, 03-14-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1220?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=11

4. “Police: No Grounds For Arrest in Trayvon Martin’s Death,” WESH-2 Orlando, 03-16-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1227?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=13

5. “Trayvon Martin Family Seeks FBI Investigation of Killing by Neighborhood Watchman,” ABC News, 03-18-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1221?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=15

6. “Ramarley Graham: NYPD Slays Unarmed Black Teen as Outrage over Targeting of People of Color Grows,” Democracy Now!, 02-08-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1222?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=17

7. “Trayvon Martin would be alive if Neighborhood Watch rules followed,” Orlando Sentinel, 03-14-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1223?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=19

8. See reference 2.

9. “Teen’s death suggests review of ‘Stand Your Ground Law’ needed,” Tallahassee Democrat, 03-16-12
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1224?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=21

10. “Five years since Florida enacted ‘stand-your-ground’ law, justifiable homicides are up, Tampa Bay Times, 10-17-10
http://act.colorofchange.org/go/1225?akid=2382.616014.JOCJi3&t=23

And as Germany commits to a nuclear free future, back here in the nation of Homer Simpson…To read, click here.

This investiment will cost Germany dearly, but is the kind of sacrifice we all must make if we want to pass along the same planet we were born into. There is no terrorist on earth as deadly as a bunch of polluting factories.

To read article, click here