Open Thread – MLK & Inaugural Day
It’s a double celebration today, as we honor America’s greatest civil rights leader, and observe the swearing in of President Barack Obama for a second term. If you’d like to enjoy some great views of the gathering crowd in Washington DC, you can check out the webcam atop the Smithsonian, and another of the Washington Monument. Here is the schedule of events from NPR: Though he and the vice president have already taken their oaths of office, President Obama is due this noon to stand outside the Capitol for his ceremonial swearing in and then to deliver his second inaugural address….
The NRA Board – It’s WAR!
Wayne LaPierre, the Executive Vice President and CEO of the National Rifle Association has been front and center in the public discussion about gun rights, and gun control. His extremist rhetoric has drawn criticism, and he’s become an iconic symbol of what progressives believe to be a tone-deaf and radical agenda in which “the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” LaPierre may be the one most often in front of the cameras, but the board of the National Rifle Association actually has 76 directors who call the shots,…
Feingold Praises Murkowski
You see the tips of my fingers creep over the edge of the desk. Slowly you begin to see the top of my head, and soon you can see my eyes, and my nose resting on the surface – kind of like Kilroy in the days of yore, only looking from side to side, and a little freaked out. Something strange is going on. Very, very strange. Earlier this week, we gave kudos to one Lisa Murkowski, Alaska’s Republican Senator. We’re not used to doing that, but let it not be said that we do not give credit where credit…
Gun Bill Condones Arrest of Federal Agents
Mike Chenault, the mouth-breathing bully who also happens to be the Republican Speaker of the House in Juneau, has an awesome idea. As the country enters into a conversation about gun control, Chenault puts forward House Bill 69: House Speaker Mike Chenault says federal law enforcement officers should be arrested in Alaska if they attempt to enforce any future federal law banning personal possession of assault rifles or large ammunition clips or if they attempt to register any Alaska firearm. Yes. Really. “Tragedy is not a license for federal encroachment of constitutionally protected freedoms,” said Chenault. But don’t think this…
Murkowski Thumbs Nose at Leadership
MEEP! MEEP! MEEP! We interrupt Alaska to bring you this special Sanity Report. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski does not – we repeat – does NOT think that the debt ceiling should be used as leverage for spending cuts. Her sanity runs counter to Republican leadership in the Senate who have no problem creating an economic hostage situation and jeopardizing the US economy if they don’t get their way. Murkowski says that some of her Republican colleagues won’t say it “out loud,” but they agree with her. This means that both of Alaska’s Senators believe that we should, in fact, pay our…
EXCLUSIVE: FBI Militia Informant Tells All
Bill Fulton, undercover FBI informant in the “Alaska Militia Trial,” gave a lengthy interview to The Mudflats about his role in the case, and his controversial life in Anchorage before it was revealed. In this article, he shares his candid opinion about local Anchorage media, national progressive media, Joe Miller, and what they got wrong. Yours truly didn’t even escape entirely unscathed. Bill Fulton came to Alaska, the biggest small town in the world, and became instantly “known.” He owned a shop in Anchorage that was utterly unforgettable. A military supply store, which doubled as offices for a security company,…
Bailing Out the War Profiteers
It’s hard to believe how many years we’ve been at war. I protested the invasion of Iraq for many reasons, one of them being “we can’t afford it.” Friends of mine in the Alaska National Guard were deployed over and over. Clearly we spent more than borrowed money on the wars; we spent lives, and their time with families and friends. But they’d signed up, and they didn’t complain about their jobs. When they complained, it was about the contractors. “How does the lady contracted to hand out towels at the base gym make three times what I am, and…
The Gun Cathedral
In light of recent events and the national debate now raging, I thought it timely to share with you a jarring, brilliant and utterly original work of art I encountered at San Francisco’s de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park a couple of years ago. The Spine and Tooth of Santo Guerro, by Al Farrow (b. 1943), is a cathedral constructed entirely of guns and bullets. The work is a striking commentary on the historical relationship between religious intolerance and warfare, in particular the Crusades and their violent conquest of the Holy Land. Farrow believes the world’s major religions to…
Crowdsourcing Success
Banking is based on the principle that the more you have, the more you can get. But we reversed the basic principle of banking, saying that if you have absolutely nothing, you are our most prominent client. – Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank. In the 1970’s, a newly independent nation was in the grips of economic and institutional crisis. An economist returned to his native country and became an Economics Professor in Bangladesh. He witnessed rampant poverty and desperation, and noted cruel private lending conditions. Two-thirds of the world’s population is deprived of services available from financial institutions, and bankers told…
AIG: Why Tea Partiers Should Love Elizabeth Warren (UPDATE)
**UPDATE: The board of AIG decided Wednesday not to join a shareholder lawsuit against taxpayers which challenges the terms of the bailout that saved the insurer from bankruptcy in 2008, CNN reports. The board did not detail the reasons for the decision, saying it will make that clear in court filings in the coming weeks. But when reports surfaced Tuesday that it was even considering joining the suit, it sparked widespread outrage against the company. You paid your hard earned money into the coffers of a recklessly mismanaged company called AIG in 2008. You saved them from bankruptcy, from corporate…