What
we tend to veer away from is facing that such destructive,
life-distorting policies are deliberate.  That isn't conspiracy
theory.  Basic party theory on the right is to minimize government by
"starving the beast."  You don't need to vote a program away, just
remove the funding and let it dry up and blow away, or savage itself. 
This is the ugly underbelly of Puritanism - if God materially rewards
the good, then the poor are not unfortunate but are the deserving poor
- that is, deserving to be poor.

Marshall Ganz is a field organizer (UFW, now teaching at U of Chi) who's offered advice to the Obama campaign: www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ganz15-2008jun...

www.alternet.org/mediaculture/88462 What liberal media?

www.alternet.org/water/88355 Water policy

www.alternet.org/election/87999 McCain's econ advisor Gramm authored financial deregulation

www.washintonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/18/AR20080618...   Iowa flooding caused by man?

So. It's 1:18 pdt and my inbox is empty for the moment. I found a lot of reading to pass on. My major news sources are, roughly in priority: alternet.org, solidarityinfoservices@igc.org (Labor Left News, of 4 reprint services for social justice activists), washingtonpost.com, and sometimes huffingtonpost.com. I get NYTimes and LATimes on net, too, but mostly leave them until last unless it's breaking news. and in my interest areas.I get action notices and info from various organizations, too, and am on two listservs. After the election - or even before - I am going to cut WAY back. I already have, several times.

Strange. At www.YouTube.com/watch?v=XO71HX8fi4 (Im not sure if that's a capital 0 or a zero) you can see it. I ran into it this morning. I had to watch it a few times to get that it was real.

If you are trying to figure out how we got the housing/mortgage crisis, this article might help: www.alternet.com/election08/87999 - it's kind of what I had expected, but I didn't have a name. I couldn't read too far into it today, it was too inflammatory in effect on me.

I think I fried my brain yesterday, trying to focus on women's issues, and then losing all I had written because it was over 30 minutes. Probably there's a way to mark and copy, but I don't know how. And my brain just feels burnt. So - what was it I had in mind to write?

I fell asleep at 6pm, so find myelf up early. Tuesday reading also came in early. I found some interesting articles in Washington Post.

www.washingtonpost/.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR...

Independent voters split between McCain, Obama

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2...

The Bubble

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2...

Gay men, straight women have similar brains

It seems those ideas now need a nap. Somebody else, too. The date on my post is WAY off.

I went looking for a brief history and list of important cases for the U.S. Supreme Court, and had pretty good luck. Infoplease.com gave me milestone cases, but nothing on application of the 15th Amendment to corporations. About.com gave me the makeup of the first and current courts, and a little on the initial development of the court, through Marbury. Wikipedia always needs to be verified, but it summarizes the court's activities under each Chief Justice. So - it doesn't talk about empowering corporations, either, but it does look like it's the 14th and not 15th Amendment I am looking for. I may have to pull out Labor Studies notebooks.

www.www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0101289.html Milestone Cases in Sup. Ct. History

PBS will be televising both conventions "gavel-to-gavel," start-to-finish. That's 8/25-28 for the Dems. in Denver and 9/1-4 for the Reps. in St. Paul. From L.A.Times' polical blog summary, item 4:

www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ticket/5-2008j...

The Tim Russert memorial show on Meet the Press will be available on internet from 1 pm on . (I didn't write down the time zone or url, check msnbc.) He was the moderator for Meet the Press who had a heart attack and went right there while preparing for this week's show.

www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/87946/ SCOTUS upholds rule of law for Gitmo

www.alternet.org/blogs/workplace/87982/ Indian (East) guestworkers

www.alternet.org/ Yano v. military recruiters (invite Yano to provide a different view)

www.alternet.org/mediaculture/87987/ Grand Theft Digital (airwaves)

www.alternet.org/rights/87530/ Electoral College

Interesting reading today:

www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the _most_activist_court

      current Supreme Court's record - and see related articles list on right

      (I got this from a classmate in the courts class - RJ?)

http://link.latimes.com/r/FGRUKJ/ORYKH/HRSKAD/MFIO/7R29B/D5/t 

      Sup. Ct.:  Gitmo detainees can challenge detention

www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-briefs12-2008jun12,0,538997...

      British anti-terrorism bill advances

www.latimes.com/news/la-me-kozinski12-2008jun12,0,4429841.st...

      Kozinski, Chief of 9th Circuit Court, recuses self from porn case after personal porn

I retook methods courses this past year, as I am adding special ed. to my child dev/elem. ed. credential. Practice helps me with mastery, and I didn't want to glimpse new knowledge and drop it, so I made categorized lists of useful websites for teaching.

History/Social Science and Info Tech are probably the most useful to this group, or scholarships (for both young folk and re-entry folk). Info Tech is pretty catch-all, includes computer science, web 2.0, engineering k-12, social networking, politics. (Some politics in hss, too.)

Feel free to skim and use anything you can or pass it on.