lavendertook

Come on, come on, come on, comm on . . . excruciating.

Sorry, Fight Song just doesn't cut it. Listens to Le Tigre's I'm with Her again. Thank you to baranduin for first bringing it to my attention. This song really needs more play.

( Lyrics here )

Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/212018.html with comments

We are in need of magic today, so I went down to the lake at the day's last light and found the Lady of the Golden Wood had gifted my shire with a mallorn, and you can see its reflection in her mirror, an image of hope. We need that last light. As the Galadhrim of Lothlorien say, if the Sindarin here is correct, amin naa yassen he`.




That would be translated, of course, as "I'm with her" in the Common tongue.

May all our shires be gifted with golden trees of hope tomorrow. Sleep well, my flist. <3

Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/211722.html with comments

Senator Hillary Clinton voted to create a law that closed a tax loophole that had allowed robber barons like Trump to steal money from the American people. Pass it on.

The NY Times published a decent article on Trump's taxes today--something the media has spent little enough investigative reporting on while they keep reporting on the faux email scandal, so it's time they did so. Where are the human interest stories of all the people who lost jobs and homes and health because Trump stiffed them and stole their labor by not paying them, the way he stiffed the American people by not paying his fair share of taxes? I call this theft on a massive scale.

But there's an important factoid buried in this article: it begins with Trump's claim that Clinton never did anything to stop people like him from being able to avoid paying these taxes. Guess what? It isn't until the end of the article that he is proved a liar in this allegation--Senator Clinton voted to close just that loophole. She did! Here's from the first and last paragraphs of the article:

Donald J. Trump proudly acknowledges he did not pay a dime in federal income taxes for years on end. He insists he merely exploited tax loopholes legally available to any billionaire — loopholes he says Hillary Clinton failed to close during her years in the United States Senate. “Why didn’t she ever try to change those laws so I couldn’t use them?” Mr. Trump asked during a campaign rally last month.

In any event, Mr. Trump can no longer benefit from the same maneuver. Just as Congress acted in 1993 to ban stock-for-debt swaps by corporations, it acted in 2004 to ban equity-for-debt swaps by partnerships.
Among the members of Congress who voted to finally close the loophole: Senator Hillary Clinton of New York.

I understand the writers delayed presenting Hillary's vote to close the loophole to the end of the article to create a compelling narrative frame and clinch line at the end, which is piss poor journalistic writing! Between the first and last paragraph is an exploration of arcane tax law and many readers may not get to the important fact at the end.

This fact needed to be up front. Trump's repeated claim that Clinton did nothing about this tax law is a complete lie. She voted to close it. While Trump was hoodwinking us and his workers, Clinton was working to make things better for all of us. She did a good job. We need to let her keep doing a good job. Pass it on.

Then take a break and look at these pretty leaves I saw down by the lake here:



Also posted at http://lavendertook.dreamwidth.org/210469.html with comments

I'm reposting a long excerpt form Hillary's campaign chair John Podesta because what's going on with the new crap about the emails needs to be widely circulated, especially the last paragraph on Republican intimidation of the FBI:

Here's the quick backstory: In July, FBI Director James Comey concluded a year-long investigation by deciding not to go forward with any case about Hillary's emails. It wasn't even a close call, he said. In his words, "no reasonable prosecutor" would have brought charges.

Yesterday, in a surprise to us all, Comey wrote a very strange letter to Congress that was long on innuendo and short on facts. He said that in a completely separate investigation, the FBI had found some emails that may or may not be related to Hillary, and indeed may or may not be significant at all.

It's since been reported that these emails may not have even been sent by or to Hillary; that they weren't withheld by Hillary or the campaign in the earlier investigation; and most or even all of them may be duplicates of emails already in the FBI's possession.

It's being reported that Comey sent this letter over the objections of Department of Justice officials who told him that it was inconsistent with longstanding policy of both Democratic and Republican administrations not to take action that might impact an election. It's an unprecedented intrusion into a close presidential election with 10 days until Election Day.

But by being vague and obfuscating, Comey opened the door to conspiracy theories, Republican attacks against Hillary, and a surge of fundraising for Trump and his team. So this bears repeating: There is no evidence of wrongdoing, no charge of wrongdoing, and no indication that any of this even involves Hillary.

Voters deserve answers.

Comey needs to come clean with the American people about what he found and answer all the questions about why he took this unprecedented step less than two weeks before the election.

Here's what this changes for you and this campaign: Absolutely nothing.

Trump has spent more than a year trying to bully his way to the presidency. He's been browbeating the FBI (indeed, many have speculated that Comey took this extraordinary action in part to reduce the pressure on his agency that Trump's campaign and his Republican Congressional allies has been building up), leading crowds in chants of "lock her up," and even saying Hillary should be in prison -- and if he won, he'd put her there.

Please pass this on.

The thing with the whole email situation is federal email is not secure, period--don't forget last year's huge OPM breach. The technology is new and we're not up to keeping it secure--it's a game of whack a mole and will be for a long time, not because government is bad--it's just necessarily too large and wide-ranging to secure with all the agencies, departments, and contracting companies they have to go back and forth between and all the work that has to be done to keep servers communicating and myriad sources secure.

And everyone's email is all over the place--if any other government official was investigated like Hillary has been, they would be found wanting in confidentiality protocols as well. It's such a non-issue the Republicans have used to undermine her credibility and it is no reason to mistrust her, period.