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| Human Rights Activists Celebrate word of Senator Addabbo and Senator Huntley changing their positions to YES votes on the Marriage Equality Act in New York State |
Tampilkan postingan dengan label msnbc. Tampilkan semua postingan
Tampilkan postingan dengan label msnbc. Tampilkan semua postingan
Rabu, 15 Juni 2011
New York Legalizing Gay Marriage? - The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell - msnbc
Selasa, 07 Juni 2011
Citizens Action NY Justice Works Conference - June 4th and 5th
On June 4th and 5th, hundreds of New Yorkers who fight for justice came together in Albany. Justice Works was a conference that brought together a cross section of progressive politics and activism in New York State. Bringing together people working on different issues, all going in different directions. But the fact is, we are all in this together, fighting for a society where we all do better, where government and the economy work for every person, not just the rich, and where justice is something shared by everyone, regardless of the color of our skin, our sexual orientation, our religious beliefs, where we live or how much money we make. Because Justice Works, we work for it, every day.
The keynote speaker at the event was Melissa V. Harris-Perry professor of political science at Tulane University, where she is founding director of the project on gender, race, and politics in the South.She is a columnist for The Nation magazine. Harris-Perry is a contributor to MSNBC, appearing as a bi-weekly guest on the Thomas Roberts Show and a frequent guest on the Rachel Maddow Show and The Last Word.
The other principal speaker was NYS Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. As Attorney General, Schneiderman is the highest ranking law enforcement officer for the State, responsible for representing New York and its residents in legal matters. Schneiderman has worked to restore the public’s faith in its public and private sector institutions, by focusing on areas including public integrity, economic justice, social justice and environmental protection.
Among the other speakers were Bob Master. Bertha Lewis, Stephen Allringer, Richard Kirsch, Richard McNary, Ana-Maria Archila, Dan Cantor and many others. For bios, click here.
The event was sponsored by Salsa Labs, Solidago Foundation, Public Policy and Education Fund of New York and Citizens Action of New York.
Kamis, 19 Mei 2011
Sen. Sanders Calls for Constitutional Amendment to Overrule Citizens United | Raw Replay
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Appearing with MSNBC’s liberal opinion host Cenk Uygur, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said he would support a constitutional amendment that overrule the Supreme Court’s controversial “Citizens United” decision that repealed nearly 100 years of campaign finance law.
The decision permits corporations to anonymously give unlimited sums of money to groups not officially connected with presidential campaigns.
The Washington, D.C.-based Committee for Economic Development suggested last year that the ruling could have the effect of turning corporations into miniature political parties, leading to what one of the Center’s trustees called the eventual corruption of American democracy.
“We have to pass a constitutional amendment to end [the] Citizens United ruling that brings forth the radical opinion that a Corporation is not a person and a handful of billionaires cannot pollute and take over the political system by spending unlimited sums of money in secret to elect candidates who support their agenda,” Sanders told Uygur.
This video is from MSNBC, broadcast Wednesday, May 18, 2011.
Selasa, 19 April 2011
MUST WATCH VIDEO: Listening to the Voices of America - The Ed Show - MSNBC.com
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Sabtu, 02 April 2011
Congressman Polis Discusses Failed Marijuana Policy on MSNBC
Check out Congressman Polis' interview with Cenk Uygur on our country's failed drug war.
This Thursday, Congressman Polis was a guest with Cenk Uygur on MSNBC in a conversation about the the nation's failed war on drugs. He discussed the growing support in Congress for reforming marijuana laws and the Fearless Campaign's upcoming attempts to move us forward.
Join their campaign to defund the Drug Czar:
Click here to sign up...
Senin, 28 Maret 2011
NYC Needs Runways, But 'Ghost Airport' Quiet by Chris Hawley - msnbc.com
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| A National Park Service hangar emblazoned with the name Floyd Bennett Field glows orange at sunset March 11 at New York City's "ghost airport" in Brooklyn, N.Y. |
Two airports sit less than five miles from each other, their wide-open runways tracing big Xs along the same stretch of Atlantic shoreline.
At John F. Kennedy International Airport, air traffic controllers herd a procession of airliners in what has become a chronic choke point in the nation's air transport system.
At nearby Floyd Bennett Field, things are more laid back. Recently, the one-man control tower, John Daskalakis, leaned against a pickup truck with a portable radio as an ancient C-54 cargo plane lumbered toward Runway 24 for takeoff. Cyclists and joggers hung out on the taxiway to watch.
As planners lament the lack of space for new runways in a region plagued by air delays, Floyd Bennett's wide, inviting runways sit just across Jamaica Bay within a federally protected park.
The old airfield opens a few times a year for special flights, but most of the time it sits idle — its hangars, runway and control tower intact but off-limits to air traffic.
The perfectly preserved former Navy base was once frequented by Howard Hughes and Amelia Earhart. Today, in the cavernous Hangar B, aviation buffs gather to restore old airplanes and swap stories. Some of them wonder whether turning Floyd Bennett into a commercial airport is a realistic, achievable way of easing congestion in New York.
"That would be a dream — that would really be something," said Dante Dimille, a volunteer. "This would make a great civil aviation field again."
Some experts say it's not unthinkable: a new traffic-control system being installed by the FAA could enable planes to fly into Floyd Bennett without conflicting with those headed to JFK. But others say it would be too costly to realign and lengthen its runways. And getting the airport back from the National Park Service, which now controls it, would be near impossible.
"Physically, it would work, with limitations," said Thomas Chastain, an airport planning consultant. "Practically and politically, I don't see them ever using Floyd Bennett Field again."
Too close to JFK?
Still, he said, it's a tantalizing prospect.
New York desperately needs more runway space. JFK and LaGuardia airports in New York, plus Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, together handle about 3,500 flights per day, and passenger demand is projected to increase from 104 million to 150 million by 2030.
In bad weather, the number of flights that air traffic controllers can put on each runway drops. As a result, nearly one-third of flights in New York were delayed or cancelled in 2009, according to a November report released by U.S. Department of Transportation.
The three main New York airports have nine runways between them but haven't built a new one since the early 1970s. Meanwhile, 17 other major airports have added runways just in the last decade, including Chicago O'Hare, Atlanta Hartsfield, Boston Logan and Washington Dulles.
In January, a report commissioned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the region's airports, said any expansion would be difficult. Three of the five options it recommended would require filling in parts of Jamaica Bay to build runways at JFK.
Floyd Bennett has four existing runways, the longest of them 6,000 feet. But it has space for an 8,500-foot runway, longer than any at LaGuardia.
But experts with the Regional Plan Association, which wrote the study for the Port Authority, decided that the distance between such a runway and JFK would cause airspace conflicts.
"We dropped that early on," said Jeffrey Zupan, one of the authors. "It's just too close to Kennedy."
But not everyone believes that's an obstacle.
A new satellite-based air traffic control system, known as NextGen, will soon allow airplanes to make better use of tight airspace, said Paul Freeman, head of flight testing for ITT Corp., which is building the system.
"That's not really a valid excuse anymore," said Freeman, who in his free time runs a website about defunct airports. "We're working on technology that will really free up a lot of the traditional limits of air traffic control. It definitely would allow something like a Floyd Bennett Field to be active again."
Frozen in time
Floyd Bennett wouldn't be the first New York-area airport to close and reopen. Newark airport closed in 1939 after LaGuardia was built, only to reopen in World War II. Flushing Airport in Queens closed in the 1970s, later reopened and then closed for good in 1984.
Floyd Bennett Field was built between 1928 and 1931 and quickly became the preferred launching site for record-setting flights by Hughes, Earhart, Wiley Post and other aviation pioneers. The airport sported unusual innovations, like a turntable for rotating aircraft and tunnels under the tarmac that passengers used to reach their planes.
The Navy took it over in 1941. Most of the airport closed in 1971, though the New York Police Department still uses a corner of it as its helicopter base.
Unlike other airports that have been ripped up to make way for housing developments and shopping malls, Floyd Bennett remains frozen in time.
The hangars are rusting and missing some windows but still standing. The old terminal is being restored and will reopen as a museum later this year. Runway 33 is now a road, but the others are mostly untouched. The Park Service even mows the grass between the runways, part of an effort to accommodate migrating geese.
In 2007, the Park Service opened the old runways for a fly-in of World War II fighter planes, biplanes and a modern Air Force C-130 cargo plane.
In Hangar B, Dimille and other volunteers with the Historical Aircraft Restoration Project show off their collection of old planes to school groups and aviation buffs. A hulking Boeing Stratofreighter, one of only two such airplanes still flying, looms over the other planes like a condor in a nest of sparrows.
The Stratofreighter and a former Navy C-54 cargo plane dubbed "The Spirit of Freedom" are owned by the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation, which keeps them at Floyd Bennett under an agreement with the Park Service.
One March afternoon, the C-54 took off, beginning a summer of visiting airshows around the country. A dozen aviation enthusiasts turned out to take pictures of the takeoff.
Daskalakis listened on his radio as the old cargo plane rumbled to the end of the runway and called for takeoff clearance from controllers at JFK. He had filed a special flight permit with the FAA a few days before.
The huge, piston-powered engines roared. The Spirit of Freedom surged forward, past the joggers and the cyclists and the geese. Then it raised its nose skyward.
For a moment at least, Floyd Bennett Field was an airport again
Selasa, 01 Maret 2011
America's 51st State: Baja Arizona? - msnbc.com
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Forget calls for unity and common ground.
The former Democratic Party chairman for Pima County is so fed up with Arizona's conservative politics that he wants the county to secede and form a 51st state in southern Arizona.
Paul Eckerstrom says he wants to restore the region's credibility as a place that is welcoming to others. He and fellow Tucson attorney Peter Hormel have formed a political committee called Start Our State to explore process of making Pima County a separate state.
The mood of frustration has been "been building for the last couple of years," Eckerstrom said in an interview Tuesday with MSNBC's Tamron Hall. "A lot of folks down here have been very, very frustrated with the extremist policies coming out of our state Legislature.”
Anti-immigration bills, education cuts and attempts by conservative lawmakers to "nullify" federal laws prompted the secessionist movement.
Start Our State lists its mission as: "To establish a new state in Southern Arizona free of the un-American, unconstitutional machinations of the Arizona legislature and to restore our region’s credibility as a place welcoming to others, open to commerce, and friendly to its neighbors."
Eckerstrom said Start Our State, which had more than 2,350 "likes" on its Facebook page as of Tuesday night, wants to put a non-binding resolution for secession before Pima County voters next year. If approved, the measure would need the OK of either the state Legislature or a statewide referendum. Congress and America's 51st state: Baja Arizona? No joke, say Pima County Dems who want split from 'un-American' part of Grand Canyon State the president would also have to approve the new state.
"It has been so darn frustrating watching fringe legislators trying to dismantle our state and to tarnish our state’s reputation,” said state Senate Minority Whip Paula Aboud, a Tucson Democrat, who recently offered a secessionist amendment to a Republican-backed bill that would create a legislative committee to decide which federal laws to nullify. (The amendment was defeated.)
Eckerstrom said he has received several suggestions for a name for a new state, including Baja Arizona, South Arizona and Gadsden. The latter is a reference to the 1854 Gadsden Purchase of southern
Arizona from Mexico.
Pima County, with a population of about 1 million, is in the south-central region of Arizona, which became the 48th U.S. state in 1912. The county seat is Tucson, where a gunman killed six people and
wounded 12 others, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, at a meeting of Giffords constituents in January.
According to voter registration records, 35.8 percent of Arizona voters are Republicans, 31.7 percent independents, and 31.6 percent Democrats, according to The Daily Courier. In Pima County, about 38
percent of voters are Democrats vs. 31 percent Republicans. Pima, whose more-conservative neighbor is Maricopa County, is by far Arizona's most populous state.
The prospects for creation of a new secession state are dim at best.
Since the formation of the U.S. Constitution, only two states have been created from parts of an existing state: Maine, which seceded from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1820, and West Virginia, which split from Virginia during the Civil War.
Eckerstrom acknowledges the secessionist movement faces significant hurdles, but he said he hopes the publicity will at least send a wake-up call to others.
“We would like to at least send a message to the state Legislature and Arizona’s voters (that) hey, we need more moderation in our policies and at the same time tell the rest of the country that we’re rational, moderate people in Pima County. Don’t boycott us. Come here and bring your business here," he told MSNBC.
At least one critic openly scoffed at the secessionist notion.
Blunt-talking Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — who calls himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff” —called the idea “stupid."
"If you don't like the elected officials, just get rid of them and put somebody in there where you like their philosophy and agendas. You don't just form a new state!" Arpaio recently told KGUN9-TV. "What's the next step? Include Mexico? Is that what they want? I guess Mexico can take over Baja Arizona as time goes on. "
No joke, say Pima County Dems who want split from 'un-American' part of Grand Canyon State
Some Pima County, Ariz., residents are angry enough with the rest of their state that they are considering an attempt to form the 51st state of "Baja Arizona." Organizer Paul Eckerstrom discusses with msnbc's Tamron Hall.
Forget calls for unity and common ground.
The former Democratic Party chairman for Pima County is so fed up with Arizona's conservative politics that he wants the county to secede and form a 51st state in southern Arizona.
Paul Eckerstrom says he wants to restore the region's credibility as a place that is welcoming to others. He and fellow Tucson attorney Peter Hormel have formed a political committee called Start Our State to explore process of making Pima County a separate state.
The mood of frustration has been "been building for the last couple of years," Eckerstrom said in an interview Tuesday with MSNBC's Tamron Hall. "A lot of folks down here have been very, very frustrated with the extremist policies coming out of our state Legislature.”
Anti-immigration bills, education cuts and attempts by conservative lawmakers to "nullify" federal laws prompted the secessionist movement.
Start Our State lists its mission as: "To establish a new state in Southern Arizona free of the un-American, unconstitutional machinations of the Arizona legislature and to restore our region’s credibility as a place welcoming to others, open to commerce, and friendly to its neighbors."
Eckerstrom said Start Our State, which had more than 2,350 "likes" on its Facebook page as of Tuesday night, wants to put a non-binding resolution for secession before Pima County voters next year. If approved, the measure would need the OK of either the state Legislature or a statewide referendum. Congress and America's 51st state: Baja Arizona? No joke, say Pima County Dems who want split from 'un-American' part of Grand Canyon State the president would also have to approve the new state.
"It has been so darn frustrating watching fringe legislators trying to dismantle our state and to tarnish our state’s reputation,” said state Senate Minority Whip Paula Aboud, a Tucson Democrat, who recently offered a secessionist amendment to a Republican-backed bill that would create a legislative committee to decide which federal laws to nullify. (The amendment was defeated.)
Eckerstrom said he has received several suggestions for a name for a new state, including Baja Arizona, South Arizona and Gadsden. The latter is a reference to the 1854 Gadsden Purchase of southern
Arizona from Mexico.
Pima County, with a population of about 1 million, is in the south-central region of Arizona, which became the 48th U.S. state in 1912. The county seat is Tucson, where a gunman killed six people and
wounded 12 others, including Democratic U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, at a meeting of Giffords constituents in January.
According to voter registration records, 35.8 percent of Arizona voters are Republicans, 31.7 percent independents, and 31.6 percent Democrats, according to The Daily Courier. In Pima County, about 38
percent of voters are Democrats vs. 31 percent Republicans. Pima, whose more-conservative neighbor is Maricopa County, is by far Arizona's most populous state.
The prospects for creation of a new secession state are dim at best.
Since the formation of the U.S. Constitution, only two states have been created from parts of an existing state: Maine, which seceded from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 1820, and West Virginia, which split from Virginia during the Civil War.
Eckerstrom acknowledges the secessionist movement faces significant hurdles, but he said he hopes the publicity will at least send a wake-up call to others.
“We would like to at least send a message to the state Legislature and Arizona’s voters (that) hey, we need more moderation in our policies and at the same time tell the rest of the country that we’re rational, moderate people in Pima County. Don’t boycott us. Come here and bring your business here," he told MSNBC.
At least one critic openly scoffed at the secessionist notion.
Blunt-talking Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio — who calls himself “America’s Toughest Sheriff” —called the idea “stupid."
"If you don't like the elected officials, just get rid of them and put somebody in there where you like their philosophy and agendas. You don't just form a new state!" Arpaio recently told KGUN9-TV. "What's the next step? Include Mexico? Is that what they want? I guess Mexico can take over Baja Arizona as time goes on. "
Kamis, 17 Februari 2011
"Wall Street -The Untouchables" Exposing Wall Street’s Banks with Cenk Uyger - msnbc tv:
Watch video...
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi exposes how the government is doing more to protect the banks than prosecute them...
Read: Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
Financial crooks brought down the world's economy - but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them...
Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi exposes how the government is doing more to protect the banks than prosecute them...
Read: Why Isn't Wall Street in Jail?
Financial crooks brought down the world's economy - but the feds are doing more to protect them than to prosecute them...
Selasa, 15 Februari 2011
Justice Thomas Too Close to the Koch Brothers? - Rachel Maddow Show
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Conflict of Interest Questions Continue to Swirl Around Justice Clarence Thomas
Common Cause submitted a letter to the Department of Justice on January 19th raising questions about whether Justices Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia had attended closed-door strategy and fundraising sessions sponsored by Koch Industries.
The Supreme Court responded that Justice Thomas' involvement was limited to "a brief drop by." But that answer, coupled with a Common Cause review of financial disclosure statements, raises more questions than it answers.
Read more in the New York Times.
Press release: Feb. 14 letter to the Supreme Court clerk
Conflict of Interest Questions Continue to Swirl Around Justice Clarence Thomas
Common Cause submitted a letter to the Department of Justice on January 19th raising questions about whether Justices Clarence Thomas or Antonin Scalia had attended closed-door strategy and fundraising sessions sponsored by Koch Industries.
The Supreme Court responded that Justice Thomas' involvement was limited to "a brief drop by." But that answer, coupled with a Common Cause review of financial disclosure statements, raises more questions than it answers.
Read more in the New York Times.
Press release: Feb. 14 letter to the Supreme Court clerk
Kamis, 10 Februari 2011
Rep Weiner and 73 Other Democratic Representatives Calls on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to Recuse Himself on Health Care Bill - The Ed Show - msnbc
Congressman Anthony Weiner talks about why he and 75 other members of Congress are calling for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from ruling on any health care legislation while his wife is actively engaged in defeating it...The Ed Show - msnbc.com
Rabu, 09 Februari 2011
Help is on the Way for the 99'ers - The Ed Schultz Show - msnbc.com
Ed Schutz gives his take on new legislation introduced by Rep Barbara Lee ad Rep Bobby Scott, which would give help to unemployed Americans for more than 99 weeks...
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