PNN- Guarding the Hen House

PNN - For 1/15/17

Morality of Boycotts  - (The Inaugural / Israel?)

Boycotts and strikes part of a limited toolset to confront and confound the economically powerful:

Every boycott has some collateral damage, like every strike, which is why it is a powerful tool used selectively. 

Example: 

BP's egregious behavior in the Gulf of Mexico. Was it the callous behavior of a clerk? Of a secretary? of each poor gas station sales staff - 

Certainly the unsafe conditions that killed platform workers ordered by higher ups to cut corners, which endangered their own lives. They were not to blame for BP's misdeeds. They were victimized, and forced by decisions by a higher ups that cost them their very lives.

But the tools at the disposal of the consumer, of the green advocate are few. 

Another example:  a miner who dares go on strike for safer conditions. 

Does his family suffer? YES! 

Would he feel terrible if a fellow miner, whose family cannot afford to strike, dies in an unsafe condition which (might have benefited from his striking brothers presence?) 

Yes unlike the mine owner, he feels that danger to his fellows as an additional burden. 

But the striking worker, the boycotting consumer has a limited set of tools to confront the robber baron, the arrogant petroleum executive. 

Or in the case the LL BEAN exec who uses their economic strength against the interests of the majority of Americans who are deeply wounded by REPUBLICAN ECONOMICS. 

You mentioned that I used words, that much you got right. When you pretend that my point about life and death is unrelated that is simply inaccurate.  

When you again mention that workers pay a price, it leads me to suggest you might read my earlier response a little closer, because you not have grasped its complexity. 

As to irrelevant comments, I articulated quite carefully the purpose of both boycotts and strikes. You might want to read some history to better understand the purposes and impacts of boycotts and strikes. 

And yes, I did ask you about the massive Empathy deficit on display in republican discourse but far more important in REPUBLICAN POLICY!  

LISTEN: PNN

1. Bernie's Drug Price Amendment 

The democrats must have no leadership they couldn't hold together DEMs 13 defected to protect Americans from soaring drug prices. 

Everyone was talking about the 6 FIGURE Bribes - I mean "support" from Big Pharma for these Betrayers. I propose - Lets start a NEW PROGRESSIVE  bidding war to RE-Purchase the affections of the so called PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS?

Just call it what it is, sold votes, bribes paid, plain and simple. 

They said they were protecting us, from the drug companies that sell the same drugs in Canada!  Let's see hands who thinks that's the real answer?

3 Thank goodness the Florida Democratic Party has safely passed to the highest bidder. Next time the republican promises to brings the real checkbook and bid for the sky - Senior Democratic Party Officials  were heard, licking their lips

4 To lead the transition of the Environmental Protection Agency, President-elect Donald Trump settled on notorious climate change denier Myron Ebell. The decision rattled climate activists—see Julia Lurie's interview with Bill McKibben and David Roberts and Brad Plumer on Vox. But it isn't just greenhouse gas emissions that are likely to get a free ride under an Ebell-influenced EPA. Farm chemicals, too, would likely flow unabated if Ebell's agenda comes to dominate Trump's EPA.

Ebell directs the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. The group runs a  website, SafeChemicalPolicy.org, that exists to downplay the health and ecological impacts of chemicals.

If the incoming EPA takes its cues from Ebell's group, the agency's coming decisions on some widely used farm chemicals won't be hard to predict. - Hey "everything's a chemical man, and if humans made it- it's got an organic source ?"

5 AT-LAST AT-LAST - The Humble Bunble Bee - gets its day in the setting sun

  bumble bee's placed on the FEDERAL endangered species list - 

  republicants VOW to redouble efforts!

6 potential CIA director Mike Pompeo wants to track your Facebook

The Senate intelligence committee asked potential CIA director Mike Pompeo what limits he'd have for mass surveillance.

If your Facebook profile is public, it'll be an open invitation for the CIA.

The Central Intelligence Agency is obligated to follow up on information that's on a public website, including on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages, Mike Pompeo, Trump's pick for the next CIA boss, said during his confirmation hearing Thursday.

"If someone is out there on their Facebook, talking about an attack or plotting an attack against America, I think you would find the director of the CIA grossly negligent if they didn't pursue that information," Pompeo said.

During the hearing, lawmakers hit the Republican congressman from Kansas on privacy issues. In 2015, Pompeo pushed to give mass surveillance tools back to the National Security Agency through the "Liberty Through Strength Act II." The NSA's mass data surveillance program had been defanged after whistleblower Edward Snowden's revelations.

Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat from Oregon, was concerned with Pompeo's drive to make mass surveillance more powerful through that bill, which went so far as to propose collecting financial and "lifestyle" information in a "comprehensive, searchable database." Wyden wanted to know what limits Pompeo's rejected bill would have had.

"You would be in favor of a new law collecting all of this data about the personal lives of our people," Wyden asked at the hearing.

Pompeo, who has called for Snowden's death, said the US needed to collect publicly available information to "keep Americans safe." (RIGHT AFTER A KIND OF A TRIAL)

The Orlando nightclub gunman posted a cryptic warning on his Facebook page before committing his murders last June. A student at Ohio State in November reportedly did the sameon Facebook before carrying out a knife attack on campus.

Pompeo said public social media profiles such as those on Facebook could be useful in the CIA's counterterrorism efforts. He promised the Senate intelligence committee that the CIA wouldn't unlawfully spy on US citizens, reminding the lawmakers that he's voted for legislation protecting privacy.

He stressed that he was specifically talking about information available to the public, including Facebook posts. Facebook declined comment. The social network already scans people's posts and chats for any criminal activity, according to a 2012 interview.

The committee also challenged Pompeo on his social media history. After Pompeo said he's "never believed that WikiLeaks is a credible source of information," Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, asked, "Well, how do you explain your Twitter?"

The senator brought up a tweet from July 24, 2016, in which Pompeo posted a WikiLeaks story as "proof that the fix was in from" President Barack Obama.