CapitAl Hill

By Dante De Navarre

It's time to take back our government from double-dipping politicians and give it to the real citizens: Corporations.

What's it Going to Take?
How in the world are we ever going to fix the most dire, pressing dilemma of our time: Corporate Poverty, and the almost complete absence of Corporate representation in Washington?

Let's Elect Corporations!

Now is our chance, as a free nation, to finally eliminate the useless middleman! Now is the time to end the most notorious bigotry and discrimination in history, and proclaim from the rooftops: Corporations are people too!

Look at the time and effort, not to mention money, wasted in the elaborate pretense of campaigns and elections for a phony representative democracy. Why should We the Corporations have to pay a single dime in bribes to Representatives and Senators who already get an allowance from the taxpayers? All they do, at best, is rubber-stamp what corporations want, and at worst, try to water down corporate will with pricey bells and whistles. Why pay for that? If we could just grow up a little bit, put away our childish toys like the Constitution and accept the things we cannot change, we could save the rich untold billions more, and that is the name of the game, n'est pas?

Appoint Corporations Directly to Government!

Imagine the incredible streamlining of government operations, the efficiency, the clarity!

Ask the corporations which seats they want. Let them pick the committees to chair. Goldman for Finance. KBR for Defense. Exxon for Energy. Let them appoint cabinet and agency heads. Facebook for State. Walmart for Commerce. Bank of America for HUD. ConAgra for Agriculture. Blackwater/Xe for Justice. Monsanto for FDA. Koch for EPA. And let's not forget to allow full participation by both the Religion and Prison Industry sectors, two of the fastest growing Amerikan success stories.

No More Gridlock!

Gone would be the endless partisan bickering, the political posturing of pretending to be a champion of the poor unborn on one side, a champion of the born poor on the other, when none of those insects really matter! The belittled, embattled and embittered Legislature could finally be Free! After putting an end to all the acrimony over campaign donations, accusations of corruption and boring fund-raising dinners they will finally, gratefully, cobwebs clearing, muscles flexing, all stand together and with one clear, resounding voice pass laws like bolts of greased lightning, ending at long last our shameful dependence onhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif domestic jobs, our spineless addiction to peace, our crippling health, environmental and financial regulations, our foolish infatuation with alternative energy, our greedy desire to tax the rich, our irresponsible handouts to small, useless people who are not corporations, the list goes on and on...

Capitol Hill can finally come out of the closet and proudly proclaim its true self, Capital Hill.

More of Mr. De Navarre's work may be found at OpEd News

Virtual hookup connects grieving Haitian father to Miami family

A Haitian man tried and acquitted on terrorism charge is denied admittance into the United States to attend the funeral of his teenage son struck and killed by a vehicle on I-95.

BY JAY WEAVER AND JACQUELINE CHARLES

jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE – Lyglenson “Levi’’ Lemorin, sitting inside a Cyber Café Saturday, waited patiently for technology to connect him to the heartbreaking scene unfolding some 700 hundred miles away inside a Miami Liberty City church.

“You sitting next to my mother?’’ he asked, fighting back tears as he spoke to his 13-year-old daughter, Lauren, over a cell phone. “Stay strong, alright Baby? Baby, don’t cry.’’

Lauren and the rest of the Lemorin clan were grieving, crying not just for 15-year-old Lukenson “Lil Luke’’ Lemorin, killed on April 1 by a passing vehicle, but also for Lyglenson Lemorin.

A Haiti native who lived in Miami most of his life, the elder Lemorin, 36, has been on a painful odyssey since his arrest in June 2006 on terrorism charges, his acquittal, then his eventual deportation back to Haiti - country he left 24 years ago when he moved with his family to Miami.

Now, in the Port-au-Prince café, his grief is even more searing because he cannot physically be there with family members to mourn the death of his only son.

“There is no way my son would have been on the streets at 11:30 p.m.,’’ he said of his son, who, according to the Florida Highway Patrol, was struck by a vehicle as he and two cousins pushed their disabled car off I-95 into the median.

Lemorin was a member of the Miami-Dade group that became known as the Liberty City 7, who federal investigators charged in a highly publicized terrorism case accusing them of conspiring with al Qaeda to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower and federal buildings in Miami. The indictment was built on a sting operation, with a government informant playing the role of an al Qaeda financier directed by the FBI.

The seven defendants, investigators say, took an oath to the terrorist group.

A Miami federal jury found that Lemorin had distanced himself from the group, which worked together in a stucco business and hung out in Liberty City.

On Jan. 20, Lemorin was among 27 Haitians sent back to that country, after U.S. immigration authorities resumed deportations. He was shipped out in the dark of night and arrived in an earthquake-ravaged country that was fighting off a deadly cholera epidemic. Having heard about the tents cities, he said, “I prayed to God I didn’t have to live in one.’’

On Friday, another 19 deportees arrived in Port-au-Prince amid protests from immigration activists.

“I am so sorry this happened to his son and to him,” Lemorin’s immigration lawyer Charles Kuck of Atlanta said. “His case is a classic example of government-assisted human tragedy."

Although Lemorin was acquitted, immigration authorities still deemed him a “national security” threat under the U.S. Patriot Act passed after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Now, he lives with the guilt over his son’s death, a son who went from a well-mannered kid to one in and out of juvenile detention center, and out late at night – a sign of defiance, Lemorin said, because he wasn’t there.

“I believe he acted up because I wasn’t around,’’ he said. “When he got arrested three times, I thought, ‘Does he actually think he’s going to end up the same place with me?’”

Since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied his request to enter the United States to attend his son’s funeral, Lemorin was forced to view the Saturday service at Mt. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church via Skype.

It took 55 minutes and multiple tries, but Lemorin was to finally connect to see images of the service where more than 200 mourners paid their respects to “Lil Luke,” whose body lay in a silver casket draped with white flowers. “Don’t show me inside the coffin,’’ he said as he heard his mother wailing in the background.

The virtual hookup with Lemorin in Port-au-Prince and mourners in Miami was organized by Michelle Karshan, Executive Director of Alternative Chance, a Haiti-based re-entry program for criminal deportees in Haiti.

In Miami, Debbie Carter, a California woman who has come to the aid of Lemorin and his co-defendants, carried a laptop around the church enabling Lemorin to connect with his wife, see the flowers and make out his son’s casket.

Lemorin’s family has been struggling to raise the estimated $10,000 to help defray the cost of his son’s funeral and burial. So far, they have raised about one-third of the money and are seeking donations from the public.

Meanwhile, Lemorin has been struggling to find meaning in his son’s death and the uncertain future he has been dealt in the country of his birth.

As for being able to attend the funeral – even through the Internet - Lemorin said he’s grateful.

“I got to hear my family,’’ he said.

Link to article: http://tinyurl.com/3vn6mr2

Miami Herald Staff Writer Kathleen McGrory contributed to this story.

This material is copyrighted by its original publisher. It is reprinted by Citizen Rampant without permission, solely for purposes of criticism, comment, and news reporting, in accordance with the Fair Use Guidelines of copyright material under § 107 of U.S.C. Title 17.

Right to Vote?

Of course you have a right to vote, unless you're Black, or elderly, or poor...at least that's the way it is in Ohio .

"Ohio Republicans pass new Jim Crow law disenfranchising 900,000 voters"
by Bob Fitrakis

"While Ohio public employees' rights to bargain collectively are under siege, the Ohio Republican Party executed a perfect sleight of hand by disenfranchising nearly 900,000 Ohio voters. In the most vicious and direct attack on voting rights since Bull Connor ran amok in the deep South, Ohio House Republicans passed HB 159 that requires Ohio voters to produce one of four state photo IDs at the polls."

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Then weep for our country.

Oh Barack, you do disappoint me.

What can I say after a couple of years spent waiting for "change"? I'd do better panhandling for some, than waiting for the reality of those bright promises that fell so earnestly from your lips as you wooed and finally won us.

We are being bashed to death by Tea Potty Turds, general vitriol spitting regular Right Wing Repulsicans of the Olde School...and there's dear Mama Grisly for a little spice if hemlock is your poison of choice.

God! Where do they come from? Are you a magnet for the lunatic fringe, or is it the fact you're so yielding where their demands are concerned?

You see, it's the yielding that gets to me. You are throwing away OUR ground.

I don't like the way you play footsie with the power freaks who are hellbent and determined to continue on in their Imperialist ways, and public opinion be damned. I don't like the tracks of inhumanity we are skidding along on these days, and I don't like the xenophobia we have given in to after so many decades of trying to level the playing field.

Didn't anyone tell you you're the boss of this place? Stand up and kick some ass, then go out and do a few things right, like getting to hell out of Haiti for one, and getting out of all this war for another.

Oh yeah, lest I forget to mention it...you're a definite washout where the working man is concerned. We are the class that put you over the top and got you where you are. Remember us?