Ho Ho Hoff!
Pwned by a 7-Year-Old
"Who is your favorite author?" Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.Really. Haven't we had enough of presidents who are unintentionally outmatched by elementary school students?
Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.
In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.
"My favorite author is C. S. Lewis," she said.
[Via Sean.]
Wev Sighting
All of you Shakers might think that "wev" just exists in our little area of the blogosphere. Well, I'm here to tell you that this is not the case. Wev can sneak up on you when you least expect it.
See, on Saturday I was driving in NYC on the West Side Highway to audition for a band. Then, at the 34th street light, I stopped behind a car that had the perfect license plate. After praising FSM for creating camera phones, I immediately started snapping away to document the sighting. Just for Liss. How cool am I?
Shaker Gourmet: Nutty
From Mustang Bobby, we get a fabulous recipe for some hot, delicious nuts.
A perfect accompaniment to a holiday party or just whenever you'd like some nuts. *ahem*
The Devil's Own Peanuts
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 cloves garlic (peeled & sliced)
- 1 tsp salt (more for sprinkling if desired)
- 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
- 1/4 tsp ground cumin
- 1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 2 dashes Tabasco sauce (optional & depending on taste)
- 2 egg whites
- 1 jar (16.5 ounces, about 3 cups) dry-roasted UNSALTED peanuts (or substitute unsalted nuts of your choice)
Combine first 8 ingredients (all but egg whites & nuts) in blender and blend until garlic is pureed. Add egg whites and run just until the ingredients are blended. Place nuts in a bowl and pour mixture over them. Let the nuts stand for 30 to 60 minutes stirring several times. Preheat oven to 250F and put nuts into colander set over a bowl to drain and reserve the liquid. Divide the nuts onto 2 baking sheets that have been lightly oiled or sprayed with non-stick cooking spray (Pam). Bake nuts on 2 shelves until they have dried slightly (about 10 minutes). Stir the nuts to break up any clumps and drizzle reserved liquid over them. Stir well and spread evenly again. Return nuts to oven, exchanging shelf positions, and bake until glaze is dry (about 15 minutes). Turn off oven and leave the nuts in it with the door ajar until nuts have cooled.
Baking times may need to be extended slightly to compensate for humidity and altitude.
Posted a day earlier than usual in case anyone is searching out a recipe for any upcoming parties!
I've Got a Bad Feeling About This
Bush Seeks to Restore Tattered U.S. Image With Heavy '08 Travel:
President George W. Bush's diplomatic passport will acquire a slew of new country stamps during his final year in office as he tries to rebuild the U.S.'s international standing and create a foreign-policy legacy beyond Iraq.Oh boy. I really don't like the sound of this.
…"When it comes to foreign policy, he's not a lame duck; he can do a lot," said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The president plans trips to the Middle East, Africa, Asia and South America, which would make 2008 his busiest year abroad.How about old Bushy-boy just travel to Crawford like usual and clear some brush? That would be good. In fact, if you hire some swarthy locals, dress them up like his boyfriend, and tell him he's in Saudi Arabia, he'll never know the difference.
A Pew study of public opinion in 47 nations found "extensive" anti-Americanism and "increasing disapproval" of the cornerstones of U.S. foreign policy. A perception that Washington acts unilaterally was shared by 89 percent of the French, 83 percent of Canadians and 74 percent of Britons. America's image in most Muslim nations is "abysmal," Pew said.Famous last words. Apparently Ivo hasn't noticed that Bush has what appears to be something vaguely resembling the Midas Touch, except that everything he touches turns to shit.
…Given such results, "going around the world won't make things necessarily worse" because "it's difficult to see how they could be any worse," said Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former national security council aide in the Clinton administration.
And let's not forget that he was a C student, about which he often likes to brag, and that he's not a statistician or a numbers-cruncher or a bean counter or a precision guy. Tell Bush about a global 47% disapproval rating and he's likely to say: "That's nuttin! I can get that above 50% in no time, heh heh!"
Do us all a favor, Mr. President. Stay home.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
I never saw this show, but I totally had a huge crush on Sinbad in, like, the early '90s. Which is frankly embarrassing to admit now, as it's difficult to find any images of him from that time period not dressed in a track suit of some unnatural color, piped with trim of some other unnatural color.
The Defaultinator Looks Better and Better
McCain closing gap with Romney:
Senator John McCain of Arizona, whose bid for the Republican presidential nomination was all but dead this summer, has made a dramatic recovery in the Granite State 2 1/2 weeks before the 2008 vote, pulling within 3 percentage points of front-runner Mitt Romney, a new Boston Globe poll indicates.Yep, that's right. The guy who lost in 2000 after Bush's smear-merchants called his wife a junky whore and his daughter illegitimate, then nonetheless spent the following years serving as Bush's Real Doll, accusing the Democrats of partisan pettiness, acting as apologist for missing WMDs, pandering egregiously, cozying up to white supremacists, slandering other veterans, rolling over on torture, embracing all manner of crap, being a grumpy old asshole, hatin' teh gayz, and more, hatin' the womminz, and more, endorsing the teaching of intelligent design, licking Bush's balls on the Dubai Ports contract, lovin' K Street, lovin' Bush some more, and more, lovin' Jerry Falwell, lovin' Bob Jones, lovin' James Dobson, being a whiny-ass titty-baby, making hawt foreign policy recommendations, and some more, being a general wanker, lovin' John Bolton, blaming Teh Clenis, threatening suicide if the Dems took Congress (still waiting for that one to happen), calling for common sense (ahem), wooing the Federalist Society, hiring unethical fucknuts to run his campaign, engaging in class warfare, talking crap about the war, being a flip-flopper on his own signature issue, being a hypocrite, being a rude idiot, being a dumb fuck, running a terrible campaign, opposing an ethics bill, getting humiliated by high school students, calling America a Christian nation, making a general ass of himself, living on Cloud Cuckoo, hanging out with Imus, and a nonillion other completely fucking ridiculous things that I can't be bothered to include, the guy who would be seventy-two by the time he were inaugurated, is now emerging as a genuine challenger for the nomination, merely by virtue of not being a cross-dressing philanderer, a lying dog-torturer in magic underpants, or a virulently misogynist theocrat.
Way to go, GOP. That's quite a party you've got there.
UPDATE: And the Defaultinator gets another endorsement to add to his collection.
Life as a Trans Woman Ain’t Easy
Hi, all, I'm RachelPhilPa (a totally goofy, non-clever handle, I know). I've been reading and commenting on Shakesville for a couple of years now, and recently started my own blog. I'm honored that Melissa asked me to write a guest post about a series of articles about harassment on my blog.
By way of (brief) introduction, I'm a trans woman in her late 40's; I started transitioning 4 years ago. I'm white, middle-class, Jewish, queer, dealing with multiple disabilities, and a survivor of long-term adulthood sexual abuse. I identify strongly and proudly as a feminist. I don't classify my feminism (second-wave, third-wave, etc, etc), but I think that I take a decent amount of my thought and ideas from radical feminism (even as I argue with some radical feminists over trans issues).
Now on to the subject. As I have progressed in my transition, I have become increasingly aware of, and subject to, both sexual and transphobic harassment. Like many women, I live with an undercurrent of fear. It's not at the level that makes me want to hide and withdraw, but is at the level that it influences the decisions that I make every day and that affects my mood throughout the day. I've read many posts and comments from women (and not a few gender-variant and/or gay men) expressing the same fear, here on Shakesville and throughout the feminist blogosphere. I've also read the comments of many men (and a few women) who are dismissive of this and accuse us of exaggerating or making this stuff up. For myself, and for many other trans folk, my fear is heightened by the transphobia and cissexualism that is inherent in our patriarchal society.
So, I decided to keep a log of incidents of harassment, both to help myself quantify what I'm facing, and to have something to refer people to when they say "It isn't really that bad." Not all of these incidents targeted me directly. But when a judge says that a sex worker can't be raped, or Michael Savage viciously slanders trans people, they are telling all women, and all trans folk, that we are less worthy, that we had better shut up, that we had better hide ourselves.
If you want the details, head on over to my harassment log. What I want to do here is to highlight a few ways in which I am impacted.
Every day, I must be aware of the threats around me and make conscious choices that non-trans people don't have to think about. Does this restaurant that I want to go to have gender-neutral bathrooms? I want to wear a skirt today — do I have the emotional strength to stand up to the stares and snark that I'll get? What's the safest route for me to walk from point A to point B? Can I cross that intersection diagonally like I usually do, with that cop sitting there? Is today going to be the day that a cop pulls me over and sees the female name and male gender marker on my license, and will he do a freakout all over my body? It's pride day — why did those two lesbians just mock me on the very day that we are supposed to celebrate our diversity? What's the chance that I'll be harassed by assimilationist gay men if I volunteer at that GLBT community center? (Pretty high, I've found.) Will I be welcomed at this or that women's event? (Very unlikely, though it has happened). Am I willing to take the risk of commenting on a feminist blog — and deal with the inevitable "aren't you just reinforcing gender norms" and "why do you have to mutilate yourself" questions? (not here on Shakes, thank the G-ddess and Melissa, but it's happened on nearly every other feminist blog I've commented on.) Will this gym allow trans women in its women's locker room? (Fat chance.) And on and on and on...
I want to touch upon just two other areas — bathroom access and medical care. Although I could list hundreds of issues that trans people face, these two areas are fraught with danger for every trans and gender-variant person, whether they're trans men, trans women, genderqueer, two-spirit, genderless, intersex, or just simply go against patriarchal norms that dictate what genders are permissible and how people of those genders are expected to behave and present themselves. These issues are most difficult for those who (like myself) cannot "pass" as their target gender, and for those who choose not to. Four years into my transition, people still gender me as male more often than as female. I am awaiting the day that our society breaks its dependence on assigning gender to every person that we see, but until that happy day comes, I'm stuck in the middle; neither male-gendered ("What are you, some kind of faggot?") nor female-gendered spaces ("Ohnoez, penis on the land!") are safe for me.
And that includes bathrooms. For gender-normative people, especially men, using a public bathroom is so run-of-the-mill that it's almost an automatic act. At worst, it's something that is mildly unpleasant (Ewww! Stinky!). But for a trans or gender-variant person, public bathrooms are dangerous places, exposing us to harassment, ridicule, physical and sexual assault, and arrest and abuse by police. I avoid most of this harassment simply by avoiding public bathrooms where I can. But I can't alway do that. Sometimes, I do get called for jury duty, and the worst part of jury duty is the tension and fear around using the bathroom in a building (courthouse) that is swarming with police.
Before I transitioned, I was an avid traveler and hiker. I drove cross-continent from Philadelphia, PA to British Columbia. I drove to Utah. I thought nothing of taking a long weekend in Virginia or upstate New York. No more. This is a big part of my life that I have lost, and it's because of the public-bathroom issue. Am I exaggerating the situation? I don't think so. Every time I read about another person who was beaten or arrested just for using the bathroom, my level of fear goes up a notch. And I read about those cases again and again and again.
I think that it is pathetic that, should I need to travel, or I decide to just do it and take my lumps, that I'll need to search this site to find a safe bathroom. No one should have to do that.
On to medical care. I hope that you are at least somewhat familiar with the story of Robert Eads, the trans man who died after dozens of doctors refused to treat his ovarian cancer.
I am fortunate to live in one of the very few US cities that has a clinic that provides health care (trans-specific, gynecological, and general health) for trans people. That takes care of my routine health care and my hormones. But this clinic can't do surgery or diagnostic tests (other than blood and urine tests). So, again, there's frightening questions for me to answer. I have a prostate, and it gets infected and enlarged, and is vulnerable to cancer like every other prostate. Will I ever find a urologist who will treat a woman with prostate enlargement? An oncologist who will treat a woman with prostate cancer, should I get it? Will my insurance cover the treatment? (Not likely.)
I have breasts. My doctor has recommended that I get yearly mammograms, especially with the history of breast cancer in my family. Will I actually ever find a radiology technician who will treat me with respect?
I've developed cramping in my calves when I walk fast, and my doctor has recommended that I get a Doppler study to see if any of the arteries are blocked. I've put this off for four months, because the radiology departments at most hospitals require patients to change into gowns, and where do you do that? Gendered locker rooms, of course.
And G-ddess forbid I should have a heart attack or get into a very bad accident. Will the EMS technicians just let me bleed to death while laughing at me? Will the emergency room personnel just shove me to the side and treat the other people, the ones that are worth saving in their minds? Guess who won't be bothering with calling 911 if / when she has a heart attack. If it is this bad in Philadelphia or Washington, DC, or Jersey City, NJ, what's it like for people living in small town, in rural areas, in areas dominated by xtian fundamentalists?
You might ask, "Why did you transition, if this is what you wind up facing?" My answer is simply that I would not be walking on this Earth today if I did not transition.
[Crossposted.]
Portly Dyke's Guide to Things That Do Not Exist
The Following Things DO NOT Exist
(Please update your records)
| Thing Which Does Not Exist | First Foisted on the American Imagination ON/BY: |
 Santa Claus | 1881 -- Thomas Nast |
 War on Christmas | 2005 -- Bill O'Reilly |
 TheTooth Fairy | 1900 -- Rosemary Wells 1949 -- Lee Rothgow
|
 The Gay Agenda | 1992 -- Family Research Council Also not existing -- Gay Destruction of: 1) Marriage 2) Family 3) Western Civilization 4) The World |
 WMDsin Iraq | 2002 -- George W. Bush |
Liberal Fascism | 2007 -- Jonah Goldberg and others |
When people decide to
A) Graduate from MSU (Making Shit Up), and then
B) Go around distributing their Master's Thesis from MSU as if it is fact . . .
Well, that really pisses me off. This technique is called "The Big Lie"
Case in point: There is no "War on Christmas" -- it doesn't exist. It never did exist. There are no brigades of people vandalizing Creche scenes across the nation or participating in gang assaults on individuals who say "Merry Christmas" on public transit.
Case in point: There is no "Gay Agenda" -- it doesn't exist. It never did exist. There are no queer parents kidnapping their children and forcing them to enter homosexual-indoctrination programs, and no school administrators attempting to shut down student organizations that promote acceptance of heterosexuality.
Case in point: There are no "WMDs in Iraq". They don't exist. They never did. (I believe that this one needs no further explanation.)
Case in point: There are no "Liberal Fascists" -- they don't exist. They never did. There are no true liberals who are advocating wire-tapping, illegal imprisonment, false arrest, or allowing one person to become supreme leader of the entire government in case of an "emergency" -- and all for the "Greater Good" -- a justification used again and again by Fascist regimes. (Under National Socialism, Hitler used this justification for all four of these activities.)
So, the next time someone wants to toss these MSU phrases around, I suggest that you say:
"Well, I'd be glad to talk to you about the [War on Christmas/Gay Agenda/Liberal Fascists], but first, we're going to have to establish whether Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy exist or not. You better pee first. I have a feeling it's going to be a long conversation."
(I'm guessing the whole WMDs thing probably won't come up --even the staunchest winger seems to avoid the subject these days, but if it does, the phrase above should work just fine.)
This has been another educational moment and Rebuttal-Readiness tool from PortlyDyke. [crossposted]
A) Graduate from MSU (Making Shit Up), and then
B) Go around distributing their Master's Thesis from MSU as if it is fact . . .
Well, that really pisses me off. This technique is called "The Big Lie"
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”~ Joseph Goebbels
"It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." ~ Mein Kampf
Case in point: There is no "War on Christmas" -- it doesn't exist. It never did exist. There are no brigades of people vandalizing Creche scenes across the nation or participating in gang assaults on individuals who say "Merry Christmas" on public transit.
Case in point: There is no "Gay Agenda" -- it doesn't exist. It never did exist. There are no queer parents kidnapping their children and forcing them to enter homosexual-indoctrination programs, and no school administrators attempting to shut down student organizations that promote acceptance of heterosexuality.
Case in point: There are no "WMDs in Iraq". They don't exist. They never did. (I believe that this one needs no further explanation.)
Case in point: There are no "Liberal Fascists" -- they don't exist. They never did. There are no true liberals who are advocating wire-tapping, illegal imprisonment, false arrest, or allowing one person to become supreme leader of the entire government in case of an "emergency" -- and all for the "Greater Good" -- a justification used again and again by Fascist regimes. (Under National Socialism, Hitler used this justification for all four of these activities.)
So, the next time someone wants to toss these MSU phrases around, I suggest that you say:
"Well, I'd be glad to talk to you about the [War on Christmas/Gay Agenda/Liberal Fascists], but first, we're going to have to establish whether Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy exist or not. You better pee first. I have a feeling it's going to be a long conversation."
(I'm guessing the whole WMDs thing probably won't come up --even the staunchest winger seems to avoid the subject these days, but if it does, the phrase above should work just fine.)
This has been another educational moment and Rebuttal-Readiness tool from PortlyDyke. [crossposted]
This, Shakers, is the Best the GOP's Got
Willard can also tell you what the meaning of "is" is:
Mitt Romney has been forced to get into some serious verbal gymnastics over his previous declaration about seeing his father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, marching with Martin Luther King. A close examination of the historical records shows that the elder Romney, while he was a strong support of civil rights, never actually appeared with King.So true.
"I've tried to be as accurate as I can be," Romney told reporters. "If you look at the literature or look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of — in the sense I've described."
"I'm an English literature major," he added, after the questions didn't stop. "When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn't necessarily mean you were there."
It does, however, mean you're an idiot, since the Patriots are a football team, and the World Series is a baseball event.
You Dropped A Bomb On Me
When I first heard about Charlie Wilson's War, I wanted to see the film. Then I found out it wasn't about the Gap Band at all and quickly changed my mind. Turns out, it's about a different Charlie Wilson. Also turns out it's totally full of shit.
All of this can be better explained here, but allow me to sum up. Charlie Wilson and the CIA funneled 3.1 billion dollars to Afghani resistance fighters in the hopes of defeating the Soviets. The thing is, a good chunk of this money went to a fellow named Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, a rabid anti-American who, with the help of his pal Osama bin Laden, used the money to establish a string of terrorist training camps across Afghanistan and Pakistan. At these camps, a group of yahoos got it into their heads that flying planes into the World Trade Center would be a good idea.
Hey, if you don't believe me, just see what Wilson has to say on the subject:
…after 9/11, Wilson went on Fox News and said, "This was as much my fault as anybody's." He understood the link between U.S. support for [Gulbaddin] and the events of that terrible day.But that's all been left out of the movie.
A rep at Tom Hanks' production company reportedly said "We just can't deal with this 9/11 thing. Does it have to be so political?" You're making a movie about historical events, about a war that killed over a million people and indirectly spawned two additional wars that have killed countless more. You're making a movie about politics, so yeah, it does "have to be so political."
The events you're portraying directly led to the events of 9/11. To ignore the facts is dishonest, and worse yet, makes light of the tragedy that was 9/11. So whey the hell did this thing even get made? Why tell a story if you're not going to tell the whole story, the real story? I don't see the point. And I don't see how Hanks does either.
Case Study in Health Insurance Failure
John Edwards' speech is quite timely, considering how health care in this country is a clusterfuck. Take, for example, the following story about a teenage girl who needed a liver transplant to save her life.
Warning: This is really going to upset you.
Nataline Sarkisyan was dealt a crappy hand at 14 when she was diagnosed with leukemia. After treatment, the cancer had gone into remission, only to come back this past summer. As more complications started presenting themselves, doctors decided that Nataline, now 17, needed a bone marrow transplant to keep going. Luckily, her brother was a match and they were able to do a transplant. However, things went downhill from there.
Nataline was experiencing unanticipated problems from the marrow transplant, causing her liver to fail. Doctors then decided that a liver transplant was necessary to basically save her life. When Nataline's parents brought this information to their insurance provider, Cigna, for approval, they were denied. Cigna's explained that the transplant was deemed as "experimental" and, most likely, too expensive to be covered. That left the Sarkisyans facing a $75,000 down payment to proceed with the transplant, an amount that I'm sure most of us could certainly not afford.
The California Nurses Association caught wind of this and organized a protest that would crash Cigna's gates in person, on the phone, and on the blogosphere. Thanks to a couple of days of intense pressure from a lot of people, Cigna actually reversed their decision and decided to provide coverage for this life saving transplant operation for Nataline. Unlike Edwards' recounting of James Lowe's story, this one does not have a happy ending.
Ironically, when Cigna got its act together to cover this needed transplant, Nataline's situation got worse and the family was forced to remove her from life support and let her pass away.
That, ladies and gentlemen, crystallizes what is wrong with health care in this country. There's nothing to debate. There is only the need to fix and remove this greed-based shit once and for all.
Status quo is NOT AN OPTION.
What a Couple of Jokers!
Shaker Todd S. (not to be confused with contributor Todd) just forwarded this article to me about a pair of real cut-ups, ahem, who played a hilarious joke on a woman in a bar by holding her down and slicing off her underwear with a knife, then displaying it in the bar like a trophy! Ha ha ha! Fun!
Michael Puhalla, 39, of Sartell, and Russell Baumgardner, 40, of Sauk Rapids, were charged in Stearns County District Court on Wednesday with second-degree sexual assault with a dangerous weapon and second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon. They are accused of holding the woman down against the bar and cutting off her underwear with a pocketknife and placing it on a fan in the bar.You'll no doubt be positively flabbergasted to hear that the target of their uproarious prank did not share their view.
Puhalla and Baumgardner both told authorities they viewed the incident as a joke, according to a criminal complaint.
The complaint said the woman yelled for help several times and asked the bartender to intervene, but he said, "I can't or they will make things worse for me." There were as many as six other men in the bar and none of them came to her aid, either, she said.What team, pray tell, would that be? The team that goes around sexually assaulting people for their own amusement? Unfortunately, I believe women already "take one" for that team on a pretty goddamned regular basis.
…Puhalla told police he and Baumgardner were joking around when the topic of underwear came up. Referring to the incident, he said it was time for the woman "to take one for the team."
Baumgardner told police that he has participated in similar acts in the past as a joke. He said everyone in the bar was watching and laughing at the time. He said he tried to apologize to the woman, but she would not talk to him.What a bitch. Totally can't take a joke.
holiday nostalgia
The next year, at Live Aid, it seems that almost everyone improved on that aspect:
Fast forward 20 years from the original:
And now this song is stuck in your head forever. Mwahahahaha! ;-)
Because it is worth repeating...
Help Save Pretty Bird Woman House!
According to a recent Amnesty International report, more than one in three American Indian and Alaskan Native women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their lifetime. Domestic violence is also a serious problem. Often victims have nowhere to turn due to poverty, remote geography and tangled legal jurisdictions.
Local women’s shelters can make a dramatic difference in helping women cope with the effects of violence, and helping them escape from situations where further violence is likely.
Too often, these shelters are chronically under funded.
Zintkala Waste Win Oti (“Pretty Bird Woman House”) has run out of funding and will be forced to close in May if new resources can’t be found to fund it. It serves the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, which is on the border of North and South Dakota. The shelter was founded by Jackie Brown Otter after the kidnapping, rape and murder of her sister (whose Lakota name means Pretty Bird Woman).
As a shelter volunteer in my home town of St. Louis Missouri, I know how important local shelters are and I know how hard it is to keep the doors open.
Please help Pretty Bird Woman House keep the door open if you can.
Pretty Bird Woman House Chip In
Related Post by Andy Ternay over at Shakesville
Pretty Bird Woman House
Thanks.
When We Stand Up, America Rises
Transcript is below.
And I do. I take this, I mean, I'll tell ya right now, when I speak about these things, and you'll know it when you leave here, it comes from right here in my gut, because I take this personally. I do. My parents raised me up, and all of you feel the same way, my parents raised me from the time I was this big to believe that the men and women who worked at the mill with them are worth every bit as much as the man that owns that mill. And the people I grew up with, including my own father and mother, are worth every bit as much as any president of the United States. That is, that is at the heart and soul of what makes this country what it is today. That is the promise of America. It is. So what are we going to be willing to do about this? What are we gonna do?
I met a man named James Lowe [ph] a few months ago—fifty-one years old. Told me a story. We were in the Appalachian Mountains, sitting on a picnic table early in the morning, and James said to me, "You know, I was born with a cleft palate, and because I had it, I couldn't speak." A simple operation would have fixed it, but he had no healthcare coverage. Finally somebody came along and fixed his cleft palate and now he can talk. He was fifty-one. They fixed it when he was fifty years old. [gasps and groans from audience] James Lowe lived fifty years in America not able to speak because he had no healthcare coverage.
And he was so kind and gracious; he really did remind me of the people that I grew up with who worked at the mill with my dad. But I was listening to his story, and I felt this…such power inside me: How long are we going to let insurance companies, drug companies, their lobbyists run this country?! America doesn't belong to them! America belongs to us! James Lowe finally got his voice back; don't you think it's time for your voice to be heard? That's what this democracy is!
And I listen, I listen, to these numbers coming out of Washington; I know you all see them, too. The CEO of the biggest health insurance company in America making hundreds of millions of dollars, not millions, hundreds of millions of dollars. Exxon Mobile—record, record profits. The profits of big corporations going up and up and up; the richest Americans getting richer and richer; the top 1% now take twice as much of the national income as they did twenty to twenty-five years ago.
And I look at that, and I think about, just put it in my mind, side by side, with what's happening in America—because today, while that CEO makes hundreds of millions of dollars, forty-seven million Americans will go to sleep tonight knowing that if their child gets sick, they're going to have to go to the emergency room and beg for healthcare. Thirty-seven million will make up tomorrow morning literally worried about feeding and clothing their children.
Just a couple of days ago, I spent time in a shelter out in Iowa with some women, single moms, with their children, and the people, really sweet people, who ran the place were telling me the story of just a few months ago—I don't remember the numbers precisely, but I think it was seventy, seventy-five families, this is a small place, seventy, seventy-five families they had to turn away. These are single mothers, with children—three, four children—and I said to them, "So, when you turn them away, where do they go?" "Back to their cars. Back to the bridges." At the same time that we have record profits for corporate America. Last year, thirty-five million Americans, in the richest nation on the planet, roughly the population of California, went hungry. Thirty-five million. And tonight, two hundred thousand men and women who wore the uniform of the United States of America will go to sleep under bridges and on grates. America is better than this. We're better than this.
And I'll tell ya something: Something's gonna happen, starting right here, on January the eighth, right here in New Hampshire. This is what's gonna happen: You're gonna say "Enough is enough. We want this democracy back." You're gonna rise up and you're voice is gonna be heard and it will be heard not just in New Hampshire—all those people with cameras in the back? They won't even know what hit 'em. They're gonna say, "What is going on here?"
There will be a rising, and it will spread across this entire country that will bring change. When we stand up for forty-seven million Americans who have no healthcare coverage, America rises. When we stand up for thirty-five million who went hungry last year, America rises. When we stand up for thirty-seven million who live in poverty, America rises. When we speak for James Lowe and millions like him, America rises.
And that rising will begin right here, with you, in New Hampshire, on January the eighth.
