Below are the names and links to the websites of all of the sponsors and cosponsors of both SOPA & PIPA.  If any of these people represent you, get on the phone now!  Call them.  Tell them you don’t want to live in another China.  If you lose the free internet, the HORN  won’t be far behind.

PIPA SPONSOR AND COSPONSORS

Rep Smith, Lamar [TX-21]

Rep Amodei, Mark E. [NV-2] – 11/3/2011
Rep Baca, Joe [CA-43] – 12/7/2011
Rep Barrow, John [GA-12] – 11/14/2011
Rep Bass, Karen [CA-33] – 11/3/2011
Rep Berman, Howard L. [CA-28] – 10/26/2011
Rep Blackburn, Marsha [TN-7] – 10/26/2011
Rep Bono Mack, Mary [CA-45] – 10/26/2011
Rep Carter, John R. [TX-31] – 11/3/2011
Rep Chabot, Steve [OH-1] – 10/26/2011
Rep Chu, Judy [CA-32] – 11/30/2011
Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] – 10/26/2011
Rep Cooper, Jim [TN-5] – 12/12/2011
Rep Deutch, Theodore E. [FL-19] – 10/26/2011
Rep Gallegly, Elton [CA-24] – 10/26/2011
Rep Goodlatte, Bob [VA-6] – 10/26/2011
Rep Griffin, Tim [AR-2] – 10/26/2011
Rep Holden, Tim [PA-17] – 11/30/2011
Rep King, Peter T. [NY-3] – 11/3/2011
Rep Larson, John B. [CT-1] – 11/30/2011
Rep Lujan, Ben Ray [NM-3] – 11/14/2011
Rep Marino, Tom [PA-10] – 11/3/2011
Rep Nunnelee, Alan [MS-1] – 11/3/2011
Rep Owens, William L. [NY-23] – 11/14/2011
Rep Ross, Dennis [FL-12] – 10/26/2011
Rep Scalise, Steve [LA-1] – 11/14/2011
Rep Schiff, Adam B. [CA-29] – 10/26/2011
Rep Sherman, Brad [CA-27] – 12/7/2011
Rep Terry, Lee [NE-2] – 10/26/2011
Rep Wasserman Schultz, Debbie [FL-20] – 11/3/2011
Rep Watt, Melvin L. [NC-12] – 11/3/2011
Rep Quayle, Benjamin [AZ-3] – 12/13/2011(withdrawn – 1/17/2012)

SOPA SPONSOR AND COSPONSORS

Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT]

Sen Alexander, Lamar [TN] – 5/25/2011
Sen Ayotte, Kelly [NH] – 6/27/2011
Sen Bennet, Michael F. [CO] – 7/25/2011
Sen Bingaman, Jeff [NM] – 10/19/2011
Sen Blumenthal, Richard [CT] – 5/12/2011
Sen Blunt, Roy [MO] – 5/23/2011
Sen Boozman, John [AR] – 6/15/2011
Sen Boxer, Barbara [CA] – 12/12/2011
Sen Brown, Sherrod [OH] – 10/20/2011
Sen Cardin, Benjamin L. [MD] – 7/13/2011
Sen Casey, Robert P., Jr. [PA] – 9/7/2011
Sen Chambliss, Saxby [GA] – 11/2/2011
Sen Cochran, Thad [MS] – 6/23/2011
Sen Coons, Christopher A. [DE] – 5/12/2011
Sen Corker, Bob [TN] – 6/9/2011
Sen Durbin, Richard [IL] – 6/30/2011
Sen Enzi, Michael B. [WY] – 9/7/2011
Sen Feinstein, Dianne [CA] – 5/12/2011
Sen Franken, Al [MN] – 5/12/2011
Sen Gillibrand, Kirsten E. [NY] – 5/26/2011
Sen Graham, Lindsey [SC] – 5/12/2011
Sen Grassley, Chuck [IA] – 5/12/2011
Sen Hagan, Kay [NC] – 7/5/2011
Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] – 5/12/2011
Sen Isakson, Johnny [GA] – 11/2/2011
Sen Johnson, Tim [SD] – 10/3/2011
Sen Klobuchar, Amy [MN] – 5/12/2011
Sen Kohl, Herb [WI] – 5/12/2011
Sen Landrieu, Mary L. [LA] – 10/17/2011
Sen Lieberman, Joseph I. [CT] – 7/7/2011
Sen McCain, John [AZ] – 7/26/2011
Sen Menendez, Robert [NJ] – 10/31/2011
Sen Nelson, Bill [FL] – 9/23/2011
Sen Risch, James E. [ID] – 11/7/2011
Sen Rubio, Marco [FL] – 5/26/2011
Sen Schumer, Charles E. [NY] – 5/12/2011
Sen Shaheen, Jeanne [NH] – 6/30/2011
Sen Udall, Tom [NM] – 7/7/2011
Sen Vitter, David [LA] – 11/7/2011
Sen Whitehouse, Sheldon [RI] – 5/12/2011
Sen Moran, Jerry [KS] – 6/23/2011(withdrawn – 6/27/2011)

By Cassie

I’ve always been different from other kids.  Smarter, prettier, more resourceful.  Mostly more resourceful.For instance, in elementary school I carried an empty lunchbox to school most days and a full lunchbox home.  My school cafeteria had a little table near the exit for used lunch trays, and a tray in the back where you could put any food still in the package, full milk cartons, or whole pieces of fruit.  That table was my lunch line and my grocery store until we started getting food stamps. One of my teachers told me that it was OK to take an apple from the table and save it for later, and that was like a green light for me to start filling my empty lunchbox every day with enough food for dinner.

When I was little, there were times when we didn’t have enough food in the house.  My mom’s an addict, and feeding us was less of a priority for her than it should have been.

Sometimes we had enough food, but my brother and I weren’t allowed to use the stove or mess up the microwave.  Sometimes my mom had money but used it for drugs rather than food.  Sometimes she forgot.  And sometimes she grocery shopped and cooked wonderful meals. Sometimes we were hungry, and sometimes we were just food-insecure.

I became a much better-fed, happier, and less worried student when I was in fourth grade and we actually signed up for food stamps and the school’s free-breakfast and free-lunch program, after my fourth grade teacher urged my family to sign the forms.  I started eating hot meals at school and worrying less about where my next meal would come from.  Shockingly, it turns out that enrolling us in these programs could have landed my mother in jail!  Source Article

Keith Olbermann blasted the mainstream media on his show Wednesday night for being either “too corrupt or too dense” to understand the “Occupy Wall Street” movement.

Numerous media outlets repeated the criticism that the protest had no specific purpose or demands.

Fox News host Charles Gasparino called the protest “idiotic” and CNN anchor Erin Burnett mocked the demonstration in her debut. The New York Times had described the protest as a “noble but fractured and airy movement of rightly frustrated young people” whose purpose was “virtually impossible to decipher.”

“Here is what Occupy Wall Street says and wants,” Olbermann said.

To all the men and women who came out to their friends and families after the end of DADT–Blessings upon you and your families.  It is my hope that all your families’ reaction was something like young man’s father’s reaction.  It was so wonderful and so very touching.  That father and son are blessed.

From everything learned by other countries, there will be few if any, problems.  I have a question for all of the nay sayers and homophobes who screamed bloody murder at even the thought of repealing DADT.

Guys, go to the nearest window and look outside.  Is the sun still in the sky? It is? Is the earth still rotating?  It is?

Then shut the fuck up!

Appalachian justice activists commemorate Judy Bonds’ birthday; Matriarch of movement to end mountaintop removal remembered in moment of silence

Human rights activists and environmentalists in Appalachia will observe a moment of silence at noon, Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday, August 27, 2011 to commemorate the birth and brilliant life of Julia “Judy” Bonds. They are calling on all activists to join this remembrance. Judy, who died in January of this year, would have been 59 years old Saturday.  Judy’s fierce activism and determination crystallized the movement to end mountaintop removal coal extraction in Appalachia.  This moment of silence will be observed annually.

Born in Birch Hollow, West Virginia in 1952 to Oliver “Cobb” and Sarah Easton Hannah Thompson, Judy grew to adulthood in what was, as she described it, a mountain paradise before Massey Energy (now owned by Alpha Natural Resources) came to destroy it.  It was Massey’s assault on the area she held so dear that drove Judy, who at the time was working as a waitress, into the struggle to save not just herself, but all the other Appalachian communities ravaged by mountaintop removal. Seeing her grandson playing in the same creek where she had played as a child, and realizing that creek had been poisoned, gave Judy all the impetus she needed to speak truth to power.  Small of stature, she never hesitated to stand up to the mightiest politicians and coal company executives, and those people learned that in her they had met a mighty foe.

Judy realized she was in a struggle that might traverse generations, and whose end she might not see.  Like all great leaders, however, it neither slowed nor discouraged her. In 2003, the Goldman Foundation recognized both the importance of her work and her determined courage with its Environmental Prize, considered by many to be the “Environmental Nobel.” In addition, Judy travelled tirelessly almost to the very end, encouraging and exhorting people nationwide to stand up and be counted among those no longer willing to see an entire region sacrificed for profit.  She held especial regard for America’s youth, upon whom she placed a great trust that they would see the right and vigorously pursue it.

Bob Kincaid, Board President of Coal River Mountain Watch noted “Many of the great leaders who struggled for human rights, from Moses all the way to Dr. King, did not see the completion of their work.  Judy Bonds joined their ranks this past January.  Felled by the same coal-borne cancers that yet stalk our Appalachian hills and hollers, she knew what had been done to her and strove to her final day to see that it would STOP happening to others.  She left it to us to carry on in her name, and carry on we will! Our heritage, our communities and our very lives are NOT fit sacrifices for a handful of people to have a job and distant, uncaring shareholders to have a profit.”

Purpose Prize winner Bo Webb of Naoma, W.Va., Judy’s longtime colleague and friend said, “Seven months have passed since Judy’s life was snuffed out by Massey Energy.  Two alarming peer-reviewed scientific research papers have been released in that time indicating that mountaintop removal is killing our mountain community citizens and defecting our babies in the womb, and yet mountaintop removal continues. How many must die, how many body bags must be stacked up before Congress takes action and places a moratorium on all mountaintop removal?   I call for that again today, and in  the name of Judy Bonds I call upon every organization that receives funding to oppose mountaintop removal to immediately stop wasting that money on long-term organizing,  and use 100% of their mountaintop removal funding to call immediate attention to the urgency to end this crime now, today!”

Award-winning film producer Mari-Lynn Evans offered these reflections on the Judy’s life and work:  “I knew someone who was divined with greatness and her name was Judy Bonds. One of the honors of my life was to walk down this path with her guiding me. She was the proudest hillbilly I ever met.  She loved her home and she loved this land and its people with all her heart and soul. She devoted her life to stopping the environmental atrocities and social injustices that the Appalachian people have suffered for so very long. Her commitment to stopping mountaintop removal was iconic and so was she. In June, when almost 1000 anti-MTR protestors reached the peak of Blair Mountain, Maria Gunnoe invoked Judy’s name. Like Martin Luther King Jr, Judy never made it to the mountain top with us. In July,  two young women climbed 80′ up trees and sat there for weeks to prevent Alpha (Massey) from blasting Coal River WV. When they got to the top, they dropped banners that said “Stop MTR” and “For Judy Bonds”.  What a legacy she has left for those of us she had to leave behind! I think of her kindness and the twinkle in her eyes when she laughed, and she laughed a lot. She was full of love. This morning I watched a tribute film we did for Judy. At the end, Judy cries to the viewers that she just wants to go home. She just wants them (Massey) to leave and let her go home.  Judy is home now. In the name of Judy Bonds, STOP MTR NOW.”

Vernon Haltom, Director of Coal River Mountain Watch, who served as co-director with Judy said, “Judy is a national treasure, a freedom fighter, and the inspiration for thousands.  Our congressional delegation would rather ignore her sacrifice, though, and pretend that she and all the people suffering from mountaintop removal never existed. They continue to promote the genocide of mountaintop removal, the culture of death that says it’s okay to sacrifice our people, born and unborn, for a bloody profit.  Judy said, ‘How do you compromise with someone who’s blasting and poisoning us and our children?’ and ‘There’s blood on that light switch.’  She was never afraid of offending with her blunt truth.  In her final days on Earth, she called on us to fight harder.  The only other choice is to hand over untold thousands more to the coal cult’s deadly hand. We’re going to have a moment of silence, and then raise our voices for justice.”

Kincaid added, “As she lay dying, Judy called upon ALL persons of conscience to ‘Fight HARDER.’  Saturday’s commemoration of her birth is another step in that struggle.  Eventually, when we realize her dream of ending mountaintop removal, August 27 will be the day we mark Appalachia’s freedom from tyranny and the admission of all Appalachian people into full citizenship in the United States.”