Thursday, May 31, 2012
Daily Kos: Walmart quits ALEC
Daily Kos: Walmart quits ALEC:
'via Blog this'
'via Blog this'
Ouch. For the American Legislative Council (ALEC), that is.
(Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's No. 1 retailer and the biggest seller of firearms in the United States, is dropping out of a U.S. conservative advocacy group that has been a lightning rod over voting and gun laws.That's a big fucking deal. A statement like that, so specific and so public in condemning ALEC's far-right efforts, coming from Walmart, will do serious damage to the organization. With a defection this big, it wouldn't be terribly surprising to see ALEC have to restructure and become something else. It's not realistic to think that these people, and the Koch funding that fuels them, will go away entirely, but ALEC as an entity might have reached the end of its tether.
Wal-Mart said late Wednesday it is suspending membership in the American Legislative Council (ALEC), which the retailer joined in 1993. [...]"Previously, we expressed our concerns about ALEC's decision to weigh in on issues that stray from its core mission 'to advance the Jeffersonian principles of free markets,'" Maggie Sans, Wal-Mart vice president of public affairs and government relations, said in a May 30 letter addressed to ALEC's national chairman and executive director."We feel that the divide between these activities and our purpose as a business has become too wide. To that end, we are suspending our membership in ALEC."
BREAKING: Federal Judge Blocks Florida Voter Suppression Law | ThinkProgress
BREAKING: Federal Judge Blocks Florida Voter Suppression Law | ThinkProgress:
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Originally posted here: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/31/493196/judge-blocks-florida-voter-law/
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A federal judge blocked much of Florida’s year-old voter suppression law today as an unconstitutional infringement on speech and voting rights.
Last year, the Republican-held Florida legislature passed HB 1355, which imposed harsh new restrictions on third-party voter registration groups, requiring them to turn in completed registration forms 48 hours — to the minute — after completion, or face fines. Outside groups often register hundreds of people at a time and, before this law, had used a quality-control process that took days to ensure the accuracy of submitted forms. With the onerous restrictions now in place, some groups like the League of Women Voters were ultimately forced to cease registration drives in the Sunshine State.
In blocking the new law, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle wrote:
The statute and rule impose a harsh and impractical 48-hour deadline for an organization to deliver applications to a voter registration office and effectively prohibit an organization from mailing applications in. And the statute and rule impose burdensome record-keeping and reporting requirements that serve little if any purpose, thus rendering them unconstitutional even to the extent they do not violate the NVRA. [...]The plaintiffs will suffer irreparable harm if an injunction is not issued, first because the denial of a right of this magnitude under circumstances like these almost always inflicts irreparable harm, and second because when a plaintiff loses an opportunity to register a voter, the opportunity is gone forever.
Though state judges and the Department of Justice have already taken steps to prevent voter disenfranchisement, Hinkle’s decision is the first time a federal court has blocked one of the most recent round of state voter suppression laws.
Voters have already begun to experience the effects of new anti-voting laws. Minority voter registration is down significantly from the 2008 election. Among Latinos nationwide, voter registration has dropped five percent; for blacks, registration rates are down seven percent.
New York University’s Brennan Center, which studies voting rights issues, hailed the decision. “Florida’s law and others approved in the past year represent the most significant cutback in voting rights in decades,” said director Wendy Weiser. “Today’s decision will help turn the tide.”
Originally posted here: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/05/31/493196/judge-blocks-florida-voter-law/
Van Jones at Rebuild Wisconsin
How important is Wisconsin? It's huge. And win or lose keep the fight alive. What do they win if they have an unruly America?
Bruce Springsteen: Bankers Are 'Greedy Thieves'
Bruce Springsteen: Bankers Are 'Greedy Thieves':
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BERLIN, May 30 - Rocker Bruce Springsteen touched on a nerve of widespread discontent with the financiers and bankers at a Berlin concert on Wednesday, railing against them as "greedy thieves" and "robber barons."
Springsteen, a singer-songwriter dubbed "The Boss" who has long championed populist causes, played to a sold-out crowd at Berlin's Olympic Stadium, singing from his album "Wrecking Ball" and speaking about tough economic times that have put people out of work worldwide and led to debt crises in Greece and other countries.
"In America, a lot of people have lost their jobs," said Springsteen, 62, who performed for three hours to some 58,000 fans in the packed stadium that hosted the 1936 Olympics and the 2006 World Cup final.
"But also in Europe and in Berlin, times are tough," he added, speaking in fluent German. "This song is for all those who are struggling." He then introduced "Jack of All Trades", a withering attack on bankers that includes the lyrics: "The banker man grows fat, working man grows thin."
Europe has been especially hard hit since 2008's financial meltdown that sparked an enduring sovereign debt crisis. Unemployment on the continent has risen to levels not seen since the 1990s.
Springsteen's "Wrecking Ball" tour began on May 13 in Spain, which is struggling with its crushing debt load, and it runs for 2-1/2 months with 33 stops in 15 countries before concluding on July 31 in Helsinki.
originally from Rueters http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/bruce-springsteen-bankers_n_1559776.html
Broken Promises: Romney's Massachusetts Record
Having lived in Massachusetts I'd say this was pretty accurate. I can say taxes didn't go up, fees went through the roof and they weren't called taxes. He was there for about two years and used it as a platform to run for president. We got a part-time governor but we got a full time campaigner. During those year Massachusetts had a campaigner in chief.
Citizens United Attacks From Justice Stevens Continue
Citizens United Attacks From Justice Stevens Continue:
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WASHINGTON -- A day after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, retired Justice John Paul Stevens on Wednesday night backed President Barack Obama's suggestion during his 2010 State of the Union address that the Citizens Uniteddecision could lead to "foreign entities" bankrolling American elections.
He urged the U.S. Supreme Court to explicitly explain why the president's words were "not true," as Justice Samuel Alito famously mouthed on camera, breaking the justices' usual stoic appearance during the president's annual speech.
Stevens has been a trenchant critic of Citizens United since the court decided the case in January 2010. On the day the opinion was announced, he spent 20 minutes reading from the bench a summary of his 90-page dissent. Stumbling over some words that day convinced Stevens, now 92, to retire, but he continued to condemn the ruling in speeches, writings and even on the Colbert Report.
In a speech at the University of Arkansas' Clinton School of Public Service, Stevens challenged his former colleagues to defend Alito's "not true" moment by reconciling the court's sweeping language in Citizens United that the First Amendment "generally prohibits the suppression of political speech based on the speaker's identity," with its subsequent decision -- made without briefing, argument, or written opinion -- to uphold a ban on campaign spending by non-citizens.
Alito's reaction, Stevens said, "persuade[s] me that that in due course it will be necessary for the court to issue an opinion explicitly crafting an exception that will create a crack in the foundation of the Citizens United majority opinion." In doing so, he continued, "it will be necessary to explain why the First Amendment provides greater protection to the campaign speech of some non-voters" -- that is, domestic corporations -- "than to that of other non-voters" such as the Canadian Harvard Law School graduate who remains barred from making campaign contributions.
The lawsuit brought by the Canadian citizen "unquestionably provided the court with an appropriate opportunity to explain why the president had misinterpreted the Court's opinion in Citizens United. "[T]he court instead took the surprising action of simply affirming the district court without comment and without dissent."
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
From the thirties and today look who's coming to Washington
From the 1930's to today. This is what we get some click used car salesman backing big business and lying to the American people.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Bob McDonnell, GOP Gov., Wants Drones Policing Virginia Because They're Used 'On The Battlefield'
Bob McDonnell, GOP Gov., Wants Drones Policing Virginia Because They're Used 'On The Battlefield': "Virginia is for drones.
Or rather, since drones are good for fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, they must be good for policing Virginia.
That was the message Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell told WTOP Radio on Tuesday, when he praised drone technology as "great" and urged its use domestically for the same reasons it is deployed overseas.
"I think we ought to be using technology to make law enforcement more productive; it cuts down on manpower in the air -- and more safe," he said. "That's why we use it on the battlefield."
Civil liberties "like privacy" need to be addressed, but if drones keep police officers safe and save money, using them was "absolutely the right thing to do," McDonnell said.
The Department of Homeland Security recently launched a $4 million program to accelerate the adoption of unmanned drones by police and other public safety agencies."
'via Blog this'
Or rather, since drones are good for fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, they must be good for policing Virginia.
That was the message Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell told WTOP Radio on Tuesday, when he praised drone technology as "great" and urged its use domestically for the same reasons it is deployed overseas.
"I think we ought to be using technology to make law enforcement more productive; it cuts down on manpower in the air -- and more safe," he said. "That's why we use it on the battlefield."
Civil liberties "like privacy" need to be addressed, but if drones keep police officers safe and save money, using them was "absolutely the right thing to do," McDonnell said.
The Department of Homeland Security recently launched a $4 million program to accelerate the adoption of unmanned drones by police and other public safety agencies."
'via Blog this'
Monday, May 28, 2012
No class warfare here
Daily Kos: New York minimum wage increase being blocked by Republicans would give 880,000 workers a raise:
"The minimum wage increase that has passed the New York State Assembly but is stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate and is not drawing support from Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo would directly benefit 10.1 percent of New York workers. The proposed increase from the federal minimum wage of $7.25 to $8.50 would affect 880,000 workers currently earning less than $8.50 an hour, a new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute finds, and another 200,000 workers making just over $8.50 might benefit from a spillover effect.
A majority of the workers who would get a raise live in New York City and the surrounding area—352,000 in New York City, 126,500 on Long Island, and another 72,500 in suburban counties. But several upstate counties would actually see a disproportionate number of workers benefit, among them Broome County and Oneida County, where 12.6 and 12.5 percent of workers would get raises, respectively, and Erie County where the figure is 11.4 percent. That's another 71,400 workers getting a better standard of living in return for their work.
"
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"The minimum wage increase that has passed the New York State Assembly but is stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate and is not drawing support from Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo would directly benefit 10.1 percent of New York workers. The proposed increase from the federal minimum wage of $7.25 to $8.50 would affect 880,000 workers currently earning less than $8.50 an hour, a new report from the Fiscal Policy Institute finds, and another 200,000 workers making just over $8.50 might benefit from a spillover effect.
A majority of the workers who would get a raise live in New York City and the surrounding area—352,000 in New York City, 126,500 on Long Island, and another 72,500 in suburban counties. But several upstate counties would actually see a disproportionate number of workers benefit, among them Broome County and Oneida County, where 12.6 and 12.5 percent of workers would get raises, respectively, and Erie County where the figure is 11.4 percent. That's another 71,400 workers getting a better standard of living in return for their work.
"
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Sunday, May 27, 2012
A song for the night: The heart of Paradise Theater: Styx - The Best Of Times
The Paradise Theatre was a Balaban and Katz movie palace located in Chicago, Illinois, that opened in 1928. Located near the intersection of West Madison Street and Crawford Avenue (later Pulaski Road) on Chicago's West Side, the Paradise was never a terribly successful movie house. It was closed in 1956, like many theaters, and was demolished over the following two years.
The theater was later made somewhat famous by the Styx album Paradise Theater, a "concept album" with songs that followed along with the history of the theater from opening to closing.
article here: http://www.enotes.com/topic/Paradise_Theatre_(Chicago,_Illinois)
Thank God we have Jonathan Alter protecting teachers when is he coming to help out. Oh I guess he's already done enough
LP - This is impressive as Jonathan Alter shows what a great supporter he is of education as he once took his fat salary and bought a bunch of kids a couple of pencils and a paper clip or two. What Alter doesn't express in this piece is who determines what is best for kids: teachers that are sitting beside them every day in class or one overpaid reporter who really only gives a damn about them for a three minute segment on television. I think the teacher should weigh in and have some more accountability on their public air waves. I don't think this MSNBC reporter would be getting a passing grade.
> yes.
>> and i'm a huge supporter of teachers, and i have been involved for 15 years in donors choose which helps teachers with classroom supplies and i have always thought that teachers are badly underpaid and this idea in pennsylvania of the republican governor cutting $1 billion from public education is insane, but having said that the interests of adult interest groups are not always congruent with that of kids. we have to ask what's best for kids, not what is best for the adult interest group, and they are not always the same. so what we need is a grand -- what we need is a grand --
>> and we should not always pit them against each other.
>> well, no, but part of the pitting is that partly because every time somebody criticizes the teacher unions, we are teacher bashers. we are not bashing the teachers, but critical of some and not all, but certain practices of the union to protecting incompetence who are inflicting educational malpractice on the students, and we need grand bargaining and a lot more pay in exchange for a lot more accountability and not necessarily through a standardized test, but broader assessment of the teacher quality.
Thank God we got John Stossel to tell us what poverty is. With one day on a line at a food kitchen and a slickly spliced taped.
I work in the inner city, in a very poor part of a major city. I've seen first hand connection from inner city schools to jails, but don't tell John Stossel we have air conditioning in there when it works. Hopefully the air conditioning at Fox works a little better. I really learned a lot.
Rod Paige, other Bush administration appointees named to Mitt Romney’s education advisory group - The Washington Post
Rod Paige, other Bush administration appointees named to Mitt Romney’s education advisory group - The Washington Post:
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(Mary Altaffer - AP)
Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/rod-paige-other-bush-administration-appointees-named-to-mitt-romneys-education-advisory-group/2012/05/22/gIQAP0hJiU_blog.html
It should not be forgotten that back in Rod Paige's time at the head of the Houston school system he made students disappear so the district's scores went up. Many of Paige's underlings were fired for this while Rod rode his falsified record right to the head of the department of education. This is just another example, like the banks how the 99% underlings take the fall, while the politically and business connected remain protected. No wonder Mitt like Rod Paige.
As for Mr. Paige's tenure in Houston:
LP - Maybe they could also add Michelle Rhee to erase test scores to make them go away.
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NEW YORK – Mitt Romney on Tuesday announced a team of education policy advisers that includes former education secretary Rod Paige and other top appointees from President George W. Bush’s administration.
(Mary Altaffer - AP)
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Romney, who is attending a series of fundraisers in New York Tuesday, has not made education policy a focus of his campaign. But he plans to outline what he would do as president in an education policy address in Washington on Wednesday.
Romney is a proponent of expanding school choice – as governor of Massachusetts, he was a charter schools advocate -- and has been an outspoken critic of teachers’ unions.
Romney’s Education Policy Advisory Committee includes several prominent opponents of teacher’s unions, including Paige, who as secretary of education in 2004 labeled the National Education Association a “terrorist organization.”
Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/rod-paige-other-bush-administration-appointees-named-to-mitt-romneys-education-advisory-group/2012/05/22/gIQAP0hJiU_blog.html
It should not be forgotten that back in Rod Paige's time at the head of the Houston school system he made students disappear so the district's scores went up. Many of Paige's underlings were fired for this while Rod rode his falsified record right to the head of the department of education. This is just another example, like the banks how the 99% underlings take the fall, while the politically and business connected remain protected. No wonder Mitt like Rod Paige.
As for Mr. Paige's tenure in Houston:
The short bio of Paige released by the Romney campaign states that he once was superintendent of Houston's schools. But it fails to mention that Paige, once he was in Bush's cabinet, became mired in an ugly scandal, when the news broke that the Houston school system, the seventh largest in the nation, had falsified its dropout stats during Paige's tenure.
As the Los Angeles Times put it:
A series of internal audits and external investigations that followed found that nearly all of the schools examined in Houston, with the nation's seventh-largest school district and where U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige had been superintendent, were vastly underreporting dropouts.
A New York Times editorial explained why this was particularly embarrassing for Bush and Paige:
As a presidential candidate and Texas governor, George Bush boasted that his state's school accountability system would be a model for the nation. A focus on basic skills and frequent testing had turned around an underperforming set of school systems in a state with a large poor, nonwhite population. In particular, he said, Houston was leading the way. When he was elected president, Mr. Bush selected Rod Paige, the Houston superintendent, as his education secretary.It turns out the Houston schools have not lived up to their billing. Their amazingly low high school dropout rate was literally unbelievable—the educational equivalent of Enron's accounting results. The school district has found that more than half of the 5,500 students who left in the 2000-1 school year should have been declared dropouts but were not.Dr. Paige, who has declined to comment on the Houston scandal, can remain silent no longer. He was brought to Washington to provide national educational leadership. With Houston facing a crisis of fiddled data, he owes it to the country to share his thoughts on how this happened and what it means.
Several years later, when 60 Minutes was reporting on the Houston dropout scandal, Paige still wouldn't explain his role:
full story here: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/romney-education-adviser-rod-paige-dropout-scandal60 Minutes also tried to talk to Paige himself, but he declined. His spokesman said the dropout controversy broke after Paige left Houston to become education secretary....Paige's spokesman suggested that 60 Minutes talk to Jay Greene, a leading expert on dropouts at the Manhattan Institute. Greene supports the kind of accountability reforms Paige enacted in Houston.But this is what Greene said when asked what he thought about Houston's "official" dropout rates: "I find that very hard to believe. It is almost certainly not true. I think it's simply implausible. I think a reasonable guess is that almost half of Houston's students do not graduate from high school."
LP - Maybe they could also add Michelle Rhee to erase test scores to make them go away.
Not only is executive seat up for grabs in Wisconsin but so is the legislature. 4 Senate seats also on recall ballot - JSOnline
4 Senate seats also on recall ballot - JSOnline:
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Compas was outraged by what opponents saw as hardball tactics by Republicans during the chaotic months at the Capitol after Gov. Scott Walker took office in 2011.
"I realized that my own senator was the ringleader of all of it," she said.
Working in her hometown of Fort Atkinson, she started gathering signatures, by the hundreds, then the thousands, in the 13th District, covering much of Dodge and Jefferson and pieces of Dane and Waukesha counties. Compas, 41, in many ways has become the face of the grass-roots movement in Wisconsin's recall elections.
By contrast, Fitzgerald is one of the lawmakers most closely associated with Walker. He presided over a session that included the virtual elimination of collective bargaining for most public employees, major cuts in education and changes to environmental and social programs.
And his uncompromising legislative maneuvering in a Capitol packed with demonstrators made the Senate veteran a hero to many.
"Sure, there's a group of people who are still very upset about the way it was handled," Fitzgerald said. "But more people are saying to me, 'Hey, you guys did the right thing.'
"If Lori Compas wouldn't have launched this race, I don't think there would be as much energy - maybe this gets more people to the polls."
This spring, Walker's historic recall election looms over everything.
But in addition to his contest and the race for lieutenant governor, four state Senate seats also are in play on June 5.
Fitzgerald is the most formidable of the incumbents. First elected to the Senate in 1994, he was re-elected in 2010 with 68% of the vote. In 2006, he was unopposed.
... (District 21) Democrats never thought they had a chance to unseat Fitzgerald. Instead, the party targeted three other senators who were viewed as more beatable - Van Wanggaard of Racine, Terry Moulton of Chippewa Falls and Pam Galloway of Wausau.
Galloway has since resigned and in her place Rep. Jerry Petrowski (R-Stettin) is running for the open Senate seat against Rep. Donna Seidel (D-Wausau.) Her resignation left the Senate evenly split - 16-16 - between Republicans and Democrats.
...( District 23) Moulton is opposed by Dexter, who defeated Moulton in 2008 for an Assembly seat. The Senate district covers Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls and large portions of Eau Claire, Chippewa and Clark counties.
Dexter said the economy, cuts to education and Republicans' limits on eligibility for BadgerCare, the state health program for the poor, are the issues voters are talking about.
"The policies of Terry Moulton and Scott Walker favor the few at the expense of the working class," Dexter said.
... (District 29) Seidel is challenging Petrowski for a Senate seat that includes Wausau and rural areas to the north and northwest.
The resignation of Galloway "changed the nature of the race," Seidel said, but she said that Petrowski voted for the same policies.
"There has not nearly been enough done for jobs," Seidel said. "That's the top issue."
Saturday, May 26, 2012
$1,000 bucks a month to protect the fat head's fat head: Rush Limbaugh
At the request of Republican lawmakers, taxpayers are funding a 24-hour security camera to watch over a Rush Limbaugh bust in the Missouri Capitol building.
State House Clerk Adam Crumbliss on Thursday told The Associated Press that he had authorized the $1,000 camera after Republican lawmakers expressed concerns about vandalism. Limbaugh's statue is the only one in the Rotunda with 24-hour security.
"We recognize that there was a level of controversy around it, and we want to make sure that property is protected," Crumbliss explained.
Full story here: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/missouri-taxpayers-fund-24-hour-security-cam
LP: $1,000 bucks a month to protect the fat head's fat head. I'd say that's good use of the taxpayers money.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Daily Kos: Florida begins MASSIVE voter purge in early bid to steal Presidency before elections
Daily Kos: Florida begins MASSIVE voter purge in early bid to steal Presidency before elections:
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This has EVERYTHING to do with the fact that Florida is a swing state. This has everything to do with stopping citizens from being able to vote. This has EVERYTHING to do with voter supression. Denying your countrymen their right to a vote, brought to you by the Republican Party.
. . . in this election, “Governor Scott wants to play the role of Katherine Harris.”Katherine Harris, of course, was the Florida Secretary of State who helped George W. Bush "win" Florida and the Presidential election of 2000 after Bush v Gore was decided 5-4 by the Supreme Court in the most activist thing any American court had ever done at the time. According to ThinkProgress.org one estimate from 2000 said that 7,000 voters were wrongfully removed from the rolls of eligible voters, 88% of whom were African-American. Al Gore won 92% of the African-American vote in Florida in 2000
I remember the before times when George W. Bush wasn't Presidenting yet and America had never heard of a hanging chad. If not for a few hundred votes in Florida and a few thousand more who were pushed off the voter rolls "by accident" this might be a very different country, a very different world. Am I alone in the thought that preventing your fellow countryman from having the right to vote is as Un-American as it gets?
More below the fold .
LP: Of course nobody can forget Florida;s most recent history
Of course the only way we found out about it was through foreign news. Our news was busy focusing on voter fraud in the Ukraine. Thanks New York Times
The ED Show - Romney flunks education trip to Philly
Mitt's just loves him some charter school urban kids. He blew in to meet the masses. He must hate the running for office part of this job. They really just should have someone anoint him.
Educational genius who gets the Educational kickback Tagg Romney
More on Mitt's own family background and the teacher to student ratio here: http://laborspains.blogspot.com/2011/09/further-trevails-of-middle-class-mitt.html
This is to say nothing of how they can have their debts forgiven by serving as human cannon fodder in the military which is something that neither Mitt or any of his pampered boys bothered to do. I guess that's only an option for the others.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Luke Russert, nepotist prince - The Hack List - Salon.com
Luke Russert, nepotist prince - The Hack List - Salon.com:
"Tim Russert was not the unalloyed saint of tough journalism that his celebrators describe in posthumous tributes, but he was at least a classic American success story, of the sort that we still enjoy pretending is common: Blue-collar kid from Rust Belt town becomes enormously successful thanks largely to brains and hard work. The story of Luke Russert, alas, is a much more common one in American life: No-account kid of successful person has more success thrust upon him.
Pretty much immediately upon the death of his father, Luke Russert inexplicably had a full-time broadcasting job, supplanting his part-time broadcasting job co-hosting a satellite radio sports talk show with James Carville. (That was a real thing that actually existed. Can you imagine a human who would want to listen to that?)"
'via Blog this'
LP - This also could be called no more keggers for big Russ's grandchild. It's time for him to put on his big boy suit and pretend he really knows what he is talking about. Just stand here kid, hit your mark and pretend you know what you're talking about.
"Tim Russert was not the unalloyed saint of tough journalism that his celebrators describe in posthumous tributes, but he was at least a classic American success story, of the sort that we still enjoy pretending is common: Blue-collar kid from Rust Belt town becomes enormously successful thanks largely to brains and hard work. The story of Luke Russert, alas, is a much more common one in American life: No-account kid of successful person has more success thrust upon him.
Pretty much immediately upon the death of his father, Luke Russert inexplicably had a full-time broadcasting job, supplanting his part-time broadcasting job co-hosting a satellite radio sports talk show with James Carville. (That was a real thing that actually existed. Can you imagine a human who would want to listen to that?)"
'via Blog this'
LP - This also could be called no more keggers for big Russ's grandchild. It's time for him to put on his big boy suit and pretend he really knows what he is talking about. Just stand here kid, hit your mark and pretend you know what you're talking about.
Such gravitas you get right out of college to the evening news. He must have been the best man for the job.
Amazon.com Becomes The Eighteenth Group To Drop ALEC | ThinkProgress
Amazon.com Becomes The Eighteenth Group To Drop ALEC | ThinkProgress:
"According to an email ThinkProgress received from the Center for Media and Democracy, one of the leaders of a progressive campaign to push corporations and other funders to break with the American Legislative Exchange Council, online retail giant Amazon.com just announced that it will part ways with ALEC. In the wake of this campaign, ALEC eliminated a task force that pushed voter suppression laws and the so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that played a significant role in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, but the conservative group remains committed to other priorities such as repealing minimum wage laws, eliminating capital gains and estate taxes, and blocking safeguards that protect children from eating rat poison.
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Number 18 see you
"According to an email ThinkProgress received from the Center for Media and Democracy, one of the leaders of a progressive campaign to push corporations and other funders to break with the American Legislative Exchange Council, online retail giant Amazon.com just announced that it will part ways with ALEC. In the wake of this campaign, ALEC eliminated a task force that pushed voter suppression laws and the so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that played a significant role in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting, but the conservative group remains committed to other priorities such as repealing minimum wage laws, eliminating capital gains and estate taxes, and blocking safeguards that protect children from eating rat poison.
"
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Report: Schilling’s Video Game Company Lays Off All Staff | TPMMuckraker
Report: Schilling’s Video Game Company Lays Off All Staff | TPMMuckraker:
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Originally posted on talking point memo:
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Please more government money
Originally posted on talking point memo:
Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s video game company, 38 Studios, has laid off all its employees, an anonymous source at the company told The Boston Globe on Thursday.
The company, which moved from Massachusetts to Rhode Island in 2010 in exchange for $75 million in guaranteed loans, started to get headlines earlier this month after it missed a $1.1 million loan payment to the state. While it later made the payment, it was reportedly having trouble making payroll. Schilling has asked Rhode Island for more money, but the state has refused.
“There’s no more easy money,” Governor Lincoln Chafee said at a press conference last Friday.
According to the Globe, the Providence-based company had close to 400 employees.
How The Banks Bought The Tea Party
How The Banks Bought The Tea Party:
"The 15 freshmen Republican representatives in the House Tea Party Caucus each ran in 2010 on a populist anti-Wall Street message, highlighting their opposition to bank bailouts like the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and criticizing Washington for enabling the banking sector as it became “Too Big to Fail.” After winning, all fifteen received significant PAC contributions from the banking industry — and have become a reliable vote and mouthpiece for the financial industry, a ThinkProgress analysis of campaign contributions, voting records and public statements reveals.
Rather than campaigning on a typical pro-business platform, the Tea Party freshmen tapped into public resentment of big banks and bailouts. For example, then-candidate Sandy Adams (R-FL) said on her campaign website that she “opposes government bailouts” and “would have voted against TARP and the auto bailout.” Jeff Landry (R-LA) said bailouts of private businesses had “corrupted our free market system by rewarding the irresponsible and penalizing the responsible,” blasting “bank bailouts, which led to taxpayer money directly or indirectly going into multi-million dollar bonuses.”
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'via Blog this'
"The 15 freshmen Republican representatives in the House Tea Party Caucus each ran in 2010 on a populist anti-Wall Street message, highlighting their opposition to bank bailouts like the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and criticizing Washington for enabling the banking sector as it became “Too Big to Fail.” After winning, all fifteen received significant PAC contributions from the banking industry — and have become a reliable vote and mouthpiece for the financial industry, a ThinkProgress analysis of campaign contributions, voting records and public statements reveals.
Rather than campaigning on a typical pro-business platform, the Tea Party freshmen tapped into public resentment of big banks and bailouts. For example, then-candidate Sandy Adams (R-FL) said on her campaign website that she “opposes government bailouts” and “would have voted against TARP and the auto bailout.” Jeff Landry (R-LA) said bailouts of private businesses had “corrupted our free market system by rewarding the irresponsible and penalizing the responsible,” blasting “bank bailouts, which led to taxpayer money directly or indirectly going into multi-million dollar bonuses.”
But in Congress, the Tea Party has toed the line for big banks. Eleven of the 15 have become co-sponsors of H.R. 3461, a top priority for the ABA. According to Americans for Financial Reform, the legislation would “tilt the playing field further in the direction of excessive deference to industry interests and tie the hands of regulators attempting to protect the public interest.” The bill would make it harder for bank examiners to do their job, giving regulatory responsibilities to an industry that’s already shown it can’t police itself.
Here is what happened:
full story here: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/21/484283/how-banks-bought-the-tea-party/?mobile=nc
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Wednesday, May 23, 2012
J.P. Morgan Funds Senate Finance Chair, Even Bigger Problem in the Wings
The person Wall Street is buying is going to investigate the financial industry. You can bet some meaningful regulation will come out of that.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
A song for tonight. Bob Dylan - Song To Woody.wmv
I'm out here a thousand miles from my home
Walking a road other men have gone down
I'm seeing a new world of people and things
Hear paupers and peasants and princes and kings.
Hey hey Woody Guthrie I wrote you a song
About a funny old world that's coming along
Seems sick and it's hungry, it's tired and it's torn
It looks like it's dying and it's hardly been born.
Hey Woody Guthrie but I know that you know
All the things that I'm saying and a many times more
I'm singing you the song but I can't you sing enough
'Cause there's not many men that've done the things that you've done.
Here's to Cisco and Sonny and Leadbelly too
And to all the good people that travelled with you
Here's to the hearts and the hands of the men
That come with the dust and are gone with the wind.
I'm leaving tomorrow but I could leave today
Somewhere down the road someday
The very last thing that I'd want to do Is to say
I've been hitting some hard travelling too.
Updated: Scott Walker and Cronies Prove No Low is Too Low | Crooks and Liars
Updated: Scott Walker and Cronies Prove No Low is Too Low | Crooks and Liars:
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That image is of a full-page newspaper ad taken out in the Janesville Gazette, the local newspaper in Paul Ryan's district. What it is, is thuggery in typeset letters. The names you can't read in the image are the names of teachers in Janesville who signed the petition to recall Scott Walker. Next to their names, is their salary. At the bottom of the ad, there is a space to sign to "opt-out" of any teacher's classroom who signed the petition.
"Does Anybody Deserve This!" CNN's Don Lemon Shocked Police Brutality At...
Is this Chicago 1968 or Chicago 2012?
Monday, May 21, 2012
Sunday, May 20, 2012
You can certainly tell when Walmart puts big money into education they probably want their fellow Americans to have high paying, well insured jobs
Daily Kos :: News Community Action:
"The faces that dominate the education reform debate today—where "education reform" means increased reliance on standardized tests, the results of which are then used to determine the fates of teachers whose job security has been weakened—are people like former Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee and Harlem Children's Zone CEO Geoffrey Canada. They are, or can be packaged as, dynamic and visionary, educators who are passionate about kids. But lots of teachers could fit that bill, so why is someone like Michelle Rhee, who has spent very little time in the classroom, so prominent while the average teacher faces cutbacks and scapegoating? The answer, as in so many things, involves money. Not just any money. Billionaire money. Hedge fund money. Goldman Sachs money. Bill Gates money and Walton money. Michelle Rhee and Geoffrey Canada are prominent because they embody a set of ideas attractive to major philanthropists working to remake public education into their own vision of how the world works.
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The jobs are so highly sought that some senior citizens are giving up their jobs to take the highly paid greeter job
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Saturday, May 19, 2012
Tom Morello at Nurses Union "Ghost of Tom Joad" with Tim McIlrath 05/18/...
Welcome to the New World Order. No home, No job, No peace, No rest.
Curt Schilling asks Rhode Island for more cash | TPMMuckraker
Curt Schilling asks Rhode Island for more cash | TPMMuckraker:
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“To all the prayers and well wishes to the team and families at 38, God Bless and thank you! We will find a way, and the strength, to endure,” he wrote.
But some people aren’t offering an well wishes.
“We got hoodwinked; we got played,” Republican state Representative Robert Watson told the Globe. “How many millions of dollars does Curt Schilling have? He can’t write a check? It’s Rhode Island that is supposed to provide the money? I think not.”
On Friday, Globe columnist Brian McGrory unloaded on Schilling, who over the years has made no secret of his conservative politics.
“Schilling spent no small amount of time in his career preaching the Republican mantra of smaller government and personal responsibility. He did this fresh off the historic Red Sox World Series win when he backed George W. Bush in the 2004 campaign. He did it on the stump on behalf of John McCain in 2008,” McGrory wrote. “Smaller government? Call me crazy, but I’m betting that wasn’t exactly what Schilling was extolling when he sat behind closed doors on Wednesday pleading with the members of the Rhode Island Economic Development Corp. to put more public money behind his fantasy video game venture.”
Update 4:10 p.m.: 38 Studios has paid the $1.1 million it owed the state after missing a payment May 1, Governor Lincoln Chafee said at a press conference Friday. According the Associated Press, Chafee said the company should now seek private money to stay in business.
“There’s no more easy money,” Chafee said.
In Second Occupy Wall Street Protest Trial, Police Claims Again Rejected - New York News - Runnin' Scared
In Second Occupy Wall Street Protest Trial, Police Claims Again Rejected - New York News - Runnin' Scared:
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Another day, another Occupy Wall Street trial, another black eye for the police. Just two days after the first Occupy Wall Street protest case to go to trial ended with the NYPD's version of events unraveling, the same thing happened again in New York Criminal Court this morning.
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Another day, another Occupy Wall Street trial, another black eye for the police. Just two days after the first Occupy Wall Street protest case to go to trial ended with the NYPD's version of events unraveling, the same thing happened again in New York Criminal Court this morning.
Jessica Hall, an Occupy Wall Street protester, was arrested on November 17 at the intersection of Williams and Pine streets in Lower Manhattan and charged with disorderly conduct for obstructing traffic. Hall's charges were the same as those of Alexander Arbuckle, who was acquitted on Tuesday.
But as in Arbuckle's case, the police version of events was debunked; it wasn't the person on trial who was preventing traffic from moving, but the police themselves.
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