1/ Todays lead story is the always insightful Frank Rich. He gives a disturbing preview of the antics we are likely to see in the coming months from the Republican Congress, and the Tea party wing that is driving the agenda. He logically builds up the case that we will be seeing a Government shutdown, because the rightwing shift in politics will demand it. He also has some hope for what will emerge from the mess we can expect to see, a resurgence of common sense and the restoration of the center.
The column gives examples of how corrupt our government has become [dare I say our oligarchy?], and Congress and the Senate are doing the bidding of their corporate masters. But the real quandary for me is how do the conservative voters keep being fooled into voting against their interests in favour of the superrich, over and over and over? When are the stupids going to "get it"?
Read the whole article....it's excellent.....
The 2011 rebels are to the right of their 1995 antecedents in any case. That’s why this battle, ostensibly over the deficit, is so much larger than the sum of its line-item parts. The highest priority of America’s current political radicals is not to balance government budgets but to wage ideological warfare in Washington and state capitals alike. The relatively few dollars that would be saved by the proposed slashing of federal spending on Planned Parenthood and Head Start don’t dent the deficit; the cuts merely savage programs the right abhors. In Wisconsin, where state workers capitulated to Gov. Scott Walker’s demands for financial concessions, the radical Republicans’ only remaining task is to destroy labor’s right to collective bargaining.
That’s not to say there is no fiscal mission in the right’s agenda, both nationally and locally — only that the mission has nothing to do with deficit reduction. The real goal is to reward the G.O.P.’s wealthiest patrons by crippling what remains of organized labor, by wrecking the government agencies charged with regulating and policing corporations, and, as always, by rewarding the wealthiest with more tax breaks. The bankrupt moral equation codified in the Bush era — that tax cuts tilted to the highest bracket were a higher priority even than paying for two wars — is now a given. The once-bedrock American values of shared sacrifice and equal economic opportunity have been overrun.
In this bigger picture, the Wisconsin governor’s fawning 20-minute phone conversation with a prankster impersonating the oil billionaire David Koch last week, while entertaining, is merely a footnote.
..............................
As The Los Angeles Times recently reported, Koch Industries and its employees form the largest bloc of oil and gas industry donors to members of the new House Energy and Commerce Committee, topping even Exxon Mobil. And what do they get for that largess? As a down payment, the House budget bill not only reduces financing for the Environmental Protection Agency but also prohibits its regulation of greenhouse gases.
Here again, the dollars that will be saved are minute in terms of the federal deficit, but the payoff to Koch interests from a weakened E.P.A. is priceless.
2/ It sometimes seems Bob Herbert is one of the very few people in the country with a media voice who care about the working poor and the underclass. He gives examples how the depression has affected a couple of families, who are just barely surviving, and leads on to this.....
These are the kinds of stories you might expect from a country staggering through a depression, not the richest and supposedly most advanced society on earth. If these were exceptional stories, there would be less reason for concern. But they are in no way extraordinary. Similar stories abound throughout the United States.
Among the many heartening things about the workers fighting back in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere is the spotlight that is being thrown on the contemptuous attitude of the corporate elite and their handmaidens in government toward ordinary working Americans: police officers and firefighters, teachers, truck drivers, janitors, health care aides, and so on. These are the people who do the daily grunt work of America. How dare we treat them with contempt.
It would be a mistake to think that this fight is solely about the right of public employees to collectively bargain. As important as that issue is, it’s just one skirmish in what’s shaping up as a long, bitter campaign to keep ordinary workers, whether union members or not, from being completely overwhelmed by the forces of unrestrained greed in this society.
The predators at the top, billionaires and millionaires, are pitting ordinary workers against one another. So we’re left with the bizarre situation of unionized workers with a pension being resented by nonunion workers without one. The swells are in the background, having a good laugh.
I asked Lynda Hiller if she felt generally optimistic or pessimistic. She was quiet for a moment, then said: “I don’t think things are going to get any better. I think we’re going to hit rock bottom. The big shots are in charge, and they just don’t give a darn about the little person.”
What the hell is going on with the Republican party? It's like there's a concerted attack on women's rights at multiple levels, and that's all women, not just the poor.
A New Wives Store opened across the street.
The first floor has wives that love sex.
The second floor has wives that love sex and have money.
The third through sixth floors have never been visited.
This is a NYT editorial detailing the many bills currently in Congress that cut funding for programs that help women - who of course have no lobbyists. No cuts, however, on military spending and health insurance companies.....
Republicans in the House of Representatives are mounting an assault on women’s health and freedom that would deny millions of women access to affordable contraception and life-saving cancer screenings and cut nutritional support for millions of newborn babies in struggling families. And this is just the beginning.
The budget bill pushed through the House last Saturday included the defunding of Planned Parenthood and myriad other cuts detrimental to women. It’s not likely to pass unchanged, but the urge to compromise may take a toll on these programs. And once the current skirmishing is over, House Republicans are likely to use any legislative vehicle at hand to continue the attack.
The egregious cuts in the House resolution include the elimination of support for Title X, the federal family planning program for low-income women that provides birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and testing for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases. In the absence of Title X’s preventive care, some women would die. The Guttmacher Institute, a leading authority on reproductive health, says a rise in unintended pregnancies would result in some 400,000 more abortions a year.
4/ The Republican War on Women [B]
The US now leads the world's advanced economies in infant mortality. Let's let that sink in a moment......
This disgraceful figure comes from the schizoid attitude of "the foetus is sacred", but the resulting child can fend for itself with minimal help from the state. This just illustrates the immorality of these abortion loonies, who seem to be concentrated on the right. It's really a War on Mothers.....and these bastards call themselves Christians.......
Republicans need to figure out where they stand on children’s welfare. They can’t be “pro-life” when the “child” is in the womb but indifferent when it’s in the world. Allow me to illustrate just how schizophrenic their position has become through the prism of premature babies.
Of the 33 countries that the International Monetary Fund describes as “advanced economies,” the United States now has the highest infant mortality rate according to data from the World Bank. It took us decades to arrive at this dubious distinction. In 1960, we were 15th. In 1980, we were 13th. And, in 2000, we were 2nd.
Part of the reason for our poor ranking is that declines in our rates stalled after premature births — a leading cause of infant mortality as well as long-term developmental disabilities — began to rise in the 1990s.
The bad news is that, according to the March of Dimes, the Republican budget passed in the House this month could do great damage to this progress. The budget proposes:
• $50 million in cuts to the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant that “supports state-based prenatal care programs and services for children with special needs.”
• $1 billion in cuts to programs at the National Institutes of Health that support “lifesaving biomedical research aimed at finding the causes and developing strategies for preventing preterm birth.”
• Nearly $1 billion in cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its preventive health programs, including to its preterm birth studies.
This is the same budget in which House Republicans voted to strip all federal financing for Planned Parenthood.
It is savagely immoral and profoundly inconsistent to insist that women endure unwanted — and in some cases dangerous — pregnancies for the sake of “unborn children,” then eliminate financing designed to prevent those children from being delivered prematurely, rendering them the most fragile and vulnerable of newborns. How is this humane?
5/ The Republican War on Women [C]
Some of the initiatives below are admittedly from State Legislatures, and as we know 10% of State Senators and Representatives are batshit crazy, but the more serious bills are in Congress right now. It's a War on Women.....
Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP's War on Women
1) Republicans not only want to reduce women's access to abortion care, they're actually trying to redefine rape. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven't yet. Shocker.
2) A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to "accuser." But victims of other less gendered crimes, like burglary, would remain "victims."
3) In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that couldmake it legal to murder a doctor who provides abortion care. (Yep, for real.)
4) Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids.
5) In Congress, Republicans have a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life.
6) Maryland Republicans ended all county money for a low-income kids' preschool program. Why? No need, they said.Women should really be home with the kids, not out working.
7) And at the federal level, Republicans want to cut that same program, Head Start, by $1 billion. That means over 200,000 kids could lose their spots in preschool.
8) Two-thirds of the elderly poor are women, and Republicans are taking aim at them too. A spending bill wouldcut funding for employment services, meals, and housing for senior citizens.
9) Congress just voted for a Republican amendment to cut all federal funding from Planned Parenthood health centers, one of the most trusted providers of basic health care and family planning in our country.
10) And if that wasn't enough, Republicans are pushing toeliminate all funds for the only federal family planning program. (For humans. But Republican Dan Burton has a bill to provide contraception for wild horses. You can't make this stuff up).
Here is a 30 second ad that will make you think.......do we really want to go back to the 60's with back alley abortions? We will if the extremists have their way.....
The GOP has launched an all out assault on women's rights and restrict access to vital health services. But we are fighting back, and we won't go back to the back alley.
Check out this ad featuring House star Lisa Edelstein...
Check out this ad featuring House star Lisa Edelstein...
6/ Teens are the focus of a special report - they're selling uranium to rogue states, and this has parents worried.....like every stupid local news story you've ever seen, ever.....Onion News has the scoop....2 minutes....
7/ A thoughtful analysis on our current economic state.....Simon Johnson's conclusions are we need to modernise our tax structure, rein in health costs and bring the financial system under control. Unfortunately none of this is going to happen in the near term with the political gridlock.....
The only room for bipartisan consensus here seems to be what we got in December 2010 – a big tax cut. Cutting taxes is nice, but only it is consistent with keeping the budget on a sustainable path.
How does the Republican initiative to cut spending fit in with these budget issues? Not very much is the generous answer. Their proposed cuts at the federal level are for discretionary nonmilitary spending, but this is small as a percent of the budget (and therefore of the economy).
But the problem here is bipartisan – as it was with the tax cut last year. None of the leadership on either side is willing to talk openly about how our biggest banks caused great fiscal damage. No one is willing to explain why our healthcare costs continue to rise. And no top politicians currently champion real tax reform.
The Republicans have seized a moment. To them, this is not really about fiscal responsibility; this is about an opportunity to shrink the size of government.
But the Democrats have played perfectly into their hands. The heart of their mistake was the president’s refusal to explain clearly how the financial system produced a recession that has pushed up our national debt.
Both sides of our political elite have contributed to the sense of fiscal crisis. And as we continue down this path – dangerous big banks, out of control health care spending, significant tax cuts, small changes in nonmilitary discretionary spending, and irresponsible rhetoric on both sides – we are well on our way to a real crisis.
8/ This one just caught my eye - a story of the endless mortgage......
A widow who was only just a few payments behind was in an epic battle with Wells Fargo, and finally reached closure after her attorney got the Justice Department involved.... no big message or lesson learned, just an interesting story.......
Mortgages are complicated to begin with, of course. But when homeowners fall behind on their payments, the situation becomes far more complicated. Recurring fees and charges muddle the accounting. That banks routinely transfer the notes underlying a property can make things cloudier still.
But how Ms. Green’s case became her personal version of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, the endless lawsuit at the center of the Charles Dickens novel “Bleak House,” is a story for our times. The conflicting claims made over the years by employees and representatives of Wells Fargo, which says it holds the note on her property, are enough to make your head spin.
Wells Fargo and Ms. Green didn’t exactly agree on how much she owes on her mortgage. Ms. Green took out a $40,250 mortgage in 1988, never refinanced and figured she is four payments behind. Wells Fargo contended that she owes 113 back payments, totaling more than $48,000.
9/ A most unusual commercial from Taiwan....not often you see stars like these.....3 minutes.....
10/ Fat boy Roger Ailes, head of Fox News, has been nailed for once, telling an employee to lie to federal authorities. Of course nothing is going to happen to Ailes, as the rich and powerful so rarely get what they deserve, but at least this very unpleasant man has had some sleepless nights....
Ms. Regan had once been involved in an affair with Mr. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner whose mentor and supporter, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, was in the nascent stages of a presidential campaign. The News Corporation executive, whom she did not name, wanted to protect Mr. Giuliani and conceal the affair, she said.
Now, court documents filed in a lawsuit make clear whom Ms. Regan was accusing of urging her to lie:Roger E. Ailes, the powerful chairman of Fox News and a longtime friend of Mr. Giuliani. What is more, the documents say that Ms. Regan taped the telephone call from Mr. Ailes in which Mr. Ailes discussed her relationship with Mr. Kerik.
It is unclear whether the existence of the tape played a role in News Corporation’s decision to move quickly to settle a wrongful termination suit filed by Ms. Regan, paying her $10.75 million in a confidential settlement reached two months after she filed it in 2007.
Depending on the specifics, the taped conversation could possibly rise to the level of conspiring to lie to federal officials, a federal crime, but prosecutors rarely pursue such cases, said Daniel C. Richman, aColumbia University law professor and a former federal prosecutor.
11/ Underrated movies - "The Long Kiss Goodnight", with Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson......suburban housewife has amnesia, wakes up with her memories one day, and surprise - she's a killer!
Good 2 minute trailer.....
12/ A [not too surprising] story about how the US Army had an elite psych-ops unit meet and greet visiting VIP's in Afghanistan and show them what the Army wanted the Senators and Congressmen to see.....and get them to vote for more funding for the military....from Rolling Stone....
The U.S. Army illegally ordered a team of soldiers specializing in "psychological operations" to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the war, Rolling Stone has learned – and when an officer tried to stop the operation, he was railroaded by military investigators.
The orders came from the command of Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, a three-star general in charge of training Afghan troops – the linchpin of U.S. strategy in the war. Over a four-month period last year, a military cell devoted to what is known as "information operations" at Camp Eggers in Kabul was repeatedly pressured to target visiting senators and other VIPs who met with Caldwell. When the unit resisted the order, arguing that it violated U.S. laws prohibiting the use of propaganda against American citizens, it was subjected to a campaign of retaliation.
"My job in psy-ops is to play with people’s heads, to get the enemy to behave the way we want them to behave," says Lt. Colonel Michael Holmes, the leader of the IO unit, who received an official reprimand after bucking orders. "I’m prohibited from doing that to our own people. When you ask me to try to use these skills on senators and congressman, you’re crossing a line."
The list of targeted visitors was long, according to interviews with members of the IO team and internal documents obtained by Rolling Stone. Those singled out in the campaign included senators John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Jack Reed, Al Franken and Carl Levin; Rep. Steve Israel of the House Appropriations Committee; Adm. Mike Mullen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Czech ambassador to Afghanistan; the German interior minister, and a host of influential think-tank analysts.
The incident offers an indication of just how desperate the U.S. command in Afghanistan is to spin American civilian leaders into supporting an increasingly unpopular war.
13/ Pink, with "Raise your Glass". Too many strange, surreal and exciting images in this video to mention fully, but Pink vs the Sumo wrestler, the human milk machines and her Rosie the Riveter costume spring to mind......very clever....3 minutes.....
14/ Ah Florida.......crooks governing very, very low information voters.....
Marco Rubio, our new Senator and the Tea Party darling, is keeping a low profile up there in Washington....could it be because there is a scandal brewing?
There is a stench growing around the Miami claque that spawned from Jeb Bush’s political machine (a machine that has only begun to flex its national muscle, with his top fixer Al Cardenas now atop the American Conservative Union, Marco Rubio in the U.S. Senate, David Rivera in the House, and Bush’s cronies in veto-proof charge in Tallahassee.
So far, the stink hasn’t stuck to Rubio, a media darling who largely escaped criticism during the campaign for his lavish spending on a party credit card. But even if the media isn’t interested in the Amexgate story (eager as the MSM is to see Rubio run for president or vice president…) apparently the feds are interested, and their interest extends beyond Rubo himself, to the cronies he gathered around him when he was Florida’s speaker of the House.
And that brings us to a story posted last week by the independent media outlet In These Times, by a reporter named Beau Hodai, which got exactly zero media play. I was thankfully alerted to it by a fellow Florida blogger, BeachPeanuts. And it goes a little something likethis:
On January 5, newly elected U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was sworn into office in Washington D.C. But the former speaker of the Florida House of Representatives has some unfinished business back home.Rubio—as well as other state GOP lawmakers and party contributors—are currently the likely subjects of multiple wide-ranging state and federal investigations conducted by the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) into improper use of credit cards issued by the Republican Party of Florida, as well as tax evasion and improper budgetary appropriations.Some of the legislative actions reportedly being investigated by federal authorities are those that led to the development of the state’s largest private prison, the Blackwater River Correctional Facility (CF), which opened its gates for operation in November 2010. The prison was designed and is operated by Florida-based Geo Group, the nation’s second-largest private prison operator.
Perky Pam Bondi, our new Attorney General, has picked a defenseless group to score political points with - ex felons. Should win her appause with the extreme right wing, reversing some sensible measures put in by ex-Governor Charlie Crist.
Florida leads the nation in being the meanest state to prisoners, many of whom are in jail for non-violent drug offenses. Of course if you were a cynic you'd say it was in the Republican's interest to take away voting rights from ex-prisoners, as most of them are black and vote Democratic....but that wouldn't be fair to the GOP, would it? Bad David, bad....
TALLAHASSEE — Attorney General Pam Bondi says it is too easy for felons to regain their civil rights in Florida and wants new restrictions including a waiting period of up to five years before they can seek clemency.
would reverse a major change that took place in April 2007 at the urging of former Gov. Charlie Crist, who said the civil rights restoration process in Florida was too cumbersome and cruel to many ex-offenders.
Crist's changes streamlined the restoration process to allow tens of thousands of felons to regain their right to vote, sit on a jury and obtain various state licenses without having to undergo a lengthy review and hearing process. Nonviolent criminals are eligible to get their rights restored without hearings if they have completed their sentences and pay restitution if required. Violent criminals, sex offenders and others are still required to wait years before their petitions were considered.
The Tea Party speaks, our Guv. Ricky Boy listens. High speed rail, with it's $3 billion Federal funding and 22,000 jobs in central Florida, is dead......what a disasterous decision for this state.
"Forgive them Lord, they know not what they did".....could be applied to anyone who voted for this asshole.....
TALLAHASSEE — An intense last-ditch effort to save high-speed rail in Florida collapsed Thursday with Gov. Rick Scott rejecting the plan, and then angry lawmakers accused him of overstepping authority and threatened legal action.
"I remain convinced that the construction cost overruns, the operating cost risk, the risk that we would give the money back if it's ever shut down, is too much for the taxpayers of the state," Scott told the Times/Herald.
The proposal to divert responsibility to a group of cities, including Tampa and Orlando, was presented to Scott's office Wednesday. He saw nothing to change his mind — a stance critics attacked as politically motivated and profoundly stubborn.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson deemed it "one heck of a mistake." U.S. Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Tampa, said she was "devastated" by the loss of potential jobs.
15/ A funny review of a deadly serious Nicolas Cage movie in theaters now..."Drive Angry". Bottom line - it's good B movie.......
None of that really has anything to do with “Drive Angry,” which at least in its 3-D version makes a loud, incoherent but oddly compelling case for the enhancing effects of stereoscopic projection on certain treasured objects of the cinematic gaze, like classic Detroit muscle cars, women’s breasts and Nicolas Cage.
Last things first. Mr. Cage’s acting style — if that is still the right term — seems these days to require not an extra dimension, but rather an entire parallel universe. In this movie, he plays a grandfather from hell (I mean that literally, though to say more might count as a spoiler) with lank blond hair, a haunted demeanor and the poetical name of John Milton, a sop to the English literature grad students who are sure to flock to this movie.
The details of his character are both preposterous and beside the point, as “Drive Angry,” directed byPatrick Lussier (“My Bloody Valentine 3D,” “Dracula 2000”), from a script he wrote with Todd Farmer, lets Mr. Cage continue his exploration of the mysteries of the universe. His companion is Amber Heard, playing a hard-luck waitress who can both throw and take a mean punch and whose very short denim shorts compete for attention with the 1969 Dodge Charger she drives.
You can guess how she drives it, though there is plenty of anger to go around, and a lot of action, some of it pretty inspired. And also a gooey heap of plot, which is revealed efficiently and without too much concern for plausibility of any kind.
Todays video - classic Robert de Niro on SNL
Todays Mexican joke
The Mexican maid asked for a pay increase. The wife was very upset about this and decided to talk to her about the raise. She asked: "Now Maria, why do you want a pay increase?" Maria: "Well, Señora, there are tree reasons why I wanna increaze." "The first is that I iron better than you." Wife: "Who said you iron better than me?" Maria: "Jor huzban he say so." Wife: "Oh yeah?" Maria: "The second reason eez that I am a better cook than you." Wife: "Nonsense, who said you were a better cook than me?" Maria: "Jor hozban did." Wife increasingly agitated: "Oh he did, did he???" Maria: "The third reason is that I am better at sex than you in the bed." Wife, really boiling now and through gritted teeth. "And did my husband say that as well?" Maria: "No Señora......The gardener did." Wife: "So how much do you want?" |
Todays womens joke
THE HUSBAND STORE
A store that sells NEW HUSBANDS has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband.
Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates.
"You may visit the store ONLY ONCE!
There are SIX floors and the attributes of the men increase as the
shopper ascends the flights. There is, however, a catch: you may choose any man
from a particular floor, or you may choose to go up a floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!"
So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband.
On the first floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 - These men have jobs.
The second floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men have jobs and love
kids.
The third floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men have jobs, love kids,
and are extremely good looking.
"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
She goes to the fourth floor and sign reads: Floor 4 - These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good looking and help with the housework.
"Oh my God!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and sign reads: Floor 5 - These men
have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead gorgeous, help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads: Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.
Thank you for shopping at the Husband store.
A store that sells NEW HUSBANDS has just opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband.
Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates.
"You may visit the store ONLY ONCE!
There are SIX floors and the attributes of the men increase as the
shopper ascends the flights. There is, however, a catch: you may choose any man
from a particular floor, or you may choose to go up a floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!"
So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband.
On the first floor the sign on the door reads: Floor 1 - These men have jobs.
The second floor sign reads: Floor 2 - These men have jobs and love
kids.
The third floor sign reads: Floor 3 - These men have jobs, love kids,
and are extremely good looking.
"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
She goes to the fourth floor and sign reads: Floor 4 - These men have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead good looking and help with the housework.
"Oh my God!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and sign reads: Floor 5 - These men
have jobs, love kids, are drop-dead gorgeous, help with the housework, and have a strong romantic streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor and the sign reads: Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please.
Thank you for shopping at the Husband store.
A New Wives Store opened across the street.
The first floor has wives that love sex.
The second floor has wives that love sex and have money.
The third through sixth floors have never been visited.
Todays recession jokes
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