1/ This article falls under the category of "we are so screwed", and explains why the Democratic Party has sold out the middle class. A fascinating essay that goes into the history of the last 50 years to explain what has really happened to our democracy, and how the oligarchy has now got a government that looks after their interests exclusively........
His prime example is the Senate, which is composed, with a few exceptions like Bernie Sanders, of politicians doing the bidding of the plutocracy.
Not really much to say as I can't see how real change will happen without an uprising from the bottom......they've got it all sewn up right now....so enjoy your "Dancing With the Stars"......
Why the Democratic Party Has Abandoned the Middle Class in Favor of the Rich
If politicians care almost exclusively about the concerns of the rich, it makes sense that over the past decades they've enacted policies that have ended up benefiting the rich.
May 27, 2011 |
The following article first appeared in Mother Jones. For more great content from Mother Jones, sign up for their free email updates here.
In 2008, a liberal Democrat was elected president. Landslide votes gave Democrats huge congressional majorities. Eight years of war and scandal and George W. Bush had stigmatized the Republican Party almost beyond redemption. A global financial crisis had discredited the disciples of free-market fundamentalism, and Americans were ready for serious change.
Or so it seemed. But two years later, Wall Street is back to earning record profits, and conservatives are triumphant. To understand why this happened, it's not enough to examine polls and tea parties and the makeup of Barack Obama's economic team. You have to understand how we fell so short, and what we rightfully should have expected from Obama's election. And you have to understand two crucial things about American politics.
The first is this: Income inequality has grown dramatically since the mid-'70s—far more in the US than in most advanced countries—and the gap is only partly related to college grads outperforming high-school grads. Rather, the bulk of our growing inequality has been a product of skyrocketing incomes among the richest 1 percent and—even more dramatically—among the top 0.1 percent. It has, in other words, been CEOs and Wall Street traders at the very tippy-top who are hoovering up vast sums of money fromeveryone, even those who by ordinary standards are pretty well off.
Second, American politicians don't care much about voters with moderate incomes. Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels studied the voting behavior of US senators in the early '90s and discovered that they respond far more to the desires of high-income groups than to anyone else. By itself, that's not a surprise. He also found that Republicans don't respond at all to the desires of voters with modest incomes. Maybe that's not a surprise, either. But this should be: Bartels found that Democratic senators don't respond to the desires of these voters, either. At all.
2/ Our ultra right wing Supreme Court recently ruled that the state of the California prison system was grossly overcrowded and they must take steps to reduce it - but why are California's prisons in such a mess? What's the cause?
In this article we find it's politicians in the 70's and 80's pandering to "get tough on crime", and their ridiculous probation system.....
California Prison Legislation Is Among The Most Punitive In The Nation
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NEW YORK -- Since 1977, California’s prison system, one of the most punitive in the country, has been built on the belief that a man like Shawn Vasquez doesn’t--in fact, cannot--exist.
Vasquez grew up on the streets of Oakland, spending his days searching for abandoned houses where he and his drug-using mother and younger brother could spend the night in safety. He dropped out of school in sixth grade to care for his mother, supporting the family by selling drugs and rising through the ranks of Oakland’s gang scene until he became the leader of one of the fiercest groups, Ghost Town Gang. When he wasn’t on the streets, he cycled in and out of prison, starting with the juvenile system at nine years old and finally landing himself in federal prison for seven years on murder charges.
"I put myself in that predicament because I was Bossman once upon a time," Vasquez said, while denying his connection to the murders. "I gave no choice to the people who were saying that they needed to get this individual off the streets."
3/ Michael Moore was interviewed on Laurence O'Donnell's show last week, and gave [for him] a very good interview, coming across as the Democratic party's intellectual.....very smart, albeit flawed but overall quite a sensible man.....
And if you look again at his three main movies you must admit he was ahead of his time......
"Fahrenheit 9/11" [2004] explored the reasons for us getting into the Iraq quagmire.....WMD's?
"Sicko" [2007] looked at our dysfunctional health care insurance system......
"Capitalism - A Love Story" [2009] took on Wall Street.......
All three very good movies, and prophetic......
Anyway he gives a good interview in these clips....
4/ A space shuttle launch in fast motion......very cool.....4 minutes......
5/ A lot of red states are turning to privatising prisons as a way to [allegedly] save money, but as this article from the Times points out in a mix of private and state-run prisons in any given state, the private prisons make money by refusing prisoners with medical problems. The other advantage for politicians contemplating this move is that the private prison corporations have lobbyists, who are generous to their friends in the Legislature.....
So in his latest budget Rick Scott has outsourced some prisons in South Florida......
Of course! He's a thief.....
Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings
Monica Almeida/The New York Times
The Saguaro Correctional Center is a privately run prison in Eloy, Ariz., near Phoenix. Arizona is studying the effectiveness of private prisons.
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: May 18, 2011
PHOENIX — The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons — even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
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Times Topic: Prisons and Prisoners
Joshua Lott for The New York Times
State Representative Chad Campbell of Arizona said private prisons “leave the most expensive prisoners with taxpayers.”
The state’s experience has particular relevance now, as many politicians have promised to ease budget problems by trimming state agencies. Florida and Ohio are planning major shifts toward private prisons, and Arizona is expected to sign deals doubling its private-inmate population.
The measures would be a shot in the arm for an industry that has struggled, in some places, to fill prison beds as the number of inmates nationwide has leveled off. But hopes of big taxpayer benefits might end in disappointment, independent experts say.
“There’s a perception that the private sector is always going to do it more efficiently and less costly,” said Russ Van Vleet, a former co-director of the University of Utah Criminal Justice Center. “But there really isn’t much out there that says that’s correct.”
Such has been the case lately in Arizona. Despite a state law stipulating that private prisons must create “cost savings,” the state’s own data indicate that inmates in private prisons can cost as much as $1,600 more per year, while many cost about the same as they do in state-run prisons.
The research, by the Arizona Department of Corrections, also reveals a murky aspect of private prisons that helps them appear less expensive: They often house only relatively healthy inmates.
“It’s cherry-picking,” said State Representative Chad Campbell, leader of the House Democrats. “They leave the most expensive prisoners with taxpayers and take the easy prisoners.”
In the 1980s, soaring violent crime, tougher sentencing and overcrowding led lawmakers to use private prisons to expand. Then, as now, privatization advocates argued that corporations were more efficient. Over time, most states signed contracts, one of the largest transfers of state functions to private industry.
Nationally, the number of state inmates in private prisons grew by a third over the past decade to more than 90,000, but it has stagnated, and some states have reduced total prison populations — shifting nonviolent offenders to treatment programs while bolstering probation. Now, Ohio lawmakers want to privatize prisons with 6,000 inmates, and Florida will transfer institutions with 15,000 inmates to private management. The Arizona plan would add 5,000 private prison beds.
Matthew Benson, spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, a Republican, did not dispute the state research. But he said officials had a “pretty wide lens” to interpret the cost-savings mandate, like taking into account the ability of private companies to recoup hundreds of millions in construction costs over the life of contracts.
“It is a significant advantage to have a private firm be able to come in and front the costs,” he said.
Privatization advocates play down the data. Leonard Gilroy, director of government reform for the Reason Foundation, a libertarian research organization, questioned whether all costs were included and said the figures were too narrowly drawn, particularly on medium-security prisons, to prompt conclusions. “It is looking at a limited slice,” Mr. Gilroy said.
Competing studies — some financed by the prison industry — have argued over claims of savings. But when a University of Utah team including Mr. Van Vleet reviewed years of research, it concluded in 2007 that “cost savings from privatizing prisons are not guaranteed and appear minimal.”
Steve Owen, spokesman for the largest operator, Corrections Corporation of America, said: “There is a mixed bag of research out there. It’s not as black and white and cut and dried as we would like.”
A number of states mandate that contracts save money. But Arizona is one of the few — if not only — places to measure the outcome so rigorously.
While private prisons collect a daily rate per inmate, some expenses disproportionately borne by states are not counted. The most significant are terms limiting sicker inmates.
6/ Groupon - interesting article on why Groupon has become so popular - they are clever with words and their promotions are funny.....
RACHEL HANDLER is struggling to say something funny or perhaps amusing or at least clever about horses. Her mind is empty. She can’t recall the last time she was on a horse or even saw a horse. The minutes fly by. Horses are nothing to joke about.
Ms. Handler writes for Groupon, the e-mail marketer that was casually founded in the pit of the recession and almost immediately became a sensation worth billions. The musicians, poets, actors and comedians who fill its ranks are in a state of happy disbelief over the company’s success. In the age-old tradition of creative folk, they were just looking for a gig to support their art. Now stock options have made some of them seriously wealthy, at least on paper.
Poets who work here give away copies of their verse in the reception area. One poem begins like this:
closed my eyes and I was nothing
yeah, I was running
I was nothing
and then I was flying
That just about sums up Groupon’s brief history, which has been meteoric even by dot-com standards. Groupon, which is expected to go public within the next year, is either creating a new approach to commerce that will change the way we eat and shop and interact with the physical world, or it is a sure sign that Internet mania is once again skidding out of control. Or both.
7/ Regular readers of DDD know we use the Onion for some very funny and satirical videos, but some Facebook users are posting other Onion articles as true, and getting comments and "likes" from their friends.....here's a sampling of FB comments....
One thing that's even funnier than The Onion's impeccable satire is when people actually take it seriously. It's even better when they do so and then immediately post about it Facebook.
Thankfully, new Tumblr Literally Unbelievable is dedicated to cataloging these hilarious misunderstandings. Check out some of the funniest reactions they've posted so far below, and click over the the full site to see the rest (and many more to come, we're sure).
8/ Shocking news - Planned Parenthood has just opened their $8 billion Abortionplex in Topeka, Ks......how can this possibly happen? Onion News explains.....
TOPEKA, KS—Planned Parenthood announced Tuesday the grand opening of its long-planned $8 billion Abortionplex, a sprawling abortion facility that will allow the organization to terminate unborn lives with an efficiency never before thought possible.
During a press conference, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards told reporters that the new state-of-the-art fetus-killing facility located in the nation's heartland offers quick, easy, in-and-out abortions to all women, and represents a bold reinvention of the group's long-standing mission and values.
"Although we've traditionally dedicated 97 percent of our resources to other important services such as contraception distribution, cancer screening, and STD testing, this new complex allows us to devote our full attention to what has always been our true passion: abortion," said Richards, standing under a banner emblazoned with Planned Parenthood's new slogan, "No Life Is Sacred." "And since Congress voted to retain our federal funding, it's going to be that much easier for us to maximize the number of tiny, beating hearts we stop every day."
9/ Katy Perry with "E.T.", a very expensive and [for her] mystical video that borrows from the movie Wall-E and the artist Gil Bruvel.......actually a very interesting mini-movie.......
10/ What a slimeball Gingrich is.....here's the true story of the $500,000 Tiffany credit line from CNBC - his wife was a staffer for the House Agriculture Committee, which oversees mining. Tiffanys was lobbying heavily on mining issues at the time, and Gingrich's wife's former assistant became a lobbyist for Tiffany....
Just a flat-out bribe, disguised as a "credit line" with Tiffany.....
Published: Wednesday, 25 May 2011 | 3:59 PM ET
Text Size
By: John Carney
Senior Editor, CNBC.com
Senior Editor, CNBC.com
 |
AP Newt Gingrich |
The “no interest” credit line looks anything but standard, although it’s hard to tell since we do not know much about it. But it certainly bears the traits of a special favor.
Why would Tiffany’s [TIF 76.50 
0.46 
] give Gingrich special treatment? It may just be because he is one of the country’s most famous politicians. Lots of companies give away gifts to high status people. It’s one of the cruel ironies of the world: rich people get expensive stuff for free.
0.46 ] give Gingrich special treatment? It may just be because he is one of the country’s most famous politicians. Lots of companies give away gifts to high status people. It’s one of the cruel ironies of the world: rich people get expensive stuff for free.But Felix Salmon points out that this may have been an “undisclosed lobbying expenditure.” During the two years in which the account carried a balance, Newt’s wife Callista was a high level staffer for the House Agriculture Committee, which has oversees mining policy.
Tiffany’s, the website SpyTalk points out, was lobbying heavily on mining issues during the period.
But as far as I know, almost everyone has overlooked the fact that Gingrich’s former top staffer, Christy Evans, is a registered lobbyist for Tiffany's.
Evans, former floor assistant to Gingrich and now a lobbyist at the legendary K Street firm Cassidy & Associates, has represented Tiffany's on mining issues since 2000, according to lobbying filings.
11/ Rick Scott was up at the Villages, triumphantly announcing his 2011 budget to an adoring crowd of Tea Partiers. It truly was an adoring crowd, because they ejected anyone who looked or smelled like a Democrat.
There is also a 2 minute video of Scott praising himself, which I couldn't get all the way through because this rotten, evil, thieving scumbag makes me want to puke just to look at him....so enjoy it if you can....
Scott MaxwellTAKING NAMES
5:59 p.m. EDT, May 26, 2011
Everyone knows that if you win the Super Bowl, you go to Disney World.
But if you're a wildly unpopular governor, looking for a pocket of sycophants, where do you go?
The Villages!
Yes, with new poll numbers showing that Rick Scott is one of the least popular governors in the United States, ol' Rick headed back to his political security blanket: The Villages.
Sure, only 29 percent of Floridians think Scott's doing a good job. But a whole bunch of them live in the conservative retirement community.
In "America's friendliest hometown," you are free to shortchange public schools and gut the state's environmental-protection program. The crowd will still go wild.
You can even veto $12 million for homeless veterans and $3 million for the Wounded Warrior Project — just a few days before Memorial Day — and everyone will cheer.
"It's always — and always will be — a beautiful day in The Villages," Scott told the supportive crowd.
What do these folks care?
They've already been through public schools. Many already enjoy their pensions.
So now Scott is free to go after everyone else's schools and pensions … as long as he also cuts taxes and leaves their Medicare alone.
Scott did just that Thursday. He signed the very budget that cut funding for public education — which is already below the national average — by more than $1 billion.
I would love to have seen Scott try to stage that budget-signing inside a public high school.
But Scott is not that stupid. Or that brave.
Instead, he selected something akin to President Barack Obama delivering the State of the Union in Chicago.
The Villages has always been a sanctum for conservative politicians.
The mostly white, wealthy and conservative enclave has been a sanctuary for everyone from George W. and Jeb Bush to Sarah Palin and John McCain. The development's founder, Gary Morse, even lets the GOPuse his private aircraft for free.
But the difference between Jeb Bush and Rick Scott, who has visited The Villages more than a half-dozen times, is that Bush had the courage to interact with real people more regularly.
Now, admittedly not everyone in The Villages is a Scott disciple. (With a 29 percent approval rating, you're going to have a tough time finding universal support anywhere outside your own bedroom.)
I hear from plenty of readers — Republicans and Democrats — who enjoy The Villages' many amenities without enjoying a thing about our governor.
In fact, some of those very folks actually tried to see Scott on Thursday. But they weren't allowed in. Deputies ordered members of The Villages Democratic Club to go across the street. And the Miami Herald reported that Scott staffers "scoured the crowd and had sheriffs deputies remove those who wore liberal-looking badges."
It didn't matter whether the protesters were showing up to support schoolteachers or veterans. Dissenters were silenced.
Scott's problem, though, is that dissenters are getting more numerous by the day.
The governor seems to realize that, which is why he started trying to reinvent himself Thursday.
After vetoing projects for universities, the environment and veterans — things Scott described as "frivolous" and "wasteful" — he then called on legislators to redirect the money to schools.
It was a con for the ages.
Anyone paying a lick of attention knew that it was Scott himself who had called for the biggest school cuts in Florida history (after promising he would not).
And yet now — after legislators followed his orders — he was going to try to blame them?
Yes, indeed. His staff even unfurled a banner that read: "Less Waste. More for Education."
Even House Speaker Dean Cannon called out Scott on this flagrant fabrication. "The budget we sent him funds education at a higher level than the Governor recommended just a few months ago," Cannon said.
Scott's posturing was obvious malarkey.
But no one in The Villages seemed to care.
The crowd simply cheered and applauded in front of another banner that Scott's team had unfurled — one that read: "Promises kept."
12/ At last - a People of WalMart song!
With pictures. Lots of pictures - of mind-numbing ugliness......about 2/3 of the way through fast forward for about a minute as the song goes on too long......6 minutes.....
13/ If you are a lover of the cinema, you may want to see this acclaimed movie "Tree of Life", directed by Terrence Malick. It's one of these films that will grow on you with the third viewing.....anyway if you like well directed movies [and Brad Pitt] it's in theaters now.....
Interesting review......but have a look at the trailer - Malick has shot some quite beautiful images and has an amazing way of filming people......a cinema-lovers movie.....
Heaven, Texas and the Cosmic Whodunit
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: May 26, 2011
The Day of Judgment, prophesied for last weekend, has apparently been postponed, but moviegoers eager for rapture can find consolation — to say nothing of awe, amazement and grist for endless argument — in “The Tree of Life,”Terrence Malick’s new film, which contemplates human existence from the standpoint of eternity. Recently showered with temporal glory at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or, this movie, Mr. Malick’s fifth feature in 38 years, folds eons of cosmic and terrestrial history into less than two and a half hours. Its most provocative sequences envision the origin of the universe, the development of life on earth (including a few soulful dinosaurs) and then, more concisely and less literally, the end of time, when the dead of all the ages shall rise and walk around on a heavenly beach.
Tree of Life trailer - 2 minutes....
Todays video - Morning After Commercial.......
Todays oldies joke
Since more and more Seniors are texting and tweeting, there appears to be a need for a STC (Senior Texting Code).
ATD - At The Doctor's
ATD - At The Doctor's
BFF - Best Friend Fell
BTW - Bring The Wheelchair
BYOT - Bring Your Own Teeth
CBM - Covered By Medicare
CUATSC - See You At The Senior Center
DWI - Driving While Incontinent
FWB - Friend With Beta Blockers
FWIW - Forgot W here I Was
FYI - Found Your Insulin
GGPBL - Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low!
GHA - Got Heartburn Again
HGBM - Had Good Bowel Movement
IMHO - Is My Hearing-Aid On?
LMDO - Laughing My Dentures Out
LOL - Living On Lipitor
LWO - Lawrence Welk's On
OMMR - On My Massage Recliner
OMSG - Oh My! Sorry, Gas.
ROFL...CGU - Rolling On The Floor Laughing... And Can't Get Up
SGGP - Sorry, Gotta Go Poop
TTYL - Talk To You Louder
WAITT - Who Am I Talking To?
WTFA - Wet The Furniture Again
WTP - Where's The Prunes?
WWNO - Walker Wheels Need Oil
LMGA - Lost My Glasses Again
GLKI - Gotta Go, Laxative Kicking In
Todays short bonus joke
An old guy (not in the best of shape) was working out in the gym when he spotted a sweet young thing. He asked the trainer that was nearby, "What machine in here should I use to impress that sweet young thing over there?" The trainer looked him up and down and said, "I'd try the ATM in the lobby." |
