Your scribe will be traveling for the next week so DDD will be, as they say, "ad hoc".....
1/ Guess where Governor Scott was this last weekend?
Give up?
The answer is he was with the Koch Brothers in Vail, Colorado along with other Republican Governors for a "conference", probably to get their next set of orders......
The always wonderful Rachael Maddow has the story, and leads off with our very own Rickster.......
2/ Charles Blow on what it's like to be invisible, i.e. poor in our cruel society.....
Powerful writing, on the indifference our politicians have to the most needy at the bottom of the food chain.......the poor don't register with the elites, they have no lobbyists......
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Them That’s Not Shall Lose
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: June 24, 2011
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
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James Baldwin penned that line more than 50 years ago, but it seems particularly prescient today, if in a different manner than its original intent.
Baldwin was referring to the poor being consistently overcharged for inferior goods. But I’ve always considered that sentence in the context of the extreme psychological toll of poverty, for it is in that way that I, too, know well how expensive it is to be poor.
I know the feel of thick calluses on the bottom of shoeless feet. I know the bite of the cold breeze that slithers through a drafty house. I know the weight of constant worry over not having enough to fill a belly or fight an illness.
It is in that context that I am forced to assume that if Washington politicians ever knew the sting of poverty then they have long since vanquished the memory. How else to qualify their positions? In fact, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, nearly half of all members of Congress are millionaires, and between 2008 and 2009, when most Americans were feeling the brunt of the recession, the personal wealth of members of Congress collectively increased by more than 16 percent. Must be nice.
Poverty is brutal, consuming and unforgiving. It strikes at the soul.
You defend yourself with hope, hard work and, for some, a helping hand. But these weapons grow dull in an economy on the verge of atrophy, in a job market tilting ever more toward the top and in a political environment that would sacrifice the weak to the wealthy.
On Thursday, the Pew Research Center released a poll that showed how disillusioned low-income people have become. Those making less than $30,000 were the most likely to expect to be laid off or be asked to take a pay cut. Furthermore, they were the most likely to say that they had trouble getting or paying for medical care and paying the rent or mortgage.
But at least those numbers include people with incomes. A vast subset is chronically unemployed and desperately searching for work. According to the Consumer Reports Employment Index, “In 23 of the past 24 months, lower-income Americans have lost more jobs than they have gained.” It continues, “Meanwhile, more affluent Americans seem to be gaining more jobs than they are losing.”
And the current election-cycle obsession to balance the books with a pound of flesh, which is being pushed by pitiless Republicans and accommodated by pitiful Democrats, will only multiply the pain.
Until more politicians understand — or remember — what it means to be poor in this country, we are destined to fail the least among us, and all of us will pay a heavy price for that failure.
3/ The Republicans "Carnival of Crazy", from Tom Tomorrow
4/ Two examples of "Gumment" incompetence, viciousness, stupidity, rigidity that make you want to join a Tea Party chapter.....take your pick of adjectives.....
The first screamable moment - TSA made a 95 year old terminal cancer patient remove her wet adult diaper before she could board her plane......
Story and 2 minute CNN video.....
(CNN) -- The Transportation Security Administration stood by its security officers Sunday after a Florida woman complained that her cancer-stricken, 95-year-old mother was patted down and forced to remove her adult diaper while going through security.
Reports of the incident took hold in social media, with scores of comments on the topic and reposts appearing hourly on Twitter Sunday afternoon.
The TSA released a statement Sunday defending its agents' actions at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport.
Hmmmmm.... wonder if it's relevant this took place in the Florida Panhandle at Panama City airport......not the sharpest or most sensitive TSA agents in the country up thar.....
5/ The second is downright disgusting - the US Attorney's office in Miami is trying to deport a decorated Iraq war veteran for the most trivial of reasons - checking the wrong box on a passport application.....
Veteran of Iraq War Now Fights His Own Deportation
By SUSANNAH NESMITH
Published: June 23, 2011
MIAMI — A veteran of both the Army and the Navy who served with distinction in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay has spent the last month in federal lockup here because the government wants to deport him.
Master Sgt. Brian L. Boone/U.S. Air Force
Elisha L. Dawkins, shown in Baghdad in 2007, is accused of lying on a passport application and has spent a month in lockup.
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Magazine Preview: My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant(June 26, 2011)
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Not only did he lie on a passport application, prosecutors say, but he was never even a citizen.
But a lawyer for the man, Elisha L. Dawkins, 26, has a different story, one that begins with Mr. Dawkins’s arrival here from the Bahamas as an infant. He was raised to believe he was a citizen, his lawyer contends, something the state and federal authorities did not challenge during his seven years in the military.
It is unclear why Mr. Dawkins was indicted in March, five years after receiving his passport and when he was still in the Navy.
“The military believes he’s an American citizen,” the lawyer, Clark Mervis, told Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga of Federal District Court here last week, noting that Mr. Dawkins had “secret” security clearance when he served in Guantánamo.
Mr. Dawkins is eligible to become a citizen, based on his military service, but a criminal conviction would disqualify him. Mr. Mervis hopes prosecutors will agree to a pretrial diversion program so he can avoid a conviction.
“We don’t often incarcerate war-hero-type people for making a false statement on a passport application,” Mr. Mervis said. “It’s a case that should never have been prosecuted criminally. This is just wrong.”
The United States Attorney’s Office in Miami declined to comment. The only crime Mr. Dawkins is charged with is lying on a 2006 passport application that asked if he had ever applied for a passport before. He checked no. The government says the answer is yes.
6/ It's incredible what a zillion dollar budget can do for a music video, but for greatness it also takes talent. This is the latest from Katy Perry, "Last Friday Night"...... very funny, really catchy song, fun story line, guest stars, and for the hottest singer around not named Gaga she does't take herself too seriously.
Great, great video.....6 minutes....
7/ Here's a 1 minute clip from Glenn Beck, interviewing Rick Santorum who is running for President......go on, you can watch this for a minute without gagging.....not often you see two lying media whores make no sense whatever.....
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum further expressed his strong convictions on global warming in a recent interview with Fox News' Glenn Beck.
On Thursday's show, when asked about global warming, Santorum told Beck, "There is no such thing as global warming," apparently much to Beck's delight.
Earlier in the month Santorum told Rush Limbaughthat global warming was "junk science."
Questioned about oil by Beck, Santorum boldly stated, "Drill everywhere," and proceeded to declare that there is enough oil, coal and natural gas to last centuries.
8/ The fallout from Jon Stewart's appearance on Fox News Sunday is still going - here Jon get's a little excited defending himself against the 'bias" accusation......
I love his Fox News bashing - they soooooo deserve it.....5 minutes.......
After this, Stewart expected Wallace to apologize, but instead Wallace chose to defend himself by clarifying a point he made during the Stewart interview, that Fox represented the "other side of the story" in relation to MSNBC's coverage. He said he meant to say "the full story" instead. Stewart was appalled at the retraction:
"That's your 'setting the record straight'? 'I accidentally told the truth and now I wish I could take it back'?"
As you'll see in the video below, this back-and-forth launches Stewart into what can only be described as a paranoid frenzy involving two large binders of Fox News transcripts. The futile argument also leads to one of Stewart's most concise and no-holds-barred depictions of Fox News:
9/ And he keeps going on Fox News Tuesday night, whose anchors appeared to get a memo "attack Stewart".....look how they all pile on the Daily Show host, choreographed in unison...........
Even so this is one of the funniest segments we have seen for a while.....7 minutes of vintage Jon.....
On Tuesday night's "Daily Show," Jon Stewart continued his "fun, light hearted and extremely productive conversation" with Fox News about "which one of us is the biggest a**hole," as he so bluntly put it.
Nearly two weeks after his interview with Chris Wallace, the back and forth between Stewart and the conservative network has covered a lot of ground, but mostly centered around political bias. Fox News has accused Stewart of being unfair and a "liberal mouthpiece," and now most recently have taken issue with an impression Stewart did of GOP Presidential hopeful Herman Cain. Cain has alsospoken out against Stewart for the bit, saying it was done so only because he's a "black conservative."
Stewart spent the better part of the segment defending his bit and was quick to point out that the joke in question was introduced using a "dildo wheel." Yes, a dildo wheel.
He also provides a supercut of nearly every impression he's ever done in an effort to prove to Fox that he's done bad impressions of people from almost every walk of life before without coming under scrutiny.
10/ I am as sensitive to criticism as the next blogger, so in response to your carping and whining "all you put in are downer stories", here's an uplifting commercial for you from Taiwan.....3 minutes of niceness.......
11/ Life in RickScott-Land - when you get your insurance renewal notice, just "assume the position" because you are going to get hosed....
NSURANCE
South Florida homeowners seeing big increases in renewal notices for property insurance
Annual renewal notices for homeowners insurance are bringing big increases for some.
BY SUSAN SALISBURY
PALM BEACH POST
When Paul Hobson received his State Farm Florida renewal this month, he was shocked to find the annual premium to insure his 2,200-square-foot house had increased to $2,715 from $1,092.
“That’s a 152 percent increase. I called to make sure the figure was right,” Hobson said. “Did the end of the world happen or something?”
The State Farm office he called in Jupiter assured him the amount for his St. Lucie West home was correct and due in August.
In April, regulators granted State Farm an average 18.8 percent rate increase, but as Hobson discovered, those averages mean little because there is no cap. Some homeowners are being hit with huge increases.
"This is only the beginning. The rates are being approved quicker and easier on behalf of the insurance industry. It’s quite sad," said state Sen. Mike Fasano (R-New Port Richey), who has been an advocate for consumers on insurance. "We have a governor now who is sympathetic to the insurance industry."
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.
12/ Fred Grimm with a very interesting column on the major danger of privatisation - corruption. A corporation gets a contract from a politician, and to keep it they keep the scumbag happy with generous contributions.....
In My Opinion
Privatization’s unspoken risk: Corruption
BY FRED GRIMM
FGRIMM@MIAMIHERALD.COM
The future of government runs for 10.5 miles through the heart of Broward County, amid rocks and dust and earth-moving equipment and trucks and workers along Interstate 595, where motorists can look out their car windows and contemplate another three years of traffic hell.
Don’t think of them as commuters, stewing in their gridlocked resentment, cursing the knucklehead government planners who created this transportation mess. Think of them as potential customers for Actividades de Construcción y Servicios S.A., the Spanish highway and tunnel builder. You see brutal traffic jams. ACS sees a business opportunity — 180,000 potential customers a day of whom no small percentage will happily pay for the opportunity to zoom along on a fast private highway running parallel to the unwashed (and unmoving) masses.
It’s a brilliant business plan, nearly diabolical. After four years of construction exacerbating the already torturous traffic jams on I-595, even cheapskate commuters will be exhausted and ready to pay whatever ACS demands. Call it a toll, or call it extortion.
So the company is spending $1.8 billion up front, building two reversible toll lanes down the once grassy medium, which in the old days might have been considered public right of way. The notion of public is so passé, so 2010. ACS, with the state’s blessing, will be taking the free out of freeway. It’s the new ideal in Florida, squeezing profit and (maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed) efficiency out of government functions.
At the bottom of the column he exposes a teenie bit of legislation the Republican power base, our Governor and the Legislature, slid in under the radar..........boy are they evil.....
Broward Commissioner Kristin Jacobs told me last week that she was worried that the privatization push was behind a state law, just signed by the governor, “that passed under the radar. Nobody in the Florida Association of Counties knew it was coming.” She said the new law weakens open-records requirements tied to the bidding process and extends “the veil of secrecy” over so-called confidential information in the winning bids. Amid this privatization frenzy, as cash-strapped governments dole out public assets to private companies, she worried that the law was concocted to obscure sweetheart deals until they become... well... done deals.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.
Todays video - a DDD favourite the Australian TAC commercial on drunk driving, set to REM's "Everybody Hurts".
This should be mandatory viewing for every teenager getting their license, and everyone else at least once.
If you can watch this without tearing up or flinching, you must be a sociopath......
Fair warning - very violent, but in context so it's not offensive......and note in Australia they drive on the left....
Todays marriage jokes
Wife: 'What are you doing?'
Husband: 'Nothing'.
Wife: 'Nothing...? You've been reading our marriage certificate for an
hour.'
Husband: 'I was looking for the expiration date.'
------------------------------
Wife : 'Do you want dinner?'
Husband: 'Sure! What are my choices?'
Wife: 'Yes or no.'
_____________
Wife: 'You always carry my photo in your wallet.. Why?'
Hubby: 'When there is a problem, no matter how great, I look at your
picture and the problem disappears.'
Wife: 'You see how miraculous and powerful I am for you?'
Hubby: 'Yes! I see your picture and ask myself what other problem can
there be greater than this one?'
------------------------------
Stress Reliever Girl: 'When we get married, I want to share all your
worries, troubles and lighten your burden.'
Boy: 'It's very kind of you, darling, but I don't have any worries or
troubles.'
Girl: 'Well that's because we aren't married yet.'
------------------------------
Son: 'Mom, when I was on the bus with Dad this morning, he told me to
give up my seat to a lady.'
Mom: 'Well, you have done the right thing.'
Son: 'But mom, I was sitting on daddy's lap.'
______________________________
A man was sitting reading the paper when his wife hit him round the
head with a frying pan.
'What was that for?' the man asked.
The wife replied 'That was for the piece of paper with the name Jenny
on it that I found in your pants pocket'.
The man then said 'When I was at the races last week Jenny was the name
of the horse I bet on'.
The wife apologized and went on with the housework.
Three days later the man is watching TV when his wife bashes him on the
head with an even bigger frying pan, knocking him unconscious.
Upon re-gaining consciousness the man asked why she had hit again.
Wife replied: 'Your Horse phoned!!! '
