1/ A great article from New York Magazine on Elizabeth Warren, who appears to be one of the very very few candidates for the US Senate with any integrity whatever. She will work for the middle class against the oligarchy but she is up against Scott Brown, Senator from Massachussets, who is wholly owned by the big banks and just another hopelessly corrupt Republican....
There is still a year to go, but already the Wall Street criminals are throwing money at SuperPACS to bring Ms. Warren down as they are desperate to keep their puppet Brown in office. This is like a test case of can enough money defeat a real reformer......and if they do we may might as well all move to somewhere less corrupt....like New Zealand, or Canada.....
In January of last year, Elizabeth Warren went on The Daily Show and did what was then, and still is, that rarest of things: She gave a cogent, compelling, almost crystalline account of the financial collapse. It wasn’t the first time she had delivered this story, but her task seemed particularly urgent that night. A Republican named Scott Brown had just won Ted Kennedy’s old Senate seat, depriving Democrats of a filibusterproof majority and prefiguring the bloodbath the party would take during the midterms. Barack Obama had been in the White House for a little more than twelve months, and already it appeared that he was losing control of the political narrative.
Warren tried to wrest it back. The problems started not with Obama, she said, but in the eighties, when the financial regulations that had been put in place after the Great Depression began to be repealed. This allowed “the big financial firms, the titans of Wall Street,” to “start selling ever more dangerous mortgages, ever more dangerous credit cards, ever more dangerous car loans,” which they then repackaged and sold again, producing, in addition to huge profits and bonuses, huge risk. After the market took a downturn, “all that risk that’s been built into the system starts to come home, somebody’s got to pay,” and “those same CEOs on Wall Street basically turn around to the American people and say, ‘Whoa, there’s a real problem here, and you better bail us out or we’re all gonna die.’ And so we did, that was TARP. And now we’re about to write the last chapter in this narrative
2/ An excellent Rachael Maddow segment, where she looks at all of the Republican candidates but focuses on Herman Cain, who she is treating as an art project. Rachael at her best.....the last 6 minutes are with Eugene Robinson, a great commentator on political news.....about 19 minutes.....
3/ Leave it to outside media to tell us the reality of what is truly happening - Al Jazeera English makes the logical and insightful point that the true issue of suppressing dissent is in the private sector - your employer could be the enemy of free speech, not the Government.....
There's a reason so much of US repression is executed not by the state but by the private sector: the government is subject to constitutional and legal restraints, however imperfect and patchy they may be. But an employer often is not. The Bill of Rights, as any union organiser will tell you, does not apply to the workplace. The federal government can't convict and imprison you simply and transparently for your political speech; if it does, it has to paint that speech as something other than speech (incitement, say) or as somehow involved in or contributing to a crime (material support for terrorism, say). A newspaper - like any private employer in a non-union workplace - can fire you, simply and transparently, for your political speech, without any due process.
On this blog, I've talked a lot about what I call in The Reactionary Mind "the private life of power": the domination and control we experience in our personal lives at the hands of employers, spouses, and so on. But we should always recall that that the private life of power is often wielded for overtly political purposes: not simply for the benefit of an employer but also for the sake of maintaining larger political orthodoxies and suppressing political heresies. That was true during McCarthyism, in the 1960s, and today as well.
4/ Onion New's Jim and Tracy put on fat suits to see what life is really like for "Obese Americans".....a heartwarming and quite funny story.....2 minutes......
5/ Because of the meltdown of both Perry and the idiot Cain, Newt Gingrich's campaign is gathering steam again....but as this story says he is just another corrupt scumbag for sale to the highest bidder.....a truly awful man......
As a young graduate student pursuing an advanced degree in modern European history, Newt Gingrich wrote a dissertation titled “Belgian Education Policy in the Congo: 1945-1960.” Thereafter, in the course of writing 23 books, the scholar-politicianpontificated on many subjects, from the pope to a “pouting sex kitten,” who appears for a quick romp in a novel about the Civil War.
None of his work had anything to do with the home lending practices that would help to destroy the American economy. So why would Freddie Mac pay $300,000 to Professor Gingrich in 2006 – just as the troubled mortgage lender was facing calls on Capitol Hill for increased regulation?
Turns out, that was just small change in the overall sweetheart deal that no historian but Gingrich could ever get. Bloomberg News reported this week that Gingrich made between $1.6 million and $1.8 million for giving additional “advice” to Freddie Mac. When I asked about the amount, a Freddie Mac spokesman refused to comment, but officials at the agency who are familiar with the contracts confirmed the numbers reported by Bloomberg.
This is not just another Gingrich laugher, up there with his revolving Tiffany’s account or his multiple personal hypocrisies. This story encapsulates why Washington is broken and how the powerful protect and enrich themselves, unanchored to basic principles.
6/ Diving in Bali - a video of the beautiful sealife on the reefs of Bali......enjoy the images, because this video won't be able to be made in 20 years as the reef will be gone......5 beautiful minutes.....
7/ Matt Taibbi with another excellent story of our two realities......the oligarchs vs the poor......and how the poor always lose.....
Had a quick piece of news I wanted to call attention to, in light of the recent developments at Zuccotti Park. For all of those who say the protesters have it wrong, and don’t really have a cause worth causing public unrest over, consider this story, sent to me by a friend on the Hill.
Last week, a federal judge in Mississippi sentenced a mother of two named Anita McLemore to three years in federal prison for lying on a government application in order to obtain food stamps.
Apparently in this country you become ineligible to eat if you have a record of criminal drug offenses. States have the option of opting out of that federal ban, but Mississippi is not one of those states. Since McLemore had four drug convictions in her past, she was ineligible to receive food stamps, so she lied about her past in order to feed her two children.
The total "cost" of her fraud was $4,367. She has paid the money back. But paying the money back was not enough for federal Judge Henry Wingate.
8/ Bill Maher in fine form for his last show of the season and his final "New Rules" - the GOP is the party of Scrooge......5 minutes of exquisite sarcastic humour......
9/ The approval rating of Congress is down to 9%....but who are these 9%? Are they in a coma in hospital? Being treated for mental issues? A new category of citizen - "retarded Americans"?
Make them read this article from the Atlantic on how Congressmen use insider information to make money on the stock market, and force them to watch the 15 minute CBS News "60 Minutes" clip attached.....
How to reconcile this with the eye-popping trades described in the 60 Minutes piece? Spencer Bachus betting that the economy would tank right after he was briefed on the financial crisis in 2008; John Boehner buying health insurance stocks shortly before the public option was finally killed; Nancy Pelosi getting preferential IPO shares in Visa right around the time a bill that would have hurt credit card processors was defeated.
Well, each of these trades does have an innocent explanation. In late September 2008, it was getting fairly obvious that there was big trouble afoot in the markets. Similarly, it was clear that the public option was dead long before its obituary ran. And Nancy Pelosi is a very wealthy lady; those types of accounts do get preferential access to IPOs.
The problem is, they also have a non-innocent explanation. And there's the rub: we don't know. We ought to be able to trust our congressmen. But when they won't take even small steps to improve their transparency--Louise Slaughter's STOCK Act has gone nowhere even though its requirements are hardly onerous--then the mistrust gets even worse.
10/ Love this one - "Spanish for your Nanny".....very funny......3 minutes.....
11/ Keith Olbermann on an epic rant on the Occupy movement and Mayor Bloomberg - he cites outrageous repression from the past and how the overreaction of authorities has backfired, and proceeds to nail Bloomberg wonderfully. It's great to see our Keith still has fire in his belly....8 minutes......
12/ An amazing article from the LA Times about Justices Scalia and Thomas, and how they really, really, really don't care about whether anyone thinks they are corrupt and owned by the right wing oligarchs. They're blatant.....
The day the Supreme Court gathered behind closed doors to consider the politically divisive question of whether it would hear a challenge to President Obama’s healthcare law, two of its justices, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, were feted at a dinner sponsored by the law firm that will argue the case before the high court.
The occasion was last Thursday, when all nine justices met for a conference to pore over the petitions for review. One of the cases at issue was a suit brought by 26 states challenging the sweeping healthcare overhaul passed by Congress last year, a law that has been a rallying cry for conservative activists nationwide.
The justices agreed to hear the suit; indeed, a landmark 5 1/2-hour argument is expected in March, and the outcome is likely to further roil the 2012 presidential race, which will be in full swing by the time the court’s decision is released.
The lawyer who will stand before the court and argue that the law should be thrown out is likely to be Paul Clement, who served as U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bushadministration.
Clement’s law firm, Bancroft PLLC, was one of almost two dozen firms that helped sponsor the annual dinner of the Federalist Society, a longstanding group dedicated to advocating conservative legal principles. Another firm that sponsored the dinner, Jones Day, represents one of the trade associations that challenged the law, the National Federation of Independent Business.
The occasion was last Thursday, when all nine justices met for a conference to pore over the petitions for review. One of the cases at issue was a suit brought by 26 states challenging the sweeping healthcare overhaul passed by Congress last year, a law that has been a rallying cry for conservative activists nationwide.
The justices agreed to hear the suit; indeed, a landmark 5 1/2-hour argument is expected in March, and the outcome is likely to further roil the 2012 presidential race, which will be in full swing by the time the court’s decision is released.
The lawyer who will stand before the court and argue that the law should be thrown out is likely to be Paul Clement, who served as U.S. solicitor general during the George W. Bushadministration.
Clement’s law firm, Bancroft PLLC, was one of almost two dozen firms that helped sponsor the annual dinner of the Federalist Society, a longstanding group dedicated to advocating conservative legal principles. Another firm that sponsored the dinner, Jones Day, represents one of the trade associations that challenged the law, the National Federation of Independent Business.
13/ Jon Stewart had some great moments last week, but this one is the best where he calls the Republican nomination for Romney without mentioning him at all.....9 minutes of pleasure as he rolls through all of the other hopefuls and evicerates them one by one......
14/ Think Bank of America and the other evil banks have backed away on the fee they tried to introduce? No way Jose, they are just getting sneakier......
So why are you still banking with a criminal enterprise? Move your damned account to a local bank or credit union......
Even as Bank of America and other major lenders back away from charging customers to use their debit cards, many banks have been quietly imposing other new fees.
Need to replace a lost debit card? Bank of America now charges $5 — or $20 for rush delivery.
Deposit money with a mobile phone? At U.S. Bancorp, it is now 50 cents a check.
Want cash wired to your account? Starting in December, that will cost $15 for each incoming domestic payment at TD Bank. Facing a reaction from an angry public and heightened scrutiny from regulators, banks are turning to all sorts of fees that fly under the radar. Everything, it seems, has a price.
“Banks tried the in-your-face fee with debit cards, and consumers said enough,” said Alex Matjanec, a co-founder of MyBankTracker.com. “What most people don’t realize is that they have been adding new charges or taking fees that have always existed and increased them, or are making them harder to avoid.”
Banks can still earn a profit on most checking accounts. But they are under intense pressure to make up an estimated $12 billion a year of income that vanished with the passage of rules curbing lucrative overdraft charges and lowering debit card swipe fees.
15/ A classic music video, the Killers with "Mr. Brightside"......a decadent montage that appears to be set in a New Orleans brothel with the Killers as the house band.....great costumes, acting [yes, acting!] and the lyrics are a little naughty as well.....jolly good fun!
16/ Even though Lake County isn't under pressure for water, some of the counties south of us are, and a lot of the problem is waste. What the article doesn't mention is agriculture and how the majority of the water used in Florida is used in farming....
But the burden of conservation will be put on residents, not the large corporate farms....they pay our politicians well.....
Conservation-minded folks save water by taking shorter showers, turning off the tap while brushing their teeth and dutifully following the water rules. Others aren't so thrifty.
A search of customer billing records provided by local utilities shows that while wildfires burned and lawns shriveled during a near record-setting drought in May and June, dozens of homes used more than 50,000 gallons of water a month -- as much as 10 times more than average.
That profligate water use across Volusia and Flagler counties dismays officials who have preached water conservation for decades and warn the region's water resources are being depleted faster than they can be replenished by rainfall.
"It's totally wasteful," said Don Feaster, former director of the former Volusian Water Alliance, a now defunct organization that promoted collaboration among area governments. "There's no excuse for it."
Utilities trying to delay the need for expensive alternatives such as desalination say conservation is the way to go, less expensive for taxpayers and utility customers. If they could only convince their customers.
Typical customers in the two counties use between 4,000 and 8,000 gallons a month, but hundreds regularly use several times. At least two dozen utility customers used more than 100,000 gallons in May, paying for that privilege with bills ranging as high as $1,000.
Todays video......the blond in the library skit used in an ad......
Todays redneck joke
BASS BOAT........
A good old boy from Alabama won a bass boat in a raffle drawing.
He brought it home and his wife looks at him and says, "What you gonna do with that?? There ain't no water deep enough to float a boat within 100 miles of here."
He says, "I won it and I'm a-gonna keep it."
His brother came over to visit several days later. He sees the wife and asks where his brother is.
She says, "He's out there in his bass boat", pointing to the field behind the house.
The brother heads out behind the house and sees his brother in the middle of a big field sitting in a bass boat with a fishing rod in his hand .
He yells out to him, "What are you doin'?"
His brother replies, "I'm fishin'. What does it look like I'm a-doin'?"
His brother yells, "It's people like you that give people from Alabama a bad name, makin' everybody think we're stupid. If I could swim, I'd come out there and whip your ass!"
Todays puns.....and if you didn't "get" the Bass Boat joke you won't enjoy these....
"Puns for my Friends with a Higher IQs I"
Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.
Practice safe eating - always use condiments.
Shotgun wedding - A case of wife or death.
A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
Cond0ms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.
A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.
What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead give away.)
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count
votes.
She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but
broke it off.
A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.
A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.
Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.
Practice safe eating - always use condiments.
Shotgun wedding - A case of wife or death.
A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.
A hangover is the wrath of grapes.
Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.
Cond0ms should be used on every conceivable occasion.
Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.
When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.
A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.
What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead give away.)
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count
votes.
She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but
broke it off.
A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.
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