Tomorrow is the 21st of December, the end of the Mayan calendar! Woop woop.....
1/ If you have ever had doubts that the oligarchy live in a different universe than scum like you and I, read this about the giant HSBC Bank settlement of the charges that the bank laundered money for the Mexican drug cartels and terrorists. They paid a fine, and noone was prosecuted.
Matt Taibbi is outraged at this blatant corruption, and you should be too.....
Excellent article......
If you've ever been arrested on a drug charge, if you've ever spent even a day in jail for having a stem of marijuana in your pocket or "drug paraphernalia" in your gym bag, Assistant Attorney General and longtime Bill Clinton pal Lanny Breuer has a message for you: Bite me.
Breuer this week signed off on a settlement deal with the British banking giant HSBC that is the ultimate insult to every ordinary person who's ever had his life altered by a narcotics charge. Despite the fact that HSBC admitted to laundering billions of dollars for Colombian and Mexican drug cartels (among others) and violating a host of important banking laws (from the Bank Secrecy Act to the Trading With the Enemy Act), Breuer and his Justice Department elected not to pursue criminal prosecutions of the bank, opting instead for a "record" financial settlement of $1.9 billion, which as one analyst noted is about five weeks of income for the bank.
The banks' laundering transactions were so brazen that the NSA probably could have spotted them from space. Breuer admitted that drug dealers would sometimes come to HSBC's Mexican branches and "deposit hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, in a single day, into a single account, using boxes designed to fit the precise dimensions of the teller windows."
This bears repeating: in order to more efficiently move as much illegal money as possible into the "legitimate" banking institution HSBC, drug dealers specifically designed boxes to fit through the bank's teller windows. Tony Montana's henchmen marching dufflebags of cash into the fictional "American City Bank" in Miami was actually more subtle than what the cartels were doing when they washed their cash through one of Britain's most storied financial institutions.
2/ Martin Short is a funny man, and he opened SNL last week with a great skit.....6 amusing minutes......
Martin Short tries to kiss Kristen Wiig, Jimmy Fallon, Tom Hanks, Samuel L. Jackson, Tina Fey and Lorne Michaels while singing about "the most promiscuous time of the year" in hisSaturday Night Live monologue
3/ Although I haven't been too impressed with Piers Morgan, I am coming around after watching how he dealt with two gun apologists on his show.....
One thing about the right wingnuts, it doesn't matter how much you fight back against their idiotic ideas, they just keep coming.....relentless....two minutes.....
CNN's Piers Morgan forcefully argued for increased gun control on his Friday show.
Morgan, who has long been a vocal advocate of new gun laws, told President Obama on Twitter that it was "time to act" in the wake of the massacre in Connecticut. He devoted his Friday show to the tragedy and brought on pro-advocates to make their case. Morgan noted that he had started his CNN show the week after Gabby Giffords was shot in Arizona, and that he was tired of being told that more guns would solve problems with violence.
4/ Legalising weed is gathering steam, and as this good story in Rolling Stone says there are at least seven states getting ready to start the process of liberalising their laws.
Note none of the states is a southern "red" state - interesting, isn't it? They don't want the gumment in our lives, but when it comes to social issues they have no qualms to allow the gumment to use the full power of the law to tell you how to live......
The Berlin Wall of pot prohibition seems to be crumbling before our eyes.
By fully legalizing marijuana through direct democracy, Colorado and Washington have fundamentally changed the national conversation about cannabis. As many as 58 percent of Americans now believe marijuana should be legal. And our political establishment is catching on. Former president Jimmy Carter came out this month and endorsed taxed-and-regulated weed. "I'm in favor of it," Carter said. "I think it's OK." In a December 5th letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) suggested it might be possible "to amend the Federal Controlled Substances Act to allow possession of up to one ounce of marijuana, at least in jurisdictions where it is legal under state law." Even President Obama hinted at a more flexible approach to prohibition, telling 20/20's Barbara Walters that the federal government was unlikely to crack down on recreational users in states where pot is legal, adding, "We've got bigger fish to fry."
Encouraged by the example of Colorado and Oregon, states across the country are debating the merits of treating marijuana less like crystal meth and more like Jim Beam. Here are the next seven states most likely to legalize it:
5/ In the wake of the tragedy in Connecticut the President is calling for action, but if I was a betting man I would wager nothing significant will happen....Christmas is coming, and we live in a news cycle that keeps major stories alive for about a week, and the forces against doing anything with the gun laws are powerful politically and financially.....
But the basic reason we have gun violence is cultural - a most interesting article from the Daily Beast details the culture of guns in the South, and how this has become part of the conservative identity.....try and change that, and you have a fight........
Why the South Loves Guns
by David Sessions Dec 16, 2012 4:45 AM ESTSoutherners worship firearms as the ultimate anti-government symbol—which is why they will never accept gun control, no matter how many children die.
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Since hideous, unspeakable gun massacres are such a regular occurrence in this country, I’ve had the several opportunities to live the cycle of horror, outrage, argument, recrimination, and inaction that engulfs the Internet each time. It usually goes something like this: I share a couple of links in the heat of the moment, and dissenters—many of them Southern friends and relatives—come out of the woodwork to debate. The responses are as predictable as my anti-gun links: “guns don’t kill, people do”; “if someone had had a gun, maybe they could have stopped this”; “more guns make people safer”; “taking guns away from law-abiding people means only criminals will have guns.”
No matter how I attempt to rebut these empty slogans, they never lose their power. On Friday, the horror of imagining small children gunned down in their classrooms with an assault rifle, the images of their parents screaming in despair, didn’t seem to do one bit to persuade any of the usual suspects that maybe citizens having unlimited access to assault weapons isn’t the best idea. It was sobering: the desperate denial, the contorted excuses. I spent most of the day wondering, if this won’t change people’s minds, will anything?
6/ A huge eagle swoops down in a Montreal park and grabs a baby in its talons.......fake? You decide, but it looks pretty real to me.....look at the shadows.....
7/ Oh boy.....in all the congratulations and yee-ha's the Democrats forgot Republicans gained and retained power in some of the key states, and this is where the billionaires really got some value for their money. As this story shows, the Michigan state government is now owned by Dick DeVos, owner of Amway and some of the other billionaires including the Koch brothers.
That's the strategy - the national elections are the visible ones [President, Senator] but the oligarchs can concentrate funds at the local level scientifically to keep your state, county and city politicians friendly to right wing causes......
As Republican leaders in Washington grappled after the election with their failure to unseat President Obama, Dick DeVos, one of Michigan’s wealthiest men, began dialing up state lawmakers in Lansing.
Although Mr. Obama won Michigan handily, Republicans had kept control of the Legislature. A union-backed ballot measure to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the State Constitution was defeated, thanks to an aggressive campaign against it that was financed in part by $2 million of DeVos family money.
The time had come, Mr. DeVos told Republican lawmakers, for the bold stroke they were considering: a law banning requirements that workers pay union dues or fees, in the state where the modern American labor movement was born. If the lawmakers later found themselves facing recalls or tough re-election fights, Mr. DeVos told them, he would be there to help.
“That was when I started to say, you know what, this thing could happen,” Mr. DeVos said on Friday. “These people really are serious and committed.”
The lawmakers and Gov. Rick Snyder, who is also a Republican, rapidly approved the legislation and delivered a body blow to the labor movement.
Yet much of the groundwork for the quick victory was laid months and years before by a loose network of donors, strategists and conservative political groups that has sought to win Republican control of legislatures around the country and limit unions’ political power. Their bet: that money invested in local elections would yield concrete policy victories that could not be had in Washington.
Where the big-spending conservative groups active in this year’s presidential race had little to show for their millions of dollars, the state efforts were strikingly successful. While Mr. Obama was winning onetime red states like Virginia and swing states like Michigan and Ohio, Republicans made large gains in state offices in many of the same battlegrounds. Starting next year, Republicans will have one-party control in almost half of the state capitals in the country.
In Michigan, the drive to ban mandatory union payments, known by supporters as “right to work,” included national conservative groups like Americans for Prosperity, founded by the philanthropists David and Charles Koch, and a potent coalition of local business groups and donors led by Mr. DeVos, whose billionaire father, Richard DeVos Sr., a founder of Amway, has attended the Kochs’ twice-yearly gatherings of conservative donors and leaders.
8/ Jimmy Kimmel has a spot called "Unnecessary Censorship", and it's pretty funny. Here is a compilation of the best of 2012......2 minutes.....
9/ Michigan is ground zero for steamrollering an agenda through it's legislatures [see above] - this is a impassioned and excellent speech from a Democratic House member, outraged at the Republican tactics......
We should all have such articulate politicians.....3 good minutes.....
10/ Stephen Colbert is annoyed that Michelle Obama asked for and got an advance copy of the new season of "Downton Abbey", so he has put together a new series "Breaking Abbey", with the plotline from "Breaking Bad" which is about meth dealers and some of the cast of Downton Abbey.......
Very funny.....6 minutes.......
Enraged by Michelle Obama’s ability to get her hands on the upcoming season of Downton Abbeybefore anyone else, Stephen Colbert set out to prove that he was equally as powerful and could also get his hands on a rare TV show. Colbert proved his power when he debuted the seriesBreaking Abbey during his show The Colbert Report.
11/ Long, detailed article in the Times on how Wal-Mart of Mexico bribed their way into building a huge store near some historic pyramids......it goes into exhaustive detail about the pervasive corruption of their Mexican subsidiary......a major investigation by the New York Times......
Wal-Mart, the most evil company in this country, responsible for crippling US industry, destroying small town America and abusing and underpaying their employees......note the Walton family, 6 people, have more wealth than the bottom 44%. They are also notoriously cheap and give zip to charities......
So enjoy your shopping experience and keep making these bastards richer.......
SAN JUAN TEOTIHUACÁN, Mexico — Wal-Mart longed to build in Elda Pineda’s alfalfa field. It was an ideal location, just off this town’s bustling main entrance and barely a mile from its ancient pyramids, which draw tourists from around the world. With its usual precision, Wal-Mart calculated it would attract 250 customers an hour if only it could put a store in Mrs. Pineda’s field.
One major obstacle stood in Wal-Mart’s way.
After years of study, the town’s elected leaders had just approved a new zoning map. The leaders wanted to limit growth near the pyramids, and they considered the town’s main entrance too congested already. As a result, the 2003 zoning map prohibited commercial development on Mrs. Pineda’s field, seemingly dooming Wal-Mart’s hopes.
The plan was simple. The zoning map would not become law until it was published in a government newspaper. So Wal-Mart de Mexico arranged to bribe an official to change the map before it was sent to the newspaper, records and interviews show. Sure enough, when the map was published, the zoning for Mrs. Pineda’s field was redrawn to allow Wal-Mart’s store.
But 30 miles away in Mexico City, at the headquarters of Wal-Mart de Mexico, executives were not about to be thwarted by an unfavorable zoning decision. Instead, records and interviews show, they decided to undo the damage with one well-placed $52,000 bribe.
Problem solved.
And fly their airline, every seat filled with Wal-Mart people...
12/ Amazing video - Rihanna with "Diamonds In The Sky".....exciting, beautiful imagery, wonderful clips of horses and the lovely Barbadian Rihanna with her powerful voice........wow, really good.....
13/ Corruption, corruption, corruption........everywhere you look even in this administration......
No wonder Obamacare was riddled with loopholes and giveaways to Big Pharma. The person who wrote the bill was a lobbyist for a health insurance company, who is now leaving her White House job to go back to the Pharmacutical industry......
When the legislation that became known as "Obamacare" was first drafted, the key legislator was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, whose committee took the lead in drafting the legislation. As Baucus himself repeatedly boasted, the architect of that legislation was Elizabeth Folwer, his chief health policycounsel; indeed, as Marcy Wheeler discovered, it was Fowler who actually drafted it. As Politico put it at the time: "If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate health care negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating officer."
What was most amazing about all of that was that, before joining Baucus' office as the point person for the health care bill, Fowler was the Vice President for Public Policy and External Affairs (i.e. informallobbying) at WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance provider (before going to WellPoint, as well as after, Fowler had worked as Baucus' top health care aide). And when that health care bill was drafted, the person whom Fowler replaced as chief health counsel in Baucus' office, Michelle Easton, was lobbying for WellPoint as a principal at Tarplin, Downs, and Young.
Whatever one's views on Obamacare were and are: the bill's mandate that everyone purchase the products of the private health insurance industry, unaccompanied by any public alternative, was a huge gift to that industry; as Wheeler wrote at the time: "to the extent that Liz Fowler is the author of this document, we might as well consider WellPoint its author as well." Watch the five-minute Bill Moyers report from 2009, embedded below, on the key role played in all of this by Liz Fowler and the "revolving door" between the health insurance/lobbying industry and government officials at the time this bill was written and passed.
More amazingly still, when the Obama White House needed someone to oversee implementation of Obamacare after the bill passed, it chose . . . Liz Fowler. That the White House would put a former health insurance industry executive in charge of implementation of its new massive health care law was roundly condemned by good government groups as at least a violation of the "spirit" of governing ethics rules and even "gross", but those objections were, of course, brushed aside by the White House. She then became Special Assistant to the President for Healthcare and Economic Policy at the National Economic Council.
Now, as Politico's "Influence" column briefly noted on Tuesday, Fowler is once again passing through the deeply corrupting revolving door as she leaves the Obama administration to return to the loving and lucrative arms of the private health care industry:
"Elizabeth Fowler is leaving the White House for a senior-level position leading 'global health policy' at Johnson & Johnson's government affairs and policy group."
14/ This movie may be a candidate for an Oscar - "Zero Dark Thirty" directed by Kathryn Bigelow with Jessica Chastain is about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden....great review, an "A" movie......
There is a crucial scene in “Zero Dark Thirty” — Kathryn Bigelow’s brilliantly directed fictionalized account about the search for Osama bin Laden — in which three Central Intelligence Agency officers stop talking and look at a television. On the screen Barack Obama is speaking with a correspondent on “60 Minutes.” It’s Nov. 16, 2008. “I have said repeatedly,” Mr. Obama asserts, “that America doesn’ttorture.” The three look at the screen without a word, and then Ms. Bigelow cuts to a close-up of one, Maya (Jessica Chastain). The analyst’s face is a blank. This is, Mr. Obama continues, part of “an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.”
That vacant face partly explains, I suspect, why “Zero Dark Thirty” has stirred up so much controversy before hitting theaters. (It opens nationwide on Wednesday.) Is she stunned by what she hears? Contemptuous? Relieved? Irritated? Indifferent? Maya’s face reveals nothing and offers as much explanation as her silence. How viewers interpret this look will depend on them because here and throughout this difficult, urgent movie Ms. Bigelow does not fill in the blanks for them. Given that the opening sequences show Maya helping carry out violent, cruel interrogations of detainees, I read her expression as that of an employee absorbing a new set of marching orders from her next boss — orders that drastically reverse her old ones.
A seamless weave of truth and drama, “Zero Dark Thirty” tracks the long, twisted road to Bin Laden’s capture, beginning on Sept. 11 and ending a decade later at another conflagration, in Abbottabad, Pakistan. With a script by Mark Boal, who wrote“The Hurt Locker,” Ms. Bigelow’s last feature, this new movie is a cool, outwardly nonpartisan intelligence procedural — a detective story of sorts — in which a mass murderer is tracked down by people who spend a lot of time staring into computer screens and occasionally working in the field. It is also a wrenchingly sad, soul-shaking story about revenge and its moral costs, which makes it the most important American fiction movie about Sept. 11, a landmark that would be more impressive if there were more such films to choose from.
Interesting trailer....
Todays video - "Full Metal Jacket" drill instructor. Welcome to Marine Boot Camp, where the sadistic Master Sargeant from your worst nightmares awaits you......
Warning......salty, very salty language........ladies you may want to skip this one......
Todays Catholic joke
A drunk man who smelled of beer sat down on a
subway next to a priest.
The man's tie was stained, his face was plastered
with red lipstick, and
a half-empty bottle of gin was sticking out of his
torn coat pocket. He
opened his newspaper and began reading. After a few minutes the man turned to the priest and asked, "Say Father, what causes arthritis?" The priest replies, "My Son, it's caused by loose living,
being with cheap, wicked women,
too much alcohol, contempt for your
fellow man, sleeping around with prostitutes and lack of a bath." The drunk muttered in response, "Well, I'll be damned”,
Then returned to
his paper. The priest, thinking about what he had said,
nudged the man and
apologized. "I'm very sorry.
I didn't mean to come on so strong.
How long have you had
arthritis?" The drunk answered, "I don't have it, Father.
I was just reading here
that the Pope does."
MORAL: Make sure you understand the question before offering the answer.
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Todays groaner.......
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Todays Scottish golf jokes
A Scottish woman went to the local newspaper office to publish the obituary for her recently deceased husband.
The Obit editor informed her that there is a charge of 50 cents per word.
She paused, reflected and then said "well, then, let it read : "Angus McGregor died."
Amused at the woman's thrift, the editor told her there is a seven word minimum for all obituaries.
She thought it over and in a few seconds said "in that case, let it read : "Angus McGregor died. Golf clubs for sale".
Two Scots are playing golf when suddenly a hearse passes slowly by.
One golfer removes his cap and stands in silence for a moment as the hearse passes.
When asked by the second golfer why he had done that, he replied "well, it was the least I could do for her. After all, we were married 25 years."
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