Hayes & Grim Future of HCR

(reprinted from end of last thread)

My pro-corporate buddy just asked me a very silly question: "Aren't corporations just groups of people?"

Certainly; but now those groups of people...say, Chinese Capitalists, or Saudi Oil barons; can buy our elections from the Presidential race down to the school boards. If they were to spend, say, as much as we've blown on wars in the last decade; they'd have enough to make our Presidential and every single State race theirs'.

If you didn't care for all the 'politics' and 'spin' from the last election, the next could be like that...times infinity.

They are now 'super-human' entities. They can live forever, don't claim citizenship or nationality, and now can spend however much they want in our elections.

Unlike us.

It's only a matter of time before they start 'thinking' and acting for themselves; already Corporations must act in a profitable manner by law, despite the results for it's shareholders. (and oh yeah, Unions are back, too)

Capitalism has been compared in the past to a Circus; three rings, lots of players, a complicated show that's tough to follow sometimes.

SCOTUS just opened all the cages. This won't be a stage act anymore.

It'll be chaos.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

So, how is this Twitter thing?

Still haven't tried it, though Sara has, and we both have the same 'super' phones.

Seems like that's now Seder's soapbox of choice?

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Imagine how the energy corps are to be able to really put all the wrong people in the wrong places. West Virginia will be the Bonneville Coal Flats of the East by 2050. It will be the same with banking, communications health.

I guess the only hope is they will eventually become at odds with each other not unlike the divisions we now are seeing on the right.

I really don't want to see that play out.

After Whining About Being ‘Suppressed,’ Chamber Discloses It Spent $123 Million In Lobbying

9341Today’s Supreme Court ruling that opens the floodgates to unprecedented political spending by corporations is another major victory for the corporate lobbying giant — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In July, the organization declared its support for Citizens United in an amicus brief arguing that there is “no basis for restricting its core First Amendment right to engage in independent electoral advocacy.” In spite of the fact that the U.S. Chamber has topped lobbying spending year after year, the group had the gall to complain to the Supreme Court that its voice is being “suppressed”:

In particular, the electoral advocacy of the Chamber – a not-for-profit corporation – and of millions of its corporate members has been suppressed. This has occurred even though 96% of Chamber members are businesses with fewer than 100 employees, far from the immense aggregations of wealth hypothesized in Austin. Suppression has been imposed even when candidates have directly attacked business interests and when corporations have unique and valuable insight into the likely consequences of electing or defeating particular candidates. Although this Court has protected the ability of corporations to discuss “issues,” that is no substitute for direct and explicit speech about candidates.

After complaining about its influence being “suppressed,” the Chamber just disclosed that it spent a whopping $123 million to influence federal policy in 2009. Of all the corporations and associations spending money in D.C., the U.S. Chamber tops them all. The Chamber admitted to Roll Call that it was not “suppressed,” but rather, was “active in all of the major debates”:

“It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone because it was an incredibly active year for the president and the economy,” said Tita Freeman, a chamber spokeswoman. “Hence the chamber was active in all of the major debates that impacted the economy and business community.”

Freeman said the big spike in spending in the fourth quarter was due largely to health care, including issue ads, meetings and letter-writing campaigns.

Aside from health care, the chamber listed a slew of other lobbying issues, including energy and climate change legislation, endangered species regulatory processes, executive compensation and travel promotion.

The Chamber isn’t happy with simply influencing Congress and the administration. It wants more — specifically, the opportunity to purchase its own fleet of friendly lawmakers.

As many federal lawmakers and the Obama administration push for cap-and-trade legislation, health care reform, regulatory reform, and corporate tax reform, the U.S. Chamber stands as the most well-funded opposition to progressive change. The group spent $10-$20 million of insurance-industry-provided cash on fighting reform. After Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, the Chamber was quick to congratulate itself for running television ads in support of the candidate.

Between Brown’s election victory and the Supreme Court ruling, the most anti-reform corporations in the country are circling their wagons and their wallets around the U.S. Chamber and its fight to increase corporate influence in American politics at the expense of the average American. Today’s Citizens United ruling is a gift by the court’s conservative justices to their efforts.

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/21/chamber-scotus-citizens/

Update Mother Jones
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/01/supreme-courts-gift-chamber-commerce

and Talking Points Memo have more on the Chamber's victory today.

toniD's Ya Think?

mucho winter olympics fadoodle here.

most of it incredible BS like the provincial courts streamlining court sessions for anyone from out of province busted for minor crimes during the event.

the reasons given don't mention anything about being able to collect fines that would normally escape beyond collection.

many political protests planned though because the media will be available.

'Shadow Elite': Information Is Power And Who's Controlling Our Information?
Gary Lyndaker
Posted: January 22, 2010 10:45 AM

Janine Wedel's "Shadow Elite"--particularly her chapter on "U.S. Government, Inc."-- struck a familiar chord with me. She writes that our national and public interests risk being sold out because core government functions like running intelligence operations, controlling homeland security databases, and managing federal taxpayer monies doled out under the stimulus plans and bailouts are being outsourced to private contractors. Contracting is rampant: Today three-quarters of people working for the U.S. government are not government employees but private contractors. And it is no longer just printing and cleaning and food services that are being contracted out; it is the primary work of government.

Working for the last 17 years in information technology organizations for Missouri state government, I have seen a similarly alarming (and growing) trend on the state level. Over 25 years, as an information systems developer, manager, and administrator in both state and private organizations, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that we are putting our state's operations at risk and compromising the trust of the people of our state by outsourcing core government functions. And outsourcing does not come cheaply.

more and it is scary...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-lyndaker/shadow-elite-information_b_4...

Just a taste of the article:

# The Missouri Department of Revenue, which has been more "political" than most departments, has a history of contracting for the development of information systems, including vital tax systems. Some of their development contractors are no longer in business, leaving the agency with programs they can maintain only with difficulty. At least one contractor knew it had the state in a compromised position and made an exorbitant bid for a system upgrade. Another tax system is running on a version of server software that is more than a decade old. Others of their systems still require desktop software that is out of date and cannot be supported much longer. Overall, it is hard to justify the condition of the systems in this department and, of course, the public has no idea of this situation.

toniD's Ya Think?

The comment was not mine, CB
Submitted by Sandy on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 12:34pm.
It was part of a comment on a diary at DKos...
---------
Never let the facts get in the way of a joke. That's my motto.

It is worth noting that you cleverly sidestepped the issue of wrasslin' young uns for computer control.

"Finally, a word to all of the screen names that I barely recognize from infrequent posts or don't recognize at all: Don't be strangers who wait for events like an AAR postmortem to post mors...or less.

The Idiot Brigade needs all the idiots it can muster."

I THOUGHT I heard a clarion call!!

There I was thinking about going upstairs to paint the trim in my back bedroom as I paint my house in the mad rush to try to sell it before it goes into foreclosure. Suddenly, I was struck by the need .. that's right all out need, fire in the loins, undeniable and unmutable cry .. to check Twitter [Yes .. I twitter .. albeit VERY infrequently and usually not even remotely politically based .. and if you care to - search under MRRs and my nickname here and you will find me.] And there it was .. some obscure RT about premim members being charged for content before "they" disappeared. So I went to AAR.com and POOF! It is apparently no more!!

Damn! That does indeed suck .. but I will totally cop to being so wrapped up in the tiny b*llsh*t that is my life now that I hadn't listened in .. dayum .. forever! Now I have killed it! [However, Air America, do not feel bad! You are HARDLY the only media outlet I have killed in the last few years .. having taken out newspapers in mid 2008.]

But .. to assure Sam's blog place doesn't go the way of my former favorite program on AAR - Majority Report - I will endeavour to take a break from my daily b*llsh*t and post! Becuase let's face it .. I got no mans .. about to have no house and will be heading back to live in Mommy and Daddy's basement once more .. with my vulcan ears .. and my special recreation of Kim Catrall's outfit in "Undiscovered Country" .. I really have NOTHING better to do!

Gotta go paint now .. but I will try to head back later. Maybe see if I can turn this place into a chatroom again tonight!! LOL!!! Know you'll all LOVE that!!

; ) - Early canned peaches til later!

We adopted another puppy!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/album.php?aid=-3&id=1258878699

Her name is Gracie, she's a lot bigger than that now @5 months old, and she's somewhat peacefully lounging around after her spaying surgery yesterday.

She's 3/4 English Mastiff & 1/4 Rottweiler, and over 50lbs.

We're expecting her to get to 140lbs or so.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I want to be a conservative. I want to be free from learning things.
I want to be able to hate people without understanding them.
I want to be free from social obligation.

I want to be told what to do by a drug-addled egomaniac.
I want to believe that everything positive I accomplished was done by myself alone
and my failures are the result of women, minorities, immigrants, and "Big Government."

I want to re-write American/world history to justify my behavior.
But most importantly, I want to be a raving arrogant lunatic throughout it all..

--Steven in Texas

www.bartcop.com

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Townhall style and now taking questions.

toniD's Ya Think?

Democrats Mull Plan C For Health Care; Experts Say Get Real
Brian Beutler | January 22, 2010, 9:27AM

Freaked out and angry House Democrats don't know how to move forward on health care reform. But a significant contingent say it's time to radically rethink the approach: Instead of passing comprehensive reform, these Democrats say they should break the House's health care bill into chunks, pass their favorite ones, and send them over to the Senate to see if they can pass.

The gambit is political: get Republicans on the record opposing changes to unpopular insurance industry practices. But it comes with hidden dangers, both politically and substantively. And leading health care experts and advocates say these Democrats need to get real.

One of the main problems is that some of health care reform's least popular elements are essential to its effectiveness. For instance to guarantee that sick people can get coverage, healthy people have to be part of the insurance pool to spread the risk and keep insurance premiums from skyrocketing.

"The idea of scaled back reform, and particularly of doing insurance reforms by themselves, is a fantasy," says Richard Kirsch, director of the reform campaign Health Care for America Now. "The public wants to stop insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. You can't do that without a mandate; you can't do a mandate without subsidizing coverage; you can't subsidize coverage without Medicare savings and new revenues. The public wants to end medical bankruptcies - but to do that you need to provide affordable coverage to people and you need to mandate decent insurance benefits and put a ban on annual and lifetime caps. Doing all that requires setting up exchanges and subsidizing coverage."

Likewise, covering millions of uninsured Americans--many of whom can't afford insurance on their own costs money. And that means taxes.

"From a policy perspective, a piecemeal approach must confront the most basic reality of the health care market: health care, and thus insurance, is very costly," says Harold Pollack, chair of the Center for Health Administration Studies at the University of Chicago.

The average annual cost of coverage for a family of four exceeds $13,000. That's $6.50 per hour for someone working 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year.

Any serious effort to cover the uninsured must address the reality that millions of Americans will not--often cannot--pay this. The large price tags of the Senate and House bills do not arise from a desire for social experiments or from an inherent love for big government. They arise from the need to provide large subsidies if we are to really cover the uninsured. Enacting the legislation piecemeal does not change this reality. And once one must address this large pricetag, knotty revenue questions inevitably arise.

The "break it up" plan, in other words, could create a patchwork of reforms that don't amount to a working health care system. And that's distinct from the piecemeal plan's political problem: Passing several, individual regulatory reform bills means asking the Senate to act on several bills--the same Senate that, thanks to Republican filibusters, often takes weeks to pass non-controversial legislation. Asking the Senate to pass several bills could mean dragging the health care reform fight on for months. And nobody knows which, if any of them, would pass.

In other words: Be careful what you wish for.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/democrats-mull-plan-c-for-hea...

toniD's Ya Think?

Oh hell I should look it up for myself.... ;-)

Should Foreign Corporations Spend Money on U.S. Political Candidates?
Krista Gesaman

Foreign businesses might be the real winners in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the landmark case that allows corporations and unions to spend limitless amounts of money on presidential and congressional political campaigns. A majority of large businesses are now owned by foreign entities, and this means international corporations could pour tons of money into the United States political scene, potentially swaying the political climate.

The biggest questions with this ruling is the scope of the term "corporation," says Edward Foley, law professor at the Ohio State University College of Law and director of the election-law program. Does the high court want this decision to apply to foreign corporations as well as domestic ones, he ponders? The truth is, the court didn't make a decision one way or the other.

Foley best explains the potential issues by talking about the electronic, video, and communication giant, Sony. The corporation is headquartered in Japan, but a large number of its shareholders reside in the United States. In fact, people can even buy and trade Sony's stock on the New York Stock Exchange. The issue is whether this corporation, with strong ties to a foreign country and the United States, should be permitted to independently contribute money to presidential and congressional campaigns.

The court sought to expand First Amendment protection for corporations, but did it really mean to promote the free flow of ideas from Russian or Chinese corporations, Foley asks? Justice John Paul Stevens focused on the same concerns in his dissenting opinion. The majority's position "would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans," he writes.

This afternoon, President Obama asked Congress to "develop a forceful response" to the ruling. But with Congress juggling so many other important issues, it's unlikely that a change will be made in the immediate future. This could mean that foreign cash could be supporting political candidates in next year's congressional midterm elections.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/01/22/should-forei...

toniD's Ya Think?

Elyria Ohio

toniD's Ya Think?

You and your dad came to mind when the airport chaos began in Port-au-Prince as readily as you and your dad came to mind when "Sully" Sullenberger made an Airbus A320 hit the drink like it was a PBY.

In other words, you have been gone but (no matter how hard I try) not forgotten.

LTR

With the demise of Air America, many stations and hosts are scrambling to fill programming holes, and hosts are scrambling to acquire new gigs and/or syndicators. But seeing as Air America's on-air influence had been greatly diminished as of late, listeners may not notice many differences in their local station lineups.

First, the stations...

•Obviously, it appears that WZAA, the station the network had been leasing and operating in Washington, DC, will be no more, unless owner Bonneville International or another entity decides to air a progressive talk format there. No word yet on WWRL New York, the other station that Air America leased time from. However, WWRL's owner does have a stake in Ed Schultz' show, so having a local affiliate in New York would be a benefit to them.

•John Scott, program director of KKGN in San Francisco, said that the station's format would be unaffected, and that Air America "was dead a long time ago. They're just burying it Monday at 6pm PT." He claimed "management screw ups, overspending, talent management, it was a mess from almost the get go. There were truly some fine, dedicated radio people there that were part of the launch team, but they never had a chance."

"They offered un-entertaining programming. They deserved this. We are in the ENTERTAINMENT business, I am going to say this for the ten billionth time. We are not in the POLITICAL business."

Con't..

http://ltradio.blogspot.com/2010/01/whats-next-post-air-america.html

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Hartmann: Corps Can Now Drop Money Bombs to BUY, BLACKMAIL OR DESTROY POLITICIANS

January 21, 2020
David Cobb with Thom Hartmann
Discussion about Supreme Court decision Thursday that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress.

toniD's Ya Think?

I know I know - "poof" out of nowhere but with the double dose of news yesterday I had to come back and see how everyone was doing.
Sammy - classy and clairvoant til the end will always be one of the great founders of the meshing of blogosphere and internets with the radio biz - more importantly he IS the best at mixing the mediums live - thats a known fact - but being the first and the best in the world we live in today makes it hard sometimes to continue doing what you have mastered. But, your unique talent is recognized far and wide by many on all sides of the mic.

The Low Bar is now Open - bartender is on duty when he is around - other wise help yourself- we are fully stocked with any and everything you could possibly want -
Drink of the weekend for the AAR wake is the AAR Memorial special - Absinthe AND nada on the Rocks - with a twist if you wish - twist only if you feel you must... I like most prefer my AAR old school from when you couldnt wait to listen.

Coffee bar is on the left - caramel hot cocoa and proper english tea available too.

Freshly baked cookies are served on at the bottom of the hour- all organic of course.

Please help yourselves and enjoy while you wrap your minds around this week of news and we celebrate the memories from AAR and all the good people and shows that came out of there, and the friendships made as well.

As for me, RL has been super busy and kinda crazy - I hope everyone is taking good care of themselves.

Be well and be good to yourselves remember you deserve it!!!

xxoo
Nefferkitti

The bar here is very low...
Submitted by maggiesboy on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 2:11pm.
..so we can still order drinks after we fall to the floor.

..back to the new thread. I could not resist.

Reality. TV. Two more reasons to read.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
---Ray Bradbury

.

Obama To Admit Congress Has 'Run Into A Bit Of A Buzz Saw' On Health Care

Source: TPM

President Obama will be talking about jobs at a community college in Lorain County, Ohio this afternoon, but will address the "frenzy" over the fate of health care reform that's happened since Democrats lost their 60th seat Tuesday in Massachusetts.

"I have to admit, we've run into a bit of a buzz saw along the way," Obama will say today, according to remarks prepared for delivery and distributed by the White House.

He also said he would not walk away, but pivoted to say he wants Congress to pass a jobs bill. The town hall, scheduled for 2 p.m., will include a question-and-answer session so it's possible Obama will offer more detail on a way forward.

But members of Congress are concerned that the president has taken a hands-off approach since Tuesday's special election where Republican Scott Brown beat Democrat Martha Coakley. The fate of the measure is uncertain and key Democrats are calling for a breather.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/obama-to-admit-congress-has-r...

toniD's Ya Think?

Ohio's unemployment rate up to 10.9%

Source: ABC news

Ohio's unemployment rate has edged up to 10.9 percent for December, from 10.6 percent the month before.

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services said Friday that the state's labor market weakened, led by losses in service-providing industries.

The figures were released on the same day that President Barack Obama is scheduled to visit Ohio to talk about rebuilding the economy.

The number of workers unemployed in Ohio last month was 641,000, up from 624,000 in November.

Officials say the number of Ohioans out of work has risen by 196,000 in the last 12 months, from 445,000 in December 2008. The state's jobless rate a year ago was 7.4 percent.

The U.S. unemployment rate for December was 10.0 percent, unchanged from November.

In July, Ohio unemployment hit 11.2 percent, the highest level in about 26 years.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=9633563

toniD's Ya Think?

Many I've spoken to are getting pay decreases. My friend Gloria, hired not long ago, was told she is getting a decrease in pay.

State jobless rates on the rise

Source: CNN

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- A total of 43 states reported rising jobless rates in December, reversing signs of improvement seen the month before, according to a government report released Friday.

Overall, jobless rates increased in those states and the District of Columbia last month and fell in four states, according to the Labor Department's monthly report on state unemployment. Three states reported no change.

In November, 36 states reported a monthly decrease in the unemployment rate.

"This reversal is so surprisingly negative that it causes us to be cautious," said Craig Thomas, senior economist at PNC. "This report has been unreliable, and it tends to miss turning points."

http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/22/news/economy/state_unemployment

toniD's Ya Think?

Yeah, that's what I've been telling people. All the hosts went independent. DOWN with MANAGEMENT!

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

Harkin, Dem Groups Working To End Filibuster

Posted: 01-22-10 01:26 PM

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is asking his Senate colleagues to join his effort to effectively take away the minority party's power to filibuster legislation.

The Iowa Democrat is planning to introduce legislation in the next few weeks that would alter the parliamentary procedures that have so easily allowed Republicans to derail legislation in this Congress.

"The Senate's current rules allow for a minority as small as one to make elections meaningless," he writes in a letter to colleagues (see below). "The filibuster was once an extraordinary tool used in the rarest of instances... Today, rather than an unusual event, the filibuster (or the threat of a filibuster) is a regular occurrence..."

"The legislation I intend to introduce later this month would amend the Standing Rules of the Senate to permit a decreasing majority of Senators to invoke cloture," Harkin adds. "On the first cloture vote, 60 votes would be needed to end debate. If one did not get 60 votes, one could file another cloture motion and 2 days later have another vote. That vote would require 57 votes to end debate. If cloture was not obtained, one could file another cloture motion and wait 2 more days. In that vote, one would need 54 votes to end debate. If one did not get that, one could file one more cloture motion, wait 2 more days, and 51 votes would be needed to move to the merits of the bill."

A long time proponent of filibuster reform, Harkin introduced a similar bill in the early 1990s. Back then his ally in the cause was Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, then a Democrat. But today, there seems to be limited appetite on the Hill to tackle the topic. A change to Senate rules would require 67 votes for passage and few expect Republicans to unilaterally give up their power to obstruct.

Off the Hill, the Huffington Post has learned that a coalition of progressive groups and labor organizations have begun laying out a potential campaign to pressure lawmakers to revamp the filibuster rules. Meetings and discussions are in their preliminary stages. But following the lethargic health care reform process, there is a growing consensus that some political penalty needs to be applied to Republicans in Congress for their excessive use of the parliamentary tool.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/22/harkin-dem-groups-strateg_n_433...

Below is Harkin's Dear Colleague Letter:
Filibuster reform -
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/23038767/Filibuster-reform

toniD's Ya Think?

OBAMA: 'I AM NOT GOING TO WALK AWAY'.... I've obtained an advance text of the remarks President Obama will deliver in Elyria, Ohio, this afternoon. The emphasis on the remarks and the town-hall event will be the economy and jobs, but the president will address the health care issue.

"...I had no illusions when I took on health care. It was always going to be hard. I knew from the beginning that seven Presidents had tried it and seven Presidents had failed. But I also knew that insurance premiums had more than doubled in the past decade, that out-of-pocket expenses had skyrocketed, that millions more people had lost their insurance, and that it would only get worse.

"I took this up because I want to ease the burdens on all the families and small businesses that can't afford to pay outrageous rates. I want to protect mothers, fathers, children from being targeted by the worst practices of the insurance industry.

"Now, we've gotten pretty far down the road, but I have to admit, we've run into a bit of a buzz saw along the way. The long process of getting things done runs headlong into the special interests, their armies of lobbyists, and partisan politics aimed at exploiting fears instead of getting things done. And the longer it's taken, the uglier the process has looked.

"I know folks in Washington are in a little bit of a frenzy this week, trying to figure out what the election in Massachusetts the other day means for health insurance reform, for Republicans and Democrats, and for me. This is what they love to do.

"But this isn't about me. It's about you. I didn't take up this issue to boost my poll numbers or score political points -- believe me, if I were, I would have picked something a lot easier than this. No, I'm trying to solve the problems that folks here in Elyria and across this country face every day. And I am not going to walk away just because it's hard. We're going to keep on working to get this done with Democrats, Republicans -- anyone who is willing to step up. Because I am not going to watch more people get crushed by costs, or denied the care they need by insurance company bureaucrats, or partisan politics, or special interest power in Washington."

The remarks did not point to a specific course of action the president prefers -- though that may come up during the Q&A -- but it sounds as if Obama remains committed to finishing the job.

I'm torn about whether the White House has dealt with the issue appropriately this week, in part because I haven't gotten a strong sense of exactly how much work has been done behind the scenes.

There may be some value to the president taking a hands-off approach for a few days, letting lawmakers calm down and giving the process some breathing room.

That said, if the House is going to pass the Senate bill -- as it should -- and end the reform debate on a positive note, the White House is going to have to play a major role in making that happen. Letting the "dust settle" is fine, but the clock is ticking. The faster the president and his team step up, the better off we'll be.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_01/022049.php

toniD's Ya Think?

Right now tho it's Dead-Air America.

Signing Off! Will have to do some kind of tribute tonight.

That's one of the nicer things about funerals, you get a chance to see so many faces you haven't seen in a long time...

Too bad it took the demise of AAR to bring people around. I wish some people would come around more often...

Nice to read you all. Hope to do it again soon...

Please leave a few bucks in the coffee can by the door...we are passing the hat to buy Crank a Dale Carnegie course....

Central Greece rattled by magnitude 5.1 earthquake, no damage or injuries

Source: cp/ap

ATHENS — Authorities say a strong earthquake with preliminary magnitude 5.1 shook parts of central Greece, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The Athens Geodynamic Institute says the quake struck at 2:46 a.m. Friday (0046GMT) near the town of Nafpaktos, some 100 miles (160 kilometres) northwest of Athens.

Greece is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world, but the thousands of quakes recorded each year rarely cause severe damage or injuries.

In 1999, a magnitude 5.9 earthquake killed 143 people in Athens.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jvTfuUzdjrQ...

toniD's Ya Think?

yeah, some of us said they were conning us and fudging job growth by considering the seasonal employment numbers....

just once I wish they would give it to us straight...it has gotten to the point you can't trust anything that comes out of any of these agencies anymore...

http://www.facebook.com/HDJennings?v=feed&story_fbid=1214114793872

Pro­vides in­for­ma­tion and sup­port for con­sci­en­tious war tax re­sist­ers in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia (pri­mar­ily the San Fran­cisco Bay Area). We op­er­ate the People’s Life Fund (an al­ter­na­tive fund for re­sisted taxes), offer in­for­ma­tional work­shops, pro­vide in­di­vid­ual coun­sel­ing, do pub­lic out­reach, and hold dem­on­stra­tions.

http://nowartax.org

Republicans are riding high in the wake of Scott Brown’s win, talking up an authentic resurgence for their party and a real chance for reclaiming power.

Don’t bet on it.

Yes, it is indisputable that the GOP has surged, especially in the past several months. Republicans won three major races in tough states — and watched the percentage of Americans who prefer Republicans over Democrats in hypothetical matchups rise to the highest level since 2004.

But it is also indisputable that the rise has little to do with the voters’ view of Republicans writ large — and that the very concerns that got them booted from power persist today.

Voters “have fallen out of love with the Democrats,” said Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.). “They haven’t yet fallen back in love with us.”

POLITICO talked with many of the country’s most experienced political operatives, and each one warned Republicans against irrational exuberance.

Former New York Rep. Susan Molinari: “We have earned the right to crow a little bit. But the lesson we’ve learned from all of these races is that you ... can’t take anything for granted.”

Republican strategist Mary Matalin: “Killer negatives have lost their magic. This requires no attitude. Now we have the players on the field, and we just need to play. We remember how to do it.”

Former Rep. Vin Weber (R-Minn.): “Voters don’t want triumphalism. They still like the president as a person, so they don’t want to see a party celebrating his decline. ... The country wants to see the parties working together.”

Matthew Dowd, who consulted for former President George W. Bush and voted for President Barack Obama: “If any Republicans are running around town celebrating in jubilation, they should remember that in the country’s constant state of change, neither party gets more than a moment.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill hope their moment will come again in November. But the numbers are daunting across the board.

The most important ones: 40, the net seats to win the House, and 10, the net seats to win the Senate, are very difficult — perhaps impossible in the case of the Senate — to achieve. Republicans have picked up 40 or more House seats only seven times since 1912, when the chamber grew to 435 seats. They have picked up 10 or more Senate seats only four times in that period. They have done both three times in the past century.

It seems certain they will pick up some seats, perhaps as many as two dozen or more in the House. That would be in line with the historical average pickup for the opposition party in a president’s first term.

But away from the cameras, Republicans admit that a series of structural problems will make it hard to transform those gains into a win-back-control movement.

Privately, top Republicans tell POLITICO that they are most concerned right now about their bank balance. They are doing well in recruiting candidates but worry they might not have the cash to sufficiently fund them.

Consider the House. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has $15 million in the bank right now — nearly four times more than the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Officials say that, while small and large donors are still chipping in, the recession has caused a dip in contributions from middle-level donors — often the small-business types who are feeling the economic pinch.

At the candidate level, if you tally up all the money for everyone running, Democrats have about $60 million more ($175 million to $114 million), according to numbers compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Money is one of the many reasons top GOP officials wish the party had not elected Michael Steele as Republican National Committee chairman. Senior Republicans don’t like his loose lips or his wildly improvisational style. But they could live with that if the RNC were a cash cow. It is not, in part because of Steele’s unwillingness to personally stroke top donors.

The RNC has outraised the Democratic National Committee, but it has less money to spend right now: $9 million vs. the DNC’s $13 million. More troubling to GOP insiders on Capitol Hill is that some major donors say they don’t want to give money to Steele’s RNC. more...

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31837.html

toniD's Ya Think?

Have a great evening Sederites!

Later

toniD's Ya Think?

Could tonight's premiere of Caprica be anymore timely?

Caprica takes place approximately 50 years before the events of Battlestar Galactica, where the Twelve Colonies are still at peace and the Cylon rebellion has not yet occured. The show focuses on the relationship between two families, the Adamas and the Graystones. When the Graystone's daughter, Zoe, is killed, her parents Amanda and Daniel try to reconstruct a robotic version of her to cope with their loss. The result is the first Cylon, which the Graystones call Eve. Joseph Adama (played by Esai Morales), William Adama's father, is a world renowned attorney who immediately speaks out against the Graystones' experiments and acts to stop them from building more Cylons.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. ~ George Bernard Shaw

http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002494/

Thom's show today was probably the best Hartman Show I've ever heard. It ended with a caller talking about Parenti saying 'we need a Communist Party.'
It's finally starting to get fun.

It's the earth, not some machine thats causing quakes!
Submitted by toniD on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 3:58pm.
------------
Bait: "Ha, you sap! What makes you think natural disasters are natural?"

toniD: "The name?"

Bait: "Do I have to connect the friggin' dots for you, toniD?"

toniD: "Please do. Will you be needing a golf pencil or a Hardee's place mat?"

Bait: "I've got everything I need right here." [Bait unrolls a nineteenth century map and begins jabbing at it with his index finger.] "When Dessalines declared independence in Haiti, some of the French colonists fled to Louisiana, here." [Jabs map somewhere near present day Houston.] "New Orleans was hit by hurricane Katrina. Then an earthquake hit Haiti, here." [Jabs at Jamaica.]

toniD: "And what, pray tell, is the connection?"

Bait: "Don't you see? The CIA hates anything French! Remember Freedom Toast?"

toniD: "I have been trying to forget."

Bait: "You'll stay out of Peugeot's if you know what's good for you, and you'll thank me later."

Wont they just fillibuster that? oh nevermind, it needs sixty seven votes.

Thunderclap Newman - Something In The Air

http://hypem.com/#/track/1005298/Thunderclap+Newman+-+Something+In+The+A...

**

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

You and I both know that big corporations use their massive amounts of cash to fight the kind of change we need in Washington. Unfortunately, it’s about to get a lot worse. A recent decision by the Supreme Court lifted a century of modest limits on corporate spending in elections.

Let’s do something about it!

Public Citizen has made it easy on a Web site you might find interesting: www.DontGetRolled.org.

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

Iraq littered with high levels of nuclear and dioxin contamination, study finds

• Greater rates of cancer and birth defects near sites
• Depleted uranium among poisons revealed in report

More than 40 sites across Iraq are contaminated with high levels or radiation and dioxins, with three decades of war and neglect having left environmental ruin in large parts of the country, an official Iraqi study has found.

Areas in and near Iraq's largest towns and cities, including Najaf, Basra and ­Falluja, account for around 25% of the contaminated sites, which appear to coincide with communities that have seen increased rates of cancer and birth defects over the past five years. The joint study by the environment, health and science ministries found that scrap metal yards in and around Baghdad and Basra contain high levels of ionising radiation, which is thought to be a legacy of depleted uranium used in munitions during the first Gulf war and since the 2003 invasion.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/iraq-nuclear-contaminated-si...

FOX isn't helping. We all have to work on our bias' and FOX is making it really difficult.

It's like now, when I see an attractive blond, I feel like I can't trust them. I lock my doors, and roll up the windows if I'm in my car too.

I need to work on that.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2010/01/jimmy-kimmel-takes-a...

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5614#comment-391533

I was gonna post more, but now that I've read Bait's
inspirational ass-handing story on the last thread...

Later!

[throws handful of coins into the coffee can on the way out]

by: leftake
January 20, 2010 10:42 PM

(Promoted again! We're now up to 2,010 pairs of balls! - promoted by leftake)

Well, it's a bit off-color, but... it does make the point.

May we present our brand new Facebook page:

"Sending Harry Reid a pair of balls." (http://Facebook.com/BallsForHarry)

For each "Fan" for this, we will send an *actual pair of balls* to Harry Reid.

Really. Check it out.

1,000 fans and counting, after just a few hours.

http://leftake.com/diary/1563/send-harry-reid-a-pair-of-balls

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules

...so many times in just the past year by the Republicans Harry Reid would be in the mood to use 'em.

Something not on the Haiti telethon is glaring by omission.

No laser light shows. No sequins. No bizarre costumes with even more bizarre appendages.

No inflatable floating pigs and no pyrotechnical displays.

No grimacing, no gesticulating, no writhing and no dancing.

Persons with microphones and musical instruments are singing songs.

And nothing else.

Imagine that.

Sting slipped in a grimace or two.

Government announces ban on export of devices to Iraq and Afghanistan

By Kim Sengupta, Defence Correspondent

Hundreds of people have been killed in horrific bombings in Iraq after a British company supplied "bogus" equipment which failed to detect explosive devices.

The head of the company, which has made tens of millions of pounds from the sale of the detectors, has now been arrested and the British Government has announced a ban on their export to Iraq and Afghanistan.

But questions were being raised last night about why action had not been taken sooner on the supply of the detectors which leading weapons specialists had condemned months ago as "useless and dangerous". The equipment, which operates on a "dousing" principle and has no electronic components – was also sold to Pakistan, Lebanon and Jordan, all countries suffering deaths and injuries through terrorist bomb attacks.

Iraqi families who have suffered in the blasts last night condemned their own government as well as the British authorities for allowing the extraordinary security failure. Among the attacks that the detectors, it is claimed, had failed to prevent were suicide bombings in October last year which killed 155 people and blasts two months later which resulted in 120 more deaths.
...

The thin, light brown, peeling cover has "El largo viaje [The long journey, by] Tere Medina" printed in large black letters. Underneath the first layer of skin resembles bark and a filmy black substance. The pages are like brown paper, and printed on the first page is a Spanish and English explanation of the book.

"The cover of this book is made from the leather of the human skin," it reads. "The Aguadilla tribe of the Mayaguez Plateau region preserves the torso epidermal layer of deceased tribal members. While most of the leather is put to utilitarian use by the Aguadillas, some finds its way to commercial trade markets where there is a small but steady demand. This cover is representative of that demand."
...

http://media.www.theonlinerocket.com/media/storage/paper601/news/2010/01...

The Roots are workin' overtime in New York tonight.

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-roots-1#Members

...The current members of The Roots are Black Thought (MC), Questlove (drums), Kamal (keyboard), F Knuckles (percussion), and Captain Kirk (guitar). Recently, they have toured with sousaphonist Damon "Tuba Gooding Jr." Bryson and Game Theory producer and current bassist Owen Biddle. For their performances on the Jimmy Fallon show, keyboardist James Poyser contributes additional keyboards.

Great band

"this machine kills fascists"

haven't been here in awhile .. family health issues, work, etc. .. but thank you Sam for the commentary on AAR in the last thread. I'm sad to see the demise of AAR. After all, what was better than the original lineup...
Morning Sedition
Unfiltered
Al & Katherine
Randi
The Majority Report
Mike Malloy

It doesn't get any better.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2210811420100123

Regulators close five banks in U.S.

Banks in Fla, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington

WASHINGTON, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Regulators seized five U.S. banks on Friday, driving up the tally in what is expected to be a busy year for bank failures...

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/index.ssf/2010/01/from_springsteen...

From Springsteen to Madonna, stars team for Hope For Haiti telethon

There was heartbreak in prime time tonight, as dozens of television networks — as well as many radio stations and Web sites — broadcast the “Hope For Haiti Now” telethon.

For two hours, A-list musicians ranging from Bruce Springsteen to Madonna performed songs of sorrow and inspiration in New York, Los Angeles and London studios. There were no standard show-biz introductions, no audiences to offer applause, and no commercials to break the mood...

...The tone of the music, from start to finish, was serious, and the performances were uniformly intense...

Can't wait to read about that in my local paper tomorrow. Glad I always stick with the local Credit Union.

So as someone who's had a love hate with AAR ever since they shit canned Malloy and went on to loath them when they started moving Sammy around, I find myself in a bit of a quandary. Our local am station carries Steph, Thom and Randi but from 4 pm on they are SOL. I actually read 60ths post and called the station to ask who they would get to fill in and they had no idea AAR was going under! The station manager called me back to find out what I knew and asked for suggestions.

So I thought I'd ask the experts here who is syndicated thats worth trying to get on my local dial. I mentioned Peter B, Jeff Ferris?, Malloy, and maybe Pacifica but any good ideas would be greatly appreciated. If only Sammy was on the air!

Starting today, recordings of all the performances will be available on iTunes, for 99 cents each. That money, too, will go to the cause.

{nice touch}

Submitted by trapper on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 11:07pm.
...I actually read 60ths post and called the station to ask who they would get to fill in and they had no idea AAR was going under! The station manager called me back to find out what I knew and asked for suggestions...
-------------
trapper: "How are you gonna fill your programming hole?"

station manager: "What programming hole?"

Cats don't have man written laws to follow and morals and ethics...(at least that I'm aware of...)

How is voting for a person who allows wars in other countries that kill many people who aren't involved voluntarily in the war, the same as taking in cats, having them spayed/neutered, feeding them etc. and some of them periodically catching a mouse, bird whatever...?

(Which, by the way, feeding them is better than allowing them to be alone outdoors and having to eat birds and rodents for food.)

I had to read the press release to him. He said the stations were always the last to know with AAR. He said they had tried to get Malloy before but he wasn't in syndication. But if I'm not mistaken he is. Wonder if Sammy would move to NM and do 3 hours a day on our local am? I'd let the whole family live here for free with me and the menagerie. Hell I'd even make them Green Chile Stew, from scratch.

I didn't see Toby Keith and Ray Stevens in that lineup Crank
Submitted by maggiesboy on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 11:10pm.
------------------
Not a lot of bootstrap Conservatives participated. Ted Nugent had to wash his hair.

I was at a loss for Keith Urban's name when he and Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock gave “Lean On Me” a nice treatment. I suspected that he came from Country Pop but I didn't have a clue, which isn't surprising because I can't identify a lot of pop culture faces, let alone Country pop culture faces.

Country Pop sometimes means that your bread gets its butter from the pocketbooks of Conservative fans, so I was curious to find out Keith Urban's identity.

Since he was singing harmony with Sheryl Crow and Kid Rock, it was a tipoff to me that whoever the guy is, it's probably a safe bet that he leans pretty hard to the Left.

...with clips from AAR 2004 starting each segment.

ammo.

I missed the whole thing. Need to turn on the tube more often. Actually I was building this week's homage to all things AAR.

Even tho I havent' listened to it live for over 2 years. I had to devote two hours to Lionel, his body of work demanded it. Oh the humanity!!!

WASHINGTON – A top lawmaker on Capitol Hill is calling for the elimination of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the establishment of a new system to provide money for U.S. home loans.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said Friday he supports replacing the two companies entirely.

"I believe this committee will be recommending abolishing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form and coming up with a whole new system of housing finance," Frank said at a hearing on executive compensation issues. "That's the approach, rather than the piecemeal one."

His comments show how much the financial crisis has upended the relationship between lawmakers and the two companies. Frank was long one of the staunchest supporters of Washington-based Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, based in McLean, Va.

The two companies, which have been run by the government since they almost collapsed in September 2008, have required $111 billion in federal aid to stay afloat. Late last year the Obama administration pledged to cover unlimited losses through 2012 for both companies, lifting an earlier cap of $400 billion.

Regulators announced last month the CEOs of Fannie and Freddie could get paid as much as $6 million for 2009. That has outraged Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

"We are paying these people bonuses to lose tens of billions of dollars," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas at Friday's hearing. "What people do with their money is their business. What they do with the taxpayer money is our business."

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provide vital cash to the mortgage industry by purchasing home loans from lenders and selling them to investors. Together, they own or guarantee almost 31 million home loans worth about $5.5 trillion, or about half of all mortgages in the U.S.

So far, the Obama administration has been quiet about its plans for the two companies. In an interview Thursday on PBS, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the Obama administration will "propose a set of detailed reforms beginning this year" for Fannie and Freddie. But he said legislation will have to wait until next year "because it's just a complicated thing to get right."

Shares of both companies sank on the news. Fannie Mae closed at 99 cents, down 7.5 percent. Shares of Freddie Mac closed at $1.17, down 10.7 percent, but added a penny in after-hours trading.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100122/ap_on_bi_ge/us_mortgage_giants_congr...

toniD's Ya Think?

Anyone here know what Schultz said? I'm curious...

Malloy calls Shultz a fake or something to that effect...

Rep. Frank: Abolish Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac
Submitted by toniD on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 12:02am.
----------
At the very least they should be given better names.

Like Frankenloan and The Hominator. Freddie and Fannie are names destined for wedgies.

Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs & Steel (and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed), offers some timely thoughts on why Haiti, once a fairly prosperous country, has sunk into enduring poverty — a condition not comparatively shared by its neighbor on the same island, the Dominican Republic. According to Diamond, Haiti’s environmental conditions offer a partial explanation. But you will also find clues in the country’s language, and in the legacy of slavery that has shaped Haiti’s economic relationship with Europe and the US. This interview — quite a good one — aired this morning in San Francisco. You can listen to it below, or access it via MP3, iTunes or RSS Feed.

http://www.openculture.com/2010/01/jared_diamond_explains_haitis_endurin...

http://www.kqed.org/.stream/anon/radio/forum/2010/01/2010-01-21a-forum.m...

CEOs Push Congress On Public Financing Of Campaigns

WASHINGTON — Dozens of current and former corporate executives have a message for Congress: Quit hitting us up for campaign cash.

Roughly 40 executives from companies including Playboy Enterprises, ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's, the Seagram's liquor company, toymaker Hasbro, Delta Airlines and Men's Wearhouse sent a letter to congressional leaders Friday urging them to approve public financing for House and Senate campaigns. They say they are tired of getting fundraising calls from lawmakers – and fear it will only get worse after Thursday's Supreme Court ruling.

The court ruled that corporations and unions can spend unlimited money on ads urging people to vote for or against candidates. The decision was sought by interest groups including one that represents American businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They argued that restrictions on ads they could finance close to elections violated their free-speech rights, and the court agreed.

Congressional candidates who find themselves attacked by a flood of special-interest TV ads in the 2010 elections will likely reach out to their party's biggest donors for money to help them counter the blitz.

"Members of Congress already spend too much time raising money from large contributors," the business executives' letter says. "And often, many of us individually are on the receiving end of solicitation phone calls from members of Congress. With additional money flowing into the system due to the court's decision, the fundraising pressure on members of Congress will only increase."

Among the others signing the letter are current or former executives of Quaker Chemical Corp., Brita Products Co., San Diego National Bank, MetLife and Crate & Barrel.

They sent the letter through Fair Elections Now, a coalition of good-government groups who hope the Supreme Court ruling will lead Congress to pass public campaign financing legislation they have long been seeking. Others supporting public financing include former campaign strategists for President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush.

A Senate proposal would fund campaigns with a fee on businesses that get $10 million or more in government contracts. The House would finance it with revenue from auctioning off the television broadcast spectrum, which was opened when the country switched to digital broadcasting. Spectrums are the airwaves used by the government, television and radio broadcasters and cell phone companies, among others.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/22/ceos-push-congress-on-pub_n_433...

toniD's Ya Think?

Evo Morales, Bolivia's president, has been sworn-in for a second term, vowing to further tighten state control over South America's poorest economy and develop some of the world's largest lithium reserves.

Morales, an Aymara Indian and Bolivia's first indigenous president, won a sweeping re-election victory in December due to broad support from the poor Indian majority.

"Comrades, democracy has been consolidated ... the colonial state has died and the multicultural state has been born," Morales said in his inauguration speech in the capital of La Paz on Friday.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/01/2010123017259914.html

http://www.learntobe.org/

We had a place pay for one or two years of this place caqlled tutor.com for us at the lib. We can't afford it now that they don't cover it for us anymore...But this place does the same thing but for free it seems..

I find it hard to believe that all they have to do is return the tax rates on the rich to pre reagan times and we have no more deficits.

I find it hard to believe that all they have to do is eliminate the SS tax cap and we have a huge SS surplus.

I find it hard to believe that this whole California budget crisis thing is a result of tax breaks for the rich and corporations

But its all true.........

Ed Schultz's "Psycho Talk" - Air America Radio Host Mike Malloy - 01/21/10

ed is way out of line.

Ive noticed jon stewart trying to play a centrist lately. So I turned it off.

ed has no credibility to criticize malloy IMHO. He needs to STFU .....

Ive seen ed go on some good rants like the one where he told obama he is betraying his base

but, I do not trust him. Just because of the way he dresses. Its hard for me to trust someone who looks like used car salesman/banker.

January 22, 2009 Obama promised to close Gitmo no later than today:

http://bit.ly/5kvhaa

Grotesque! Chris Matthews’s sputtering railroad overtalk lecture to Alan Grayson just now about How Congress Really Works. A disturbing & surreal eruption from the damn TV while I’m trying to work. Ugh! Turn it off.
Dang – Now my syllabus is all F-ed up. And classes start Monday. Moomph.

But it's good to see Nefferkitti wandering about these parts again. I know - I've been a lurking stranger lately too.

[Bows. Exit stage left]

Submitted by toniD on Fri, 01/22/2010 - 2:35pm.
Should Foreign Corporations Spend Money on U.S. Political Candidates?
Krista Gesaman

Foreign businesses might be the real winners in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the landmark case that allows corporations and unions to spend limitless amounts of money on presidential and congressional political campaigns. A majority of large businesses are now owned by foreign entities, and this means international corporations could pour tons of money into the United States political scene, potentially swaying the political climate.

The biggest questions with this ruling is the scope of the term "corporation," says Edward Foley, law professor at the Ohio State University College of Law and director of the election-law program. Does the high court want this decision to apply to foreign corporations as well as domestic ones, he ponders? The truth is, the court didn't make a decision one way or the other.

Foley best explains the potential issues by talking about the electronic, video, and communication giant, Sony. The corporation is headquartered in Japan, but a large number of its shareholders reside in the United States. In fact, people can even buy and trade Sony's stock on the New York Stock Exchange. The issue is whether this corporation, with strong ties to a foreign country and the United States, should be permitted to independently contribute money to presidential and congressional campaigns.

The court sought to expand First Amendment protection for corporations, but did it really mean to promote the free flow of ideas from Russian or Chinese corporations, Foley asks? Justice John Paul Stevens focused on the same concerns in his dissenting opinion. The majority's position "would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans," he writes.

This afternoon, President Obama asked Congress to "develop a forceful response" to the ruling. But with Congress juggling so many other important issues, it's unlikely that a change will be made in the immediate future. This could mean that foreign cash could be supporting political candidates in next year's congressional midterm elections.

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2010/01/22/should-forei....

=============================

Now we will see how the WTO door swings both ways.

The Transnationals want CAPTIVE CHEAP labor and see us through that desire. Same goes for our other resources to which they want easy access. Trapped in WTO, we have limited our options. With the Five Fascist Justices' ruling, we now lose influence at the ballot boxes of Federal, State and Local 'government'.

Will it be a simple to task to chronicle how this occurs? I doubt it will be any more noticeable than campaign funding is today. Even today, no average person off the street is guaranteed to find the kind of transparency with which one can easily track down who donates what to candidates and ballot measures. I tried myself a couple times, and often contributors/contributing groups don't even give an address that is valid after an election. I think the difference after Corporate Independence Day Jan. 21, 2010 will be that even less care will go into meeting rules for tidy paperwork, because the Corporations will have no punishment even if we succeed in tracing the source of the funds to them.

Similar to his Obama Awe Fugue.

This time Malloy seemed to actually believe there is someplace to move to on this planet to escape the Transnational Corporations.

Mike, Mike.

the U.S. military gives Pakistan some drones.

Not good. Not good.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hcljwrNIKXck1_9cUZAIR...

Oh, sure, his fulminations often cross boundaries. But we've so needed his righteous outbursts in the grim days - clearly, those days are not over yet. Defenestrate not the bilious blatherer, nor throw under the bus the caustic cassandra.
Life is but a joke. So tell jokes.

Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to rank the top 100 companies so we know to petition the Senator from Walmart or the Senator from United Health Care?

Submitted by toniD on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 12:15am.
CEOs Push Congress On Public Financing Of Campaigns

WASHINGTON — Dozens of current and former corporate executives have a message for Congress: Quit hitting us up for campaign cash.

Roughly 40 executives from companies including Playboy Enterprises, ice cream maker Ben & Jerry's, the Seagram's liquor company, toymaker Hasbro, Delta Airlines and Men's Wearhouse sent a letter to congressional leaders Friday urging them to approve public financing for House and Senate campaigns. They say they are tired of getting fundraising calls from lawmakers – and fear it will only get worse after Thursday's Supreme Court ruling.

The court ruled that corporations and unions can spend unlimited money on ads urging people to vote for or against candidates. The decision was sought by interest groups including one that represents American businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They argued that restrictions on ads they could finance close to elections violated their free-speech rights, and the court agreed.

Congressional candidates who find themselves attacked by a flood of special-interest TV ads in the 2010 elections will likely reach out to their party's biggest donors for money to help them counter the blitz.

"Members of Congress already spend too much time raising money from large contributors," the business executives' letter says. "And often, many of us individually are on the receiving end of solicitation phone calls from members of Congress. With additional money flowing into the system due to the court's decision, the fundraising pressure on members of Congress will only increase."

Among the others signing the letter are current or former executives of Quaker Chemical Corp., Brita Products Co., San Diego National Bank, MetLife and Crate & Barrel.

They sent the letter through Fair Elections Now, a coalition of good-government groups who hope the Supreme Court ruling will lead Congress to pass public campaign financing legislation they have long been seeking. Others supporting public financing include former campaign strategists for President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush.

A Senate proposal would fund campaigns with a fee on businesses that get $10 million or more in government contracts. The House would finance it with revenue from auctioning off the television broadcast spectrum, which was opened when the country switched to digital broadcasting. Spectrums are the airwaves used by the government, television and radio broadcasters and cell phone companies, among others.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/22/ceos-push-congress-on-pub_n_433...

==========================

Will public financing for election campaigns really make a difference?

Say it happens and legislation mandates that the media provide airtime for all candidates. It won't end there. Whirling about the beautiful simplicity of public financing will be the advertising free-for-all purchased with the money of Corporate 'Free $$$peech'. What about all the ads, mailers, hit pieces (in print or video format) that can be run by corporations via "interest groups"?

Perhaps he only reason the corporations might pull back in the face of public funding would be this: The sure results guaranteed by E-VOTING MACHINES will make corporate "investment" in elections an unnecessary exercise!

I like Mike, nora
new
Submitted by ellwort on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 2:28am.
Oh, sure, his fulminations often cross boundaries. But we've so needed his righteous outbursts in the grim days - clearly, those days are not over yet. Defenestrate not the bilious blatherer, nor throw under the bus the caustic cassandra.
Life is but a joke. So tell jokes.

==============

Hi, ellwort!

I hope he gets more and more listeners from the mentions he's getting!

My comment refers to that wee bit o' the pot o' gold at the end of the Rainbow he can seem, at times, to believe in! Malloy readily admits he was bowled over by Obama's style in the lead up to the election. And now, fleeing fascist USA to greener pastures? I hope that was a joke, or that he'll soon snap out of it. Because when it comes to the Transnationals' New World Order -- we can run, but we can't hide.

I adore Malloy.

He's fearless in his willingness to brave the howling winds at the precipice and dance jigs and whirl and curse at the very edge of the cliffs! (And I mean every word of that to be praise!)

With proper Vaudville irreverence...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8472937.stm

A US Airways flight was diverted to Philadelphia after a Jewish man's prayer items triggered a bomb scare, Philadelphia police said.

Passengers grew alarmed when the man used a phylactery - a small black box Orthodox Jews strap to their head as part of their rituals, police said.
The man was not arrested and the plane landed without incident.

"It'll never bring you [enduring] love." - Yardbirds (1966)
Some people (i.e. corporations) are just insane.

Dangerously insane. Hartmann calls them sociopaths.

A semitic thing -

Must be one of them A-rab islamofascist terrorist things. Get the taser.

Only sociopaths need apply.

When they're playing slow...

They're thinking about what it's like to play fast.

Conversely.....

When they're playing fast...

They're thinking about what it's like to play slow.

And...that's the history of jazz.

The bad part is tweety is full of shit. Programs have been created using reconciliation.

"As Congress began using the process more regularly, lawmakers also began to find ways to get policy past its seemingly impenetrable revenue-related framework.

The 1997 Balanced Budget Act, for instance, was passed through reconciliation and created both the State Children’s Health Care Program, known as SCHIP, and the Medicare Advantage program for the elderly."

I just emailed hardball to tell them what an ass mathews just made himself out to be.

Pretty soon it'll be "You can hide but not run."

First Cass Sunstein conspiring to place provocateurs in the 9/11TRUTH movement.

Now, a CORPORATION suggests a POLICE STATE police force.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=122533

[excerpt]

LIFE WITH BIG BROTHER

Army-sponsored report suggests new 'police force'
Domestic agents could be used in 'shaping an environment before a conflict'

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: January 20, 2010
9:16 pm Eastern

By Michael Carl

A newly released Rand Corporation report proposes the federal government create a rapid deployment "Stabilization Police Force" that would be tasked with "shaping an environment before a conflict" and restoring order in times of war, natural disaster or national emergency.

But civil libertarians are worried just exactly what the force would do, domestically or overseas.

{end excerpt]

-----------------------

Ya gotta read this one. I would post more but it's too long....Go read it.

That's why the corporate media (in this instance Hudson-fucker General Electric) love him. His job is probably safe given the odious Gang of Five decision - you know. And he's got the kneepads on again - but certainly not with some (allegedly) out-of-control fringer like Al.

Rewording Sinead's brilliant lyrics: "I'm in love with my [peeps], and that's why I'm leaving."

"We can't talk here."

"What?"

Closed another bar -again.

Good morning

".. a great operation you should check out called The Huffington Post."

Huff Post sucks

"You look so tired-unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us"
-Radiohead.
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

This blog would be a nearly unfettered direct democracy (with no corporate intrusions, of course).
Huff Post is either authoritarian or even totalitarian depending on how much of it Arianna is actually editing/censoring herself.
All blogs should be direct democracies.

"You look so tired-unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us"
-Radiohead.
www.sigzone.blogspot.com

Your efforts to come across as an asshole fal short - once again

They discuss the lack of testing, the fact that the flu virus material was geneticly manipulated but there is lack of transparency of how, the materials used in the vaccines, and the mushy use of the word 'pandemic'. The vaccine makers are already planning to continue the vaccine drive for the rest of the winter and next year too. A conference was even cancelled -- a form suppression -- so doctors/scientists would not spotlight the arguments and challenges to the vaccine. If you keep listening, you'll hear Dr. Chopra give an excellent, understandable description of the adulteration of eons of 'natural' farming by the dvelopment of mechanized and polluting agribusiness. He also addresses GMOs. He makes it clear that cleaning up our agricultural pollution will help reduce our U.S. healthcare costs.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/01/23/Looming-Be...

And thank you holy $™© for this sun rise I prepare to accept.

time to make the coffee - anyone like a cup??
& if u want a cup - let me know what u like in
it.

It looks like a hop, skip and a jump. There’s the first electrified fence, then the dirt strip to identify footprints, then the tarmac road, then one more electrified fence, and then acres and acres of trees. Orchards rather than tanks. Galilee spreads beyond, soft and moist and dark green in the winter afternoon—a peaceful Israel, you might think. And a peaceful Lebanon to the north, tobacco plantations amid the stony hills, just an occasional UN armoured vehicle to keep you on your toes. “Major Pardin says you cannot take pictures,” a Malaysian UN soldier tells me. Then a second one says the same. Then along comes a Lebanese army intelligence officer and stares at our papers. “OK, you have permission,” he declares, and I snap away with my old 36-frame real-film Nikon; the fields, the frontier fence, the high-tech surveillance tower on the horizon. This must be the most photographed border in the world.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/war_looms_between_israel_and_hezboll...

WASHINGTON -- Forty-one business leaders have co-signed letters sent to Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress voicing their opposition to Thursday's Supreme Court ruling that frees corporations to spend unlimited amounts on influencing elections.
"Is there a difference between campaign contributions and bribery?" said Alan Hassenfeld, chairman of Hasbro, Inc, who co-signed the letter.
"It is long past the time to stop requiring that our elected officials moonlight as telemarketers raising money for their re-election campaigns rather then devoting all their time to solving the problems before this nation," he said.
The letter read: "As business leaders, we believe the current political fundraising system is already broken. The Supreme Court decision further exacerbates this problem."

Signatories include current and former high-ranking corporate executives of enterprises such as Playboy Enterprises, MetLife, Ben & Jerry's, and Delta Airlines, among others.

http://rawstory.com/2010/01/business-leaders-finance-ruling-extremely-tr...

bob, in a few short lines you neatly summed up the problem. add in a part about how you can't get competent governance from people that want the government to fail and that about sums it up.

It hurts when we think of Haiti's suffering.

Shift now to think that our media has made sure that sensational news was NOT made of another awful occurrence -- the 200,000 who have died in India because of Transnational Corporations' slaver agribusiness policies forcing organic/natural farmers to become chemical/mechanized agribusiness slaves. Why the silence? Corporate cover-up conspiracy to keep U.S. citizens ignorant that squashing individual farmers is a CORPORATE POLICY?

and for some reason the banner ad is for boeing's bid to be selected for the militarys tanker (mid air refueling)

http://www.realamericantankers.com/

you gotta wonder why democratic underground would be promoting boeing.

(i tried it a 2nd time and it was promoting the davinci code)

He also addresses GMOs. He makes it clear that cleaning up our agricultural pollution will help reduce our U.S. healthcare costs.

Interesting to hear doctors speak about the flu vaccines
Submitted by nora on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 6:57am.

Take the best from The Vedanta and a Harvard level education and then we start to get somewhere.
__________

I was(am) not such a fan of Sanjay Gupta but when I saw him being a Doctor alone in Haiti I saw his Humanity come out from his stock portfolio .

interesting in the context of ko's special comment the other night after the supreme court announced the death of democracy and the birth of fascism.

i think if you want a preview of the world that we are headed to that ko alluded to, you need look no furthur than china.

I saw Chris being as obnoxious and hostile and arrogant as any Fox personality. Doesn't The Big Ed work for him?

The health care battle will now take a back seat to the economy? We saw that coming..
Iran has it's Mullahs and we get the Khatholic Kabal Supreme Court

That's a Henry Kissinger concept, and this author said Monsanto and friends decided to run with it.

http://proliberty.com/observer/20060907.htm

[excerpt]

In 1983, D&PL joined with the USDA in a project to develop Terminator seeds. It was one of the earliest experiments with GMO. It was a long-term project.

In March 1998 the U.S. Patent Office granted Patent No. 5,723,765 to D&PL for a patent titled, "Control of Plant Gene Expression." The patent is owned jointly, according to D&PL’s Security & Exchange Commission (SEC) 10K filing, "by D&PL and the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of Agriculture."

The patent has global coverage. To quote further from the official D&PL SEC filing, "The patent broadly covers all species of plant and seed, both transgenic (GMO-ed) and conventional, for a system designed to allow control of progeny seed viability without harming the crop" (sic).

Then, in a manner reminiscent of Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel, 1984, D&PL claims, "One application of the technology could be to control unauthorized planting of seed of proprietary varieties…by making such a practice non-economic since non-authorized saved seed will not germinate, and, therefore, would be useless for planting."

D&PL calls the thousand-year-old tradition of farmer-saved seed by the pejorative term, "brown bagging" as though it is something dirty and corrupt.

Toward a global food production monopoly

Translated into lay language, D&PL officially declares the purpose of its Patent No. 5,723,765, Control of Plant Gene Expression, is to prevent farmers who once get trapped into buying transgenic or GMO seeds from a company such as Monsanto or Syngenta, from "brown bagging" or being able to break free of control of their future crops by Monsanto and friends. As D&PL puts it, their patent gives them "the prospect of opening significant worldwide seed markets to the sale of transgenic technology in varietal crops in which crop seed currently is saved and used in subsequent seasons as planting seed."

Instead, the farmer or the country whose farmers depend on Monsanto-patented GMO seeds must pay a license fee to Monsanto each year to get new seeds. "No tickee, no laundy," as the old Brooklyn poet would say.

Terminator is the answer to the agribusiness dream of controlling world food production. No longer would it need to hire expensive detectives to spy on whether farmers were re-using Monsanto or other GMO patented seed. Terminator corn, soybean or cotton seeds could be genetically modified to "commit suicide" after one harvest season. That would automatically prevent farmers from saving and re-using the seed for the next harvest. The technology would be a means of enforcing Monsanto or other GMO patent-holders’ rights and forcing payment of farmer use fees not only in developing economies, where patent rights were, understandably, little respected, but also in developed countries.

With Terminator patent rights, once countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Iraq, the USA or Canada opened its doors to the spread of GMO patented seeds among its farmers, their food security would be potentially hostage to private multinational companies—companies that have intimate ties to the U.S. government and could potentially use food as a "weapon" to compel countries’ cooperation with U.S.-friendly policies.

Sound far-fetched? Go back to what then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger did in countries like Allende’s Chile to force a regime change to a "U.S.-friendly" Pinochet dictatorship by withholding USAID and private food exports to Chile. Kissinger dubbed the tactic, "food as a weapon."

Terminator is merely the logical next step in food weapon technology.

[end excerpt]

I never even heard of this Stephens klan before.

Same link as above--

http://proliberty.com/observer/20060907.htm

[excerpt]

The role of the U.S. government in backing and financing D&PL’s decades of Terminator research is even more revealing. As Kissinger said back in the 1970s, "Control the oil and you can control entire Continents. Control food and you control people…"

In a June, 1998 interview, USDA spokesman Willard Phelps defined the U.S. government policy on Terminator seeds. He explained that USDA wanted the technology to be, "widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed companies."

The "seed companies" to which he is referring are agribusiness GMO giants like Monsanto, DuPont and Dow. The USDA was open about its reasons: It wanted to get Terminator seeds into the developing world where the Rockefeller Foundation had made eventual proliferation of genetically engineered crops the heart of its GMO strategy from the beginnings of its rice genome project in 1984.

USDA’s Phelps stated that the U.S. government’s goal in fostering the widest possible development of Terminator technology was "to increase the value of proprietary seed owned by U.S. seed companies and to open up new markets in Second and Third World countries."

Under WTO rules on free trade in agriculture, countries are forbidden to impose their own national health restrictions on GMO imports if it is deemed to be an "unfair trade barrier."

It begins to become clear why the U.S. government and U.S. agribusiness, during the late 1980s, pushed at the GATT Uruguay Round for creation of a World Trade Organization, with its supranational arbitrary powers over world agriculture trade. It all fits into a neat picture of patented seeds, forced on reluctant WTO member nations, under threat of WTO sanctions—and now these same pressures will be applied to all nations, forcing them to purchase Terminator (suicide) seeds.

A closer look at who runs and owns D&PL is instructive.

Arkansas politics and D&PL

The largest shareholder in D&PL is the Stephens Group of Little Rock, Arkansas. Here is where things become interesting indeed.

The man who is Chairman of the Board of DP&L is Jon E.M. Jacoby, who came to DP&L as representative of the Stephens Group. Jacoby is a director and vice-chairman of The Stephens Group, LLC, the Arkansas-based private equity firm owned by the Stephens family.

The Stephens Group prides itself on being the nation’s largest investment bank outside Wall Street, based, of all places, in little ol’ Little Rock, in hillbilly land, Arkansas, one of the poorest states in the United States. Stephens Inc., is also one of the biggest institutional shareholders in 30 large multinationals, including the Arkansas-based firms Tyson Food, the world’s largest chicken industrial factory operation and the infamous Arkansas giant, Wal-Mart.

Jackson Stephens, who founded the group with his brother, Witt, were more than just lucky Arkansas bankers and billionaires. Stephens evidently built his career and fortune by being connected to the "right" people. He was a U.S. Naval Academy classmate of Jimmy Carter and during the Georgia bank scandals of President Carter’s Office of Management & Budget chief, Bert Lance. It was Jack Stephens who stepped in to bail Lance out of an extremely embarrassing financial debacle with Lance’s old bank, National Bank of Georgia.

The BCCI connection

How Stephens helped Jimmy Carter’s fellow Georgia buddy, Lance, is the interesting part. Stephens introduced Lance to a Pakistani businessman, Agha Hasan Abedi. Abedi was the founder of the curious Luxembourg-registered, London-based Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI).

In 1990, BCCI was convicted of money laundering for the Columbian Cocaine Cartels in Miami.

Jackson Stephens was no casual business acquaintance of BCCI’s Agha Hasan Abedi. In response to the concerns over Jackson Stephens’ involvement in BCCI, the Ohio Attorney General noted in a 1993 report, "Stephens’ name has been linked to securities violations that allegedly occurred when the Bank of Commerce and Credit International, a foreign bank dominated by Pakistani financier Agha Hasan Abedi, [that] acquired stock and control over the Washington-based First American Bank."

In 1991, Stephens joined BCCI investor Mochtar Riady in buying BCCI’s former Hong Kong subsidiary from its liquidators.

The Stephens Group was well-connected to another interesting Asian banking group, the billionaire Indonesian Riady family of Moktar and his son James Riady, who own the Lippo Bank in Indonesia. The Riadys are Chinese-Indonesian businessmen who, of all places, moved to Arkansas in the 1970s, despite holding billions of assets in Asia. Stephens and Riady hit it off and soon Stephens and Riady bought a bank in Hong Kong. Stephens then invited Riady to invest in a Little Rock, Arkansas bank called "Worthen."

BCCI and Jackson Stephens, chairman of the Stephens Group of Arkansas, were well known to one another. Stephens Group board member Jon E.M. Jacoby, today Chairman of D&PL and still a vice-director of The Stephens Group, was a very senior, trusted member of the Stephens’ inside circle for more than 35 years.

Jackson Stephens’ Stephens Group financially staked Sam Walton when he started Wal-Mart in 1970. Stephens also financed Tyson Foods to become the agribusiness global giant it is today. Jon Jacoby, as senior executive of the Stephens Group, had arranged the 1970 Wal-Mart deal. Jon E.M. Jacoby and Jackson Stephens went way back.

[end excerpt]

http://proliberty.com/observer/20060907.htm
NOT TO ME NORA!

Terminator is the answer to the agribusiness dream of controlling world food production. No longer would it need to hire expensive detectives to spy on whether farmers were re-using Monsanto or other GMO patented seed. Terminator corn, soybean or cotton seeds could be genetically modified to "commit suicide" after one harvest season. That would automatically prevent farmers from saving and re-using the seed for the next harvest. The technology would be a means of enforcing Monsanto or other GMO patent-holders’ rights and forcing payment of farmer use fees not only in developing economies, where patent rights were, understandably, little respected, but also in developed countries.
-----------
Monsanto is really as dangerous as any Corporate enity hat exists today.

I am a maized at how apathetic the response has been to the "unethical food
Business". Diabetes seems to be aggravated by restaurant food. Colon Cancer is growing at a fast rate in the States.

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. President Barack Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to assail a Supreme Court ruling this week clearing the way for corporations to spend freely on political advertisements, calling it a big victory for special interests and "devastating to the public interest." He added that his administration is working with Congress to develop a bipartisan legislative solution to override the ruling.

"The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections," Obama said in his address.

The Supreme Court ruling, narrowly decided on a 5-4 vote, overturned restrictions on campaign financing contained in a law written by Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Russ Feingold (D., Wisc.), finding them to be an unconstitutional limit on free speech. Obama expressed concern that the decision "opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money in our democracy," including by foreign corporations with an interest in the outcome of U.S. elections.

"This ruling strikes at our democracy itself," said Obama.

Obama objected to giving more voice to powerful interests, predicting that would make it much harder for Congress to enact health care reform, financial reforms, and measures to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He said his administration is working on a response with members of Congress from both political parties and that "it will be a priority for us until we repair the damage that has been done."

Concerns about corporate influence on politics aren't new, as President Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, fought to limit special-interest spending and influence over American political campaigns early in the 20th century, Obama recalled. He said Roosevelt's message still rings true in an era of mass communication, and vowed that "as long as I'm your President, I'll never stop fighting to make sure that the most powerful voice in Washington belongs to you."

The president contrasted the Supreme Court's stance with that taken by his administration, saying that his White House has "closed the revolving door" between government and special-interest lobbying and has barred gifts from federal lobbyists to executive branch officials. And, for the first time, Obama said his administration is publicly disclosing the names of those who visit the White House each day, a list that includes lobbyists.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) delivering the GOP response, concentrated his remarks on Republican candidate Scott Brown's victory this week in a Massachusetts special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democratic party icon who died last year. Brown, a little-known state senator, defeated state attorney general Martha Coakley, 52% to 47%.

"For months now, a political rebellion has been brewing--one born from the American people's opposition to greater government control over our economy and their lives," said Boehner. That rebellion prompted Brown's victory over his Democratic opponent in a state that has long been a Democratic stronghold and "gives us new hope that common sense will prevail," he added.

Brown's win may undercut congressional support for Obama's agenda, including an overhaul of U.S. health care, and Boehner expressed concern that congressional Democrats might try to "pull out all the stops to try and shove through this government takeover of health care." He warned: " If there's a sweetheart deal that needs to be cut, Democrats will cut it. And if there's a vote that needs to be bought, they'll buy it."

The House GOP leader suggested the Obama administration and congressional Democrats consider an alternative in which they work with Republicans on health-care changes backed by the GOP, such as allowing people and businesses to buy health insurance across state line and to crack down on "junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs."
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100123-700221.html?mod=WSJ_latesth...

»

A short excerpt this time--

http://proliberty.com/observer/20060907.htm

[excerpt]

The Wall Street Journal went on to note that, in 1987, while Clinton was still governor, "Officials at investment giant Stephens Inc., including longtime Clinton friend, David Edwards, took steps to rescue Harken Energy, a struggling Texas oil company with George W. Bush on its board. Over the next three years, Mr. Edwards brings BCCI-linked investors and advisers into Harken deals. One of them, Abdullah Bakhsh, purchases $10 million in shares of Stephens-dominated Worthen Bank."

Jackson Stephens’ political largesse was non-partisan: Democrats Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and then Republican George W. Bush, the man now in the White House as Monsanto seeks approval to take over the Stephens Group’s D&PL.

Under the Clinton presidency, agribusiness, especially agribusiness tied to the Stephens’ interests, made huge advances.

[end excerpt]

British film actress Jean Simmons, who played Ophelia in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet and sang with Marlon Brando in Guys and Dolls, has died aged 80.

Simmons, who won an Emmy Award for her role in The Thorn Birds in the 1980s, died at her home in Santa Monica on Friday, her agent told the LA Times.

She had been suffering from lung cancer for some time.

The actress, who moved to Hollywood in 1950, first made her name playing Estella in 1946's Great Expectations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8476400.stm

toniD's Ya Think?

Remember how they always say if one is nervous speaking before a group, just imagine all the people in the audience are NOT wearing clothes.

NO one should ever again associate The Naked Exhibitionist Senator with situations of feeling intimidated!

Besides, the guy seems one step away from being a trenchcoat flasher, imo.

Institutional Integrity: Citizens United and the Path to a Better Democracy

Lawrence Lessig

Co-founder of Change Congress, founding board member, Creative Commons
Posted: January 22, 2010 03:15 PM

Whatever else one believes about the Supreme Court's decision striking down limits on corporate speech in the context of political campaigns, there's one thing no credible commentator could assert: That money bought this result. We can disagree with the Court's view of the Framers (and I do); we can criticize its application of stare decisis (as any honest lawyer should); and we can stand dumbfounded by its tone-deaf understanding of the nature of corruption (as anyone living in the real world of politics must). But we cannot say that somehow, the influence of money has produced this extraordinary result. The Court jealously guards its own institutional integrity. Two hundred years of careful doctrine, defining the economy of influence under which it does its work, has produced an institution whose decisions we can disagree with strongly, but whose integrity we can't fairly doubt. Maybe liberal or conservative politics sometimes gets too much mixed with constitutional law. But money is no where even close.

Thursday's decision by the Supreme Court denies to Congress the same institutional integrity enjoyed by the Court. The vast majority of Americans already believe that money buys results in Congress. This Court's decision will only make that worse. The Wall Street bailouts, the caving to insurance and pharmaceutical interests in health care reform, the ability of coal companies to stop Congress from addressing even profoundly important questions like global warming leads most to the view that it isn't reason or even constituent politics that determines what Congress does or doesn't do. It is instead the siren of campaign funding. Now a second siren walks onto that stage, promising, ever so indirectly, more campaign support from corporate treasuries. Who could doubt that this will further distract Members of Congress from what their constituents want? And who could believe it won't make Americans even more cynical about what Congress does?

The institutional integrity of Congress is already at a historical low. Less than one quarter of Americans have faith in this institution. Three times that have faith in the Supreme Court. If there's such a thing as political bankruptcy, then Congress is bankrupt. More Americans likely supported the British Crown at the time of the revolution than support our Congress today.

Yet despite the Court's decision, there is still one possible way that Congress could redeem itself. Following the examples of Arizona, Maine and Connecticut, Congress could enact a voluntary, opt-in system of Citizen Funded Elections that would give Members the chance to run for office without this integrity-destroying dependency on private campaign cash. One bill currently introduced in Congress would give candidates a grubstake to fund their campaigns, plus the freedom to raise unlimited amounts of money in $100 contributions or less. In exchange, Members would give up the bundling of large contributions by the buyers of influence.

This change alone might not be enough to restore faith in this failing institution. The rumblings in favor of a constitutional amendment, or even a convention to consider a range of amendments, are growing. The fears that private money will overwhelm even an adequately funded public system are fair.

But fear of failure is no reason not to act, quickly and forcefully, to restore the integrity that this central institution of American democracy has lost. For whatever else the Framers were trying to do, they were not trying to establish a comedy at the core of their democracy. Nor the tragedy that this Congress has become.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-lessig/institutional-integrity-c_...

toniD's Ya Think?

you should take your sign down to K Street?

g'morning blog

how do we reeducate them? It is hard to swim upstream against the river of
Faux news. Big Ed might be useful as a stepping stone across the tumbling waterfall of fake facts and goebbels' style rightwing propaganda.

I think of Alan Colmes in the same way.

Shock Doctrine in Reverse: A Week of Setbacks, A Window of Opportunity

Richard (RJ) Eskow
Consultant, Writer, Health Analyst
Posted: January 22, 2010 01:44 PM

What a week. Call it the Shock Doctrine in reverse: The Massachusetts election and yesterday's Supreme Court ruling may force the Democrats to move to the left to ensure their political survival. They're now faced with a choice they clearly didn't want: forcefully reject the corporate agenda, or risk losing to opponents who can attract an unlimited flow of corporate dollars.

Many of us who supported the Democrats last year knew they'd disappoint us at times, but Barack Obama's mid-course corrections during the campaign showed that he had an innate teachability in the face of events that challenged his tactics or his beliefs. We need that teachability now, and it must extend to the rest of his party. Without it we may find ourselves in a nation where democracy is a commodity and real reform is an unreachable goal.

First came Massachusetts. Voters in a liberal state - one with a health reform initiative already in place - rejected the Democratic candidate in favor of a handsome cipher. Good-looking strangers are a sure sign that a marriage is in trouble, so when Northeastern voters went for a retread of Fred Thompson's phony "old pickup truck" routine from Tennessee ... well, it showed they're pretty unhappy with what they're getting at "home."

And, as analyses and next-day polling made clear, these pro-health-reform voters rejected the Senate bill's more right-wing remix of their own law. Most Obama voters who switched to Brown felt the Obama/Senate proposal "didn't go far enough," and polls now confirm that hostility toward the anti-middle-class "Cadillac tax" played a part in their disaffection, too. Democrats love to mock the tea-partiers, but it turns out they understood the nation's middle class rage better than the White House did.

The Democrats are pivoting somewhat in response to the Massachusetts vote. As Simon Johnson explains, the President's move to institute what he calls the "Volcker rule" limiting banks is clearly a response to Massachusetts. Pictures of the announcement showed Volcker standing behind Obama while Geithner, perhaps symbolically, stood well off to the side - the right side - of the President.

There was an immediate reaction in the Senate. The momentum shifted away from confirming Ben Bernanke, whose re-appointment marked the latest in a series of Presidential moves to endorse the Wall Street-friendly people who got us into this mess.

And that was just the first part of the week. The bigger shock was yet to come, with the Supreme Court's ruling that corporate campaign contributions could not be limited because corporations are "persons." Don't try to understand the tortured logic, since this decision was clearly as cravenly political as Bush v. Gore. "Persons"? Here's my test for "personhood": Every person I know has had their heart broken at least once, then spent the night listening to sentimental songs. The only tune that moves corporations is that Motown classic, "Money."

The Supreme Court ruling leaves Obama and the Democrats with another choice: Push aggressively for genuine campaign reform, or watch their careers get swept away by corporate-friendly (some would say more corporate-friendly) candidates awash in name-brand funding.

(Corporate sponsorship in sports has given us American Airlines Arena and the Staples Center; are we about to see the Wal-Mart White House and the Halliburton Hall of Congress?)

So a confluence of events struck the Democratic Party this week: A clear rejection of their Wall Street and health reform strategies, and a Supreme Court decision - perhaps "brought to you by Philip Morris" - that forces them to choose between genuine electoral reform or tacking right to compete with Republicans for corporate sponsors.

It was encouraging to see the President shift dramatically on both topics this week, with his articulation of the "Volcker rule" and his forceful statement in response to the Supreme Court ruling. But it's in his nature to seek consensus, and consensus will be hard to find without confronting some difficult decisions first.

The window of opportunity is closing fast: We may have already seen the last American election where individual donors even matter. But if the President and his party rise to the occasion, this week may be remembered as the moment that meaningful change began.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/shock-doctrine-in-reverse_b_43324...
________________

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald has a considerably less apocalyptic view of the SCOTUS ruling than most people, including me, in part because things are already so bad. We present his comments as counterpoint, because I have such high regard for his judgment regarding the First Amendment. But his preferred solution is the same as mine - public financing of elections.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/index.html?story=/opin...

toniD's Ya Think?

there's no such thing with these fucking thugs.
(re-pub-lick-thugs) they are NOT interested in
bipartisan talk. Obama has tried & tried to NO avail.

He added that his administration is working with Congress to develop a bipartisan legislative solution to override the ruling.

..just like they can't reeducate us. They would most likely perceive us as brow beating. It will take a common cause like the SCOTUS decision and even then they will never quit being conservatives and that's fine. We need at least 2 points of view.

Sometimes I think we should go help the teabaggers who are railing against the corporate copycats. Not so much as cheering with them but for them kinda thing.

We'll never change them if we are acting confrontational imho or start out by telling them, "Hey you're thinking is bad, let me show you the way...".

I know how I react to that kind of tactic and can't expect them to be any different.

..off to get the haircut I missed last week.

that he couldn't understand the incompetence that was resulting in desperately needed supplies still being held at the airport TEN DAYS into the relief effort. (I was surprised to hear it broadcast, too. It reminded me of newscasters getting upset at New Orleans in 2005.)

I'm going to say something terribly cynical about the US Militarist Imperialists: It doesn't look like "incompetence" to me. I think the USA Imperialists DESIRE to goad the Haitians into rioting so the military can be set loose to gunning them down. It also looks alot like a socio-psychological field 'experiment' to see just how far people can be pushed. Whatever it is, the FACT REMAINS that the USA is NOT distributing desperately needed supplies and is standing in the way of HUMANITARIAN GOALS! IT IS UNACCEPTABLE, just as it was at New Orleans in 2005.

Whatever is the Source of human heart, will power, strength, and joy -- I choose to see It come in full force in the Haitians, as the Haitians, for the Haitians in this DOUBLE THREAT of natural elements and man-made cruelty which they are facing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcXg8qgUK4c&feature=related

his trying looks alot like avoidance.

Right now I an happier to see that Obama actually understands the problems, accepts he can not ignore them or they will destroy him, and is at least making noises that he is doing something to change them...

If his problem all along has indeed been confidence, his words will produce a positive response from the people, and MAYBE he will draw enough strength from them to lead...

...but tonid has it right...the window is closing fast...

but it is NO solution.

There is NO way to level the playing field as long as the Corporations can fill the media and peoples' mailboxes with ads, non-issues, slurs and hit pieces. The level playing field will be filled with landmines, and neither the time nor money to counter their explosive effect in the name of Corporate 'Free $$$peech'.

Like warning labels on cigarettes or something, some way would need to be found to distinguish publicly-funded political advertising from corporate-funded programming/propaganda.

Yeah, like "This Free $$$peech was not free but paid for by...."

What a hornets' nest.

It doesn't seem one thing alone can help. We need a package deal afterall if we want to repair a long-neglected malfunctioning (elitest, bribe and graft ridden) system. Momentum must build for --

o Instant Runoff Voting,

o allow for a plurality of political parties and therefore true representation for a plurality of views (Why limit it to just a third party?

o shortened campaign schedules (so that corporate media profiteering is taken out of the election process/cycle),

o Jettison the Electronic-voting Technology and so kill the Privatized Elections Beast

o some say get rid of the electoral college

But I'm working early today. Grim looking day out there. Fog and expected rain all day.

Have a great day.

Later

toniD's Ya Think?

More victims of deadly religious clashes in central Nigeria have been found, with scores of bodies stuffed in wells and sewage pits.

Up to 150 bodies have been found in Kuru Karama village, 30km (18 miles) from the city of Jos, where the violence erupted last Sunday.

Correspondents say elders hid in holes for seven hours to escape the violence.

An exact death toll is not known but overall up to 300 are thought to have died in the Muslim-Christian clashes.

Several thousand people fled their homes.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8476534.stm

http://proliberty.com/observer/20060907.htm

[excerpt]

By now the question becomes, "What is so attractive about the Stephens Group’s D&PL that Monsanto makes its second bid to add it to its global genetically-engineered seed empire?"

The answer is "the patent."

D&PL, together with the U.S. government, holds Patent No. 5,723,765, titled, "Control of Plant Gene Expression." The USDA, through its Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) in Lubbock, Texas, as noted, has worked with D&PL since 1983 to perfect Terminator GMO technology. Patent No. 5,723,765 is the patent for Terminator technology. When we speak about Terminator, whether we know it or not, we speak about D&PL and the USDA joint patent.

One year later, in early 1999, Monsanto, the largest producer of GMO seeds and related agri-chemicals, announced it was acquiring D&PL along with its Terminator patents.

In October 1999, following a worldwide storm of protest against Terminator seeds that threatened the very future of the Rockefeller Foundation’s "gene revolution," Dr. Gordon Conway, president of the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation, met privately with the board of directors of Monsanto. Conway convinced Monsanto that, for the long-term future of their GMO Project, they must go public to indicate to a worried world that it would not "commercialise" Terminator. Development of the genetic revolution and genetic engineering as a research area has been a top priority of the Rockefeller Foundation for decades and has been advancing with the help of researchers at the family’s Rockefeller University.

The Anglo-Swiss company Syngenta joined with Monsanto in declaring solemnly that it would also not commercialize its work on GURTS (Terminator) suicide seed technology.

That 1999 announcement took enormous pressure off of Monsanto and the agribusiness GMO giants, allowing them to advance the proliferation of their patented GMO seeds globally. Terminator could come later, once farmers and entire national agriculture areas like North America or Argentina or India had been taken over by GM crops. Then, of course, it would be too late. The Rockefeller-Monsanto 1999 press conference was clearly an application of classic Lenin Bolshevik tactics—Two Steps Forward, One Step Back…

Despite the Monsanto declaration of a moratorium on Terminator development, the U.S. government and the again independent D&PL refused to drop Terminator development.

In 2000, a year after the Monsanto Terminator moratorium announcement, the Clinton Administration’s USDA Secretary, Dan Glickman, refused repeated efforts by various agriculture and NGO organizations to drop the government’s support for Terminator or GURTs. His department’s feeble excuse for not dropping support for the work with D&PL was that it allowed the U.S. government to put "leverage" on D&PL to "protect the public interest."

Six years later it became clear: The only leverage the U.S. government had put on D&PL’s commercialization efforts on GURTs had been to lever it into commercial reality.

D&PL Vice-president Harry Collins declared at the time in a press interview in the Agra/Industrial Biotechnology Legal Letter, "We’ve continued right on with work on the Technology Protection System (TPS or Terminator). We never really slowed down. We’re on target, moving ahead to commercialize it. We never really backed off."

Nor did D&PL partner, the USDA, back down on Terminator after 1999. In 2001, the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) website announced, "USDA has no plans to introduce TPS into any germplasm…Our involvement has been to help develop the technology, not to assist companies to use it" (As if to say, "See, our hands are clean").

[end excerpt]

http://proliberty.com/observer/20060907.htm

[excerpt]

D&PL is well-placed globally to proliferate its suicide seeds now, with the corporate and financial clout of the giant Monsanto company. D&PL already has subsidiaries including D&PL Argentina, D&PL China, D&PL China PTE in Singapore, Deltapine Paraguay, Delta Pine de Mexico, Deltapine Australia, Hebei Ji Dai Cottonseed Technology Company in China, CDM Mandiyu in Argentina, Delta and Pine Land Hellas in Greece, D&M Brazil Algodao of Brazil, D&PL India, D&PL Mauritius Ltd.

This vast global network combined with Monsanto’s dominant position in the GMO seeds and agri-chemicals market along with the unique DP&L Patent No. 5,723,765, Control of Plant Gene Expression, now give Monsanto and its close friends in Washington an enormous advance in their plans to dominate world food and plant seed use.

[end excerpt]

`

As of 2007--

http://www.etcgroup.org/en/node/635

Terminator: The Sequel

[excerpt]

Despite the fact that governments re-affirmed and strengthened the United Nations’ moratorium on Terminator technology (a.k.a. genetic use restriction technology [GURTs]) in March 2006, public and private sector researchers are developing a new generation of suicide seeds – using chemically induced “switches” to turn a genetically modified (GM) plant’s fertility on or off.

Issue: Under the guise of biosafety, the European Union’s 3-year Transcontainer Project is investing millions of euros in strategies that cannot promise fail-safe containment of transgenes from GM crops, but could nonetheless function as Terminator, posing unacceptable threats to farmers, biodiversity and food sovereignty. Terminator technology – genetic seed sterilization – was initially developed by the multinational seed/agrochemical industry and the US government to maximize seed industry profits by preventing farmers from re-planting harvested seed. Researchers are also developing new techniques to excise transgenes from GM plants at a specific time in the plant’s development, and methods to kill a plant with “conditionally lethal” genes. This new generation of GURTs will shift the burden of trait control to the farmer. Under some scenarios, farmers will be obliged to pay for the privilege of restoring seed fertility every year – a new form of perpetual monopoly for the seed industry.

Impact: Whether intended or not, new research on molecular containment of transgenes will ultimately allow the multinational seed industry to tighten its grasp on proprietary germplasm and restrict the rights of farmers. Industry and governments are already working to overturn the existing moratorium on Terminator technology at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In the months leading up to the CBD’s 9th Conference of the Parties (Bonn, Germany 19-30 May 2008), industry will argue that global warming requires urgent introduction of transgenic crops and trees for biofuels – and that Terminator-type technologies offer a precautionary, environmental necessity to prevent transgene flow. Ironically, society is being asked to foot the bill for a new techno-fix to mitigate the genetic contamination caused by the biotech industry’s defective GM seeds.

Players: Taxpayer-financed research on biological containment of GM crops subsidizes the corporate agenda. A handful of multinational seed corporations control biotech seeds and the proprietary seed market as a whole has seen unprecedented corporate concentration. In 2006, the world’s top 4 seed companies – Monsanto, DuPont, Syngenta and Groupe Limagrain – accounted for half (49%) of the proprietary seed market.

Policy: Governments keep trying to find ways to make GM seeds safe and acceptable and they keep failing. They should stop trying. There is no such thing as a safe and acceptable form of Terminator. The EU should discontinue funding for research on “reversible transgenic sterility,” and re-assess funding for other research projects undertaken by Transcontainer. Rather than support research on coexistence to bail out the agbiotech industry, the EU should instead fund sustainable agricultural research that benefits farmers and the public. National governments should propose legislation to prohibit field-testing and commercial sale of Terminator technologies. Governments meeting at the 9th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Germany must strengthen the moratorium on GURTs by recommending a ban on the technology.

[end excerpt]

While flipping through my local channels, I ran across Pat Robertson doing his usual 700 club schpiel, but this time there was a banner running a disclaimer across the top of the screen saying something like: "This is a paid program. The views expressed here are not necessarily the views of this station"

In this part of the country, for Pat Robertson to be reduced to the status of an infomercial is progress, and gratifying....

http://lisaintx.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/terminator-seeds-2-plot-to-cont...

[excerpt]

Iraq’s fertile valley between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is ideal for crop planting. Since 8000 BC, farmers used it to develop “rich seeds of almost every variety of wheat used in the world today.” They were erased through a GMO modernization and industrialization scheme so agribusiness can get a foothold in the region and supply the world market. While Iraqis suffer and starve, GMO giants run the country’s agriculture for export. Iraqi farmers are now agribusiness serfs and are forced to grow products foreign to the native diet like wheat designed for pasta.

Bremer laws mandated it and are inviolable under Article 26 of the US-drafted constitution. It states that the Iraqi government is powerless to change laws a foreign occupier made. To assure it, US-sympathizers are in every ministry with those most trusted in key ones. Engdahl sums up the damage to agriculture: “The forced transformation of Iraq’s food production into patented GMO crops is one of the clearest examples of (how) Monsanto and other GMO giants are forcing (these) crops onto an unwilling or unknowing world population.” They’re infesting the planet with them one country at a time so it’s futile trying to undo the damage they cause.

Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at www.sjlendman.blogspot.com

[end excerpt]

the push for profits require overuse of water resources. Monsanto's hype and greenwashing can't hide the facts.

http://earthfirst.com/monsantos-greenwashing-more-outrageous-than-ever/

Concerns about child trafficking lead to calls for a halt to the removal of children.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article69992...

[excerpt]

Thousands of children unaccounted for since Haiti’s earthquake are at risk of falling prey to child traffickers, aid agencies have wearned, as fears were raised over at least 15 children who have vanished from hospitals within the past few days.

Unicef, the UN children’s agency, warned that "traffickers fish in pools of vulnerability. We know from past experience that trafficking happens in the chaos that usually follows emergencies." A Unicef adviser, Jean Luc Legrand, said he knew of at least 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals.

Save the Children, World Vision and the British Red Cross have called for an immediate halt to adoptions of Haitian children not approved before the earthquake, warning that child traffickers could exploit the lack of regulation. There has been a surge in offers from well-meaning foreigners.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that child enslavement and trafficking was "an existing problem and could easily emerge as a serious issue over the coming weeks and months".

Nearly 30 agencies helped by the UN peacekeeping mission and the Haitian government are urgently pooling information and resources to counter the threat. They are are touring hospitals and orphanages, broadcasting radio messages, and increasing surveillance of road traffic, the airport and the border with the Dominican Republic.

The scale of the problem is potentially enormous. Haiti is awash with children, with 45 per cent of its population younger than 15. One UN official estimated that between 40,000 and 60,000 children were killed, orphaned or separated from their families by the earthquake, which struck while most were still in school, and anecdotal evidence suggests many have been left to fend for themselves.

One small orphanage visited by The Times yesterday said it had turned away ten children because its buildings were badly damaged. A World Vision official in Jimani, a town just across the border in the Dominican Republic, said eight orphans and 25 unaccompanied children — many injured — had turned up there by Tuesday. A UN official spoke of people driving to the airport in expensive cars and putting children on outgoing flights without any documentation.

The alarm is particularly acute given Haiti’s dire record of child abuse. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees reported in 2008 that 29 per cent of children under 14 were already working, and roughly 300,000 were ‘restaveks’ (a creole corruption of ‘rester avec’) whose impoverished parents send them to work for wealthier families....

[end excerpt]

Jean Simmons final scene in Spartacus...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOWZpu8vS0c

http://www.ienearth.org/weipn.html

[excerpt]

The campaign to undermine organic agriculture

Monsanto partially funds the anti-organic Center for Global Food Issues, a project of the right-wing Hudson Institute. It is run by Dennis Avery and his son Alex Avery. Here find the latest on Hudson's anti-environmental and pro-biotech spinmeister Michael Fumento, and his secretly taking money (at least $60,000) from Monsanto. See also.

In 1998 Dennis wrote an article that began "'According to recent data compiled by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), people who eat organic and natural foods are eight times as likely as the rest of the population to be attacked by a deadly new strain of E. coli bacteria (0157:H7)'.

However, according to Robert Tauxe, M.D., chief of the food borne and diarrheal diseases branch of the CDC, there is no such data on organic food production in existence at their centers and he says Avery's claims are 'absolutely not true.'". Following in his father's steps Alex distorted a study from the Journal of Food Protection that showed that organic food does not contain more pathogens than conventionally grown, contrary to Avery's claims.

http://www.monsantowatch.org/

[end excerpt]

Most recent cave into the corporatization of the political landscape. I thought he was taking to his base. Obama needs to show his fire (leo) and grow some monsanto free testicles!

==========
OBAMA ASSAILS SUPREME COURT MULLAHS
Submitted by taozen on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 8:07am.

We the people really need to take this issue and run with it. He needs aloud roar from the Country in support of his position.!

Submitted by ellwort on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 2:28am.
...Defenestrate not the bilious blatherer, nor throw under the bus the caustic cassandra.
----------
If enough English were applied to the object of scorn, it could be defenestrated from within the bus and positioned beneath, all in a single and impressive display of massé disgruntlement.

is a wonderful word.

(i first heard it in a discussion at my sons college orientation wrt you would be automatically expelled if you did it to any objects in the high rise dorms).

Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 8:39am.
...We need at least 2 points of view...
--------
Submitted by nora on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 10:39am.
...I think the USA Imperialists DESIRE to goad the Haitians into rioting so the military can be set loose to gunning them down...
----------------------------------------------
Apparently two points of view are unnecessary. The lack of response to the above is deafening.

But, hey, we wouldn't want to offend anyone by pointing out any of the many reasons why such a statement is over-the-top crazy, would we?

Submitted by dan on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 11:49am.
defenestration is a wonderful word.
---------
Fenestration is not the opposite, i.e. throwing something into a window instead of out of it.

You gotta love English unless you are trying to learn it.

[ and corn sucks - jb ]
Is Algae Worse than Corn for Biofuels?
A new analysis suggests so because of the need for copious fertilizer
By Katie Howell
January 22, 2010
ScientificAmerican.com>Greenwire>Energy & Sustainability
...
"From a life-cycle standpoint, algae are not nearly as desirable as you would think they are," Clarens said. "And that was surprising to us."

The culprit, the researchers say, is fertilizer. Growing algae in open ponds is akin to producing them in a shallow swimming pool, Clarens said, so all of the nutrients -- nitrogen and phosphorus -- needed to keep them alive and boost their production come from outside sources.

And that fertilizer has an environmental impact because it's often made from petroleum feedstocks, Clarens said.
...

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Blue Roots Radio

Participating candidates seek support from their communities, not Washington, D.C.

Candidates would raise a large number of small contributions from their communities in order to qualify for Fair Elections funding. Contributions are limited to $100.

To qualify, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives would have to collect 1,500 contributions from people in their state and raise a total of $50,000.

Since states vary widely in population, a U.S. Senate candidate would have to raise a set amount of small contributions amounting a total of 10% of the primary Fair Elections funding. The number of qualifying contributions is equal to 2,000 plus 500 times the number of congressional districts in their state. For example:

A candidate running for U.S. Senate in Maine, which has two districts, would raise 3,000 qualifying contributions – the base of 2,000 donations plus an additional 500 for each of the two congressional districts.

A candidate running for U.S. Senate in Ohio, with 18 districts, would require 11,000 qualifying contributions before receiving Fair Elections funding.

Qualified candidates would receive Fair Elections funding in the primary, and if they win, in their general election at a level to run a competitive campaign.

..much more

Karzai to pay Taliban to lay down their arms 22 Jan 2010 Afghan President Hamid Karzai unveiled an ambitious Western-funded plan Friday to offer money and jobs to tempt Taliban fighters to lay down their arms in an effort to quell a crippling insurgency. His comments to the BBC came as US Defence Secretary Robert Gates described the Taliban as part of Afghanistan's "political fabric", but said any future role would depend on insurgents laying down their weapons. Karzai's plan echoed similar proposals by Washington to try and bring low and mid-level extremists back into mainstream society, but the leadership of Islamist insurgent groups remain hostile to negotiations. Militants led by the Taliban movement have been waging an increasingly deadly rebellion against the Afghan government and foreign troops since a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime from power in late 2001.

'Further incentives could include pensions for older fighters and allotments of land.' Taliban leaders 'offered asylum' under London peace plan 20 Jan 2010 Taliban leaders could be offered exile abroad and have their names deleted from a UN sanctions blacklist as part of a peace plan for Afghanistan to be unveiled in London next week. A briefing paper on the Afghan government's proposals seen by The Daily Telegraph says any peace deal may include "potential exile in a third country" for insurgent leaders... [Nato commanders] are now backing a "carrot and stick" strategy of more troops to reverse the Taliban's military momentum coupled with incentives for fighters to rejoin society. International donors are preparing to pay hundreds of millions of pounds towards the scheme, with Japan and the US already allocating substantial budgets. In the first phase, junior fighters, who commanders believe are mainly motivated by money, will be offered jobs, training and education if they lay down their weapons and renounce violence. Further incentives could include pensions for older fighters and allotments of land.

http://www.legitgov.org/price_us_to_pay_taliban_240110.html

another window...

How's your day going...?

Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 12:59pm.
--------
The Fair Elections Now Act bill is about as good as anything I have seen or contemplated.

So far, I have found something unappealing or impossible to overcome in every idea. One reason is because the ideal reform would not only control the overhead to run a campaign, it would also make it impossible for a coalition to support a campaign with money.

This is, of course, only my opinion, but I prefer a reform Utopia in which the two powerful parties cannot mobilize contributions to a candidate. It is equally important that Halliburton cannot mobilize its employees to contribute to a campaign, or the Southern Baptist Convention cannot use its pulpits to encourage contributions on behalf of a candidate.

For this reason, I try to imagine reform packages in which the individual voter has no competition from coalitions before or during election day. If a system is created in which large groups can make a difference by contributing as a block (not exactly but fundamentally) to a candidate, then we are right back where we started from, which is a place where the money of individuals has far less power than the money of groups.

The only way around it (and, believe me, I am a long way from winding my way through the maze of details) is to eliminate contributions from any source other than the public election fund provided by statute. No outside contributions. No "matching" monies. No coalitions steering the results.

I have a similar problem with petitions to place a candidate on the ballot. The minimum signature floor on a petition encourages the creation of coalitions to work on behalf of a candidate. To my mind, coalitions are not allowed in the ballot booth so they should not be determining who the candidates are outside of the ballot booth.

We could simply mandate that petition signature totals determine not only the candidates but the winning candidate as well. It would eliminate election day entirely. I don't see a hell of a lot of difference between a candidate whose supporters wrangled the most dollars and a candidate whose supporters wrangled the most signatures. It says more about the coalitions than it does about the candidates.

On the other hand, I have not figured out a different way to ensure that the total number of candidates is a manageable choice for the voter.
-------
On an unrelated-yet-related note, the Fair Elections Now bill summary says: "To qualify, a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives would have to collect 1,500 contributions from people in their state and raise a total of $50,000."

Perhaps this is a typo? If not, it is not clear to me why the entire state should be involved when the representation is to a district. If you want to see party power (and other power) determining the candidates, allow the entire state to weigh in on campaign money eligibility for a race in which only district residents are eligible to vote.

Neither is it clear to me why the contribution thresholds are not keyed to the number of eligible voters in the district. Again, maybe this summary is not as accurate or explicit as the bill itself.

This stuff is hard. It's hard...work. I'm not trying to be cynical by being critical. I'm just trying to eliminate the most glaring problems in the current system without creating or recreating problems in a reformed system.

to tell u the truth - I'm bored - but @ the same time I
have plenty to do, I just don't have the energy to do it.
It's very gray, damp, depressing day. Actually it's been like
this for the last week.
Went to the Neurologist on Wed. Need to have some more
MRI Images done, blood work-up, need to go get my eyes
checked. Having some fun now.....
I want warm weather - I know it won't be here until May.
Hopefully will get back to work sometime in March.
Hope u & yours r well.

If 100 coalitions prop up 100 candidates it will be a wash in the primaries. In the end the two party system will still prevail but the end result are candidates more likely to work for the people. If they go to D.C. and take bribes from companies to promote unfriendly legislation will promptly be voted out and hopefully reserved a room at the Gray Bar Hotel.

Yes, there is more to it than in the summary. I'm going to find and study all the proposed legislation.

It's easy to qualify but in many cases all the votes you're gonna get will be from the small group that got you the qualification. In the end, it's The People's Coalition that will hold sway, as it should be. At least that's how I see it in my mind feeble as it is.

Will have to find out the reasoning for allowing a whole state to contribute to a Rep's campaign if that is the case. Actually a Rep. does have an effect on the entire state so why not let everyone have a shot at him/her? (Ooh bad choice of word but I'm leaving it alone.)

I live in an eternally Republican District and wouldn't give the asswipe we have the time of day much less my dollars. I will glady support any Progressive/Liberal in any other District because then I have a chance of influencing national issues that I care about. Maybe that's why support is not District specific?

Ya Think?

Algae Worse than Corn for Biofuels
Submitted by jbenet on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 12:47pm.
----------------
http://www.oilgae.com/blog/2009/10/algae-initiative-aims-to-produce-fuel...
--------------
http://www.oilgae.com/b/cat/algae_fuel_research.html
==========

There still is a lot of interest in this alternative fuel/oil source.
===============
Giving cattle lots of corn seems to cause trouble but I think cattle fed some blue green algae might do well.The cows might have better vision and less mood swings.

I don't see a problem with coalitions
Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 3:45pm.
----------
From the perspective of the process of governance, Exxon is a coalition.

I have a huge problem with coalitions driving the funding of a campaign. Fuck that. After I figure out how to make the cut from potential candidates to eligible candidates, I have absolutely no problem with candidates being exactly equally funded from a single government-controlled pool in the race against one another.

Fuck Exxon. Fuck the DNC. They can write books detailing their governmental theories and ideologies without supporting a particular candidate.

I don't want a system in which energetic Baptists can pack the ballot or fill elected positions over time to impose their religious dogma on individuals who were not inclined to work as a coalition.

You and I, maggiesboy, are really, really apart on this one. The problem IS coalitions driving the candidate process. The vehicle is money.

Just got back from the local supermarket....one of the honey-do tasks for the week-end was to take our fairly large change bank, a 3'x5" diameter cardboard tube in the shape of a large aquamarine crayola crayon, and run it's contents through the change counting machine...

wifey had been after me to get this done for a while, but I kept forgetting... so a about a month ago I dragged it out of the den and into the foyer, which is what I usually do with something that needs to go out and I have procrastinated on. Since then I have had friends commenting on it and have been casually soliciting guesses as to the total of its contents... not one, including my own, were over $400...

So today I schlepped it into the truck and down to the supermarket...although it was it was just about 4/5ths full it was heavy as hell...you can imagine the looks and comments I was getting as I wheeled this huge green crayon across the parking lot and into the store....

after about half an hour of emptying it into the machine, I looked up and the total take was just over $800, not counting the 8.9 cent on the dollar the machine takes to count it....righteous bucks...

That is when it occurred to me: Sometimes, change in small amounts can go fairly unnoticed, and when enough of it has accumulated to finally get your attention, and you are finished adding it all up, there can be a hell of a lot more than you thought there was at first glance...

...lesson learned.

People !
Now is the time to put your Free Speech to use.
The well being of the country needs you.

Make a banner or Bumpersticker.
Do something.

Because we have grey matter between our ears,
unlike most Rethuglicans, it is our job to
educate the masses.

A Corporation IS NOT a Person
A Corporation is a Corporation

Please join me in educating those
dumb-ass Americans who would think otherwise.

The Corporations have the money,
but we are the people.

If we can teach 200 million people the truth,
and everyone learns to never believe/trust the
corporations and the lies they bombard us with
in the media,
then we can hold on to democracy a little longer.

I think we can turn this disaster around if
we get out of our chairs for some action out
in the streets.

A Corporation IS NOT a Person
A Corporation is a Corporation

.
.
.
_ _ _
brr

brl vod | wtf

smaller single interest groups. If Exxon wants to front a candidate they will surely be able to do it but THE PEOPLE will just as easily be able to put up an anti-Exxon candidate who will have an equal (probably better) chance of winning.

My question will there be transparency in who the donors are? Right now it's a problem and the corporatist right is fighting hard to keep us in the dark ( and sadly winning)1.

Greater minds than ours must believe that the people will prevail when the playing field is leveled. I have to believe that there are more than enough voters outside the coalitions to swing the pendulum back at da peeps.

If I'm reading you correctly you think that with this reform there really won't be any reform except that the monied interest will be able to do their evil tactics on a smaller scale.

You're right, this is hard. Don't you think "real" people will be more motivated to participate when they know the candidate they support will not be dependent on K-Street pimps for campaign funds and don't you think Congress will be able pass good legislation when they can tell Exxon to kissing their fucking asses?

I do.

1. BadBoy Bopp @ MotherJones

we used to have a change counting machine but the supermarket had it removed due to change counting machine abuse. the supermarket cashier didn't have the details.

i figger it was a change counting machine conspiracy.

http://motherjones.com/photoessays/2009/10/music-beyond-mountains/appala...

=========
I have a picture of Etta Baker from 1959 playing this Les Paul Special( two pick ups), It is worth 13 grand maybe these days. I think it was expensive around 250$ when she bought it. I am pleased to see ETTA was still around in 2005.

Made jeopardizes the case against Tom Delay. that part of the charges against Tom Delay involved corps being involved in campaign finance.

I hadn't heard this before and will research it.

Dick Kaye is on WCPT Saturdays 1-4 PM Chicago time.

Just got home from work and was listening to his show in my car on the way home.

toniD's Ya Think?

still thought he had a good case. i can't remember where I saw it today
maybe google news.

CFR is a big step but as they noted in NYT

These would be important steps, but they would not be enough. The real solution lies in getting the court’s ruling overturned. The four dissenters made an eloquent case for why the decision was wrong on the law and dangerous. With one more vote, they could rescue democracy.

I still believe as I said upstairs, the conservatives and SCOTUS have jumped the shark on this one .

1st point

Sounds like a great slogan for a Highway Blog....

my favorite one in that collage:

"A Nation of sheep soon begets a Government of wolves." - Edward R Murrow

Tom DeLay campaign finance investigation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about Tom DeLay campaign finance investigaton. For Tom DeLay biography, see Tom DeLay.

The Tom DeLay campaign finance investigation led by Texas Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle led to the indictment of Tom DeLay in 2005 on criminal charges of conspiracy to violate election laws in 2002 by a Travis County, Texas grand jury. In accordance with Republican Caucus rules, DeLay temporarily resigned from his position as House Majority Leader, and on January 7, 2006, after pressure from fellow Republicans, announced that he would not seek to return.

DeLay publicly denied the charges, saying that the actions of Earle, a Democrat, have partisan motivations. After DeLay moved to dismiss all charges, trial judge Pat Priest dismissed one count of the indictment, which alleged conspiracy to violate election law. However, Judge Priest denied DeLay's motion to dismiss the more serious charges of money laundering and conspiracy to engage in money laundering, and the prosecution is proceeding on those charges.

n the reapportionment following the 1990 census, Texas Democrats drew what Republican political analyst Michael Barone argued was the most effective partisan gerrymander in the country. The Democrats won 70 percent of the Texas congressional seats in 1992, the first year in which the new districts were in effect, while taking half of the total number of votes cast for Congress statewide. After the 2000 census, Republicans sought to redraw the district lines to support a GOP majority in the congressional delegation while Democrats desired to retain a plan similar to the existing lines. The two parties reached an impasse in the Texas Legislature, where Republicans controlled the Senate and Democrats controlled the House. As a result the new district lines were drawn by a three judge federal court panel that made as few changes as possible while adding the two new seats.

In 2001 the Texas Legislative Redistricting Board (a panel composed of the state's Lieutenant Governor, Comptroller, Speaker of the House, Attorney-General, and Land Commissioner) redrew state legislative districts in accordance with the census. The new map that was adopted by the Republican-dominated board gave the GOP an edge in winning the Texas House of Representatives, still controlled at that time by the Democrats. During the 2002 elections under these new maps, DeLay aggressively raised money for Republican candidates under TRMPAC.

In October 2002, Texans for a Republican Majority made contributions, through several channels, to Nelson Balido of San Antonio ($2,000), Byron Cook of Corsicana ($2,000), Wayne Christian of Center ($2,000), Rick Green of Dripping Springs ($2,000), and Eddie Shauberger of Liberty ($2,000), among others.[1] It has since been alleged that TRMPAC was used to funnel illegal corporate donations into the campaigns of Republican candidates for State Representative.

The GOP victories in 2002 resulted in their control of the Texas House in addition to the Senate. As a result, the Texas Legislature was called into session in 2003 to redistrict the state's congressional lines in favor of the Republican Party. A number of Democrats left the state, going to Oklahoma, and later New Mexico, to deny a quorum for voting. Helen Giddings, the recognized negotiator, was arrested in May 2003, but later the arrest was called a mistake. The political police dragnet was at taxpayer expense.[2] Texas House Speaker Craddick apologized to Giddings and then ordered the Sergeant at Arms to incarcerate Giddings in the state capital buildings.

On May 26, 2005, a Texas judge ruled that a committee formed by DeLay had violated state law by not disclosing over $600,000 worth of fundraising money, mostly from the credit card industry, including $25,000 from Sears, Roebuck & Co.[3], and $50,000 from Diversified Collections Services of San Leandro.[4] Some of the money was spent on manning phone banks and posting wanted posters on Federal Highways calling for the arrest of Democratic legislators with an 800 number to the Texas Department of Public Safety to call if seen after the Democratic caucus left for Oklahoma in order to prevent the redistricting legislation from passing. The Federal Highway Administration offered to cooperate in arresting the Democrats, forcing the Democrats to travel to Oklahoma by plane instead of by automobile. Five Texas congressional seats changed hands from Democrats to Republicans during the 2004 election, in part because of the new redistricting.

On October 6, 2004, the House Ethics Committee unanimously admonished DeLay on two counts. The first count stated that DeLay "created the appearance that donors were being provided with special access to Representative DeLay regarding the then-pending energy legislation." The second count said that DeLay "used federal resources in a political issue" by asking the Federal Aviation Administration and Justice Department to help track Texas legislators during the battle over Texas redistricting.[5] At the time of the latter admonishment, the House Ethics committee deferred action on another count related to fundraising while that matter was subject to state criminal action. That state investigation eventually led to the felony indictment on September 28, 2005.

In 2005, the Federal Elections Commission audited ARMPAC, DeLay's political action committee. The FEC found that ARMPAC had failed to report $322,306 in debts owed to vendors, and that it had incorrectly paid for some committee expenses using funds from an account designated for non-federal elections. The FEC also found that ARMPAC had misstated the balances of its receipts and ending cash-on-hand for 2001, and of its receipts, disbursements, and beginning and ending cash-on-hand for 2002. ARMPAC corrected the omission of the debts in amended reports, and is reviewing the portion of the audit dealing with incorrect payment for expenses.[6]

Earle, a Democrat, has indicted some Democratic office-holders in Texas but has mainly gone after Republicans, including an unsuccessful 1993 investigation of Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on charges of official misconduct and records tampering.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_DeLay_campaign_finance_investigation

toniD's Ya Think?

If they outlawed murder today would that make a murder done in 2005 legal?

No matter what SCOTUS does now, a conspiracy is a conspiracy is a conspiracy.

Quite wishin' for bad luck and knockin' on wood tD work with me girl, work with me. ;-)

Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 4:42pm.
...If I'm reading you correctly you think that with this reform there really won't be any reform except that the monied interest will be able to do their evil tactics on a smaller scale...
----------
If you are reading me correctly then you know that I am trying to correct every current problem and prevent every conceivable future problem in one reform package.

I realize that the political world is unlikely to even attempt to correct every current problem and prevent every conceivable future problem and, if it did, some or all of it would probably get derailed along the way.

However, if I am going to discuss real problems and real solutions, I'm gonna start with the whole ball of wax (even though it's wishful thinking) and negotiate down from there.

(I'm pretty sure that I read your complaint against Democrats in the House; negotiating is supposed to begin with more than you expect to get. Likewise, problem solving is supposed to identify and address all of the concomitant problems and avoid new ones.)

The whole ball of wax is to eliminate the ability for groups to determine who will and will not be a candidate, and to eliminate the ability for groups to leverage control of an elected official with campaign money.

The problem is on both ends of an election and it has two elements; groups and cash. The middle, in the ballot box, is the only place where the individual is the key element.

I am trying to find ways to provide the individual with something more than the ballot booth.

http://www.lmreview.com/

This is one of my better sources for Health news for professionals.

Since health care reform is an illusive goal I see a need to stay educated
and pro-active.

You are using daggers in your posts now?

You bastard!

The Fair Elections Now Act (S. 752 and H.R. 1826) was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) and in the House of Representatives by Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Walter Jones, Jr. (R-N.C.). The bill would allow federal candidates to choose to run for office without relying on large contributions, big money bundlers, or donations from lobbyists, and would be freed from the constant fundraising in order to focus on what people in their communities want.

Maybe if we play this out we can see the benefits of FENA.

Imagine a congressional race in your district and 3 candidates come up with the sigs and cash to qualify

* Lex Exxon (R)
* Daisy Doright (D)
* Ima Nobodysbitch (I)

To get to this point each of the above had to collect 1,500 contributions from people in their state and raise a total of $50,000 where no one contribution was more than $100.

Noweach receives $900,000 in Fair Elections funding split 40% for the primary and 60% for the general.

1. How would Lex have meaningful advantages over Daisy and Ima?
2. Would participation among the voters be more or less than prior non-FENA elections?
3. Will Ima and Daisy's voices be more, less or heard the same as Lex's?

..more later I got pots on the stove that need attention.

Some corporations I prefer to some persons.
(Gag bag warning):

Anti-abortion group to screen TV ad to 100m Super Bowl viewers

Christian conservative group Focus on the Family buys costly 30-second spot during American football final

Next month's Super Bowl broadcast, which garners an enormous TV audience, will feature an advert paid for by an anti-abortion evangelical Christian group.

A former college football star known for his outspoken beliefs will appear in the costly 30-second spot bought by Focus on the Family, a Colorado-based ministry influential in Christian conservative politics.

Nearly 100 million Americans are expected to tune in to Super Bowl XLIV on 7 February in Miami Gardens, south Florida. The adverts attract nearly as much attention as the game itself, with Americans watching to see how brands vie for consumers' attention. The Focus on the Family advert is a rare spot from an advocacy group.

The advertisement will feature Tim Tebow, former champion quarterback for the University of Florida football team, who painted Bible quotations under his eyes during games. Focus on the Family and CBS television, the network broadcasting the game, did not disclose the cost of the advert, but media analysts say the cost of a 30-second spot will run between $2.5m and $2.8m.

The advert, entitled Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life, will feature Tebow and his mother Pam, who will tell what the group describes as an inspiring story from her life. It has not released details of the advert, but US media have speculated that she will describe a 1987 pregnancy during which she became ill on a missionary trip to the Philippines. She ignored medical advice to have an abortion, instead giving birth to Tim.

"We're not trying to sell the American people a car or a soft drink," said spokesman Gary Schneeberger. "We're celebrating families."

Schneeberger said the group hopes to influence couples having "struggles" in their marriage. Tebow's father, Bob, runs a group that leads evangelical missions in the Philippines and founded an orphanage there.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/22/anti-abortion-super-bowl-adv...

or Operation Iraq Freedom,the Tonkin Gulf, or Operation Desert Storm, Wounded Knee, or, COINTELPRO:
(an acronym for Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert, and often illegal, projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at investigating and disrupting dissident political organizations within the United States. The FBI used covert operations from its inception, however formal COINTELPRO operations took place between 1956 and 1971.[2] The FBI's stated motivation at the time was "protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order." [3]

According to FBI records, 85% of COINTELPRO resources were expended on infiltrating, disrupting, marginalizing, and/or subverting groups suspected of being subversive,[4] such as communist and socialist organizations; the women's rights movement; militant black nationalist groups, and the non-violent civil rights movement, including individuals such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and others associated with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Congress of Racial Equality, the American Indian Movement, and other civil rights groups; a broad range of organizations labeled "New Left", including Students for a Democratic Society, the National Lawyers Guild, the Weathermen, almost all groups protesting the Vietnam War, and even individual student demonstrators with no group affiliation; and nationalist groups such as those "seeking independence for Puerto Rico."

"...I think the USA Imperialists DESIRE to goad the Haitians into rioting so the military can be set loose to gunning them down..."

The deafening lack of response to the above speaks to something.
But hey, thank God, America elected Barack instead of Jeremiah.

President Barack Obama used his weekly address Saturday to attack this week’s Supreme Court ruling that the government cannot ban campaign contributions by corporations, saying it is a blow to his efforts to rein in special interests in Washington.

“This ruling strikes at our democracy itself,” Obama said. “This ruling opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money into our democracy. It gives the special interest lobbyists new leverage to spend millions on advertising to persuade elected officials to vote their way — or to punish those who don’t.”

Carrying on with his populist-tinged theme of the past two weeks, Obama said, “We don’t need to give any more voice to the powerful interests that already drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

Obama said the ruling could make it harder to enact a variety of reforms he seeks, from financial regulatory reform, to shutting down off-shore tax shelters, to passing energy legislation, to health reform.

Obama noted that the ruling may even would allow foreign companies to get involved in American elections, and legal analysts have said it appears they could contribute through U.S.-based subsidiaries.

He said his administration would work with Congress to come up with legislation to respond to the decision but offered no details.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/31884.html

Seems like Politico doesn't proof read their posts.

"ruling may even would allow"

Still, if this ruling allows foreign companies to control our elections, then can't this ruling be termed treasonous?
At least ground for impeachment of at least one of the five judges for this dangerous ruling.

Maybe Dubai, or the UAE will keep their large holding of Citibank stocks in order to steer an election or two in favor of the banks?

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 5:42pm.
1. How would Lex have meaningful advantages over Daisy and Ima?
2. Would participation among the voters be more or less than prior non-FENA elections?
3. Will Ima and Daisy's voices be more, less or heard the same as Lex's?
------------------
1. How would Lex have meaningful advantages over Daisy and Ima?

For starters, Lex made it this far somehow, possibly with the aid of Exxon's support capabilities out on the petition trail. If Exxon was a key element, then it is possible that some other candidate did not make the cut because of Exxon and it's efforts.

Additional matching funds are more likely to be won by the candidate having a stronger and more experienced organization behind him, which has no bearing on his qualifications for office. It does not even indicate that Lex is a good organizer. It might merely indicate that Exxon is a good organizer that wants Lex in office. Lex is more likely to max out his matching-fund coffers than anyone else who lacks a machine pushing hard behind them.

(There's more but it ain't here for the sake of brevity.)

2. Would participation among the voters be more or less than prior non-FENA elections?

More, I certainly hope. Any reform is better than none, so this question can't get a fight outta me.

3. Will Ima and Daisy's voices be more, less or heard the same as Lex's?

See #1. Lex's arrival on the ballot could have been the place where the system failed, which means that Ima and Daisy's voices have been diluted by a candidate that should not have advanced to join in the debate.

(If Ima wants her voice heard, she should take every opportunity to tell anecdotes about Ms. Hogg from Texas.)

At least, sheep are living beings--

One quarter of US grain crops fed to cars - not people, new figures show

New analysis of 2009 US Department of Agriculture figures suggests biofuel revolution is impacting on world food supplies

One-quarter of all the maize and other grain crops grown in the US now ends up as biofuel in cars rather than being used to feed people, according to new analysis which suggests that the biofuel revolution launched by former President George Bush in 2007 is impacting on world food supplies.

The 2009 figures from the US Department of Agriculture shows ethanol production rising to record levels driven by farm subsidies and laws which require vehicles to use increasing amounts of biofuels.

"The grain grown to produce fuel in the US [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels," said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a Washington thinktank ithat conducted the analysis....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/22/quarter-us-grain-biofu...

Ethanol for GM trucks. Mr. Ed's favorite political agenda.

Submitted by toniD on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 6:15pm.

toniD I think this is a big story.
He said his administration would work with Congress to come up with legislation to respond to the decision but offered no details.

Here is obama's chance to act Presidential and put the people before the corporations.

Make noise get heard.
Stay quiet get herded

Back to the future?

Obama campaign manager Plouffe stepping up role as adviser to White House

by John Aravosis (DC) on 1/23/2010 03:15:00 PM

It's not entirely clear what "stepping up" someone's role as an adviser is when the person is already advising. They're not hiring him outright. They're just... well, it's not entirely clear what they're doing, other than perhaps splitting the job-baby in half. Announcing that they're "closer" to Plouffe, so that it looks like "change" is in the air, but not quite hiring Plouffe on staff at the White House since that might be too much change. Ergo, someone who is already an adviser is now "more" of an adviser, and it's supposed to be news.

As an aside, keep in mind that it was Plouffe who repeatedly labeled "bedwetters" those Democrats who were predicting we'd be exactly in the predicament we are this week. Plus ça change...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/white-house/plouffe-joining-whit...

I think maybe, Emanuel, Geithner and Summers may be falling out of favor. If it's true, Obama learned a hard lesson and ♦ has made things much more difficult for himself and us. and will it be a good move or SOS.

toniD's Ya Think?

Submitted by toniD on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 5:02pm.

Dick Kaye, in Chicago, just said that this ruling the Supremes
Made jeopardizes the case against Tom Delay.
___________________________________________

dickkay.html

I was listening to that also.
It's an outrage that that creep/thug Tom Delay is still on the loose.

How many frickin' years does it take to lock him up?
Has he paid off the Texas Court system or what?

.
.
.
_ _ _
brr

brl vod | wtf

Submitted by ghettodefender on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 6:10pm.
"...I think the USA Imperialists DESIRE to goad the Haitians into rioting so the military can be set loose to gunning them down..."

The deafening lack of response to the above speaks to something. But hey, thank God America elected Barack instead of Jeremiah.
---------------
You have made an equivalency between the U.S. goading earthquake victims in Haiti into rioting so that the U.S. military can kill them, with COINTELPRO resources "expended on infiltrating, disrupting, marginalizing, and/or subverting groups suspected of being subversive..."

If you want to defend the equivalency, give it your best shot. My advice is for you to quietly pretend it never happened.

You might consider that there are international television crews in Haiti. You might consider that Haiti is not a subversive threat to anybody. You might consider that many U.S. soldiers would refuse to murder unarmed Haitians in their own devastated streets. You might consider that every "subversive" group you listed is/was American, not foreign.

If those considerations don't hold water for you, go ahead and make your equivalency argument loud and clear. Start by explaining the motivation for causing riots so that Haitians can be shot. Then move on to how the Master Plan is supposed to be accepted back home in the U.S.

There are dozens of ways to rip your argument and your defense of nora's bloodthirsty fantasy to shreds.

You've obviously got a boner over my first point so let's go there. Whoever wrote this act set the requirements on the low side so anyone who wanted to run could make the cut.

If Exxon had to help Lex get 1,500 measly signatures and $50,000 then Lex has a lot of work to prevail at the ballot box. Maybe Exxon was so crafty not only did they get all the sigs, it just so happened every single one of them gave the max. Now Lex has $150,000 while Daisy and Ima each could only raise $50,001. It's not as bad as it appears my horse shit shoveling friend.

Now it's 1,500,00 vs $950,00. What are the first spots Ima and Daily run gonna say?

My opponent Lex Exxon raised $150,000 in individual donations to get on the ballot. Let me ask you one question, do you know 1,499 folks with $100 to give to a campaign? I don't but I do know 1,500 Americans who are fed up with corporations buying candidates with corporate cash. Lex, why are you only supported by rich folk?

Hell if Daisy and Ima are smart they'll hire you to write their ads.

This is where populism begins to shine a light on the dark side.

No horse fucking shit!

Bing, one fishy in the barrel, bing 2 fishies in the barrel

I wonder if he's even heard of the verdict?

{MMR :) } ;):(

So I do think passing a stripped down bill that focuses on extending care to the 15 million who most urgently need it is preferable to passing the Senate bill without a guarantee it’ll be fixed through reconciliation.

..(Empty)Wheels are turning

is the first thing he scratches when he gets up in the morning.

They Still Don’t Get It
By BOB HERBERT

How loud do the alarms have to get? There is an economic emergency in the country with millions upon millions of Americans riddled with fear and anxiety as they struggle with long-term joblessness, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and dwindling opportunities for themselves and their children.

The door is being slammed on the American dream and the politicians, including the president and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, seem not just helpless to deal with the crisis, but completely out of touch with the hardships that have fallen on so many.

While the nation was suffering through the worst economy since the Depression, the Democrats wasted a year squabbling like unruly toddlers over health insurance legislation. No one in his or her right mind could have believed that a workable, efficient, cost-effective system could come out of the monstrously ugly plan that finally emerged from the Senate after long months of shady alliances, disgraceful back-room deals, outlandish payoffs and abject capitulation to the insurance companies and giant pharmaceutical outfits.

The public interest? Forget about it.

With the power elite consumed with its incessant, discordant fiddling over health care, the economic plight of ordinary Americans, from the middle class to the very poor, got pathetically short shrift. And there is no evidence, even now, that leaders of either party fully grasp the depth of the crisis, which began long before the official start of the Great Recession in December 2007.

A new study from the Brookings Institution tells us that the largest and fastest-growing population of poor people in the U.S. is in the suburbs. You don’t hear about this from the politicians who are always so anxious to tell you, in between fund-raisers and photo-ops, what a great job they’re doing. From 2000 to 2008, the number of poor people in the U.S. grew by 5.2 million, reaching nearly 40 million. That represented an increase of 15.4 percent in the poor population, which was more than twice the increase in the population as a whole during that period.

The study does not include data from 2009, when so many millions of families were just hammered by the recession. So the reality is worse than the Brookings figures would indicate.

Job losses, stagnant or reduced wages over the past decade, and the loss of home equity when the housing bubble burst have combined to take a horrendous toll on families who thought they had done all the right things and were living the dream. A great deal of that bleeding is in the suburbs. The study, compiled by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, said, “Suburbs gained more than 2.5 million poor individuals, accounting for almost half of the total increase in the nation’s poor population since 2000.”

Democrats in search of clues as to why voters are unhappy may want to take a look at the report. In 2008, a startling 91.6 million people — more than 30 percent of the entire U.S. population — fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which is a meager $21,834 for a family of four.

The question for Democrats is whether there is anything that will wake them up to their obligation to extend a powerful hand to ordinary Americans and help them take the government, including the Supreme Court, back from the big banks, the giant corporations and the myriad other predatory interests that put the value of a dollar high above the value of human beings.

The Democrats still hold the presidency and large majorities in both houses of Congress. The idea that they are not spending every waking hour trying to fix the broken economic system and put suffering Americans back to work is beyond pathetic. Deficit reduction is now the mantra in Washington, which means that new large-scale investments in infrastructure and other measures to ease the employment crisis and jump-start the most promising industries of the 21st century are highly unlikely.

What we’ll get instead is rhetoric. It’s cheap, so we can expect a lot of it.

Those at the bottom of the economic heap seem all but doomed in this environment. The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston put the matter in stark perspective after analyzing the employment challenges facing young people in Chicago: “Labor market conditions for 16-19 and 20-24-year-olds in the city of Chicago in 2009 are the equivalent of a Great Depression-era, especially for young black men.”

The Republican Party has abandoned any serious approach to the nation’s biggest problems, economic or otherwise. It may be resurgent, but it’s not a serious party. That leaves only the Democrats, a party that once championed working people and the poor, but has long since lost its way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/opinion/23herbert.html?partner=rssnyt&...

toniD's Ya Think?

Bauer: Needy 'owe something back' for aid

Source: The Greenville News

GREENVILLE - Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer has compared giving people government assistance to "feeding stray animals."

Bauer, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, made his remarks during a town hall meeting in Fountain Inn that included state lawmakers and about 115 residents.

"My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don't think too much further than that. And so what you've got to do is you've got to curtail that type of behavior. They don't know any better," Bauer said.

In South Carolina, 58 percent of students participate in the free and reduced-price lunch program.

http://www.thesunnews.com/575/story/1276292.html

toniD's Ya Think?

24 States’ Laws Open to Attack After Campaign Finance Ruling

A day after the United States Supreme Court ruled that the federal government may not ban political spending by corporations or unions in candidate elections, officials across the country were rushing to cope with the fallout, as laws in 24 states were directly or indirectly called into question by the ruling.

---

The states that explicitly prohibit independent expenditures by unions and corporations will be most affected by the ruling. The decision, however, has consequences for all states, since they are now effectively prohibited from adopting restrictions on corporate and union spending on political campaigns.

---

For now, the decision does not overturn all the state laws in question, but it is only a matter of time, experts said, before the laws will be challenged in the courts or repealed by state legislatures. Since the state laws are vulnerable, it is unlikely that officials will continue enforcing them, experts said.

---

Richard Hasen, an election law specialist at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said he expected state judicial races to be especially affected by the Supreme Court decision.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/us/politics/23states.html?partner=rss&...

toniD's Ya Think?

that's all the people are talking about

I wonder if any of you kind people could help me find where these priests might blog. I'z gotz zum questions fer em. - MSNBC

In Kentucky and Colorado, lawmakers looked for provisions in their state constitutions that may need to be rewritten. And in Texas, lawyers for Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader, said the pending state campaign finance case against him should be thrown out.

toniD's Ya Think?

Are you purposely trying to make me work this hard?
Submitted by maggiesboy on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 7:04pm.
--------
You are doing real good...and you didn't even drag out the daggers this time around. (I knew I was screwed if you buried me in footnotes. Hell, I'd have to follow up on all of 'em to make certain that you weren't annotating with your own posts from five minutes earlier: "According to a study done by maggiesboy, Bait is a dickhead.").

There are several ideas that appear to be good ones, assuming that full-blown reform doesn't happen. I like the idea of forcing a corporation to win a shareholder vote in favor of a given political expenditure. Do you know how often that would happen? Do you know how often a corporate board could pull it off in a timely manner?

It harks back to the central issue, which is saying "No" to well heeled or well organized groups. Forcing a shareholder vote is just a roundabout way of saying that we (the people) don't want the monied political influence to exist at all.

International rights body criticizes US Supreme Court ruling on election spending

By Associated Press

3:56 PM CST, January 22, 2010
VIENNA (AP) — An international human rights organization has criticized a U.S. Supreme Court ruling about election spending in America.

The criticism comes from a senior official of the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The head of its office that monitors democratic practices says the ruling effectively lifting limits on election spending by corporations and unions "threatens to further marginalize candidates without strong financial backing or extensive personal resources."

Janez Lenarcic spoke Friday, a day after the 5-to-4 U.S. Supreme Court ruling.

http://www.whnt.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-eu-us-election-spending,0,56...

toniD's Ya Think?

I don't interact with you much, but I do want to mention you are one of my favorite people to read hereabouts. It's always a pleasure to read you!

Submitted by Fernando on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 7:58pm.
I wonder if any of you kind people could help me find where these priests might blog.
--------------------------
I have visited a few by chance so I knew they exist. The following is the first three Google hits to the keywords "Jesuit blogs".
-----
Living Bread In the meantime, there are several Jesuit blogs linked here, including Mark Mossa S.J. from our New Orleans Province. And there are many online resources ...
lifebread.blogspot.com/
-----
The Ultimate Blog of Jesuit Humor People often think of Jesuits as dead serious, stiff and very formal group of nerdy academics in soutanes. This blog aims to debunk that idea. ...
www.jesuithumor.blogspot.com/
-----
Good Jesuit, Bad Jesuit The blog Blackfive has announced the launch of a collaborative rapid medical response operation of Jesuits and US Marine veterans to quickly get medical ...
goodjesuitbadjesuit.blogspot.com/

When 20% of the people control 93% of the wealth the excrement must be very close to the air conditioner.

Oh, and I would never call you a dickhead.*

*

Vanity Fair makes fun of Cincinnati's
ridiculous, yet popular, Creation Museum
The place has "very illiberally accoutred security guards. They are absurdly over-armed, overdressed, and overweight. Perhaps the museum is concerned that armed radical atheists, maddened by the voices of reason in their confused heads."

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2010/02/creation-museum-20100...

toniD's Ya Think?

mire
Submitted by Cat Chew on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 8:21pm.
...you are one of my favorite people to read hereabouts...
-----------
Have you heard her speak?

mire and toniD have accents you'd expect to hear while you are locked in the trunk.

Shall we take Crank for a ride?

toniD's Ya Think?

it has the 5 liter engine and will be (future tense) the pace car at Daytona.

Proceeds go to the juvile diabetes charity. They have raised $2M for that organization already.

Ford! American and NOT a bail out.

Snarky bastard! Heh!

By the way, I did not fall for going to the looking for kitty videos on YouTube thingie... So there!

.

of mire.

Crank.... come on. That's not very culturally sensitive. They were born that way.

mire: "You like-a riverboats?"

Bait: "Isn't this Lake Michigan?"

toniD: "Whaddayou, Mark Twain or somethin'?"

mire: "Water's-a water, ay Toe-nee Dee?"

same here, i feel the same for you

Berlusconi moves to impose Internet regulation

By COLLEEN BARRY, AP Business Writer Colleen Barry, Ap Business Writer – Fri Jan 22, 2:06 pm ET

MILAN – Silvio Berlusconi is moving to extend his grip on Italy's media to the freewheeling Internet world of Google and YouTube.

Going beyond other European countries, the premier's government has drafted a decree that would mandate the vetting of videos for pornographic or violent content uploaded by users onto such sites as YouTube, owned by Google, and the France-based Dailymotion, as well as blogs and online newsmedia.

Google, press freedom watchdogs and telecom providers are among those pressing for changes in the draft to prevent the fast-track legislation from taking effect as early as Feb. 4. They say the decree would erode freedom of expression and mandate the technically burdensome — maybe even impossible — task of monitoring what individuals put on the Internet.

Reporters Without Borders Media says the measures could force Web sites to obtain licenses to operate in Italy.

The 34-page decree mandates vetting of any content harmful to minors, specifically pornography or excessive violence, and would require telecoms providers to shut down any Internet site not in compliance, or face fines ranging from euro150 to euro150,000 ($210 to $210,960).

The draft says it would be handled by "an authority," without elaborating, raising questions about among media freedom advocates about how it could be implemented.

[...]

AP

love ya'll

Nice!

makes me think of toe-nail

jeanine was fantastic last night on comedy central, and don't let me forget - i need to clip my toenails, didn't get to it today but tomorrow absolutely

i'm not sure about her other recommendations though, like rubbing hand sanitizer up her crotch, that might be a little too much for me

she was hilarious! marc was right when he said she's good at stand-up

For what ya wishes
Tonight you might
Just sleep with fishes.

..but they'd be warm 'n fuzzy fishes of course.

that was a long time ago

i must have made an impression ;)

toni, i don't know about a ride, but i'm not sure what crank's saying about your accent; you certainly do not sound like an accent to me

Stolen from http://www.jesuithumor.blogspot.com/
------
An Augustinian, a Franciscan, and a Jesuit all die and get to heaven. Jesus asks each one, "If you could go back, what would you change"?

The Augustinian ponders a while and says, "There's so much sin in the world. If I went back, I'd try to stop people from sinning so much."

The Franciscan thinks a bit and says, "There's so much poverty in the world. If I went back, I'd try to get people to share more of their wealth with the poor."

The Jesuit looks at Jesus and quickly replies, "If I went back, I'd change my doctor."
------
A Jesuit, a Dominican, and a Trappist were marooned on a desert island. They found a magic lamp, and after some discussion decided to rub it. Lo and behold, a genie appeared and offered them three wishes. They decided it was only fair that they could each have one wish.

The Jesuit said he wanted to teach at the world's most famous university, and poof, he was gone! The Dominican wished to preach in the world's largest church, and poof, he was gone!

The Trappist said, "Gee, I already got my wish!"
------
A Jesuit, a Dominican, and a Franciscan were walking along an old road, debating the greatness of their orders. Suddenly, an apparition of the Holy Family appeared in front of them, with Jesus in a manger and Mary and Joseph praying over him.

The Franciscan fell on his face, overcome with awe at the sight of God born in such poverty.

The Dominican fell to his knees, adoring the beautiful reflection of the Trinity and the Holy Family.

The Jesuit walked up to Joseph, put his arm around his shoulder, and said, "So, have you thought about where to send the boy to school?"

He's teasing me about that.

Now we have to get Crank on Ya Think? and hear what he sounds like. Probably an English teacher. Verrry proper with a touch of a southern twang and a bit of Island.

toniD's Ya Think?

is the tits.

I'm dying over here.

Vikings x3
Colts x10

unfortunately.

jets jets jets

The Jets match up better against the Colts than most people realize...

Jets were:
#1 in total Defense
#1 in Passing Defense

This will be no cake walk for Indy...Manning is going to have to play very well and beat them deep...and the Jets have the best secondary in football...

An interception or two, and a few sacks and the Jets will keep it very close...

the Jets were #1 in Rushing Offense...and Indy was #24 against the run

The Jets should be able to run on Indy, the only question is whether or not the Rookie QB can stay cool...and if last week is any indication, he can...a few good down field connections against Indy's mediocre secondary, and the Jets might just make it to the Superbowl....

...also, Saints by 10...they've got something for Favre's ass...

WASHINGTON — Since the suicide bombing that took the lives of seven Americans in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, the Central Intelligence Agency has struck back against militants in Pakistan with the most intensive series of missile strikes from drone aircraft since the covert program began.
Beginning the day after the attack on a C.I.A. base in Khost, Afghanistan, the agency has carried out 11 strikes that have killed about 90 people suspected of being militants, according to Pakistani news reports, which make almost no mention of civilian casualties. The assault has included strikes on a mud fortress in North Waziristan on Jan. 6 that killed 17 people and a volley of missiles on a compound in South Waziristan last Sunday that killed at least 20.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/world/asia/23drone.html?hp

Here we go again ........ making friends!

I hope you are right but it's not in the bones.

Why only petro-based ferts? Every sewage district has more than it knows what to do with, and factory meat industrialists dump their animal wastes until it overflows into creeks. Why no interest in using natural ferts (as tens of generations of farmers did before the mining-drilling industrialists took over)?

http://derbydolls.com/webcast/

After party at La Cita.

"and if you think you would like to tryout to be a Derby Doll just sign up on the "Fresh Meat" list...we'll snap you out of that shit in a few practice sessions..."

that got a chuckle out of me....

That Lolita can skate....

we decided not to use the term fresh meat ....we call em kittens (since out first team is the hellcats) :)

That's the voice of the announcer called "Dumptruck" - he is great - sounds like wolfman jack sorta

is a pretty funny name..

?

and the d cup... 8P

Me too! I'm considering taking up reffing....we have ref/non skating official training at 10 tomorrow...

"Check out Craigslist...when you need a futon that smells like a dead body...craigslist."

hahaha...what a trip!

Tai Kwon Ho...? hahaha....

the female announcer is Val Capone...she used to play for Windy City Roller Girls

this girl has a 2010 goal of:

"Learn to roller skate and join DC Roller Girls by fall 2010."

maybe the last rule in skating posture, but it is the first rule in self preservation...especially for jammers...

"Health and Fitness. Kicking and Screaming." hahaha...

http://latinboogaloo.com/sounds/ssw3.mp3

thy make a crackle sound, it sounds almost like a record going around and at the same intervals hitting a bad part.

Obama's response to scotus
Submitted by taozen on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 6:29pm.
Submitted by toniD on Sat, 01/23/2010 - 6:15pm.

toniD I think this is a big story.
He said his administration would work with Congress to come up with legislation to respond to the decision but offered no details.

Here is obama's chance to act Presidential and put the people before the corporations.

Make noise get heard.
Stay quiet get herded

======================================

Something must be done, and what are the options and the possibilities of success?

a/ Congressional legislation. (Concern one: Wouldn't specific legislation regarding corporations alone be challenged in court and struck down again as limiting to the Corporations' 'Free $$$peech'? Concern two: Wouldn't a control on all 'persons' (natural and corporate) regarding elections unduly punish everyone for the corporations' sins? Concern three: If passed, public-funding of elections would still not be able to restrain/contain the election-time spending of corporations because they could continue to finance programs and ads and mailers to influence public opinion and choices, couldn't they?)

b/ Constitutional amendment assuring that personhood and the rights of persons are for natural persons only. (One concern: By the time such an amendment made it through the amendment protocol, made the rounds of each state and even if it got the requisite state backing, wouldn't a con$olidation of corporate domination over the Houses of Congress be even more ingrained and assure the amendment would be defeated? In other words, the time element is the concern.)

c/ Change in jurists on the SCOTUS bench via nominating and approving progressive-minded jurists when openings arise. However, this might take quite a while. Then there is additional time needed for a suitable case to come to appeal and be chosen for SCOTUS review.)

d/ Change in number of Supreme Court Justices. (Appointing two more jurists who are NOT part of the Federalist Society cult or who are not Opus Dei or Fascist manipulators. How would this work? Does this arise directly from Congress or from the White House or both?)

e/ Then there is IMPEACHMENT of jurists. (Should jurists who lie and mislead during interviews and hearings with Legislators during the confirmation process be allowed to get away with it? And, can there be impeachment of a Chief Justice who may over-reach and call before the bench a case that was never previously argued on the grounds he wishes to rule on? Also, can such an impeachment process investigate the lengths to which a case can be CREATED and falsely brought to litigation for the purposes of changing law at the SCOTUS level (that possibly including conspiracy to defraud for the purposes of granting Corporations more legal latitude)? Is such a thing as conspiracy a reason for impeachment of a jurist?)

I'd say e/ Impeachment would be the ethical and upright route to take. But I think d/ making SCOTUS an eleven jurist court might be a better route just because a large nation needs MORE plurality in its views anyway. Let SCOTUS become a court for The People instead of the Corporations alone!

Have you recorded any more since your truck ride?

http://latinboogaloo.com/sounds/alice.mp3

on Coast to Coast tonight...

:)

http://www.dadanoias.net/2010/01/22/kmr-2/

That was really just a test to see how it would work out doors and to see if it would be a viable tool to broadcast at protests...

Life is okay,...work is hot and cold...things are pretty much normal...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HvGy2gY0eM

Thanks, Alice.

...by a manager that I've always gotten along with...it was the beginning of a terrible last few days at work...we totally got into it...it was awful. Been dreading work...

What do you dislike about your job...? (not to focus on the negative, but I am curious)

It seems like I used to see more deer, but I think it's just that I don't spend as much time outdoors as when I first moved here......

great upstream bandwidth come from the server too...quick download...

We get along great....

When I want a raise, or need time off, or call in sick, he almost never gets mad at me....

...and whenever I need to chew him out, all I need to do is look in the mirror. ;)

:)

http://prorev.com/

Human "bed-warmers" at Holiday Inn
Reuters

Thu Jan 21, 1:02 pm ET

LONDON (Reuters) – International hotel chain Holiday Inn is offering a trial human bed-warming service at three hotels in Britain this month.

If requested, a willing staff-member at two of the chain's London hotels and one in the northern English city of Manchester will dress in an all-in-one fleece sleeper suit before slipping between the sheets.

"The new Holiday Inn bed warmers service is a bit like having a giant hot water bottle in your bed," Holiday Inn spokeswoman Jane Bednall said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

The bed-warmer is equipped with a thermometer to measure the bed's required temperature of 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit).

Holiday Inn said the warmer would be fully dressed and leave the bed before the guest occupied it. They could not confirm if the warmer would shower first, but said hair would be covered.

[...]

Reuters

Why is that?

(Seems to me that some small incorporated local organic farmer is no match for MONSANTO.)

Equality.

These sociopaths will use any concept as long it will lead to more profits.

Stacking the SCOTUS...there's one I haven't heard in a while...that is what Roosevelt did to get the NRA through judicial challenges...

might just be a viable option too...

my first impulse was for an amendment, but we can't count on these people voting against their meal ticket....now can we....

I am gone...

c youse two mara....

nite.

They used that story on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me today....I heard it a day or so ago so I knew the answer - usually I can't pick the real story during this segment of Wait Wait...It's bad enough knowing any person was in a bed before you when you're in a hotel...if I actually saw one I'd barf.

nite nite

Now this is just creepy....
new
Submitted by cent on Sun, 01/24/2010 - 2:39am.
Human "bed-warmers" at Holiday Inn
Reuters

...
--------
=========

But the hotel corporation thinks this is actually selling point?! Who are these people?

Now tell me -- which looks more like a SLAVE? a/ a complementary hot water bottle or b/ a person ordered to warm a hotel bed.

Sounds like some bizarre practice from the Dark Ages. (And Western Culture is it less a direct result of Greek intellect and Roman Bureaucracy and Imperialism as it is the Greek and Roman "accomplishments" as interpreted by those Visigoths et al. who over ran those ancient cultures? I wonder.)

(I'm off on my next trip into the cyberstacks to find out WHO WERE THE VISIGOTHS and how are we like them?)

Have you tried

^ c l i c k ^

It's very good. Bitter. But good.

Brew some WTF for Sunday's Talk Shows!
Brick TeeVee: Republic or Corporatocracy?
http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5617

I love that word!

time to sleep, goodnight nora & Filthy. xox

Sleep well and dream happily.

Among his numerous observations, what happens when the Dems split between "the purists and the pragmatists"...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/012310.html

[excerpt]

Despite Nixon’s best efforts – aided and abetted by "pragmatic" Democratic National Chairman Robert Strauss who tried to help shut down the Watergate investigation – the criminal proceedings exposed Nixon’s dirty operation, forcing his resignation in 1974 and leading to Democrat Jimmy Carter's election in 1976. [For more on the Watergate intrigue, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

From Nixon’s debacle, the Republicans learned important lessons, including their need to build a media infrastructure of their own to protect future Republican presidents from “another Watergate.” Nixon’s former Treasury Secretary Bill Simon took the lead in pulling together wealthy conservatives to invest in right-wing media and think tanks. [For details, see Lost History.]

The Left extracted an opposite lesson from Watergate. Feeling a false confidence that the mainstream news media would continue performing a watchdog role, progressives mostly dismantled what had been a thriving “underground” media of newspapers, magazines and radio stations, which had grown up amid the youthful opposition to the Vietnam War. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “The Left’s Media Miscalculation.”]

The Right’s Surge

By the late 1970s, other parts of today’s political dynamic were falling into place. The Right and the Republicans played hardball, while the Left and the Democrats remained deeply divided between purists and pragmatists -- and were unwilling to confront GOP bullies.

...

Though Roberts replaced fellow right-winger, the late William Rehnquist, Alito's appointment threatened to tilt the court further rightward because he took the seat of the somewhat more moderate Sandra Day O’Connor, who retired.

In early 2006, Alito's nomination faced strong Democratic opposition in the Senate, where there were 42 votes lined up against his nomination, enough to sustain a filibuster that could have stopped him.

However, a group of “centrist” or pragmatic Democrats came up with a “bipartisan” solution that cleared the way for Alito’s confirmation. To sidestep a Republican threat to eliminate filibusters, the so-called "nuclear option," these Democrats joined Republicans to vote cloture against liberal Democrats who were fighting Alito. Some of those pro-cloture Democrats then voted against Alito’s confirmation, which nevertheless prevailed on a 58-42 vote.

This sellout infuriated the Democratic “base,” which warned of future dangers from putting another radical right-winger on the U.S. Supreme Court.

...
[end excerpt]

bbc - America's left-right divide: A bridge too far?

"
A gulf divides US Republicans and Democrats, but American voters find the idea of bipartisan politics irresistible. But for politicians, asks BBC North America editor Mark Mardell, is the promise to reach out to the other side just a political game?
...
In his final speech as president, George Washington warned against the very existence of political parties. They distracted public servants, he said, they created panics and false alarms, they opened the door to corruption and even cause riots.

Americans organised themselves into two rival political camps soon after.
"

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Blue Roots Radio

=Like this.
"The Other L-Word" [?what's the other, other one?]
By Christopher Hitchens
Illustration by Tim Sheaffer
WEB EXCLUSIVE January 13, 2010

So it can be of use to a natural raconteur. Ian McEwan rather surprised me when I asked him about “like,” telling me that “it can be used as a pause or a colon: very handy for spinning out a mere anecdote into a playlet that’s full of parody and speculation.” And also of hyperbole, as in “She’s been out with, like, a million guys.”
...
This is an example of “filler” words being used as props, to try to shore up a lame sentence. People who can’t get along without “um” or “er” or “basically” (or, in England, “actually”) or “et cetera et cetera” are of two types: the chronically modest and inarticulate, such as Ms. Kennedy, and the mildly authoritarian who want to make themselves un-interruptible.
...
"

re the comments
"infodump maybe onto something. the idea of a "proper" language doesn't make sense, as it is constantly changing. You may say, "why do we not hear the word 'forsooth' any more? That's the problem with people born after 1604, No respect!"
"

~`ordinary's just not good enough today - olp`~
Jamesbenet

Blue Roots Radio

Pols are just party animals.

But seriously, this country pays NO attention to most of the citizenry.

Where is representation of the FULL spectrum of views and human striving in this nation?

We need a PLURALITY of Representation.

We must DEMAND PLURALITY in the representation we are provided.

Just two parties are not enough to reflect who we are as a nation of CITIZENS.

I don't know about you, but the Corporatist-dominated Dems don't represent me, and the Radical Anti-Government Rightwingers dominating the Republican Party don't represent me. Likewise, I suspect, these two parties don't represent the majority of Americans either!

The two parties have dissed us long enough. Taxation without actual representation? Long enough with this farce!

We all need a class in "class analysis"--

[excerpt]

Just Walk Away From the Democrats
by Ron Jacobs / January 23rd, 2010

The left needs to organize the unorganized. The working people, the unemployed, the young, and the restless. The right wing has their core group of supporters who organize around fear of the other. The liberals have those who believe in the myth of American equality because they have no class analysis. The Left needs to organize the rest and they need to do so without the Democratic Party. It should be quite clear to almost every left-leaning American by now that the Democrats are nothing more than another wing of the party that works for Wall Street and the Pentagon. To continue to work for and elect their candidates is self-defeating. As the first year of the Obama presidency has clearly shown, not only do the Democrats support the right wing agenda, that support makes it easier for the right wing to put their candidates into power....

[end excerpt]

-----------------------
=======================

I'll go further. If the Dems were historically the party of slaveowners, what does that make our contemporary Dems who ushered in WTO, refused to stop outsourcing trends, and continue to give-away our hard-earned tax dollars to Banksters who will now charge us interest on their windfall bail-out? I say we are staring the party of ECONOMIC SLAVERY right in the face!

On day ten, the U.N. declares the "rescue phase" of the Haiti earthquake aftermath is OVER.

Put a bookmark in this one folks. After ten days rescue efforts end. That means, doesn't it, that if the major powers behind a rescue effort -- like the U.S. and U.N. don't get their act together BEFORE ten days are up, many disaster victims who could have been saved will always be abandoned and never saved, no matter HOW many photo-ops and TV interviews are given by these Authorities. And relief materials are STILL being held at the airport?!

And NOW the U.N. General Assembly makes a motion to provide "speedy" aid? An odd choice of words....

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-01/23/c_13148507.htm

[excerpt]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Haitian government has ended the search and rescue phase of the earthquake relief effort, after two more people were pulled miraculously from the rubble in the devastated capital.

"The government has declared the search and rescue phase over," the United Nations' Organisation for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Saturday in its latest situation report on the relief effort, adding that at least 132 people had been rescued.

Ten days after a 7.3-magnitude earthquake hit the impoverished country, an elderly woman and a young man were freed from ruins here on Friday.

Marie Carida Roman, 84 years old, was dug out from the remains of her home by her son and neighbors with bare hands. The 22-hour rescue came after her son heard her faint call for help on Thursday morning. The other survivor, a 22-year-old man, was rescued by the Israeli rescue team on the same day.

Hopes that others may have survived are fading, and the Haitian Interior Ministry said Friday the death toll had surpassed 110,000.

The ministry said nearly 200,000 people were injured and more than 600,000 left homeless after the quake hit the small Caribbean nation on Jan. 12. Haitian officials estimated that the final death toll could reach 200,000.

Also on Friday, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution calling on the international community to provide "speedy, sustainable and adequate" support for Haiti.

Approving the resolution by consensus, the 192-member body called for an early international response to the U.N. flash appeal of 575 million U.S. dollars for Haiti.

[end excerpt]

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_5495.shtml

"There is no logic that US troops landed in Haiti. Haiti seeks humanitarian aid, not troops. It would be madness if we all began to send troops to Haiti,’ said Ortega.”

-----------
====================

Perhaps someone already posted this article. Alot of stuff here I didn't see anywhere else.

Here's an excerpt--

[excerpt]

HAARP, as you will read in more detail, can shock the upper atmosphere with both a focused and navigable electromagnetic bolt. The ionosphere is the electrically charged sphere that surrounds the earth’s upper atmosphere, about 40 to 60 miles above the earth’s surface. Take a look also at the excellent Haiti Earthquake Raises HAARP Controversy at the phoenixaquua.blogspot, so you don’t think it’s just me thinking this. In fact, you can see filmed examples of how HAARP works, and how it has worked on Haiti.

...

HAARP, as you will read in more detail, can shock the upper atmosphere with both a focused and navigable electromagnetic bolt. The ionosphere is the electrically charged sphere that surrounds the earth’s upper atmosphere, about 40 to 60 miles above the earth’s surface. Take a look also at the excellent Haiti Earthquake Raises HAARP Controversy at the phoenixaquua.blogspot, so you don’t think it’s just me thinking this. In fact, you can see filmed examples of how HAARP works, and how it has worked on Haiti.

...

For the “official” statistics of the event, see the Tectonics of the Haitian earthquake by Chris Rowan at scienceblogs.com. Despite the fact that Rowan sees this as a “strike-slip in the Caribbean Plate with the crust on each side of the fault moving horizontally relative to the other side,” and so on, I still feel that the pinpointing of Haiti is not just another predictable earthquake. But read Chris’s full explanation. A bolt of HAARP energy could have caused that “strike-slip.”

What is far more interesting to note is an article from nextgov.com (Technology And The Business of Government), Defense launches online system to coordinate Haiti relief efforts, which was published last Friday but refers to a disaster relief drill that took place on Monday, January 11, a day before the earthquake. I quote, “As personnel representing hundreds of government and nongovernment agencies from around the world rush to the aid of earthquake-devastated Haiti, the Defense Information Systems Agency has launched a Web portal with multiple social networking tools to aid in coordinating their efforts.

“On Monday, [January 11, before the earthquake] Jean Demay, DISA’s technical manager for the agency’s Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, happened to be at the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami preparing for a test of the system in a scenario that involved providing relief to Haiti in the wake of a hurricane. After the earthquake hit on Tuesday, Demay said SOUTHCOM decided to go live with the system [itlaics mine]. On Wednesday [the day after the earthquake], DISA opened up its All Partners Access Network, supported by the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, to any organization supporting Haiti relief efforts.

...

And, as Wayne Madsen reports, U.S. troops in Haiti to prevent Aristide’s return, “President Obama, in keeping with his CIA lineage, has permitted the Pentagon under Robert Gates to take charge of the humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti.

“As Cuban and Venezuelan field hospitals were already rendering first aid and trauma care to Haitians injured in the mega-quake, Obama was gathered at a White House photo op with Vice President Joe Biden and other Cabinet officers to state that U.S. military reconnaissance aircraft would fly over Haiti to assess the situation from the air. A U.S. P-3 Orion spy plane from Comalapa air base in El Salvador was dispatched to conduct the surveillance operation, an act that was already being accomplished by earth satellites, the images of which were available on Google Maps.

[end excerpt]

don't officially exist?

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aEZhVnndErJk

Just listened to Chris Hayes and Byron York on the span. Hayes let York walk all over him....it was disappointing...

Good Morning!

There's a new shuffle coming out with all the team player.
They are remaking it today to be shown as an ad for the Super Bowl.

All except Sweetness---Walter Payton---may he rest in peace!

toniD's Ya Think?

DAMN - - -

Follow me over here

http://www.samsedershow.com/node/5618#comment-391810

Solar energy collected in space and beamed back to Earth by laser could soon be used to power homes and electric vehicles under a project by European space engineers.

Wave Of The Future

"Hello to our friends and fans in domestic surveillance."

MMRules