Saturday, December 31, 2011
Friday, December 30, 2011
Durdy Commie Gurl Scouts...
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/right-wing_fox_friends_warn_girl_scouts_promote_li.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
George Soros musta bought a box of Girl Scout Cookies.
"The Girl Scouts are clearly un-American. For god's sake, have you even LOOKED at the names of their cookies?? Trefoils? Dulce De Leche? Chalet Cremes? Samoas? THIN Mints???? Do any of those sound American to you??? WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!!!"
George Soros musta bought a box of Girl Scout Cookies.
"The Girl Scouts are clearly un-American. For god's sake, have you even LOOKED at the names of their cookies?? Trefoils? Dulce De Leche? Chalet Cremes? Samoas? THIN Mints???? Do any of those sound American to you??? WAKE UP, SHEEPLE!!!"
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
U.S., Israel Discuss Triggers for Bombing Iran’s Nuclear Infrastructure
The Obama administration is trying to assure Israel privately that it would strike Iran militarily if Tehran’s nuclear program crosses certain “red lines”—while attempting to dissuade the Israelis from acting unilaterally. Eli Lake reports exclusively.
Here 'tis.
Here 'tis.
U.S. Fifth Fleet says won't allow Hormuz disruption
TEHRAN/DUBAI (Reuters) - The U.S. Fifth Fleet said on Wednesday it would not allow any disruption of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, after Iran threatened to stop ships moving through the world's most important oil route.
"Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated," the Bahrain-based fleet said in an e-mail.
Iran, at loggerheads with the West over its nuclear programme, said on Tuesday it would stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if sanctions were imposed on its crude exports.
"Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy ... or as Iranians say, it will be easier than drinking a glass of water," Iran's navy chief Habibollah Sayyari told Iran's English-language Press TV on Wednesday.
"But right now, we don't need to shut it ...," said Sayyari, who is leading 10 days of exercises in the Strait.
Analysts say that Iran could potentially cause havoc in the Strait of Hormuz, a strip of water separating Oman and Iran, which connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. At its narrowest point, it is 21 miles (34 km) across.
But its navy would be no match for the firepower of the Fifth Fleet which consists of 20-plus ships supported by combat aircraft, with 15,000 people afloat and another 1,000 ashore.
More, mateys.
"Anyone who threatens to disrupt freedom of navigation in an international strait is clearly outside the community of nations; any disruption will not be tolerated," the Bahrain-based fleet said in an e-mail.
Iran, at loggerheads with the West over its nuclear programme, said on Tuesday it would stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf if sanctions were imposed on its crude exports.
"Closing the Strait of Hormuz for Iran's armed forces is really easy ... or as Iranians say, it will be easier than drinking a glass of water," Iran's navy chief Habibollah Sayyari told Iran's English-language Press TV on Wednesday.
"But right now, we don't need to shut it ...," said Sayyari, who is leading 10 days of exercises in the Strait.
Analysts say that Iran could potentially cause havoc in the Strait of Hormuz, a strip of water separating Oman and Iran, which connects the biggest Gulf oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. At its narrowest point, it is 21 miles (34 km) across.
But its navy would be no match for the firepower of the Fifth Fleet which consists of 20-plus ships supported by combat aircraft, with 15,000 people afloat and another 1,000 ashore.
More, mateys.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Conservatives Furious That Obama, Like Bush, Issued Kwanzaa Message
Remember when conservatives raged after President George W. Bush issued messages marking the celebration of Kwanzaa each and every year he was in the White House? Neither do they. That's why the right-wing blogosphere is apoplectic that Barack Obama followed Bush's lead in recognizing a holiday many African-Americans celebrate each year.
As he did in 2009 and 2010, Andrew Malcolm made sure his readers knew that President Obama and the First Lady issued an official White House statement marking Kwanzaa. Tammy Bruce quickly retweeted a message declaring, "Obama celebrates Kwanzaa...Idiots," adding, "Oh freaking brother." The always execrable Weazel Zippers fumed:
Just because Kwanzaa was made up by a racist black nationalist who was convicted of torturing two women who were part of his group "United Slaves," because he thought they were hiding nonexistent "crystals" of poison meant to kill him doesn't mean it's not a legitimate holiday, right? Or how about the fact that actual Africans have never heard of Kwanzaa? I could go on and on but I'm preaching to the choir.
Sadly for the foaming-at-the-mouth right-wingers, that choir did not include President George W. Bush.
Had they simply followed Dubya's practice of "clicking around" the "Internets," they would have discovered that President Bush issued official Kwanzaa statements in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Here.
As he did in 2009 and 2010, Andrew Malcolm made sure his readers knew that President Obama and the First Lady issued an official White House statement marking Kwanzaa. Tammy Bruce quickly retweeted a message declaring, "Obama celebrates Kwanzaa...Idiots," adding, "Oh freaking brother." The always execrable Weazel Zippers fumed:
Just because Kwanzaa was made up by a racist black nationalist who was convicted of torturing two women who were part of his group "United Slaves," because he thought they were hiding nonexistent "crystals" of poison meant to kill him doesn't mean it's not a legitimate holiday, right? Or how about the fact that actual Africans have never heard of Kwanzaa? I could go on and on but I'm preaching to the choir.
Sadly for the foaming-at-the-mouth right-wingers, that choir did not include President George W. Bush.
Had they simply followed Dubya's practice of "clicking around" the "Internets," they would have discovered that President Bush issued official Kwanzaa statements in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.
Here.
Congressmen get rich. The rest of us? Uhh, nope.
WASHINGTON — When Representative Ed Pastor was first elected to Congress two decades ago, he was comfortably ensconced in the middle class. Mr. Pastor, a Democrat from Arizona, held $100,000 or so in savings accounts in the mid-1990s and had a retirement pension, but like many Americans, he also owed the banks nearly as much in loans.
A man counts money in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (Antenna/Getty Images)Today, Mr. Pastor, a miner’s son and a former high school teacher, is a member of a not-so-exclusive club: Capitol Hill millionaires. That group has grown in recent years to include nearly half of all members of Congress — 250 in all — and the wealth gap between lawmakers and their constituents appears to be growing quickly, even as Congress debates unemployment benefits, possible cuts in food stamps and a “millionaire’s tax.”
Mr. Pastor buys a Powerball lottery ticket every weekend and says he does not consider himself rich. Indeed, within the halls of Congress, where the median net worth is $913,000 and climbing, he is not. He is a rank-and-file millionaire. But compared with the country at large, where the median net worth is $100,000 and has dropped significantly since 2004, he and most of his fellow lawmakers are true aristocrats.
Here.
IRAN WATCH: Iran Threatens to Stop Gulf Oil If Sanctions Widened
TEHRAN - Iran threatened on Tuesday to stop the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz if foreign sanctions were imposed on its crude exports over its nuclear ambitions, a move that could trigger military conflict with economies dependent on Gulf oil.
Iranian army helicopters and navy boats take part in an exercise in the Strait of Hormuz, 2000. "If they (the West) impose sanctions on Iran's oil exports, then even one drop of oil cannot flow from the Strait of Hormuz," the official Iranian news agency IRNA quoted Iran's First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying. (AFP Photo/null)Western tensions with Iran have increased since a November 8 report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog saying Tehran appears to have worked on designing an atomic bomb and may still be pursuing research to that end. Iran strongly denies this and says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.Iran has defiantly expanded nuclear activity despite four rounds of U.N. sanctions meted out since 2006 over its refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment and open up to U.N. nuclear inspectors and investigators.
Iran's warning on Tuesday came three weeks after EU foreign ministers decided to tighten sanctions over the U.N. watchdog report and laid out plans for a possible embargo of oil from the world's No. 5 crude exporter.
Here.
You Can't Make This Stuff Up Folks - 1% Super Rich Form a Non-Profit To Advocate For Themselves
The uber-rich have given us a Christmas gift. Yes, they have formed an organization, the Job Creators Alliance, to run public relations against us imbeciles who point out they are greedy bastards and to shape the national agenda. They even ask for donations on their website so they can pour money into lobbying, and media spin. All of this effort is to advocate for...the super-rich.
Thank you Bloomberg News who alerted us to the wonders of the CEOs, board members and super rich, bestowing their gifts upon us to explain why they should have all the money.
Bloomberg:
If successful businesspeople don’t go public to share their stories and talk about their troubles, “they deserve what they’re going to get,” said Marcus, 82, a founding member of Job Creators Alliance, a Dallas-based nonprofit that develops talking points and op-ed pieces aimed at “shaping the national agenda,” according to the group’s website. He said he isn’t worried that speaking out might make him a target of protesters.
“Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?”
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is so out of touch, he joined these people.
Dimon, 55, whose 2010 compensation was $23 million, joined billionaires including hedge-fund manager John Paulson and Home Depot Inc. (HD) co-founder Bernard Marcus in using speeches, open letters and television appearances to defend themselves and the richest 1 percent of the population targeted by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.
Bloomberg's article points out how groups like this literally plant articles as news and sprinkle glossy one sheet pieces of paper with bulleted talking points like snow over media and congressional staffers. These same talking points will be echoed by cable noise talking heads like talking parrots. Yes Folks, sometimes your news is actually special interest paid media plants!
Here.
Thank you Bloomberg News who alerted us to the wonders of the CEOs, board members and super rich, bestowing their gifts upon us to explain why they should have all the money.
Bloomberg:
If successful businesspeople don’t go public to share their stories and talk about their troubles, “they deserve what they’re going to get,” said Marcus, 82, a founding member of Job Creators Alliance, a Dallas-based nonprofit that develops talking points and op-ed pieces aimed at “shaping the national agenda,” according to the group’s website. He said he isn’t worried that speaking out might make him a target of protesters.
“Who gives a crap about some imbecile?” Marcus said. “Are you kidding me?”
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is so out of touch, he joined these people.
Dimon, 55, whose 2010 compensation was $23 million, joined billionaires including hedge-fund manager John Paulson and Home Depot Inc. (HD) co-founder Bernard Marcus in using speeches, open letters and television appearances to defend themselves and the richest 1 percent of the population targeted by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators.
Bloomberg's article points out how groups like this literally plant articles as news and sprinkle glossy one sheet pieces of paper with bulleted talking points like snow over media and congressional staffers. These same talking points will be echoed by cable noise talking heads like talking parrots. Yes Folks, sometimes your news is actually special interest paid media plants!
Here.
International Banking Woes
If you are not worried about our banking crisis, you should be. Here is a compendium of information.
El-Erian: European Banks are in Major Trouble
Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian says Europe could be thrown into a banking (NYSE:KBE) crisis. “(There) are signs of an institutional run on French (NYSE:EWQ) banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to de-lever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion,” reports the Financial Times.
“There has been a significant increase in the financial requirements of international intervention,” El-Erian said. “You need a lot more firepower in order to be a circuit breaker. Look at how much the ECB has put in and ask yourself the question: has it created a circuit breaker? The answer is no, even though the amounts involved have been massive.”
Read more in the article.
Europe’s banks could be in big trouble
On August 28th the IMF’s new chief Christine Lagarde was bombarded with criticism after she insisted that Europe’s weakest banks need urgent recapitalization in order to curb contagion in the euro crisis. Her main critics were ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet and European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn, who countered that Europe’s banks do not need liquidity or fresh capital. However, developments over the past month overwhelmingly support Ms Lagarde’s assertion. In both the peripheral and the core countries, European banks could really be in big trouble.
Mr Trichet and Mr Rehn’s main argument why European banks are reasonably healthy relies mainly on the stress tests that were conducted just over a month ago by the European Banking Authority (EBA). According to these stress tests, only nine out of 91 banks would see their Core Tier I Capital ratio fall under 5% under the stressed scenario. Mr Rehn has repeatedly highlighted that those banks that failed the stress tests are in the process of raising their capital levels by October anyhow. However, the assumptions made in the adverse scenario of the stress tests were a joke. For the most part, the adverse scenario conditions have already come to fruition and in some cases they have been surpassed. Furthermore, the banks did not reveal any of their risk weightings, making the stress test results difficult to interpret.
There have been several developments over the past month that support Ms Lagarde’s insistence that European banks need to be proactively recapitalized. Just looking at data from this week alone offers cause for concern. Bank stocks led the collapse of European stock indices on Monday, falling by 5-12%. (Deutsche Bank shares fell by 8% in a single day, Credit Suisse by 8.8% and UniCredit by 7.4%). Also on Monday, the ECB reported that it holds €166.8bn in its bank deposit facility, up by €15bn compared with the previous week and the highest amount since August 2010.
Read more in the article.
Stress Test Reveals European Banks Need More Capital
European regulators on Thursday told many of the region’s biggest banks, including Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, to raise more capital as signs mounted that the European sovereign debt crisis might worsen.
With the region’s leaders gathering in Brussels in their latest bid to shore up the euro, the European Banking Authority announced that over all, banks needed to raise 114.7 billion euros ($152.7 billion) in the event the debt crisis was not resolved soon. That was more than the estimate of 106 billion euros in October.
The banking authority’s assessment showed that banks in Germany, Italy and Spain would have to raise more capital than previously thought, while banks in France had all they needed. In all, the stress tests showed that 31 of 71 banks needed stronger reserves.
Read more in the article.
According to Bob Chapman at Infowars.com:
In Europe the past few weeks have been disastrous. Confidence continues to erode as the plunge protection team holds up markets and attacks gold and silver. Greece continues in a standoff until there are February elections. If there are no elections nothing will ensue in a big way. Greece refuses to reduce sovereign debt and take any more austerity cuts. What all these masters of the universe don’t understand, or want to understand, is that Greek debt, in fact almost all debt, is unrepayable. What all governments have done by raising massive amounts of debt has frozen the productive private sector out of the market. The exceptions are AAA rated companies, almost of which just happen to be Illuminist run. Government spending is generally non-productive.
Not only are European banks shockingly near collapse, but the outlook for American banks is also frightening.
Number of Problem Banks in America Nears 1,000
Two and a half years after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the number of banks that are still facing serious financial problems continues to rise, and is now nearing the four digits. According to Calculated Risk, the number of banks in the U.S. that are in danger of failing hit 985 last week, the highest level since the beginning of the financial crisis. That’s up from 935 at the beginning of the year, just three months ago. When Calculated Risk began compiling its list of troubled banks back in mid-2009, the number of banks in trouble in the US was just under 400. In a little less than two years, nearly 600 additional banks have slipped into the danger zone. (That’s on top of the few hundred that have actually failed.) And that number appears to be getting bigger.
Read more in the article.
Big Banks: Under-Capitalized, Overexposed, Opaque
The US banking sector is not healthy.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding about the Wall Street bailouts amongst the public, and quite a few policy makers at Treasury and the Federal Reserve: Somehow, they “fixed” the banking system. All it took was few trillion dollars in liquidity and a few $100 billion dollars in recapitalization, and all is now fine (I suspect some people at the Fed know the Truth).
In fact, they did nothing of the sort. The banking system was not saved; The massive injection of liquidity temporarily salved the day-to-day operations of banks, but they did not repair what ailed our financial institutions. Indeed, pouring billions into nearly identical management teams that mismanaged the risk, over-leveraged exposure, and drove banks off the cliff in the first place was an invitation for another crisis.
And that crisis now appears to be arriving. And, its our own fault.
Read more awfulness in the article.
El-Erian: European Banks are in Major Trouble
Pimco’s Mohamed El-Erian says Europe could be thrown into a banking (NYSE:KBE) crisis. “(There) are signs of an institutional run on French (NYSE:EWQ) banks. If it persists, the banks would have no choice but to de-lever their balance sheets in a very drastic and disorderly fashion,” reports the Financial Times.
“There has been a significant increase in the financial requirements of international intervention,” El-Erian said. “You need a lot more firepower in order to be a circuit breaker. Look at how much the ECB has put in and ask yourself the question: has it created a circuit breaker? The answer is no, even though the amounts involved have been massive.”
Read more in the article.
Europe’s banks could be in big trouble
On August 28th the IMF’s new chief Christine Lagarde was bombarded with criticism after she insisted that Europe’s weakest banks need urgent recapitalization in order to curb contagion in the euro crisis. Her main critics were ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet and European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn, who countered that Europe’s banks do not need liquidity or fresh capital. However, developments over the past month overwhelmingly support Ms Lagarde’s assertion. In both the peripheral and the core countries, European banks could really be in big trouble.
Mr Trichet and Mr Rehn’s main argument why European banks are reasonably healthy relies mainly on the stress tests that were conducted just over a month ago by the European Banking Authority (EBA). According to these stress tests, only nine out of 91 banks would see their Core Tier I Capital ratio fall under 5% under the stressed scenario. Mr Rehn has repeatedly highlighted that those banks that failed the stress tests are in the process of raising their capital levels by October anyhow. However, the assumptions made in the adverse scenario of the stress tests were a joke. For the most part, the adverse scenario conditions have already come to fruition and in some cases they have been surpassed. Furthermore, the banks did not reveal any of their risk weightings, making the stress test results difficult to interpret.
There have been several developments over the past month that support Ms Lagarde’s insistence that European banks need to be proactively recapitalized. Just looking at data from this week alone offers cause for concern. Bank stocks led the collapse of European stock indices on Monday, falling by 5-12%. (Deutsche Bank shares fell by 8% in a single day, Credit Suisse by 8.8% and UniCredit by 7.4%). Also on Monday, the ECB reported that it holds €166.8bn in its bank deposit facility, up by €15bn compared with the previous week and the highest amount since August 2010.
Read more in the article.
Stress Test Reveals European Banks Need More Capital
European regulators on Thursday told many of the region’s biggest banks, including Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, to raise more capital as signs mounted that the European sovereign debt crisis might worsen.
With the region’s leaders gathering in Brussels in their latest bid to shore up the euro, the European Banking Authority announced that over all, banks needed to raise 114.7 billion euros ($152.7 billion) in the event the debt crisis was not resolved soon. That was more than the estimate of 106 billion euros in October.
The banking authority’s assessment showed that banks in Germany, Italy and Spain would have to raise more capital than previously thought, while banks in France had all they needed. In all, the stress tests showed that 31 of 71 banks needed stronger reserves.
Read more in the article.
According to Bob Chapman at Infowars.com:
In Europe the past few weeks have been disastrous. Confidence continues to erode as the plunge protection team holds up markets and attacks gold and silver. Greece continues in a standoff until there are February elections. If there are no elections nothing will ensue in a big way. Greece refuses to reduce sovereign debt and take any more austerity cuts. What all these masters of the universe don’t understand, or want to understand, is that Greek debt, in fact almost all debt, is unrepayable. What all governments have done by raising massive amounts of debt has frozen the productive private sector out of the market. The exceptions are AAA rated companies, almost of which just happen to be Illuminist run. Government spending is generally non-productive.
Not only are European banks shockingly near collapse, but the outlook for American banks is also frightening.
Number of Problem Banks in America Nears 1,000
Two and a half years after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the number of banks that are still facing serious financial problems continues to rise, and is now nearing the four digits. According to Calculated Risk, the number of banks in the U.S. that are in danger of failing hit 985 last week, the highest level since the beginning of the financial crisis. That’s up from 935 at the beginning of the year, just three months ago. When Calculated Risk began compiling its list of troubled banks back in mid-2009, the number of banks in trouble in the US was just under 400. In a little less than two years, nearly 600 additional banks have slipped into the danger zone. (That’s on top of the few hundred that have actually failed.) And that number appears to be getting bigger.
Read more in the article.
Big Banks: Under-Capitalized, Overexposed, Opaque
The US banking sector is not healthy.
There is a fundamental misunderstanding about the Wall Street bailouts amongst the public, and quite a few policy makers at Treasury and the Federal Reserve: Somehow, they “fixed” the banking system. All it took was few trillion dollars in liquidity and a few $100 billion dollars in recapitalization, and all is now fine (I suspect some people at the Fed know the Truth).
In fact, they did nothing of the sort. The banking system was not saved; The massive injection of liquidity temporarily salved the day-to-day operations of banks, but they did not repair what ailed our financial institutions. Indeed, pouring billions into nearly identical management teams that mismanaged the risk, over-leveraged exposure, and drove banks off the cliff in the first place was an invitation for another crisis.
And that crisis now appears to be arriving. And, its our own fault.
Read more awfulness in the article.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Jim Sensenbrenner, Wisconsin Congressman, Says Michelle Obama Has A 'Large Posterior'
In today's edition of Outrageous And Unfounded Insults, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has decided to question Michelle Obama's body shape.
MediaBistro reports that Sensenbrenner was overheard talking on the phone, retelling an incident in which he said about Michelle Obama:
"She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself."
The most bothersome issue here is the conflation of two entirely separate matters: the First Lady's (natural) physique and her campaign for healthy eating and physical fitness.
Here.
MediaBistro reports that Sensenbrenner was overheard talking on the phone, retelling an incident in which he said about Michelle Obama:
"She lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself."
The most bothersome issue here is the conflation of two entirely separate matters: the First Lady's (natural) physique and her campaign for healthy eating and physical fitness.
Here.
Conservative universe mad at Congressional Repugs
Most of the House of Representatives left for the holidays yesterday after House Republicans rejected a bipartisan Senate compromise to extend the payroll tax cut that is expiring at the end of the year. Several Republican senators took the House GOP to task, with Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) calling the House’s action “irresponsible and wrong,” while Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said the standoff is “harming the Republican party.”
Now their concern has migrated into the wider conservative movement.
Allowing the payroll tax cut to expire would, according to several economic analyses, knock a substantial amount off of U.S. GDP growth next year and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. While House Republicans claim that they are actually interested in extending the tax cut, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) assigned members who oppose the cut entirely to negotiate with the Senate.
Here.
Now their concern has migrated into the wider conservative movement.
Allowing the payroll tax cut to expire would, according to several economic analyses, knock a substantial amount off of U.S. GDP growth next year and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. While House Republicans claim that they are actually interested in extending the tax cut, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) assigned members who oppose the cut entirely to negotiate with the Senate.
Here.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Facebookin' Libertarian Assassination Proponent To Change Name
I haven't verified yet if this is a true story, or is some kinda satire, so for not, take this post with a healthy dose of skepticism.
California Libertarian and Tea Party activist Jules Manson has decided to change his name after a surprise visit from the Secret Service due to his call to assassinate President Obama and his family. Wrote Mr. Manson on his Facebook page:
"Assassinate the fuken (sic) nigger and his monkey children."
Mr. Manson said today that he was very, very sorry and that obviously his name conjures up negative emotions.
"With a name like that, people automatically expect you to be a violent, murderous freak and weirdo. So I'm changing "Jules" to "Jim."
http://konajournal.blogspot.com/2011/12/libertarian-jules-manson-to-change-name.html?showComment=1324417354262#c5374803763774488964
California Libertarian and Tea Party activist Jules Manson has decided to change his name after a surprise visit from the Secret Service due to his call to assassinate President Obama and his family. Wrote Mr. Manson on his Facebook page:
"Assassinate the fuken (sic) nigger and his monkey children."
Mr. Manson said today that he was very, very sorry and that obviously his name conjures up negative emotions.
"With a name like that, people automatically expect you to be a violent, murderous freak and weirdo. So I'm changing "Jules" to "Jim."
http://konajournal.blogspot.com/2011/12/libertarian-jules-manson-to-change-name.html?showComment=1324417354262#c5374803763774488964
Monday, December 19, 2011
Facebookin' Libertarian Calls For The Assassination Of O'Bama
Facebook faux pas: California libertarian and Tea Party darling Jules Manson is caught calling for the assassination of President Barack Obama and his children.
On Sunday, many Facebook users were greeted by the shocking spectacle of a California libertarian and Ron Paul supporter by the name of Jules Manson advocating for the assassination of President Barack Obama. Manson, a failed politician, recently ran for and lost a seat on the City of Carson’s City Council last March.
FBI, Please prosecute this jerkwad to the fullest!
More: http://www.examiner.com/democrat-in-national/california-politician-advocates-assassination-of-obama-and-family
American Militant Extremists
Do homegrown terrorists pose a threat to the United States?
Yes. The September 11 attacks—the biggest and deadliest terrorist plot ever executed in the United States—were carried out by foreigners, but Americans were responsible for about three-quarters of the 335 incidents between 1980 and 2000 that the FBI has classified as suspected or confirmed terrorism. The most notorious example of domestic terrorism is the April 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people and injured more than 500.
Is domestic terrorism a new phenomenon?
No. It has existed for more than a century and even resulted in the assassination of an American president. Extremists across the political spectrum—including white supremacists, Puerto Rican separatists, abortion opponents, and environmentalists—have used a variety of terrorist tactics to pursue their goals. Experts say domestic terrorism is becoming more dangerous as groups adopt looser organizational structures similar to that of the al-Qaeda network, plan larger attacks, and consider turning to weapons of mass destruction.
What is domestic terrorism?
Just as differing definitions of terrorism are offered by government agencies and other experts, so the meaning of domestic terrorism is also hard to pin down. The FBI, the lead federal agency dealing with domestic terrorism, has defined it as “the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or its territories without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” The U.S.A. Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks, defines domestic terrorism as criminal acts that are “dangerous to human life” and seem to be meant to scare civilians or affect policy. Civil rights groups have expressed concern that this definition is overly broad.
Not all politically motivated violence qualifies as terrorism (for instance, the FBI and some terrorism experts did not regard the Unabomber, who says his antimodern beliefs were behind a 17-year mail-bombing campaign, as a terrorist), nor do all groups that espouse extremist ideas turn to terrorist acts. Experts do not consider all political assassinations or hate crimes to be terrorist attacks, and some critics note that politics often helps determine what gets labeled domestic terrorism as opposed to criminal activity.
More here
Right-wing militants accused of biological terrorist attack plot
The FBI, on Tuesday, arrested four men in Georgia, on allegations of attempting biological terrorist attack on the United States. The U.S. Justice Department says the men were planning to buy explosives and produce a biological toxin weapon.
A Reuters report identifies the accused men as Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga.; Dan Roberts, 67, of Toccoa, Ga.; Ray H. Adams, 65, of Toccoa; and Samuel J. Crump, 68, of Toccoa.
FBI says the men were going to use a naturally occurring protein called ricin as major component of their weapon. The major targets of the men were Georgia police, federal government buildings and employees of federal government agencies such as the IRS.
Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/313761#ixzz1h0xmnDFA
A Reuters report identifies the accused men as Frederick Thomas, 73, of Cleveland, Ga.; Dan Roberts, 67, of Toccoa, Ga.; Ray H. Adams, 65, of Toccoa; and Samuel J. Crump, 68, of Toccoa.
FBI says the men were going to use a naturally occurring protein called ricin as major component of their weapon. The major targets of the men were Georgia police, federal government buildings and employees of federal government agencies such as the IRS.
Read more: http://digitaljournal.com/article/313761#ixzz1h0xmnDFA
Militant Extremists In The USA
The January 2011 shootings--in which a lone gunman killed six people at a Tucson, Arizona, shopping center--served as a reminder of the threat posed by militant extremism in the United States. Similar acts of violence in the last few years--such as the suicide plane crash into an IRS building in Texas and the 2009 shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum--have brought renewed attention to the dangers posed by fringe political extremism. Although the frequency of these types of attacks has decreased in recent years, "lone wolf" violence is on the rise. The FBI is particularly concerned by such threats because they are performed by individuals who are unaffiliated with any larger movement and are, therefore, hard to detect. As with the case of Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner, it is difficult for authorities to determine whether such an act of violence falls under the legal definition of "domestic terrorism," a determination that invokes much harsher sentencing guidelines. Some experts criticize a lack of consistency in the way U.S. domestic terrorism laws are applied, which can lead to dissimilar procedures and outcomes for similar cases.
Much more here.
Much more here.
Thomas Jefferson Weeps As Virginia Is The Home Base For The War On Science
In every country there are segments of the population that are responsible for causing shame and humiliation on a national scale. Americans have plenty of reasons to feel shame as of late whether it is the Republican’s drive to kill jobs and impoverish the entire population or groups of science-denying dolts who rely on myth and superstition to solve the most pressing environmental problems. The war on science, and especially climate science, has established Virginia as a permanent insane asylum, where denying climate change has become a religion and its adherents little more than blind disciples of stupidity. It is remarkable that Virginia should lead the fight against established science because Thomas Jefferson established a university based on science as a rejection of religion-based curriculum prevalent in Virginia at the end of the 18th century. Jefferson could never have imagined that in the 21st century, his home state would lead the nation in reverting to Dark Age sensibilities.
Virginia, home to the nation’s first university to offer academic programs in, now common, disciplines such as astronomy and philosophy, as well as a school of engineering and applied science, was the first engineering school in the United States to be part of a comprehensive university. There is a vocal group of teabagger affiliates who are protesting preparations for climate-related sea-level rise, and in keeping with proven teabag tactics, have disrupted meetings where geologists, climate scientists, and planning commissioners proposed rezoning land for use as a dike against rising water. Sometimes, stupidity just overrides common sense and careful planning regardless the benefit to those screaming and disrupting planning commission meetings and it informs that when superstition, suspicion, and conspiracy theory intersect, the result is a certainty of impending disaster.
The group opposed to planning ahead to prevent the effects of rising sea levels from devastating the surrounding land mass focused their rage against the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission because they don’t think climate change is accelerated by human activity, as most climate scientists conclude. The group opposed to rezoning land sees the planners of using a trick to take their property and cite a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States. The main opponents of rezoning efforts are a teabagger affiliate with 7,000 members called the Virginia Campaign for Liberty. The group’s leader, Donna Holt said, “Environmentalists have always had an agenda to put nature above man. If they can find an end to their means, they don’t care how it happens. If they can do it under the guise of global warming and climate change, they will do it.” Conspiracy theorists and stupidity are not associated with the United States Navy that has taken rising sea levels to heart, and Naval Station Norfolk is replacing 14 piers at $60 million each to keep ship-repair facilities above sea level and working.
More here.
Virginia, home to the nation’s first university to offer academic programs in, now common, disciplines such as astronomy and philosophy, as well as a school of engineering and applied science, was the first engineering school in the United States to be part of a comprehensive university. There is a vocal group of teabagger affiliates who are protesting preparations for climate-related sea-level rise, and in keeping with proven teabag tactics, have disrupted meetings where geologists, climate scientists, and planning commissioners proposed rezoning land for use as a dike against rising water. Sometimes, stupidity just overrides common sense and careful planning regardless the benefit to those screaming and disrupting planning commission meetings and it informs that when superstition, suspicion, and conspiracy theory intersect, the result is a certainty of impending disaster.
The group opposed to planning ahead to prevent the effects of rising sea levels from devastating the surrounding land mass focused their rage against the Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission because they don’t think climate change is accelerated by human activity, as most climate scientists conclude. The group opposed to rezoning land sees the planners of using a trick to take their property and cite a United Nations environmental action plan adopted in 1992 as a shadowy global conspiracy to grab land and redistribute wealth in the United States. The main opponents of rezoning efforts are a teabagger affiliate with 7,000 members called the Virginia Campaign for Liberty. The group’s leader, Donna Holt said, “Environmentalists have always had an agenda to put nature above man. If they can find an end to their means, they don’t care how it happens. If they can do it under the guise of global warming and climate change, they will do it.” Conspiracy theorists and stupidity are not associated with the United States Navy that has taken rising sea levels to heart, and Naval Station Norfolk is replacing 14 piers at $60 million each to keep ship-repair facilities above sea level and working.
More here.
Medical Professionals Lead Fight for Single-Payer Healthcare
The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $8,160 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 50 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.
This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.
More here.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, December 9, 2011
GOP, Biz Groups Can't Find a Single 'Job Creator" Who Opposes Millionaire's Tax
Yesterday, Republicans again shot down an extension of a payroll tax break for middle-class families due to their objection to a 1.9 percent tax increase on the top 0.2 percent of income earners. Naturally, Republicans are recycling their spurious claim that taxing America’s millionaires will somehow hit small businesses and stifle job creation. “It’s just intuitive that, you know, if you’re somebody who’s in business and you get hit with a tax increase, it’s going to be that much harder, I think, to make investments that are going to lead to job creation,” said Sen. John Thune (R-SD).
Hoping for more than Thune’s intuition, NPR put out a request to Republican offices and the business groups that have been lobbying against the surtax to find business owners who’d be affected. Unsurprisingly, Republican leadership and the business groups came up empty.
Here.
GOPers Scramble to Change Alabama's Immigration Law After White People Are Inconvenienced
Did you know that there are non-brown furriners in these here United States? True story!
Faced with backlash over the detainment of two (non-brown) foreign auto employees, two architects of Alabama’s tough immigration law say they are having second thoughts about the law.
The Republican attorney general is calling for some of the strictest parts of it to be repealed. Some Republican lawmakers say they now want to make changes in the law that was pushed quickly through the legislature.
Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the law, said he's contacting foreign executives to tell them they and their companies are still welcome in Alabama. The moves comes following backlash from big business after the embarrassing traffic stops of two foreign employees tied to the state's prized Honda and Mercedes plants.
Here.
Faced with backlash over the detainment of two (non-brown) foreign auto employees, two architects of Alabama’s tough immigration law say they are having second thoughts about the law.
The Republican attorney general is calling for some of the strictest parts of it to be repealed. Some Republican lawmakers say they now want to make changes in the law that was pushed quickly through the legislature.
Gov. Robert Bentley, who signed the law, said he's contacting foreign executives to tell them they and their companies are still welcome in Alabama. The moves comes following backlash from big business after the embarrassing traffic stops of two foreign employees tied to the state's prized Honda and Mercedes plants.
Here.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Rick Perry Wears Brokeback Mountain Jacket In Anti-Gay Advert
Is he coming out soon, like so many rabidly anti-gay Republicans have done?
Monday, December 5, 2011
Republican Party Is Getting The Candidates It Deserves
There are two crucial things you need to understand about the current state of American politics. First, given the still dire economic situation, 2012 should be a year of Republican triumph. Second, the G.O.P. may nonetheless snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — because Herman Cain was not an accident.
Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year — and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!).
And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.
So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or to be totally clueless.
More
Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year — and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!).
And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.
So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or to be totally clueless.
More
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Euro Crisis May Pack U.S. Banks With Deposits They Can’t Use
I got a great idea for banks to use all that money: Make some friggin' loans! Help America's economy! America certainly helped their economies!
The European debt crisis is poised to flood U.S. banks with something they don’t want and can’t use: more money.
Cash held by U.S. banks surged 8.4 percent to a record $981 billion during the week ending July 27, the Federal Reserve said in an Aug. 5 report. That’s more than triple the amount firms had in July 2008, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. almost froze bank-to-bank lending.
Even more money may be deposited with U.S. lenders if investors pull away from European banks amid concern the Greek debt crisis may spread to Italy or beyond, said Brian Smedley, a strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. Those funds may not be so welcome: With few opportunities to lend them out profitably, U.S. firms may have to slap fees on depositors to keep returns from eroding.
“It becomes a loser to hold these excess deposits,” said Bert Ely, a bank-industry consultant in Alexandria, Virginia. “At the margin they have to think, ‘What can we do with $50 million of deposits?’ The answer is not much.”
More here.
The European debt crisis is poised to flood U.S. banks with something they don’t want and can’t use: more money.
Cash held by U.S. banks surged 8.4 percent to a record $981 billion during the week ending July 27, the Federal Reserve said in an Aug. 5 report. That’s more than triple the amount firms had in July 2008, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. almost froze bank-to-bank lending.
Even more money may be deposited with U.S. lenders if investors pull away from European banks amid concern the Greek debt crisis may spread to Italy or beyond, said Brian Smedley, a strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York. Those funds may not be so welcome: With few opportunities to lend them out profitably, U.S. firms may have to slap fees on depositors to keep returns from eroding.
“It becomes a loser to hold these excess deposits,” said Bert Ely, a bank-industry consultant in Alexandria, Virginia. “At the margin they have to think, ‘What can we do with $50 million of deposits?’ The answer is not much.”
More here.
The Media Wakes Up And Realizes Obama Is The Favorite To Win In 2012
Along with a declining unemployment rate, new polling suggests that President Obama is gaining steam and the media narrative is now shifting towards Obama being favored to win reelection in 2012.
More here.
More here.
GOP Supercommittee Member Admits Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Create Jobs, Can’t Explain Why
Republicans this week filibustered a Democratic plan to extend a soon-to-expire payroll tax cut, objecting to the fact that the extension was paid for by implementing a small surtax on income in excess of $1 million. To justify their objection to taxing the wealthy, Republicans have revived their false claimthat taxing the rich amounts to taxing small business owners and job creators.
Bloomberg’s Al Hunt asked Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) — who represented the GOP on the fiscal supercommittee that failed to craft a deficit reduction package — to explain this viewpoint, considering that more jobs were created under the Clinton administration and its higher taxes on the rich than were created following the Bush tax cuts. Upton admitted that “I don’t know specifically the answer to that question,” nonsensically pointing to Friday’s jobs report instead of trying to argue the premise of Hunt’s question.
Read it here.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Monday, November 21, 2011
Ron Paul Suggests We’d Be ‘Better Off’ Without The Civil Rights Act
An old story, but worth repeating to serve as a reminder of how batschyt-crazy this guy is.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/14/166276/ron-paul-civil-rights-act/
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/05/14/166276/ron-paul-civil-rights-act/
Rep. Paul Ryan Votes Against Balanced Budget Amendment Because It Doesn’t Ruin The Constitution Enough
Earlier this afternoon, just 261 members of the House voted in favor of a balanced budget amendment — far fewer that the two-thirds majority necessary for the amendment to move forward. One somewhat surprising “no” vote was House Budget Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan is the House GOP’s chief Chicken Little on the deficit — Ryan spent the last two years of his life running around the country warning that the sky would fall unless we phase out Medicare and enact a long list of equally draconian budget reforms.
Yet, today, when Chicken Little had the opportunity to write a balanced budget amendment into the Constitution, he ran away screaming that the amendment wouldn’t do enough to transform the Constitution into a Tea Party fantasy.
More here.
Yet, today, when Chicken Little had the opportunity to write a balanced budget amendment into the Constitution, he ran away screaming that the amendment wouldn’t do enough to transform the Constitution into a Tea Party fantasy.
More here.
Herman Cain Says He Was Relieved When Doctor Who Treated Him Was A Christian
Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain on Friday said he was initially uncomfortable when assigned a surgeon with a foreign name. Cain expressed his concern during an appearance at the Holy Land Experience, a Biblically-themed amusement park in Orlando, telling the audience that a surgeon who had once treated him for cancer was named "Dr. Abdallah."
"I said to his physician assistant, I said, 'That sounds foreign, not that I had anything against foreign doctors, but it sounded too foreign," said Cain to the audience, according to Yahoo! News. "She said, 'He's from Lebanon.' Oh, Lebanon! My mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine! She could see the look on my face and she said, 'Don't worry, Mr. Cain, he's a Christian from Lebanon."
"Hallelujah!" said Cain. "Thank God!"
More embarrassment here.
"I said to his physician assistant, I said, 'That sounds foreign, not that I had anything against foreign doctors, but it sounded too foreign," said Cain to the audience, according to Yahoo! News. "She said, 'He's from Lebanon.' Oh, Lebanon! My mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine! She could see the look on my face and she said, 'Don't worry, Mr. Cain, he's a Christian from Lebanon."
"Hallelujah!" said Cain. "Thank God!"
More embarrassment here.
Law firm That Hosted Foreclosure Costume Party To Layoff One-Third Of Employees
BUFFALO, N.Y. — An embattled New York foreclosure law firm that was criticized for a Halloween party that mocked the homeless and was recently shunned by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will close.
A statement issued Monday originally said Steven J. Baum P.C. filed notice of mass layoffs with state labor officials but did not mention closing.
Firm spokesman Earl Wells confirms it will shut down completely. In a statement, Baum says the firm will fulfill its remaining work.
Here.
I guess some of the peeps that thought it was 'funny' to make fun of people being thrown out of their homes might find out first hand how 'funny' it isn't.
A statement issued Monday originally said Steven J. Baum P.C. filed notice of mass layoffs with state labor officials but did not mention closing.
Firm spokesman Earl Wells confirms it will shut down completely. In a statement, Baum says the firm will fulfill its remaining work.
Here.
I guess some of the peeps that thought it was 'funny' to make fun of people being thrown out of their homes might find out first hand how 'funny' it isn't.
Bashin' Noot
George Will: “It is an amazingly efficient candidacy in that in embodies everything disagreeable about modern Washington,” Will (whose wife consults for Rick Perry) said, running through a long list of problems he had with Gingrich. He also mocked Gingrich's explanation that Freddie Mac had given him over a million dollars to be a "historian" for the company. "He's not a historian!" Will snapped. Later, he piled on more, saying Gingrich was guilty of "absurd rhetorical grandiosity."
Paul Krugman: "The Republican base does not want Romney, and they keep on looking for an alternative," he said. "And Newt, although somebody said he's a stupid man's idea of what a smart man sounds like, but he is more plausible than the other guys that they've been pushing up."
More hilarity here.
Paul Krugman: "The Republican base does not want Romney, and they keep on looking for an alternative," he said. "And Newt, although somebody said he's a stupid man's idea of what a smart man sounds like, but he is more plausible than the other guys that they've been pushing up."
More hilarity here.
Repugs Still Want To Screw With Social Security
They just have to mess with a successful financial lifeline, rather than work to ensure its continued viability.
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich is telling college students that he would let them use their payroll taxes to fund private retirement accounts instead of putting the money into Social Security, if they want to.
Younger workers could also opt to stay in the Social Security system.
Gingrich says his proposal would let those workers decide what to do with their money and how to save for retirement.
He says private accounts are likely to perform better than Social Security, even in grim economic times.
Stocks had plunged several hundred points by midday as a special committee in Washington appeared ready to declare failure in its attempt to agree on trimming the federal budget deficit.
More here.
Gingrich is yet another Repug that wants stock brokers to get rich on our retirement.
MANCHESTER, N.H. — Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich is telling college students that he would let them use their payroll taxes to fund private retirement accounts instead of putting the money into Social Security, if they want to.
Younger workers could also opt to stay in the Social Security system.
Gingrich says his proposal would let those workers decide what to do with their money and how to save for retirement.
He says private accounts are likely to perform better than Social Security, even in grim economic times.
Stocks had plunged several hundred points by midday as a special committee in Washington appeared ready to declare failure in its attempt to agree on trimming the federal budget deficit.
More here.
Gingrich is yet another Repug that wants stock brokers to get rich on our retirement.
Violent Protests Again In Egypt
CAIRO -- For three days, protesters -- mainly young, urban and secular -- have taken to Tahrir Square, the site of the original uprising that ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak from power in February. Nine days ahead of the national elections scheduled for November 28, almost ceaseless clashes between rock-throwing civilians and riot gear-clad security forces armed with tear gas and rubber bullets have wounded more than 1,000 people and killed more than 24. The central square, once a rallying point for a euphoric people's democratic aspirations, has come to resemble more of a battle zone of national frustrations.
In the months since the revolution, party politics have fractured Egypt's opposition. Many revolutionaries felt that the main goal of the uprising -- to end an autocratic and arbitrary regime -- had not been achieved, since the temporary military junta that took over for Mubarak was prone to much of the same behaviors as before.
More here.
In the months since the revolution, party politics have fractured Egypt's opposition. Many revolutionaries felt that the main goal of the uprising -- to end an autocratic and arbitrary regime -- had not been achieved, since the temporary military junta that took over for Mubarak was prone to much of the same behaviors as before.
More here.
Taxes Lowest Since 1955
Beneath all of the Republican and Tea Party grumbling about taxes, one key fact continues to be ignored. According to the Tax Policy Center, Federal taxes are lower than at any time since 1955. Obama has now reduced taxes by more than any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower.
According to the Orange County Register, “For the past two years, a family of four earning the median income has paid less in federal income taxes than at any time since at least 1955, according to the Tax Policy Center. All federal, state and local taxes combined are a lower percentage of per-capita income than at any time since the 1960s, according to the Tax Foundation. The highest income-tax bracket is its lowest since 1992. At 35 percent, it’s well below the 50 percent mark of much of the 1980s and the 70 percent bracket of the 1970s.”
The problem is that the tax cuts have not promoted economic growth and have caused the federal deficit to explode, “Those lower taxes have helped give the U.S. government the lowest revenues as a percentage of gross domestic product of seven industrialized countries surveyed in 2010 by the Congressional Research Services. (The other countries were Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and France.) The U.S. also had the lowest spending as a percentage of the GDP. But with the biggest gap between revenues (31.6 percent of GDP) and expenditures (42.2 percent of GDP), the U.S. also posted the largest deficit as a percentage of GDP – 10.5 percent.”
More HERE.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Exposing the GOTP's war on the 99%
The Occupy Movement deserves credit for assailing Wall Street and bringing their malfeasance to the public’s attention. It was Wall Street and corporate bankers who tanked the world’s economy because the Bush-Republicans deregulated the financial industry and then bailed them out with taxpayer money and it is incumbent on Democrats to remind Americans that the economy would not be in the shape it is in without Republicans’ assistance. Indeed, Republicans are frantic to repeal the financial reform Democrats passed so corporate banking interests and Wall Street can revert to their Bush-era tactics of gaming the system to enrich themselves and their wealthy investors. Paul Ryan claimed President Obama should stop promoting his job creation plan and work with Republicans, but Republicans are on a path to repeat the Bush-era mistakes that put our economy in the shape it is in. If anything, the President should ramp up the pressure on Republicans and their policies that promote the income inequality the Occupy Movement opposes.
Republicans have controlled the House for ten months, and have made absolutely no effort to grow the economy or create jobs, but their spending cuts killed jobs and they have fought tirelessly to give more entitlements to corporations, the wealthy, and the oil industry; they have no intentions of changing course regardless the will of the American people or their continued downward spiral into poverty. Republicans can claim the wonders of America and the opportunity for upward mobility for all Americans, but for once, their rhetoric is being met with opposition from Americans who see no opportunity to make economic progress as long as the wealthiest 1% holds most of the wealth and all of the advantages.
It may well be that the Occupy Movement was instrumental in bringing income and wealth inequality into the public’s consciousness, but it is up to President Obama and Democrats to build on that momentum and hammer Republicans for their efforts to grow and perpetuate the gap between the 1% and the rest of America. Paul Ryan, the Heritage Foundation, and Republicans will continue to claim the President is encouraging class warfare by advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy, “pushing a divisive message that pits one group of Americans against another on the basis of class,” and traveling around the country to promote his jobs plan, but they are losing the message war and making matters worse for themselves every time they claim America is an upwardly mobile society and that there are no class distinctions in America.
There is a definite distinction between the 1% and the rest of America, and the Occupy Movement has highlighted that distinction admirably. Republicans cannot win this stage of the war because now the entire country is aware of the devastating results of inordinately awarding so much wealth and the country’s resources to a miniscule percentage of society at the expense of 99% of Americans. The Occupy Movement has started the proverbial ball rolling and it is up to President Obama, Democrats, and the American people to pound Republicans for their complicities in ending upward mobility in America and sending millions of Americans into poverty.
MORE
Republicans have controlled the House for ten months, and have made absolutely no effort to grow the economy or create jobs, but their spending cuts killed jobs and they have fought tirelessly to give more entitlements to corporations, the wealthy, and the oil industry; they have no intentions of changing course regardless the will of the American people or their continued downward spiral into poverty. Republicans can claim the wonders of America and the opportunity for upward mobility for all Americans, but for once, their rhetoric is being met with opposition from Americans who see no opportunity to make economic progress as long as the wealthiest 1% holds most of the wealth and all of the advantages.
It may well be that the Occupy Movement was instrumental in bringing income and wealth inequality into the public’s consciousness, but it is up to President Obama and Democrats to build on that momentum and hammer Republicans for their efforts to grow and perpetuate the gap between the 1% and the rest of America. Paul Ryan, the Heritage Foundation, and Republicans will continue to claim the President is encouraging class warfare by advocating for higher taxes on the wealthy, “pushing a divisive message that pits one group of Americans against another on the basis of class,” and traveling around the country to promote his jobs plan, but they are losing the message war and making matters worse for themselves every time they claim America is an upwardly mobile society and that there are no class distinctions in America.
There is a definite distinction between the 1% and the rest of America, and the Occupy Movement has highlighted that distinction admirably. Republicans cannot win this stage of the war because now the entire country is aware of the devastating results of inordinately awarding so much wealth and the country’s resources to a miniscule percentage of society at the expense of 99% of Americans. The Occupy Movement has started the proverbial ball rolling and it is up to President Obama, Democrats, and the American people to pound Republicans for their complicities in ending upward mobility in America and sending millions of Americans into poverty.
MORE
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Quan Pulls 180, Allows Occupy Oakland to Stay
Jean Quan is the mayor of Oakland, but she doesn't call all the shots.
That was the message the city's chief executive delivered in the wake of Tuesday's violent police eviction of the Occupy Oakland encampment in front of City Hall, in which an Iraq War veteran was severely injured by a police projectile.
"I don't know everything," she told reporters, after completing a flip-flop on the city's stance towards the Occupy protesters, who will now be allowed to stay.
Not that the protesters needed a mayoral invitation. Prior to Quan's pronouncement, protesters had returned in force less than 24 hours after their eviction, tearing down a cyclone fence that was erected to block off Frank Ogawa Plaza, and setting up tents and laying down sleeping bags.
The protesters say they will assemble peacefully, and have called for a citywide strike on Nov. 2. By Thursday afternoon tents were back up in Frank Ogawa Plaza and even a makeshift shrine to the injured soldier was built.
Meanwhile, doctors said the condition of Scott Olsen, the Marine veteran who suffered a fractured skull, was improving but still serious.
NBC
That was the message the city's chief executive delivered in the wake of Tuesday's violent police eviction of the Occupy Oakland encampment in front of City Hall, in which an Iraq War veteran was severely injured by a police projectile.
"I don't know everything," she told reporters, after completing a flip-flop on the city's stance towards the Occupy protesters, who will now be allowed to stay.
Not that the protesters needed a mayoral invitation. Prior to Quan's pronouncement, protesters had returned in force less than 24 hours after their eviction, tearing down a cyclone fence that was erected to block off Frank Ogawa Plaza, and setting up tents and laying down sleeping bags.
The protesters say they will assemble peacefully, and have called for a citywide strike on Nov. 2. By Thursday afternoon tents were back up in Frank Ogawa Plaza and even a makeshift shrine to the injured soldier was built.
Meanwhile, doctors said the condition of Scott Olsen, the Marine veteran who suffered a fractured skull, was improving but still serious.
NBC
Wall Street Isn't Winning – It's Cheating
"I hear [Occupy Wall Street] has a CFO," he said. "I think that's funny."
"Okay, I'll bite," I said. "Why is that funny?"
"Well, I heard they're trying to decide what bank to put their money in," he said, munching on hors d'oeuvres. "It's just kind of ironic."
Oh, Christ, I thought. He’s saying the protesters are hypocrites because they’re using banks. I sighed.
"Listen," I said, "where else are you going to put three hundred thousand dollars? A shopping bag?"
"Well," he said, "it's just, they're protests are all about... You know..."
"Dude," I said. "These people aren't protesting money. They're not protesting banking. They're protesting corruption on Wall Street."
"Whatever," he said, shrugging.
These nutty criticisms of the protests are spreading like cancer.
Rolling Stone
We are all Scott Olsen
Late last night, Scott Olsen, a former Marine, two-time Iraq war veteran, and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, sustained a skull fracture after being shot in the head with a police projectile while peacefully participating in an Occupy Oakland march. He remains unconscious in critical condition at Oakland's Highland Hospital.
Olsen was hit at close range. After demonstrators rush to Olsen's aid, an Oakland cop waits a few beats before lobbing a second tear-gas canister at the crowd. They are attending to Olsen when the canister explodes, sending smoke everywhere.
OWS
Olsen was hit at close range. After demonstrators rush to Olsen's aid, an Oakland cop waits a few beats before lobbing a second tear-gas canister at the crowd. They are attending to Olsen when the canister explodes, sending smoke everywhere.
OWS
Solidarity with Oakland | Exposing Police Lies
Tuesday evening, and throughout the night, the city of Oakland and its police department continued their crusade against free assembly. Protesters who went to reoccupy the space at the Oakland Library were met with heavily armed riot police, with tear gas, with rubber bullets and with flashbang grenades.
OWS
OWS
Solidarity Statement From Cairo
To all those in the United States currently occupying parks, squares and other spaces, your comrades in Cairo are watching you in solidarity. Having received so much advice from you about transitioning to democracy, we thought it's our turn to pass on some advice.
Indeed, we are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call “The Arab Spring” has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism (yes, we said it, capitalism): a System that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhabitants. As the interests of government increasingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transnational capital, our cities and homes have become progressively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic development or urban renewal scheme.
An entire generation across the globe has grown up realizing, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things. Living under structural adjustment policies and the supposed expertise of international organizations like the World Bank and IMF, we watched as our resources, industries and public services were sold off and dismantled as the “free market” pushed an addiction to foreign goods, to foreign food even. The profits and benefits of those freed markets went elsewhere, while Egypt and other countries in the South found their immiseration reinforced by a massive increase in police repression and torture.
The current crisis in America and Western Europe has begun to bring this reality home to you as well: that as things stand we will all work ourselves raw, our backs broken by personal debt and public austerity. Not content with carving out the remnants of the public sphere and the welfare state, capitalism and the austerity-state now even attack the private realm and people's right to decent dwelling as thousands of foreclosed-upon homeowners find themselves both homeless and indebted to the banks who have forced them on to the streets.
So we stand with you not just in your attempts to bring down the old but to experiment with the new. We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? We are occupying. We are reclaiming those same spaces of public practice that have been commodified, privatized and locked into the hands of faceless bureaucracy , real estate portfolios, and police ‘protection’. Hold on to these spaces, nurture them, and let the boundaries of your occupations grow. After all, who built these parks, these plazas, these buildings? Whose labor made them real and livable? Why should it seem so natural that they should be withheld from us, policed and disciplined? Reclaiming these spaces and managing them justly and collectively is proof enough of our legitimacy.
In our own occupations of Tahrir, we encountered people entering the Square every day in tears because it was the first time they had walked through those streets and spaces without being harassed by police; it is not just the ideas that are important, these spaces are fundamental to the possibility of a new world. These are public spaces. Spaces forgathering, leisure, meeting, and interacting – these spaces should be the reason we live in cities. Where the state and the interests of owners have made them inaccessible, exclusive or dangerous, it is up to us to make sure that they are safe, inclusive and just. We have and must continue to open them to anyone that wants to build a better world, particularly for the marginalized, excluded and for those groups who have suffered the worst .
What you do in these spaces is neither as grandiose and abstract nor as quotidian as “real democracy”; the nascent forms of praxis and social engagement being made in the occupations avoid the empty ideals and stale parliamentarianism that the term democracy has come to represent. And so the occupations must continue, because there is no one left to ask for reform. They must continue because we are creating what we can no longer wait for.
But the ideologies of property and propriety will manifest themselves again. Whether through the overt opposition of property owners or municipalities to your encampments or the more subtle attempts to control space through traffic regulations, anti-camping laws or health and safety rules. There is a direct conflict between what we seek to make of our cities and our spaces and what the law and the systems of policing standing behind it would have us do.
We faced such direct and indirect violence , and continue to face it . Those who said that the Egyptian revolution was peaceful did not see the horrors that police visited upon us, nor did they see the resistance and even force that revolutionaries used against the police to defend their tentative occupations and spaces: by the government's own admission; 99 police stations were put to the torch, thousands of police cars were destroyed, and all of the ruling party's offices around Egypt were burned down. Barricades were erected, officers were beaten back and pelted with rocks even as they fired tear gas and live ammunition on us. But at the end of the day on the 28 th of January they retreated, and we had won our cities.
It is not our desire to participate in violence, but it is even less our desire to lose. If we do not resist, actively, when they come to take what we have won back, then we will surely lose. Do not confuse the tactics that we used when we shouted “peaceful” with fetishizing nonviolence; if the state had given up immediately we would have been overjoyed, but as they sought to abuse us, beat us, kill us, we knew that there was no other option than to fight back. Had we laid down and allowed ourselves to be arrested, tortured, and martyred to “make a point”, we would be no less bloodied, beaten and dead. Be prepared to defend these things you have occupied, that you are building, because, after everything else has been taken from us, these reclaimed spaces are so very precious.
By way of concluding then, our only real advice to you is to continue, keep going and do not stop. Occupy more, find each other, build larger and larger networks and keep discovering new ways to experiment with social life, consensus, and democracy. Discover new ways to use these spaces, discover new ways to hold on to them and never givethem up again. Resist fiercely when you are under attack, but otherwise take pleasure in what you are doing, let it be easy, fun even. We are all watching one another now, and from Cairo we want to say that we are in solidarity with you, and we love you all for what you are doing.
Comrades from Cairo.
24th of October, 2011
OWS
Indeed, we are now in many ways involved in the same struggle. What most pundits call “The Arab Spring” has its roots in the demonstrations, riots, strikes and occupations taking place all around the world, its foundations lie in years-long struggles by people and popular movements. The moment that we find ourselves in is nothing new, as we in Egypt and others have been fighting against systems of repression, disenfranchisement and the unchecked ravages of global capitalism (yes, we said it, capitalism): a System that has made a world that is dangerous and cruel to its inhabitants. As the interests of government increasingly cater to the interests and comforts of private, transnational capital, our cities and homes have become progressively more abstract and violent places, subject to the casual ravages of the next economic development or urban renewal scheme.
An entire generation across the globe has grown up realizing, rationally and emotionally, that we have no future in the current order of things. Living under structural adjustment policies and the supposed expertise of international organizations like the World Bank and IMF, we watched as our resources, industries and public services were sold off and dismantled as the “free market” pushed an addiction to foreign goods, to foreign food even. The profits and benefits of those freed markets went elsewhere, while Egypt and other countries in the South found their immiseration reinforced by a massive increase in police repression and torture.
The current crisis in America and Western Europe has begun to bring this reality home to you as well: that as things stand we will all work ourselves raw, our backs broken by personal debt and public austerity. Not content with carving out the remnants of the public sphere and the welfare state, capitalism and the austerity-state now even attack the private realm and people's right to decent dwelling as thousands of foreclosed-upon homeowners find themselves both homeless and indebted to the banks who have forced them on to the streets.
So we stand with you not just in your attempts to bring down the old but to experiment with the new. We are not protesting. Who is there to protest to? What could we ask them for that they could grant? We are occupying. We are reclaiming those same spaces of public practice that have been commodified, privatized and locked into the hands of faceless bureaucracy , real estate portfolios, and police ‘protection’. Hold on to these spaces, nurture them, and let the boundaries of your occupations grow. After all, who built these parks, these plazas, these buildings? Whose labor made them real and livable? Why should it seem so natural that they should be withheld from us, policed and disciplined? Reclaiming these spaces and managing them justly and collectively is proof enough of our legitimacy.
In our own occupations of Tahrir, we encountered people entering the Square every day in tears because it was the first time they had walked through those streets and spaces without being harassed by police; it is not just the ideas that are important, these spaces are fundamental to the possibility of a new world. These are public spaces. Spaces forgathering, leisure, meeting, and interacting – these spaces should be the reason we live in cities. Where the state and the interests of owners have made them inaccessible, exclusive or dangerous, it is up to us to make sure that they are safe, inclusive and just. We have and must continue to open them to anyone that wants to build a better world, particularly for the marginalized, excluded and for those groups who have suffered the worst .
What you do in these spaces is neither as grandiose and abstract nor as quotidian as “real democracy”; the nascent forms of praxis and social engagement being made in the occupations avoid the empty ideals and stale parliamentarianism that the term democracy has come to represent. And so the occupations must continue, because there is no one left to ask for reform. They must continue because we are creating what we can no longer wait for.
But the ideologies of property and propriety will manifest themselves again. Whether through the overt opposition of property owners or municipalities to your encampments or the more subtle attempts to control space through traffic regulations, anti-camping laws or health and safety rules. There is a direct conflict between what we seek to make of our cities and our spaces and what the law and the systems of policing standing behind it would have us do.
We faced such direct and indirect violence , and continue to face it . Those who said that the Egyptian revolution was peaceful did not see the horrors that police visited upon us, nor did they see the resistance and even force that revolutionaries used against the police to defend their tentative occupations and spaces: by the government's own admission; 99 police stations were put to the torch, thousands of police cars were destroyed, and all of the ruling party's offices around Egypt were burned down. Barricades were erected, officers were beaten back and pelted with rocks even as they fired tear gas and live ammunition on us. But at the end of the day on the 28 th of January they retreated, and we had won our cities.
It is not our desire to participate in violence, but it is even less our desire to lose. If we do not resist, actively, when they come to take what we have won back, then we will surely lose. Do not confuse the tactics that we used when we shouted “peaceful” with fetishizing nonviolence; if the state had given up immediately we would have been overjoyed, but as they sought to abuse us, beat us, kill us, we knew that there was no other option than to fight back. Had we laid down and allowed ourselves to be arrested, tortured, and martyred to “make a point”, we would be no less bloodied, beaten and dead. Be prepared to defend these things you have occupied, that you are building, because, after everything else has been taken from us, these reclaimed spaces are so very precious.
By way of concluding then, our only real advice to you is to continue, keep going and do not stop. Occupy more, find each other, build larger and larger networks and keep discovering new ways to experiment with social life, consensus, and democracy. Discover new ways to use these spaces, discover new ways to hold on to them and never givethem up again. Resist fiercely when you are under attack, but otherwise take pleasure in what you are doing, let it be easy, fun even. We are all watching one another now, and from Cairo we want to say that we are in solidarity with you, and we love you all for what you are doing.
Comrades from Cairo.
24th of October, 2011
OWS
Drumming and the Occupation
The occupation of Liberty Square is a symbol of the growing international movement fighting against neoliberal economic practices, the crimes of Wall Street and the resulting income inequality, unemployment, and oppression of people at the front lines of the economic crisis. More than a week ago we successfully rallied to defend our occupation from eviction. Knowing that the neighborhood we built was important to our movement, occupiers reorganized the space and prepared for eviction defense, community board and local elects pressured Brookfield Properties, and local organizations and unions mobilized their members in defense of Liberty Square. Brookfield and Bloomberg backed down in the face of this joint effort. #ows has international support, and is part of a global movement for economic and social justice that is only just starting to take form. It is within this context that we must drill down, look inward and converse with each other about our actions in this space.
For weeks, occupiers, working groups, individuals from the community board, and neighbors have approached the drummers on the west side of Liberty Square in an effort to involve them in conversations revolving around their constant presence. The drummers have been asked to stop drumming during quiet hours, to not drum during GA, and to allow other music to enter the square. The drummers, who feel that they are bringing rhythm to the revolution and have a voice that must be heard have felt disrespected and disparaged. The situation has been heated. A division grew within the square as well as with our neighbors. On Oct 13th, the General Assembly of Liberty Square passed a resolution to limit drumming times to 2 hours a day, between the hours of 11 and 5 as part of a good neighbor policy. Many drummers rejected this. A group of mediators began to work with the drummers and reached an agreement that they would instead drum for 4 hours per day, from 12pm - 2pm and 4pm - 6pm. The OWS Community Relations team, drummers, mediators, and several local residents from the community board spent weeks listening, building trust, and figuring out ways for drummers to work in solidarity with the occupation. As a result, drumming dropped from consistent 10 + hours a day, but is occurring more than the 2 hours consensed to by the General Assembly, and more then the 4 hours consensed to by the drummers.
In the spirit of consensus and community, mediation is still in process. The working group Pulse has been formed by the drummers and is working to bring forward proposals to the General Assembly of Liberty Square. This issue has been talked about in the park, at the General Assembly, on forums, and emails for weeks. This is an example of how we as a community share space and how we mobilize together to build consensus between all members of a conversation. Drumming has a loud voice in Liberty Square. Pulse is an important piece of our movement - they are integral to marches, morale, and the general mood of energy we have created. But many within Liberty Square feel as though their voice is being drowned out by the drumming, that it has become difficult to have the conversations that they think are important. We have created a small, vibrant and diverse community within the Square - it is natural that some issues would and will arise, but we hope to work together and continue to effect positive change in this place and in this world.
OWS
For weeks, occupiers, working groups, individuals from the community board, and neighbors have approached the drummers on the west side of Liberty Square in an effort to involve them in conversations revolving around their constant presence. The drummers have been asked to stop drumming during quiet hours, to not drum during GA, and to allow other music to enter the square. The drummers, who feel that they are bringing rhythm to the revolution and have a voice that must be heard have felt disrespected and disparaged. The situation has been heated. A division grew within the square as well as with our neighbors. On Oct 13th, the General Assembly of Liberty Square passed a resolution to limit drumming times to 2 hours a day, between the hours of 11 and 5 as part of a good neighbor policy. Many drummers rejected this. A group of mediators began to work with the drummers and reached an agreement that they would instead drum for 4 hours per day, from 12pm - 2pm and 4pm - 6pm. The OWS Community Relations team, drummers, mediators, and several local residents from the community board spent weeks listening, building trust, and figuring out ways for drummers to work in solidarity with the occupation. As a result, drumming dropped from consistent 10 + hours a day, but is occurring more than the 2 hours consensed to by the General Assembly, and more then the 4 hours consensed to by the drummers.
In the spirit of consensus and community, mediation is still in process. The working group Pulse has been formed by the drummers and is working to bring forward proposals to the General Assembly of Liberty Square. This issue has been talked about in the park, at the General Assembly, on forums, and emails for weeks. This is an example of how we as a community share space and how we mobilize together to build consensus between all members of a conversation. Drumming has a loud voice in Liberty Square. Pulse is an important piece of our movement - they are integral to marches, morale, and the general mood of energy we have created. But many within Liberty Square feel as though their voice is being drowned out by the drumming, that it has become difficult to have the conversations that they think are important. We have created a small, vibrant and diverse community within the Square - it is natural that some issues would and will arise, but we hope to work together and continue to effect positive change in this place and in this world.
OWS
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)