New polls show President Obama rising, gaining on the economy against Romney

Read about it HERE.

There 'Ya Go...

Today's TOONS O' TROOTH

Private Prisons Lobby for Harsher Sentences

If you’re looking for one of the reasons why the United States imprisons more people — by miles — than any other nation, you can look to the development of private prisons as a means of making some people rich. Those people spend millions of dollars to lobby elected officials to do two things: Convert government-run prisons to private prisons, and lock up more people for longer periods of time. Because that makes them even richer.

A new study by the Justice Policy Institute reaches exactly that conclu-sion and documents it thoroughly.

Read it HERE.

Bristol Looks Like She's in the Minority on Same-Sex Marriage

THE NEWS: Bristol Palin recently spoke out in opposition to President Barack Obama's views of same-sex marriage. The single mom wrote, "We know that, in general, kids do better growing up in a mother/father home," thereby doing her duty as Tea Party surrogate for her mother, the former vice presidential candidate.

Palin's views notwithstanding, growing numbers of people are voicing their support for same-sex marriage rights.


Read the list HERE.

The Day They Shot Joe Hill They Really Couldn’t Kill Him

This is a fascinating story about an early union pioneer who was railroaded by blind "justice" to stop his influence among workers. 

On November 19, 1915 Utah authorities took Joe Hill from his prison cell, tied him to a strait back chair, blindfolded him and pinned a paper heart on his chest.  Then, in accordance with the local custom a firing squad of five men, four of them with live rounds in their rifles and one with a blank perforated that paper valentine.

No one was better at setting words to popular or sacred songs to use in educating and rousing up workers than Joseph Hillstrom, a Swedish immigrant who drifted into the migratory labor life of the American west shortly after the dawn of the 20th Century.  He joined the Industrial Workers of the World in 1910 and was soon sending songs to IWW papers, including his most famous composition, The Preacher and the Slave, meant to be sung to the music of the Salvation Army bands that were frequently sent to street corners to drown out Wobbly soapbox orators.

Most scholars agree that it was physically impossible for him to have been involved in the robbery or to be shot by the grocer.  The judgment of history is that Joe Hill was framed.  He became a martyr to labor in no small measure because of his Last Words, a letter to IWW General Secretary Treasurer William D. “Big Bill Haywood, “Goodbye Bill. I die like a true blue rebel. Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize… Could you arrange to have my body hauled to the state line to be buried? I don’t want to be found dead in Utah.” That has been shortened as a union motto to “Don’t Mourn Organize.”

More HERE.

Fukushima reactor No. 4 vulnerable to catastrophic collapse; could unleash 85 times Cesium-137 radiation of Chernobyl; human civilization on the brink

The news you are about to read puts everything else in the category of "insignificant" by comparison. Concerned about the 2012 U.S. presidential election? Worried about GMOs? Fluoride? Vaccines? Secret prisons? None of that even matters if we don't solve the problem of Fukushima reactor No. 4, which is on the verge of a catastrophic failure that could unleash enough radiation to end human civilization on our planet. (See the numbers below.) 

The resulting releasing of radiation would turn North America into a "dead zone" for humans... mutated (and failed) crops, radioactive groundwater, skyrocketing infant mortality, an explosion in cancer and infertility... this is what could be unleashed at any moment from an earthquake in Japan. Such an event could result in the release of 85 times the Cesium-137 released by the Chernobyl catastrophe, say experts (see below). And the Chernobyl catastrophe made its surrounding regions uninhabitable by humans for centuries. 


More HERE.

Mitt Rmoney Steps In It Again

Trickle Down Economics

Andy Gipson, Mississippi Lawmaker, Won't Apologize For Citing Bible Passage Calling For Gays' Death

The Mississippi state lawmaker who cited a Bible passage on Facebook calling for gay men to be "put to death" has taken to the social networking site again to refuse to apologize for the remark.

Rep. Andy Gipson (R-Braxton) went on Facebook Friday to say that although he has been receiving emails and calls from around the country about his citation ofLeviticus 20:13, as well as Romans 1:26-28, in a May 10 Facebook post on President Barack Obama's endorsement of gay marriage, he will not say he's sorry. The emails have come in response to a petition calling on the lawmaker to issue an apology and to meet with LGBT groups in Mississippi.

Read about the self-righteous asshole HERE 

Poor Mitt Rmoney. Foiled Again.

A few weeks ago, Mitt Rmoney said:


“It’s also apparent, according to these reports, if they’re accurate, that our embassy failed to put in place the kind of verifiable measures that would assure the safety of Mr. Chen and his family. If the reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom and it’s a day of shame for the Obama administration. We are a place of freedom, here and around the world and we should stand up and defend freedom wherever it is under attack.”

 http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75886.html#ixzz1vLlwkTQP 


Now, looky what's happened:

CAMP ROUND MEADOW, Md. -- White House security advisor Ben Rhodes said Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng has left China and is on his way to the United States with his wife and two sons.

"We welcome this development and the fact that he'll be able to pursue a course of study here upon his arrival," Rhodes told reporters gathered at Camp David for the G8 Summit.

Rhodes said the Chinese government followed through on agreements made during a visit by Hillary Clinton to China, when the dissident's case made headlines around the world. China allowed Chen to leave to study abroad, in this case at NYU.

"In the intervening days,…I think it was a matter of working through the visa arrangements and travel arrangements," Rhodes said. "We're pleased this has reached a resolution."

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/05/wh-chen-en-route-to-us-123959.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

What say you now, Mitt?

Rebubs..... Oh Dear.....

Scrutiny of Mitt Romney’s Character Reveals Psychopathic Tendencies

Mitt Romney ran Bain Capital, a company that operated a business modelnearly exclusively built on firing employees, canceling pensions, loading businesses with debt, taking millions in profit, and walking away. His claim is that he saved businesses but nearly a quarter of those Bain Capital touched went bankrupt; this occurred even with previously healthy companies. Countering the notion that Romney and Bain Capital were venture capitalists who developed new jobs, Aaron Goldenberg, wrote:

“Mitt Romney was NOT primarily a venture capitalist. A venture capitalist invests in early-stage businesses with the hope that they grow and prosper…By contrast, Mitt Romney was primarily what is affectionately known as a vulture investor. Bain Capital invested in failing companies with the intention of either restructuring their business or stripping the business and selling its assets.”

Goldenberg goes on to say that while what his company did may not have been evil or immoral (which is debatable), it was absolutely predicated on the belief that eliminating jobs was the best way to go even when bankrupting businesses could have taken other measures. It shows that Romney’s track record as a job-creating businessman is abysmal. It would take a  hardened heart to look in the mirror each day, knowing that your business was in the business of forcing people out of their livelihoods, regardless of the justification. But, in and of itself, this fact doesn’t prove that Romney is a psychopath. Instead, an alarming anecdote shared by Rachel Maddow on her show does point to Romney’s issues with lack of empathy or remorse.

More HERE.

Top Right-Wing Group: Minority Births Are ‘Not A Good Thing’ Because They ‘Don’t Share American Values’

American Values in action....

Yesterday, the New York Times reported on new census data which showed, for the first time, that non-white births made up over 50 percent of all births in the United States last year.

It marked an important milestone, indicative of a changing United States that has long been considered the world’s melting pot. Or, if you’re the conservative, Phyllis Schlafly-backed Eagle Forum, it’s a clarion callthat America is in grave danger of being overrun by uneducated, un-American brown people:

It is not a good thing. The immigrants do not share American values, so it is a good bet that they will not be voting Republican when they start voting in large numbers.
[...]
Instead, the USA is being transformed by immigrants who do not share those values, and who have high rates of illiteracy, illegitimacy, and gang crime, and they will vote Democrat when the Democrats promise them more food stamps.

Setting aside for a minute the offensive way in which the Eagle Forum dismisses all of “the immigrants” as thoughtless criminals, it’s telling that The Eagle Forum views this as simply a political problem. The Eagle Forum’s political allies have long insisted on treating immigrants as second-class citizens, and rather than pivot their policy proposals to better accommodate the nation’s shifting demographics, the group seems instead to want to curb minorities’ procreation.

More HERE.