Video Episodes:
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20:30:41 05/25/12
Open Thread
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This is Daily Show funny: those Chinese madcap animators "take on" Occupy the Graduation. (Sent to us by folks at Occupy the Graduation, who are still laughing.) Take note that there's no need to go to college, kids, when turning a wrench turns you into Nintendo's Mario in seconds!
Open thread below....
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20:00:36 05/25/12
C&L's Late Night Music Club with Carlos Santana and Steve Winwood
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Title: Why Can't We Live Together Artist: Carlos Santana and Steve Winwood
Most folks know, I'm a big fan of both Steve Winwood and Carlos Santana. Put them together, and magic happens. So, what do you guys think? What's your favorite duo of solo stars?
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18:00:36 05/25/12
Pots and Pans Protest in Québec
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Each night in Montréal, and now in other cities and towns in Québec, the locals are treated to the loud din of thousands of protesters taking to the streets. The video above is from last night, and was relatively peaceful with only a handful of arrests but so far a staggering 2500 have been arrested in the standoff over student tuition and now draconian law enforcement. The Pots Protest ("Manif de casseroles") began earlier this month in response to the Student protests, which are now over 100 days old, see no sign of abating any time soon, and in fact are only growing in numbers -- and volume.
via The Canadian Press >
MONTREAL - The clanging pots of student unrest that have rattled Montreal and Quebec City for several nights are coming noisily to life in other parts of the province.
People took up the percussive protest Thursday night in several towns and cities including Sorel, Longueuil, Chambly, Repentigny, Trois-Rivieres and even in Abitibi — several hundred kilometres away from the hot spot of Montreal.
They were still loudest in Montreal, where a chorus of metallic clanks rang out in neighbourhoods around the city, spilling into the main demonstrations and sounding like aluminum symphonies.
The pots-and-pans protest has its roots in Chile, where people have used it for years as an effective, peaceful tool to express civil disobedience. The noisy cacerolazo tradition actually predates the Pinochet regime in Chile, but has endured there and spread to other countries as a method of showing popular defiance.
Thursday's protest in Montreal was immediately declared illegal by police, who said it violated a municipal bylaw because they hadn't been informed of the route. They allowed it to continue as long as it remained peaceful.
Although there was a massive police presence throughout the evening with the roar of a provincial police helicopter competing with the banging of the pots, there was little if any tension reported between demonstrators and police.
People tapped the pots as they walked, the sounds mingling with shouts and chants. Others leaned out of car windows to bang their pans and one protester smacked a pot right in front of one police officer who looked on indifferently.
Usually the nightly street demonstrations, which have gone on for a month, have a couple of vigorous drummers to speed them along their route. At the very least, someone clangs a cow bell.
But in the last few days, the pots and pans protest — dubbed the casseroles by observers — have acted like an alarm clock for the regular evening march, sounding at 8 p.m. on the nose in advance of the march's start.
While thousands, including children, their parents, students and the elderly, packed the streets in support, the Twitterverse exploded with reactions and observations.
"Spotted a man in an Armani suit banging a pot," tweeted Christina Stimpson on one of Thursday's participants. "Feel the love people."
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20:30:00 05/24/12
Open Thread
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Don't take the Bible too literally, except when it comes to teh geyz? Those Christianists don't speak for me.
Open thread below....
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19:01:26 05/24/12
Myth McConnell
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In the wake of the debt-ceiling crisis he helped manufacture last summer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell boasted it was "a hostage that's worth ransoming" which "also is a new template" for the future. As it turns out, those threats were among the few true words McConnell has uttered. Because while he's promising once again to blackmail the White House over the debt ceiling, the Kentucky Republican claimed it's because "we'd like to do something about the nation's biggest problem, spending and debt, which of course is the reason for this economic malaise." Of course, as the data show, it's the very austerity policies here and in Europe which are costing jobs and hurting growth.
But Mitch McConnell's myth-making hardly ends there. On the economy, taxes, deficits, health care and so much else, virtually all of McConnell's talking points are tried - and untrue.
( Click a link to jump to the details for each below ):
* "Obama Made the Economy Worse"
* "No Evidence Whatsoever That the Bush Tax Cuts Actually Diminished Revenue"
* "Punishing Job Creators"
* "We Look a Lot Like Greece Already"
* Public Sector Layoffs Are a "Local" Problem
* 47 Million Uninsured Americans "Don't Go Without Health Care"
* The Public Option "May Cost You Your Life"
* Democrats Are "Sticking It to Seniors with Cuts to Medicare"
"Obama Made the Economy Worse"
For months, Mitch McConnell (for example, here , here and here ) regurgitated the GOP talking point that President Obama " made the economy worse ." Sadly for the trickle-down mythmakers of the Republican Party , the facts and the overwhelming consensus of economists - including John McCain's 2008 brain trust - prove otherwise. President Obama not only did not make the American economy worse; no thanks to obstructionist Republicans in Congress he saved the United States from "Great Depression 2.0" and put the nation on the path to recovery.
Start, for example, with the conclusions of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Despite Republican mythmaking that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) "created zero jobs," in November the CBO reported that the stimulus added up to 2.4 million jobs and boosted GDP by as much as 1.9 points in the previous quarter. As The Hill explained, the CBO has found that "President Obama's 2009 stimulus package continues to benefit the struggling economy": >
The agency said the measure raised gross domestic product by between 0.3 and 1.9 percent in the third quarter of 2011, which ended Sept. 30. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that GDP in that quarter was only 2 percent total...
By CBO's numbers, the $800 billion stimulus added up to 0.9 million jobs in 2009, 3.3 million jobs in 2010 and 2.6 million jobs in 2011.
Mark Zandi , an adviser to John McCain in 2008, was adamant on positive role of the stimulus. Federal intervention, he and Princeton economist Alan Blinder argued in August 2010, literally saved the United States from a second Great Depression. In " How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End ," Blinder and Zandi's models confirmed the impact of the Obama recovery program and other federal interventions dating back to 2008, concluding that "laissez faire was not an option": >
We find that its effects on real GDP, jobs, and inflation are huge, and probably averted what could have been called Great Depression 2.0. For example, we estimate that, without the government's response, GDP in 2010 would be about 11.5% lower, payroll employment would be less by some 8½ million jobs, and the nation would now be experiencing deflation.
"No Evidence Whatsoever That the Bush Tax Cuts Actually Diminished Revenue"
In his version of the Republican myth that " tax cuts pay for themselves ," President Bush confidently proclaimed, "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase." As it turned out, not so much.
After Ronald Reagan tripled the national debt with his supply-side tax cuts, George W. Bush doubled it again with his own. (Reagan's performance would have been much worse, had he not raised taxes 11 times to help make up the shocking shortfall.) As a share of American GDP, tax revenues peaked in 2000; that is, before the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. As the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded, the Bush tax cuts accounted for half of the deficits during his tenure, and if made permanent , over the next decade would cost the U.S. Treasury more than Iraq, Afghanistan, the recession, TARP and the stimulus - combined .
Nevertheless, as the Republican Party waged its all-out attack in 2010 to preserve the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy , the GOP's number two man in the Senate provided the talking point to help sell the $70 billion annual giveaway to America's rich. "You should never," Arizona's Jon Kyl declared, "have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans." For his part, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell rushed to defend Kyl's fuzzy math: >
"There's no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject."
That may have been a view universally shared by virtually every Republican, but it happens to be wrong.
"Punishing Job Creators"
For years, Senator McConnell has been among the legions of Republicans wrongly arguing that even the slightest increase in taxes for the wealthiest Americans is tantamount to " punishing job creators ." As his colleague John Boehner put it: >
"The top one percent of wage earners in the United States...pay forty percent of the income taxes...The people he's [President Obama] is talking about taxing are the very people that we expect to reinvest in our economy."
If so, those expectations were sadly unmet under George W. Bush. After all, the last time the top tax rate was 39.6 percent during the Clinton administration , the United States enjoyed rising incomes, 23 million new jobs and budget surpluses. Under Bush? Not so much.
On January 9, 2009, the Republican-friendly Wall Street Journal summed it up with an article titled simply, " Bush on Jobs: the Worst Track Record on Record ." (The Journal's interactive table quantifies his staggering failure relative to every post-World War II president.) The meager one million jobs created under President Bush didn't merely pale in comparison to the 23 million produced during Bill Clinton's tenure. In September 2009, the Congressional Joint Economic Committee charted Bush's job creation disaster, the worst since Hoover.
That dismal performance prompted David Leonhardt of the New York Times to ask last fall, "Why should we believe that extending the Bush tax cuts will provide a big lift to growth?" His answer was unambiguous: >
Those tax cuts passed in 2001 amid big promises about what they would do for the economy. What followed? The decade with the slowest average annual growth since World War II. Amazingly, that statement is true even if you forget about the Great Recession and simply look at 2001-7... >
Is there good evidence the tax cuts persuaded more people to join the work force (because they would be able to keep more of their income)? Not really. The labor-force participation rate fell in the years after 2001 and has never again approached its record in the year 2000. >
Is there evidence that the tax cuts led to a lot of entrepreneurship and innovation? Again, no. The rate at which start-up businesses created jobs fell during the past decade.
The data are clear: lower taxes for America's so called job-creators don't mean either faster economic growth or more jobs for Americans .
As Jared Bernstein aptly put it earlier this month: >
"Tax cuts and job growth? They're just not that into each other."
"We Look a Lot Like Greece Already"
As their last round of hostage-taking of the debt heated up last summer, Republicans including Mitch McConnell warned, "We look a lot like Greece."
hile FactCheck.org was quick to conclude that "whatever it 'looks like' through Sen. McConnell's eyes -- the fact is that the U.S. is not yet a fiscal wreck of Greek proportions," its analysis hardly does justice to the scale of the Republican myth-making. The Washington Monthly's Steve Benen summed it up quite succinctly: >
New rule: every time a confused Republican lawmakers compare the United States' fiscal conditions to that of Greece, an angel loses its wings.
Look, the very idea is just crazy. The U.S. has extremely low interest rates and foreign investor are happy to loan us money; Greece has extremely high interest rates and no one is eager to loan the country money. The U.S. has our own currency; Greece has the Euro. We have a great credit rating (for now); Greece has an awful credit rating. We have a manageable debt; Greece has a debt crisis. We're a large country with an enormous economy; Greece is a small country with a small economy. We have one of the world's most stable systems of government (at least until six months ago); Greece's government structure is a little shaky.
For his part, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has been decrying the " Hellenization of economic discourse " for months. "Greece -- with a long history of fiscal irresponsibility, very high public debt, and a country without a currency -- doesn't bear much resemblance even to the other peripheral Europeans, let alone the United States."
>
Here's debt levels (if you ask me the IMF projections for Greece are too optimistic). >
Plus there's the having your own currency thing, and the fact that the interest rate on US 10-year bonds is 3.11 percent, on Greek bonds 16.82 percent. >
Otherwise we're exactly the same.
Public Sector Layoffs a "Local" Problem
Last fall, Minority Leader McConnell led the GOP opposition to President Obama's proposed $400 billion American Jobs Act. The loss of hundreds of thousands of police, firefighter, teacher and other public sector jobs, he insisted, was a "local" problem.
As it turns out, the 600,000 state and local government jobs already lost since December 2008 is very much a national issue. That " anti-stimulus ," it turns out, has added a full point to America's unemployment rate .
Last month, the Economic Policy Institute noted that the private sector had gained 2.8 million jobs while federal, state and local governments shed 584,000 just since June 2009. EPI concluded that the public sector job losses constituted "an unprecedented drag on the recovery": >
"The current recovery is the only one that has seen public-sector losses over its first 31 months."
Back in March, Paul Krugman expressed the same point , but with some inconvenient historical context for the Party of Reagan. "In fact, if it weren't for this destructive fiscal austerity," Krugman explained, "Our unemployment rate would almost certainly be lower now than it was at a comparable stage of the 'Morning in America' recovery during the Reagan era." >
We're talking big numbers here. If government employment under Mr. Obama had grown at Reagan-era rates, 1.3 million more Americans would be working as schoolteachers, firefighters, police officers, etc., than are currently employed in such jobs. >
And once you take the effects of public spending on private employment into account, a rough estimate is that the unemployment rate would be 1.5 percentage points lower than it is, or below 7 percent -- significantly better than the Reagan economy at this stage.
47 Million Uninsured Americans "Don't Go Without Health Care"
McConnell the " strict obstructionist " was naturally in the forefront of the all-out Republican effort to block health care reform at any cost. As he repeatedly put it in June 2009 , "all of us want reform, but not reform that denies, delays, or rations health care." To prove his point, McConnell didn't merely trot out a Canadian patient who came to the U.S. for special treatment, but insisted to NBC's David Gregory that no American does without health care now. >
GREGORY: Do you think it's a moral issue that 47 million Americans go without health insurance? >
McCONNELL: Well, they don't go without health care. It's not the most efficient way to provide it. As we know, the doctors in the hospitals are sworn to provide health care. We all agree it is not the most efficient way to provide health care to find somebody only in the emergency room and then pass those costs on to those who are paying for insurance. So it is important, I think, to reduce the number of uninsured. The question is, what is the best way to do that?
That President George W. Bush, Tom Delay and Paul Broun among other Republicans also claimed "people have access to health care in America...after all, you just go to an emergency room" doesn't make it any more true. As the numbers show -- 50 million uninsured, another 25 million uninsured, 45,000 unnecessary deaths, one in five Americans "self-rationing" care and 62 percent of all personal bankruptcies being related to medical bills -- the crisis is far worse than the one Mitch McConnell pretends doesn't exist.
The Public Option "May Cost You Your Life"
While Mitch McConnell insisted that the lack of insurance doesn't prevent anyone from getting health care, in 2009 he suggested having coverage could prove fatal . Months before the passage of the Affordable Care Act without the so-called "public option," Minority Leader McConnell said it would be deadly.
That irresponsible fear-mongering came during an appearance on Dennis Miller's radio show in October 2009. Blasting the "opt-out" version of the public option then being considered in the Senate bill, the Senator from the state ranked 45th in health care performance insisted access to coverage could kill you : >
MCCONNELL: Well, it doesn't make any difference frankly whether you opt-in or you opt-out, it's still a government plan. You know, Medicaid, the program for the poor now, states can opt-out of that, but none of them have. I think if you have any kind of government insurance program, you're going to be stuck with it and it will lead us in the direction of the European style, you know, sort of British-style, single payer, government run system. And those systems are known for delays, denial of care and, you know, if your particular malady doesn't fit the government regulation, you don't get the medication. >
MILLER: Right. >
MCCONNELL: And it may cost you your life. I mean, we don't want to go down that path.
As a Harvard Medical School study found, each year the path of no health insurance leads 45,000 Americans to the grave.
Democrats Are "Sticking It to Seniors with Cuts to Medicare"
For two years running, Mitch McConnell has been among the 40 GOP Senator voting for Paul Ryan's House budget plan to privatize and inevitably ration Medicare now used by 46 million American seniors. In the late 1990's, McConnell joined in Newt Gingrich's effort to slash almost 15 percent from the Medicare budget so that the program would "wither on the vine." But when the Affordable Care Act called for savings from the private Medicare Advantage program used by only 15 percent of elderly beneficiaries, it was Mitch McConnell who warned seniors about the mythical danger.
In July 2009, McConnell tried to scare America's 46 million Medicare beneficiaries by declaring, "The administration plans to use Medicare cuts to fund yet another new government program." Hoping to build on the momentum of the GOP's disgusting and demonstrably false " euthanasia " talking point, McConnell cautioned: >
"Some in Congress seem to be in such a rush to pass just any reform, rather than the right reform, that they're looking everywhere for the money to pay for it -- even if it means sticking it to seniors with cuts to Medicare."
That salvo comes just two weeks after McConnell promised to defeat health care reform in the Senate, warning America's highest turnout voting block: >
"They are going to pay for this plan by cutting Medicare, that is cutting seniors."
Those claims, the New York Times pointed out the day after the Republicans' overwhelming triumph in the 2010 midterms elections were misleading at best and false at worst. But, sadly, they worked .
And so it goes.
As Joshua Green documented last year in the Atlantic , "Mitch McConnell is a master manipulator and strategist" whose "relentless tactics have made his party victorious." But that doesn't make him a truth-teller, except on those rare occasions when he reveals his true motivations. During the debt ceiling stand-off last summer , McConnell briefly got weak in the knees at the prospect of U.S. sovereign default not because it would be a disaster for the nation, but because it could damage his Republican Party : >
"I refuse to help Barack Obama get re-elected by marching Republicans into a position where we have co-ownership of a bad economy. ... If we go into default, he will say that Republicans are making the economy worse and try to convince the public -- maybe with some merit, if people stop getting their Social Security checks and military families start getting letters saying service people overseas don't get paid. It's an argument he could have a good chance of winning, and all of the sudden we have co-ownership of a bad economy," he said. "That is very bad positioning going into an election."
Especially an election which marks the culmination of Mitch McConnell's work over the past three and a half years: >
"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president."
(This piece also appears at Perrspectives .)
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20:00:00 05/22/12
C&L's Late Night Music Club with Joe Bonamassa
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Title: Dislocated Boy Artist: Joe Bonamassa
New Joe Bonamassa. Just released. I missed the show. drat. But, I'm goin to see Taj Mahal this Sunday. :D
Whatcha listening to this evening?
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15:00:47 05/22/12
President Obama's Joplin, MO Commencement Speech: The Power of Community
[LESS INFO] 98 VIEWS | ADDED 15:00:47 05/22/12
President Obama spoke at the high school commencement Monday night about the power of community, the "bigness of spirit," and the value of unity.
The gist of his message centered on how a community set aside its differences to come together and rebuild after the tornado that nearly wiped out the entire city. His themes touched on the "power of shared effort," and forging a new vision when everything seems hopeless. His primary themes of hope and community are woven throughout the entire twenty minutes. I thought it was an inspiring and touching speech. If it needs a summation, it is his statement that "we are better together than on our own."
At one point in the speech, he mentioned that right after the tornado, the community came together for a meeting and each person was given a Post-it note to write down what their vision was for the community. 1500 Post-its later, there is a wall with all of them on it, and architects are following the suggestions for the rebuilding process. The President quipped, "I'm thinking of trying it with Congress! Give them some Post-it notes."
In a climate where cynicism and negativity seems to rule the day, it's worth taking the twenty minutes to watch this and no matter what you think of the man, his message is true, and it does not depend on him. For me, it's worth remembering that I do this thing, writing, researching, sharing -- blogging -- because I want a record that says we truly are better together than we are alone, and working toward that goal every day is worth enduring the negative and the cynical.
I hope it inspires you today, at least a little bit.
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20:30:59 05/21/12
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18:00:11 05/21/12
Perino: White House Trashing 'Friends' Cory Booker and Campbell Brown
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Former Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino says that President Barack Obama's White House has been dismissing advice from their "friends" like Newark Mayor Corey Booker, who called an Obama ad "nauseating," and Campbell Brown, who wrote that that the president was "condescending" toward women.
Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, Booker had said that the Obama campaign should stop criticizing presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney for job losses caused by Bain Capital, a firm that he founded. The Newark mayor later released a YouTube video walking back his remarks.
“Cory Booker is a friend of the White House,” Perino told Fox News host Gretchen Carlson on Monday. “In some ways, your friends give you the best advice. They could have taken that yesterday as some friendly advice. A brush-back pitch to let them know that what he is hearing across the country—what Cory Booker is hearing is that this isn’t working."
Carlson pointed out that "there are a lot of Democrats that don't agree with the tactic that this administration is using because all it does is promote class warfare."
Fox News host Clayton Morris asked Perino if it was "going to be a problem for the administration" that former CNN host Campbell Brown, the wife of a Romney adviser, had written a New York Times op-ed accusing the president of "condescending" to women.
"Yesterday, the White House gets these two broadsides and instead of saying, 'That's good advice. Let us take some time to think about that and come back out and have a strong commencement address that President Obama is going to give today.' Instead they basically trashed two of their friends," Perino explained. "It looks like they have nothing else to go on."
(h/t: Mediaite )
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13:00:54 05/21/12
When Cops Turn Killer: Death of Latino Man at Hands of Border Patrol Cries For Full Investigation
[LESS INFO] 4 VIEWS | ADDED 13:00:54 05/21/12
Click here to view this media
[YouTube here. ]
I think it's safe to say that a law enforcement agency has grown dangerously out of control comes when its officers begin using their powers to silence anyone who questions them or their authority. The tasing-and-beating death in 2010 of an illegal border crosser named Anastasio Hernandez Rojas near San Diego is a powerful sign that the U.S. Border Patrol has crossed that line.
Recently released footage of the man's beating makes clear that the Border Patrol's own accounts and explanations for the death are baldfaced fabrications.
Even more chilling are the revelations about how Hernandez Rojas came to be singled out by officers for a beating. It's readily apparent that he was beaten to death because he asked to file a complaint against an agent.
The beating did not occur when Hernandez Rojas was caught and arrested. When that happened, he was kicked repeatedly in a part of his ankle by an agent that had been surgically repaired, and the man had kicked him there even after being told that. As a result, once at the holding facility after the arrest, Hernandez Rojas made a request to file a complaint against that agent.
Then, as all the men with whom he was being held at the facility were taken to the border release point where they were to be returned to Mexico, Hernandez Rojas was separated out from the rest of the group and taken by himself to another gate -- surrounded by a full phalanx of Border Patrolmen armed with nightsticks and Tasers, including the agent against whom he had asked to file a complaint. It was there that, according to the Border Patrol, the man became "violent" and had to be subdued -- even though several eyewitnesses confirm that in fact Hernandez Rojas did nothing before the beating commenced.
The story was the work of reporters from the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute, who found that this was anything but an isolated incident: > Eight people have been killed along the border in the past two years. One man died a short time after being beaten and tased, an event recorded by two eyewitnesses whose video is the centerpiece of the report. Both eyewitnesses say the man offered little or no resistance. One told Need to Know that she felt like she watched someone being "murdered," and the San Diego coroner's office classified the death as a “homicide.”
The report raises questions about accountability. Because border agents are part of the Department of Homeland Security, they are not subjected to the same public scrutiny as police officers who use their weapons. It also questions whether, in the rush to secure the border, agents are being adequately trained. And it raises the question: why aren't these cases being prosecuted?
Watch Crossing the line at the border on PBS. See more from Need To Know.
Sixteen members of Congress are demanding an investigation.
You can too. Presente.org is organizing a petition demanding an investigation by the Justice Department, As Anastasio's widow explains : >
Over the last two years, Border Patrol has refused to release the names of the agents responsible or to reveal whether those involved have been disciplined. Anastasio was not their only victim. Since the year Anastasio was killed, Border Patrol agents have killed or seriously injured at least 9 people from San Diego to Texas.
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14:00:17 05/17/12
Mike Coffman (R-CO) Questions Obama's Citizenship, Says He's 'Not an American'
[LESS INFO] 16 VIEWS | ADDED 14:00:17 05/17/12
Oh, look. Another Congressional Republican saying something crazy and offensive. >
" I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that," Coffman said. " But I do know this, that in his heart, he's not an American. He's just not an American. "
But MoveOn once compared Bush to Hitler! Michael Moore! Both sides are equally extreme!
Here's the problem. Republican rhetoric has gone so over the bend over the past four years that no one will even notice. Coffman apologized, but one wonders -- why? This stuff began even before Obama got in the White House -- with Paul Broun (R-GA) comparing Obama to Hitler . Was he censured? Not at all.
This is why, four years later, Allen West (R-FL) can call half of the Democrats in the House "Communists" and there's hardly so much as a peep.
And since there's no rebuke, and no price to pay, Republican voters will keep lapping up this poison like candy -- and further down the drain we all go.
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10:00:23 05/17/12
Meet Pete Peterson, Architect of Social Security and Medicare Cuts
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 10:00:23 05/17/12
enlarge Click for a larger idea of Peterson's world Just after the disastrous midterms in 2010, I wrote a lengthy post about who Pete Peterson was , and why he is exactly the wrong guy to be having a "bipartisan summit" on so-called "entitlement reform." Here's a snippet from back then: >
The Peter G. Peterson foundation claims to be bipartisan, yet their former CEO is out pimping a book, a new advocacy group and a position . Peter G. Peterson served as Secretary of Commerce under Richard Nixon. He claims to be very, very, very concerned about our deficit, yet not one word is uttered in this report about Wall Street's contribution to the deficit, the collapse of our economy, or any responsibility on the part of the financial industry to help reduce the deficit they helped create .
Ryan Grim at the Huffington Post has updated that information with some more current relevant facts and data: >
According to a review of tax documents from 2007 through 2011, Peterson has personally contributed at least $458 million to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to cast Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and government spending as in a state of crisis, in desperate need of dramatic cuts. Peterson's millions have done next to nothing to change public opinion: In survey after survey, Americans reject the idea of cutting Social Security and Medicare. A recent national tour organized by AmericaSpeaks and largely funded by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation was met by audiences who rebuffed his proposals.
But Peterson has been able to drive a major shift in elite consensus about government spending, with talk of "grand bargains" that would slash entitlements, cut corporate tax rates and end personal tax breaks, such as the mortgage deduction, that benefit the middle class.
Peterson's deficit hawkery drives the narrative away from fairness right into the arms of willing Republicans. So this week, he held a "summit" of Washington elites to pearl-clutch over the deficit and debt in order to bolster their case. We can thank Bill Clinton for contributing to that narrative, too, since he was one of the featured speakers. The entire interview is at the end of this post.
Thanks to Peter Peterson, we have a country full of people who actually believe the national debt is the single biggest issue this country faces, and because he's put a "bipartisan" face on the dialogue, he gives the appearance that Democrats and Republicans alike should abandon Social Security and Medicare because they are, in his opinion, the primary drivers of the deficit. Worse yet, he's pimping those ideas to kids in order to drive a wedge between generations in the hope of succeeding at eroding these fundamental safety nets. >
Another effort to persuade America's youth about the shakiness of the entitlement programs is a joint venture between the Peterson Foundation and mtvU, the campus-based network created by MTV Networks, called Indebted . Peterson has already shelled out nearly $2 million to fund this effort to convince college students that Social Security won't be there for them, so therefore it should be slashed now -- a self-fulfilling policy prescription if ever there was one.
The educational website for Indebted , which borrows its look of revolutionary activism from contemporary stencil-based art made famous by graffiti artists Banksy and Shepard Fairey, explains that the inevitable and unavoidable debt burden to be shouldered by college kids through student loans, credits cards and a poor job market make it all the more important to cut entitlements now.
I like Seth Michaels' answer to that over at Working America : >
Peterson—a billionaire—never has to worry about dignity in retirement, about choosing between food and medicine, about having to work even when your health won’t allow it. Nor do members of Congress with their taxpayer-funded pensions, or well-paid TV hosts, lobbyists and think-tank presidents. They also feel the pressure of paying into the system much less than the majority of working people, since they only pay Social Security tax on the first $110,100 of their income .
So here’s a modest proposal for Peterson and the networks that advance his message. You can raise the retirement age to whatever you want—as long as, at age 65, every think-tanker, pundit and politician who pushes the fake crisis gets to swap places with a 65-year-old nurse, truck driver, hotel housekeeper or drill-press operator. Sound good?
Better yet, any lawmaker who thinks it's a good idea to raise the Social Security retirement age and erode Medicare should agree to relinquish their federal pension and health insurance retroactive to the day they take office. If they can't do that, then they recuse themselves from any vote concerning Medicare or Social Security. Seems like a fair deal to me.
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09:00:18 05/17/12
Convicted Criminal James O'Keefe Dupes Right Wing Media Again!
[LESS INFO] 22 VIEWS | ADDED 09:00:18 05/17/12
You'd think the wingers would figure out that James O'Keefe makes them look like fools every time he posts another one of his "videos." You'd think they might consider not pimping those videos like they're real when they're so easy to debunk. You'd think.
This time, it's North Carolina under fire , but O'Keefe ridiculously claims voter fraud when the only fraud is O'Keefe and his bogus claims. This time around, O'Keefe features a "dead voter" and a voter who he claims is illegally registered to vote because he was not a citizen at the time he was called for jury duty. Unfortunately for O'Keefe, he became a citizen in the 80s, a fact that was easily verifiable before publishing the video.
As for O'Keefe's dead guy, it turns out James forgot that "Jr." at the end of a guy's name means he's the son of the dead guy and also happens to be a very much alive registered voter.
Via Media Matters : >
Yes, as multiple obituaries for Bolton note, he was survived by, among others, his son Michael Gordon Bolton, Jr. Public records searches using the Nexis database confirm that Bolton Jr. was registered to vote at the same address given to the poll worker by the O'Keefe operative.
This isn't the only error of this sort O'Keefe made. As ThinkProgress noted , the "non-citizen" voter supposedly exposed by the video is actually a naturalized citizen.
The best screw-up of all is the one where O'Keefe punks the Daily Caller , Breitbart.com and Michelle Malkin . I love it when one of their own hangs them out to dry so thoroughly. In the opener of his ten-minute long video, O'Keefe's minions are walking up a driveway to "prove" that a non-citizen has voted in the North Carolina primary.
Via ThinkProgress Justice : >
Now, it turns out that the second “non-citizen,” William Romero, is actually a citizen as well, according to his family.
The video opens with O’Keefe’s cameraman walking up Romero’s driveway and confronting a member of his family about whether he is a citizen. O’Keefe points to court records from 2010 where Romero was excused from jury duty because he was not a citizen at the time. Therefore, as O’Keefe argues, Romero’s voter registration dated December 5, 2011 is fraudulent because Romero “is not a United States citizen.”
Oops! That calendar can be a pesky thing. It turns out Romero became a citizen in early 2011, and registered to vote because that's what good citizens in this country do: they vote. >
In fact, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress he became a naturalized citizen in early 2011.
What’s more, Romero’s family told ThinkProgress that they had began receiving harassing telephone calls two weeks before the incident in the video asking if Romero was a citizen. They confirmed to the caller — it’s unclear whether they were speaking with O’Keefe himself or another individual — that Romero is indeed a citizen. Nevertheless, O’Keefe proceeded to ambush the family at their home and publish this video claiming he’s not a citizen.
Never mind the fact that what O'Keefe is trying to do will prove nothing other than that some insane dude with a video camera is trying to commit voter fraud. Never mind that what O'Keefe actually accomplishes is an embarrassing display of dishonesty and fraudent behavior himself. The right wing blogs continue to treat him like something legitimate despite the fact that he is show to be a blatant psychopathic liar over and over and over again.
O'Keefe has already plea-bargained his chicanery in New Orleans down from a felony to a misdemeanor , but he is still a criminal, and nothing he says, does, publishes or tries should be considered legitimate. But that won't stop the wingers from amplifying his nonsense simply because it fits the narrative they want to push. Just so long as we all understand that this isn't journalism, and it's not really the kind of things taxpayers should have to fund via a tax-exempt organization.
As long as we're at it, let's hold the wingers accountable for repeating O'Keefe's lies with no correction. Malkin and Breitbart are sticking to their now-debunked claims. The Daily Caller has issued a small correction to their original article, but all three should be fully retracting theirs, and O'Keefe's, claims. The fraud here is James O'Keefe, not the innocent voters he tried to frame.
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20:30:00 05/06/12
Open Thread - GLOW
[LESS INFO] 1 VIEWS | ADDED 20:30:00 05/06/12
via videographer Mimi Schiffman . >
In a small school a little north and a little west of downtown Durham, N.C., a group of eleven-, twelve- and thirteen-year-olds has been busy organizing a field-trip.
Watch as a middle school's gay-straight alliance, GLOW, for Gay Lesbian or Whatever, embarks on an adventure in civic engagement with real consequences for many of the club's members.
"They don’t really see kids as having an idea of how they want their future to be like," said Sarah, a GLOW member, "but when we actually voice our opinion it really does make a difference.
Open Thread below....
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08:00:05 05/06/12
Right-Wingers' Desperation to Disclaim J.T. Ready Hits New Depths After Massacre
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 08:00:05 05/06/12
enlarge Credit: Phoenix New Times
Just wondering: Is there any blogger out there more brazenly dishonest than Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit?
I know we have plenty of Malkins and Instahacks and nutbar Pammies to go around on the wingnutosphere. But it's hard to think of any blogger who more openly and remorselessly attempts to tell his readers that up is down, black is white, and that no, he doesn't have his head up his ass while speaking through his belly button.
I know a lot of people had chalked all this up to stupidity on Hoft's part. I don't know if he's stupid. I do know he is just flatly dishonest, a purveyor of brazenly false information.
For instance, in response to neo-Nazi J.T. Ready's massacre of his family earlier this week, Hoft posted this: >
Horror!… Neo-Nazi #Occupy Phoenix Protester Goes On Shooting Rampage – 5 Dead"
Neo-Nazi Jason Todd (J.T.) Ready pictured on left patrolling the Occupy Phoenix protest and on right at Southern Poverty Law Center website.
Of course, since this was not a Tea Party rally the story was never picked up by the liberal media.
The problem with this? J.T. Ready was a regular fixture at Arizona Tea Party events. Indeed, as Matt Gertz at Media Matters reported back when Hoft first trotted out this nonsense, Ready not only regularly appeared at such events, he was regularly given a speaker's platform and even organized one such event featuring J.D. Hayworth.
That's in stark contrast to his single Occupy appearance, where he was confronted by other protesters and asked to leave, and he was not permitted to speak. He was there, as we explained, purely as an opportunist: >
Let's be clear: J.T. Ready is a neo-Nazi, a classic totalitarian/authoritarian, someone who despises and loathes and sneers at the kind of democracy-in-action that the Occupy movement represents. He likes chaos, though, and he sees the movement's unsettling effect as something he can use. And showing up at protests always is good for a little attention. That's why he did this.
At least Russell Pearce was more honest and forthcoming in discussing his past associations with Ready: >
After resisting for hours, Pearce relented late in the day and released a lengthy statement detailing how he came to know JT Ready and what eventually led to their falling out. Multiple media outlets in Arizona posted the statement in whole.
Pearce said he, like others in the Phoenix suburb of Mesa, got to know Ready for his interest in Republican politics.
“When we first met JT he was fresh out of the Marine Corp and seemed like a decent person,” Pearce wrote. “He worked as a telephone fundraiser for Christian and pro-life groups, he dated the daughter of one of our District 18 members, and his attitudes and spoken opinions were good and decent.”
According to the Phoenix New Times, Pearce became a mentor to Ready. The powerful lawmaker helped the young man convert to the Mormon religion and he was there for Ready’s first baptism.
But Pearce said Ready’s demeanor changed somewhere along the way. Pearce described it as a “darkness.” Ready began spending time with hate groups, including the National Socialist Movement, which is the largest neo Nazi organization in the U.S.. After pressure from fellow Republicans, Pearce eventually disavowed the friendship.
“He was angry with me and stayed angry with me, and it has been several years since I have had reason to speak with JT,” Pearce said in the statement.
Over at Phoenix's Fox 13, Pearce gave a relatively forthcoming interview:
Russell Pearce: Pioneer Against Illegal Immigration or Racist?: MyFoxPHOENIX.com
Hilariously, even after all this was pointed out by Charles Johnson of LGF, Hoft just doubled down: >
As Jim Treacher says, “The Occupy Camp is a great incubator for domestic terrorism.”
That’s an understatement!
More… It looks like poor unhinged Charles Johnson jumped the gun on this one. JT wasn’t a rightwinger after all, huh Chuck? Hopefully Mr. Johnson will be honest enough to post an update with corrections.
Yeah, because Jim Hoft knows all about honesty.
Pretty soon he'll start regurgitating the claim being spread by J.T. Ready's supporters that the massacre was actually carried out by Mexican drug cartels in order to frame Ready. (Kind of like Laine Lawless's defense of another Arizona child killer, Shawna Forde.) Go for it, dude.
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20:00:00 05/04/12
C&L's Late Night Music Club with The Beastie Boys
[LESS INFO] 0 VIEWS | ADDED 20:00:00 05/04/12
Title: You Gotta Fight For Your Right (To Party) Artist: The Beastie Boys
Adam Yauch , Rest in Peace.
11/30/11