Oakland, CA Police Over Reacting to a Small Occupy Action There Tonight
At most, 1,000 Occupy Oakland protesters are taking action in Oakland, CA right now and the police are acting like it’s Pearl Harbor all over again. Watch the brave and intrepid citizen journalist WillFoReal broadcasting live here.
Far as I can tell, they’re arresting everyone.
Who are the police working for? The corporatocracy?
UPDATE:
For another good live feed, go here.
Herman Cain Endorses Newt
Herman Cain officially endorses Newt Gingrich at 9:24 p.m. ET on a Saturday night?
Now them’s some guts.
The Headline Says it All
Republicans in Indiana are making a mess of the place but it looks like, for once, they’ve been smacked down and put in their place:
Indiana Welfare Drug Testing Bill Withdrawn After Lawmakers Included
Tears of laughter.
Do undo thee but not unto me.
What a bunch of loathsome gasholes.
MSNBC Screws Up: Obama Approval Rating at 8%
Check out the chyron (on MSNBC this morning):
(Via.)
Holy cow. Yeah, saving money means making money but it might be time to hire and pay people who actually know how to use the boards.
A Heartbreaking but Gratifying Dog Rescue
What have human beings done to this poor dog?
Poor, Suffering Chevron
This would be our Tweet of the Day:
Poor thing.
By the way, those subsidies come out of We the People’s pocket, as in Our Tax Dollars. We pay Chevron because, according to our screwed up tax code, it can make $51,00o every minute of every day of the year and still claim it needs our tax dollars to stay alive and be a “job creator.”
Shopping at the Pentagon
Yep, it’s true. There are shops at the Pentagon. Given the nature of the corporatocracy we live in, I don’t know why I’m surprised:
America’s Most Dangerous Mall: Going Shopping at the Pentagon
Take a tour at the link above.
Here are some of the high low lights:
Chocolate Rain (of Terror)
If it has patriotic value, the Edward Marc candy shop can make something chocolatey out of it. (The Marine Corps logo? Semper Fi, fat boy.) Inexplicably, the chocolatier is one of the first things a visitor sees after coming up the escalator from the Metro entrance. This edible model of the building costs only $1.95.
The World’s Deadliest Tchotchkes
By far the most meta store in the Pentagon. From windbreakers to shot glasses to snapback baseball caps, the gift shop turns the movie version of the Pentagon — the fantasy one where it’s all war-planning, all the time — into cheesy collectables to hawk to the out-of-towners and class trips that take the daily guided tours. If only they made a sweatshirt with an image of an idle lieutenant colonel waiting to be promoted.
Filed under: We the People, Wars, Terror, Financial Crisis, Corporatocracy, Fear and Our Tax Dollars.
Obama Sits Down With George H. W. Bush and Jeb Bush in the Oval Office
You can be absolutely, positively, 100% sure you won’t see this on Fox:
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
President Barack Obama meets with former President George H.W. Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in the Oval Office, Jan. 27, 2012.
(Via the White House/Flickr.)
A Desperate Romney Now Claims He Pays Closer to 50% in Taxes
The fact is, Mitt Romney paid 13.9% on his 2010 income. We found that out on Tuesday when he released that year’s tax return and a “projection” for his 2011 tax liability.
Fast forward three short days:
Romney: Actually, I Kind of Pay 50% Tax
I’m pretty surprised that Mitt Romney’s team let their guy go down this path. Or maybe it’s just him. Stung by the 13.9% tax rate story and goaded on by some conservative columnists, Mitt Romney is now saying that his actual tax rate is “really closer to 45 or 50 percent.”
[...]
Romney’s argument is that even though he pays only 13.9%, he’s really paying something like 45% to 50% because the investment income he lives on comes from corporations who in turn also pay taxes.
This is silly. Investment income is taxed at 15%. End of story. You can see how stung he and his campaign must be by this story that they’re actually trying to make this cockamamie argument.
Folks, it’s January. January! Come November, if Romney gets the nomination, his tax liability will be 7,000% and he and his “people” will have us believe he’s homeless and living on the street. Ugh. Just think. We’ve got nine more months of this bullshit to slog through.
Sunday’s Face the Nation — Six Republicans, One Democrat
Ah yes, the “liberal media:”
I don’t know who “Barry” is but Debby Wasserman Schultz is the only Democrat among Newt Gingrich, Reince Priebus (the head of the RNC), Michelle Bachmann, Rep. Allen West of Florida (R-Insane), Donald Trump and Diaz-Balart (there are several prominent people in Florida’s Diaz-Balart family. I don’t know specifically which one will be on on Sunday, but they’re Republicans.
Anyway, this is CBS. Righties point to CBS as one of the most liberal outlets in the nation.
Yeah. Right.
The Coalition of the Withdrawing
Maybe the US should take a lesson:
Photo: Philippe Wojazer/AP
France Will Speed up Troop Withdrawal from Afghanistan by One Year
France said Friday that it will accelerate the pullout of its combat forces from Afghanistan by one year, to the end of 2013, and in concert with Afghanistan urged NATO to hand over all combat operations to the Afghan army by the same date.
President Nicolas Sarkozy made the unexpected proposal with the visiting Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, standing at his side. The French-Afghan initiative, which would speed up the agreed NATO timetable by one year, dramatized growing uncertainty—in Afghanistan as well as NATO countries—over the wisdom and effectiveness of the U.S.-led military campaign to force the Taliban to submit to Karzai’s U.S.-supported government.
Ah, This is the Life
Look at that face; those eyes:
Photo: Sergey Gorshkov
This bear looked the picture of contentment as he relaxed in what appeared to be a bath of bubbles.
The animal was caught on camera as he submerged himself in the foam that had been produced by a nearby waterfall.
Sergey Gorshkov risked life and limb to get up close and personal for the shot.
The photographer, from Moscow, Russia, spent seven years among the bears near Kamchatka, Russia.
He even braved a month living in a tent in order to be closer to the group of animals.
He said: ‘This is one of my favourite images of the bear.
What a beautiful animal.
Political Cartoon of the Day
The political cartoon featured in my local newspaper today is great. It guesses at the conversation Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and President Obama had in Tucson earlier this week during which Governor Brewer stuck her finger in Obama’s face.
Check it out here. The first line is from Brewer: “Welcome to the Mecca for hate. Just kidding! How was the flight from Kenya?”
Love it.
CNN Says CNN Has Breaking News About CNN’s News About CNN
CNN has breaking news tonight about CNN breaking news about CNN:
The “breaking news”on CNN is that CNN has news about CNN: It has aired the “last debate before the Florida primary.”
Stay tuned for more from CNN on CNN breaking news that CNN covers when CNN breaks CNN news.
Romney Backers Whine About the “Lefty” Media
This is my Tweet of the Day:
I think we’re going to be sicker than ever of professional Republican victims crying about the mythological “liberal media” this year.
I’d give anything if there were such a thing.
Remember When Righties Respected the Office of the President?
Remember George W? Remember those eight years during which the righties told us it verged on treason to show anything but undying reverence and respect for the office of the president?
Me too.
You Wouldn’t Believe How Big Your Small Intestine Is
It’s break time and here’s a fun fact that blew my mind:
The small intestine is made up of three segments, which form a passage from your stomach (the opening between your stomach and small intestine is called the pylorus) to your large intestine:
- Duodenum: This short section is the part of the small intestine that takes in semi-digested food from your stomach through the pylorus, and continues the digestion process. The duodenum also uses bile from your gallbladder, liver, and pancreas to help digest food.
- Jejunum: The middle section of the small intestine carries food through rapidly, with wave-like muscle contractions, towards the ileum.
- Ileum: This last section is the longest part of your small intestine. The ileum is where most of the nutrients from your food are absorbed before emptying into the large intestine.
[...]
How can the small intestine digest so much? Looking at the small intestine as a pipe, it seems hard to believe that an organ so narrow could do such a big job. However, looks can be deceiving. The absorptive surface area of the small intestine is actually about 250 square meters (almost 2,700 square feet) – the size of a tennis court!
That’s unimaginable. But hey, who am I to question the people at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center?
Wow. Just wow.
Mayor Who Mocked Latinos Gets Buried in Tacos
What an asshat. And yes, he’s a Republican:
East Haven, CT Mayor, Joseph Maturo, Jr. (R) /Jessica Hill, AP
The office of East Haven’s [CT] mayor was blasted with prank phone calls and a delivery of hundreds of tacos Thursday after his now-famous quip that he would address accusations of anti-Latino bias by eating tacos, a remark that left emotions raw in the town’s large Hispanic community.
Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. has apologized several times but resisted calls for his resignation over remarks he made to a television reporter following Tuesday’s arrests of four town police officers, men described by one FBI official as “bullies with badges.”
[...]
A federal indictment accuses the four police officers of assaulting people while they were handcuffed, unlawfully searching Latino businesses, and harassing and intimidating people, including advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct or abuse.
The taco flap came after a reporter for New York’s WPIX-TV asked Maturo on Tuesday, “What are you doing for the Latino community today?”
Maturo’s response: “I might have tacos when I go home; I’m not quite sure yet.”
[...]
Many residents were still angry Thursday in East Haven, where 38-year-old Jose Tapia, a cook originally from Ecuador, joked, “We’ve got tacos!” as he left a bakery with a bag of bread.
“I took it as a joke, but deep inside, it’s the true version of racist, that comment,” he said.
Wow. Maturo is the ultimate in insensitive. He’s going to do something for the Latino community by eating a taco? I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. I’m leaning toward cry. Unreal.
But hooray to the folks who sent all those tacos!
Wisconsin 2011: Jobs Under a Democrat v. a Republican
Below is a graph reflecting the state of job growth/loss in the State of Wisconsin last year (2011). For the first half of the year, former Democratic Governor Jim Doyle’s budget was in effect. Beginning in July, Republican Governor Scott Walker’s budget kicked in. “[S]ince the Walker budget passed in June, Wisconsin has lost more than 35,000 jobs.”
(Source.)
Vote Republican?
Indiana Votes to Abolish the Separation of Church and State
I went to grade school in Bloomington, Indiana. Back then, there was a thing called the separation of church and state.
Facts were taught in schools (not “theories”) and religion was taught in churches. If the Republicans in Indiana get their way, the two will merge:
Indiana’s Senate Bill 89, which if enacted would allow local school districts to “require the teaching of various theories concerning the origin of life, including creation science,” was passed by the Senate Committee on Education and Career Development on January 25, 2012.
Good luck Indiana. Pretty soon you won’t be able to complain about the madrassas in the Middle East that combine the teaching of reading and writing and that of religion. That’s where you’re going.
Coming Soon — Palm Trees in Colorado
As an obsessed gardener, this is big news to me:
WASHINGTON — Global warming is hitting not just home, but garden. The color-coded map of planting zones often seen on the back of seed packets is being updated by the government, illustrating a hotter 21st century.
It’s the first time since 1990 that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has revised the official guide for the nation’s 80 million gardeners, and much has changed. Nearly entire states, such as Ohio, Nebraska and Texas, are in warmer zones.
The new guide, unveiled Wednesday at the National Arboretum, arrives just as many home gardeners are receiving their seed catalogs and dreaming of lush flower beds in the spring.
It reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn’t as cold as it used to be, so some plants and trees can now survive farther north.
I’ve always thought of my part of the country — Boulder, Colorado — as roughly Zone 4.5. As of Wednesday, it has been reclassified as Zone 5a.
Here is a screenshot of the new map:
To see a larger version and play with the interactive features, go here.
Gosh. I can’t wait until I can plant palm trees and bougainvillea in the backyard. Woohoo!
The United States Drops 27 Points in Freedom of the Press Index
Botswana, Namibia, Papua New Guinea and Niger are among the countries that rank higher in press freedoms than the United States in a new index released by Reporters Without Borders:
“Crackdown was the word of the year in 2011. Never has freedom of information been so closely associated with democracy. Never have journalists, through their reporting, vexed the enemies of freedom so much. Never have acts of censorship and physical attacks on journalists seemed so numerous. The equation is simple: the absence or suppression of civil liberties leads necessarily to the suppression of media freedom. Dictatorships fear and ban information, especially when it may undermine them.
[...]
“This year’s index finds the same group of countries at its head, countries such as Finland, Norway and Netherlands that respect basic freedoms. This serves as a reminder that media independence can only be maintained in strong democracies and that democracy needs media freedom.
[...]
Led by President Yoweri Museveni, Uganda (139th) launched an unprecedented crackdown on opposition movements and independent media after the elections in February. Similarly, Chile (80th) fell 47 places because of its many freedom of information violations, committed very often by the security forces during student protests. The United States (47th) also owed its fall of 27 places to the many arrests of journalist covering Occupy Wall Street protests.
Read more and see how other countries rank, here.
Time to hit the refresh button on what “they” tell us, that the United States is the worldwide beacon for freedom of the press.
Abolish Corporate Regulations
If you think corporations are being hamstrung by government regulations, you’ll see these guys as heroes who bucked the system:
Two executives of a family meat company in Kansas City, Kan., were indicted Wednesday on charges of selling misbranded and adulterated poultry products across the country.
Craig Cunningham of Leawood was listed as general manager of the Hitchin Post Steak Co., 1101 S. Fifth St., and his son, Jason Cunningham of Olathe, as vice president.
[...]According to an indictment returned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., the Hitchin Post received slaughtered animals and processed them into parts for shipment to customers across the country. Beginning in 2008 the company operated primarily as a poultry processor.The indictment says the two conspired to sell adulterated poultry products, meaning they were “unsound, unhealthful, unwholesome or otherwise unfit for human food” or were prepared under unsanitary conditions. Products were misbranded because they allegedly were processed outside the approved hours of USDA inspection. The two are also charged with unlawful use of a USDA inspection mark.
Yummy. Nothing like chicken with feces and rat hair mixed in. Get the government out of our food!
It’s No Wonder the United States is Imploding
A quickie here as a follow up to the posts I’ve put up about “American exceptionalism” of late:
Let’s burn this image into our brains. Is it any wonder our society is collapsing from within (see link above) given it spends so much money on the military relative to the rest of the world?
We’re letting everything else go — bridges, schools, housing, medical care — but hey, we can bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran!
Oh, on that note:
Iran’s is not a big enough proportion of world arms spending to show up on this graph, which doesn’t show countries that are lower than 2% of the global total.
Sen. Ralph Shortey: Don’t Believe Everything You Read on the Internets
Oklahoma State Senator Ralph Shortey (R) did “some research” on the Internets and this is what he came up with:
Photo: Ralph Shortey, Facebook
Oklahoma GOPer Proposes Bill To Outlaw ‘Aborted Human Fetuses’ In Food
An Oklahoma Republican is pushing a bill to outlaw the use of human fetuses in food, because, as he says, “there is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors.”
State Sen. Ralph Shortey introduced a bill on Tuesday “prohibiting the sale or manufacture of food or products which contain aborted human fetuses.”
Though he has allowed that he is not aware of this occurring in Oklahoma, or anywhere for that matter, Shortey cited research he did on the internet that claimed that some companies use embryonic stem cells to help develop artificial flavoring.
So, Shortey was Googling “fetuses in food?” Okaaay.
Vote Republican!
Vera Wang: Tell Me This Isn’t Photoshopped
This is the dress designer Vera Wang — aged 62 — in a spread appearing in the latest issue of Bazaar magazine:
Look at her knees. Look at her chest and neck area. No way this isn’t photoshopped.
(Larger version (though not much) here.)
A Paramount Question Behind Mitt Romney’s Campaign
Yo, Mitt, answer this, our Tweet of the Day:
Gosh, I wonder if the “liberal media” will ever ask Mitt this question (and sit on him until he answers).
American Exceptionalism is a Thing of the Past
On Monday I posted about how the good ol’ USA! USA! USA! is number one…number one in teen pregnancies that is.
Today we have more sad evidence that the idea of American exceptionalism is something we should probably put on a shelf somewhere until we get our act together.
This is not for the faint of heart.
First (bear with me), this is the mission statement of Equality Trust:
Compelling new evidence shows that large income inequalities within society damage the social and the quality of life for everyone. The Equality Trust campaigns to gain the widest public and political understanding of the harm caused by inequality.
The Equality Trust has released 10 graphs that reflect specific types on income inequality in the developed nations, but the folks over at The Society Pages.org have consolidated the graphs into an easier-to-read format.
That said you can view the graphs at either sight. They all show — all of them – that due to the dramatic income inequality in the United States (put simply, the 99% versus the 1%), the US leads the pack amongst the developed world in these areas:
Societies with more income inequality have higher infant death rates than other societies
Societies with more income inequality have higher rates of mental illness than other societies
Societies with more income inequality have a higher incidence of drug use than other societies
Societies with more income inequality have a higher high school drop out rate than other societies
Societies with more income inequality imprison a larger proportion of their population than other societies
Societies with more income inequality have a higher rate of obesity than other societies
Individuals in societies with more income inequality are less likely to be in a different class of than [sic] their parents compared to other societies
Societies with more income inequality have higher rates of homicide than other societies
Societies with more income inequality give less in foreign aid than other societies
Children in societies with more income inequality do less well than children in other societies
Again, check out the graphs. We are in a world of hurt folks.
Regarding Romney’s “Projected” 2011 Tax Liability
Thom Hartmann made a good point today on his radio show about the 2011 income tax “projections” Mitt Romney released yesterday.
It was that the “projections” can basically say anything. A “projection” isn’t a binding document and it isn’t something that is filed with the IRS.
Again, that’s good and important point and we should keep it in mind. If Romney starts talking about any of the numbers in the “projections” we should let it go in one ear and out the other because until the actual 2011 return is filed with the IRS, the “projected” numbers are meaningless. They could change dramatically once the accountants do the math.
