I want to do this to show my international friends that not all Americans are cluess consumers that are forever accumulating crap. The One Comic That Explains Just How Screwed America Is. The Best Reporting on What’s Wrong with Congress. We've rounded up the best stories on the dysfunction in Congress. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images) Let’s Talk [6], The New Yorker ($), January 2013 Ezra Klein details the history of the filibuster — from its origins in 1806 to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s filibuster of his own bill in December — and the current efforts to reform it. “No President in American history has seen his initiatives filibustered with anything even approaching the frequency with which the tactic has been used against Obama,” he writes. “If not for the filibuster, the Affordable Care Act would include a public option, the stimulus would have been hundreds of billions of dollars larger and a plan to cap and trade carbon emission would likely have passed the Senate.”
The Senate’s Long Slide to Gridlock [7], The New York Times, November 2012 Republican filibusters aren’t the only thing clogging up the Senate. Group from Congress Asks, Why Does America Hate Us? How productive was Congress last year? How To Safely Transport Your Bubble Wrap. 1, October 12, 2012 by jonathanturley I saw this picture on Reddit and had to share it.
It raises vividly the problem this country continues to have over excessive packaging. The picture for me captures the long-standing question of whether the United States should follow some European countries like Germany in imposing a tax on excessive packaging. The Europeans have less garbage produced by new products because companies are forced to internalize the costs of packaging that ends up in public dumps and landfills. The result is an incentive to reduce packaging and package material. In the United States, it is common for companies to use over-sized boxes (think of opening product boxes and finding them half full like cereal or chips). Like this: Like Loading... SHITPLANET.ORG. Romney party yacht ‘Cracker Bay’ flies Cayman Islands flag in Tampa. By David EdwardsWednesday, August 29, 2012 13:36 EDT Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign on Wednesday partied with wealthy donors on a 150-foot yacht that flies the flag of the Cayman Islands, according to an ABC News report.
Members of the Romney Victory Council, who have each raised more than $1 million for the candidate, mingled with Romney’s brother, Scott, and other relatives in Tampa aboard the luxury yacht “Cracker Bay.” While they waited outside the unadvertised event, ABC News snapped photos of the Cayman Islands civil ensign flag flying on the yacht’s stern. Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA) was reportedly scheduled to speak to the more than 50 people attending. “It was a really nice event,” billionaire energy industry executive Wilbur Ross told the network. Romney came under fire earlier this year when it was revealed that he had millions stashed in the Cayman Islands, a notorious tax haven. Watch this video from ABC News, broadcast Aug. 29, 2012. David Edwards. Trayvon Martin Case. Anonymous hackers to publish U.S. security firm's 2.7m client emails... providing a 'smoking gun for number of crimes' Stratfor has been dubbed the 'Shadow CIA'Firm uses sources to create daily intelligence briefings By Lee Moran Updated: 09:00 GMT, 29 February 2012 Hackers who stole thousands of credit card numbers from U.S. security firm Stratfor are now set to release 2.7 million of its confidential emails.
The loose-knit Anonymous movement vowed to heap further embarrassment on the intelligence company, dubbed the 'Shadow CIA', it hacked over Christmas. It wants to humiliate the firm, which uses a global network of sources to create daily intelligence briefings on security and financial risk, by publishing the communications. And it said they could provide the 'smoking gun for a number of crimes'.
Stolen: Hacking group 'Anonymous' is set to publish 2.7 million emails sent from Stratfor's global network of sources Anonymous posted the credit card numbers of 30,000 of its clients - including executives from HSBC and Barclays and a member of the House of Lords - on Monday. - Fred Burton (Stratfor VP) Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board Pulls Ad That Blames Women For Getting Date-Raped. By Marie Diamond and Amanda Peterson Beadle on December 9, 2011 at 11:30 am "Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board Pulls Ad That Blames Women For Getting Date-Raped" The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board provoked an enormous backlash by airing ads that tell women who are date-raped that they have only themselves and their friends to blame.
The ad was part of a $600,000 campaign aimed at curbing excessive drinking. After hearing from hundreds of rape victims that the ads were extremely upsetting, even traumatizing, the board has decided to pull them: The ads send the message that women are not only at fault for getting themselves raped—a societal bias reflected in and re-enforced by too many court decisions—it’s your fault if your friend gets raped, too.Last night, after receiving hundreds of phone calls and hundreds of email complaints, the PLCB has yanked the ads. The board undoubtedly had good intentions when they launched their campaign, but there are better ways to go about it. OefnQ.jpg (JPEG Image, 536x688 pixels) Aida Hillen: Lobbed Christian Pamphlet at Kid She Ran Over, Then Drove Away (Allegedly) What would Jesus do if he hit a youth with His car, asked the kid if he was okay and got "no" for an answer? If you answered, "Toss him a book about Himself, peel out and haul ass like the Dukes of Hazzard," you are cut from the same religious cloth police say Aida Hillen comes from.
According to court documents, the victim, a Milby High School student, told police he was crossing Broadway near the school on October 14 at around 5:15 p.m. when he was struck by the 58-year-old Hillen's 1996 Honda Accord. As he struggled to his feet, Hillen, of League City, is alleged to have stopped and asked if he was okay. According to the complaint, when the victim said "No," Hillen tossed him a religious pamphlet and attempted to flee, much like her operatic namesake, albeit in her case toward the swamps of Galveston County and not the Egyptian desert. Another Milby student tried to wave her down, the complaint states, but Hillen only waved "Bye" and kept on driving. The gist of her testimony? Former Chase Banker Admits His Bank Pushed Minorities Into Subprime Mortgage Loans. By Pat Garofalo on December 1, 2011 at 9:20 am "Former Chase Banker Admits His Bank Pushed Minorities Into Subprime Mortgage Loans" One of the most pernicious practices in which the nation’ biggest banks engaged during the lead up to the financial crisis was pushing minority borrowers into subprime loans, even when many of them qualified for prime loans.
Wells Fargo had perhaps the most horrifying practices in this department, calling the subprime loans that they pushed in poor, black neighborhoods “ghetto loans.” This rampant predatory lending helped inflate the housing bubble; a Center for American Progress investigation actually found huge racial disparities in lending at the big banks that wound up getting bailed out, with minority borrowers far more likely to receive high-priced loans. One memory particularly troubles Theckston. “The bigwigs of the corporations knew this, but they figured we’re going to make billions out of it, so who cares? Lobbying Disclosures Reveal Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels Used State Dollars To Lobby For Keystone XL Pipeline. By Josh Israel and Brad Johnson on January 26, 2012 at 9:30 am "Lobbying Disclosures Reveal Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels Used State Dollars To Lobby For Keystone XL Pipeline" Recently released lobbying disclosures show that Gov.
Mitch Daniels (R-IN), who delivered the GOP rebuttal to the State of the Union last night, joined the oil industry in lobbying Congress on behalf of the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. The pipeline does not go through Indiana, and few, if any, Indiana workers are expected to be employed in its construction. An analysis of fourth quarter 2011 lobbying forms by ThinkProgress Green finds: The state of Indiana’s DC representatives received $66,000 from Indiana taxpayers to lobby Congress in the fourth quarter of 2011. During the rebuttal, Daniels attacked President Obama for “extremism” that “cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands.”
William S. Burroughs - A Thanksgiving Prayer. Rocrast Mack's Murder At Alabama Prison Followed Trail Of Violence By Guards. MONTGOMERY, Ala. -- Late on the night of August 4, 2010, a badly beaten young man arrived at the trauma ward of Jackson Hospital here. Although the patient was hardly a flight risk, security was tight and prison guards crowded into the emergency room as doctors began treatment. The patient's limp body spoke to the savagery of an assault that had left deep contusions on his legs and torso, and inflamed knots bulging from his head and face. He was unresponsive, with fixed and dilated pupils, and doctors quickly diagnosed a traumatic brain injury.
Only a ventilator kept him alive. His name was Rocrast Mack. Civil rights advocates call Mack's death an avoidable tragedy, the inevitable product of a profoundly dysfunctional state corrections system in Alabama that ranks among the very worst America has to offer. Alabama is also emblematic of a broader problem facing America's prison system: In many states, there simply isn't enough room to hold all of the people who are incarcerated. "In Mr. Rich New Yorkers Are Driving Custom-Designed Cargo Vans. Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Martin Brass, 43, said Friday that he was considering buying a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, then adding improvements to the interior.
Of course, most vans do not have chauffeurs, as Mr. Kantor’s has. Or a built-in office, custom installed. “I have two big-screen televisions; I have a couch in the back that goes into a bed,” Mr. As the economy limps along and more attention is paid to the so-called 1 percent, some of the richest New Yorkers have taken to driving around in vehicles that ooze neither wealth nor privilege. Some owners use them as mobile offices, outfitted with fine leather chairs and Persian rugs; vans may also double as a child’s playroom on wheels, complete with a built-in vacuum to clean what the children dirty.
They are a striking and sometimes unwelcome counterpoint to other trends seen on city streets, where tiny Smart cars dart around hybrid taxis and traffic lanes once reserved for gas-guzzlers are now for bicycles or pedestrians. Mr. Scalia. Brooklyn, New York - Next to Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia is the most conservative justice in the Supreme Court. He also loves the television show 24. "Boy, those early seasons," he tells his biographer, "I'd be up to two o'clock, because you're at the end of one [episode], and you'd say, 'No, I've got to see the next'. " Scalia is especially taken with Jack Bauer, the show's fictional hero played by Kiefer Sutherland.
Bauer is a government agent at a Los Angeles counterterrorism unit who foils mass-murder plots by torturing suspects, kidnapping innocents and executing colleagues. Refusing to be bound by the law, he fights a two-front war against terrorism and the Constitution. Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles ... Yet Scalia has spent the better part of his career as a lawyer, professor and jurist telling us that the Constitution is an absolute, in which we must believe, even when - particularly when - it tells us something we do not want to hear. Scalia was livid. Tim Dickinson: The Tax Policies That Increased Economic Inequality. Hide captionThe eight Republican presidential candidates sitting at the table listen as a video of former President Ronald Reagan is played during a debate at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., on Oct. 11.
Jim Cole/AP The eight Republican presidential candidates sitting at the table listen as a video of former President Ronald Reagan is played during a debate at Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., on Oct. 11. The Occupy Wall Street movement continues to protest policies that have made the top 1 percent of income earners richer, while about 14 million Americans are out of work. Meanwhile, the Congressional supercommittee only has one week left to come up with a plan that will cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit.
"Almost without exception, every proposal put forth by GOP lawmakers and presidential candidates is intended to preserve or expand tax privileges for the wealthiest Americans," writes Rolling Stone political correspondent Tim Dickinson. Before President George H.W. The Official Website of Michael Crook. Anti-social to say the least, I neither "blog," "chat" nor socialize, nor do I attend parties, raves, shindigs, hoedowns, hootenannies, get-togethers, reunions, feasts, clubs, functions, revivals, flash mobs, churches, gatherings, meetings, potlucks, picnics, or anything of the sort.
Called "vindictive," "retaliatory," "cruel," and "downright evil" by those who have crossed me, and who found out--far too late--that I involve innocent family, friends, neighbors--and others---in my revenge process, I am @MichaelCrookNow. I am neither compassionate, caring nor kind. I am like a dementor. It's not in my nature to be forgiving; I never forgive or forget those who cross me, even unintentionally. And I keep a list. I revel in seeing the look of shock and horror on their faces when they reap their comeuppance at my hand. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and (yes and) psychosis NOS, I am crazy (and angry) enough to make it happen. Cement plant pollution leads to a fight in Chanute, Kansas. Illustration by Robert Neubecker. Jeff Galemore pointed to house after house as he steered his white pickup through a tree-lined neighborhood in Chanute, Kan., a town of 9,000 on the state's southeastern prairie.
"This person right here has cancer," the 53-year-old oil-field worker said with alarm. "His granddaughter has cancer. … This gal has cancer. The one across the street from where I live has cancer. Three miles north and east, part-time Lutheran minister and pecan grower Ken Lott wondered why it had been so quiet on his rural Chanute farm. At the opposite end of town, retired railroad worker Dale Stout, 80, lamented the deaths of seven hedge trees that were almost as old as him. Stout, Lott, and Galemore are worried that emissions from a century-old cement plant in Chanute are responsible for the human and environmental damage around them. But the object of citizen concern here—the Ash Grove Cement Co.’s plant—is different. It just happens to have permission to pollute.
What If The Country Isn’t Really Broke? BP oil cleanup deal worries residents. Still, a top company official said in an interview that BP was ready to respond to any oil deemed its responsibility. "We are finally at a stage where scientific data and assessment has defined the end point for the shoreline cleanup," said Mike Utsler, head of BP's Gulf Coast Restoration Organization. "That end point can be reopened. " BP will shift its focus to restoring areas damaged by the spill that began April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 workers. About $1 billion has been set aside for projects that could include planting new vegetation and adding sand to beaches, an official says. About 90 percent of the coast has been deemed clean, according to officials. Louisiana officials would not give their approval because they were concerned about what they perceived as a lack of long-term monitoring in the document.
Despite the concerns, the Coast Guard said that its final plan would apply to Louisiana and all the gulf states. Real homophobes don't Google. Jack Abramoff: ‘The whole system’ is corrupt. XL Pipeline.
TN Prosecutor: Mailing ‘chicken pox lollipops’ is federal crime. Pig Maher Mocks Religious Conservatives: 'Who Needs The Government If You Have Jesus?' - Bill Maher. Coins as payment: 'Money's money' U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners. Farm-to-Fork Farm Dinner Fiasco. Texas Handgun Instructor Won't Teach Muslims Or Liberals. ‘Burn a Quran’ Pastor Terry Jones Sets Sights on White House but He’ll Settle for Herman Cain. Mr. Peabody and Sherman Travel WayBack to 1953 - A History of Iraq - Financial strategist: The 1 percent ‘gave’ workers weekends, child labor laws. 6 Ways That Food Is Being Used as a Weapon Against Us. "Jesus Ween" The Latest Tactic in the War on Halloween. Diebold voting machines can be hacked by remote control - 2012 Elections. Climate change: Getting hotter. New Senate Battle Over Obama’s Jobs Bill, Now Piecemeal. The $1 Trillion Student Loan Rip-Off: How an Entire Generation Was Tricked into Taking on Crushing Debt That Just Enriches Banks.
Louisiana bans using cash in sales of second-hand goods. Bizarre: Woman Roughed Up, Arrested for Reciting the Constitution During TSA Inspection. Which Bank Is the Worst for America? 5 Behemoths That Hold Our Political System Hostage. Wall Street Firms Spy on Protestors In Tax-Funded Center. Amazing Charts Show How 90% Of The Country Has Gotten Shafted Over The Past 30 Years... The American Dream - FULL LENGTH. Halliburton provided contaminated water to Soldiers. History of Glass-Stegall. Shelby Vows To Keep Blocking Consumer Protection Nominee, But Says A Recess Appointment Would Be 'Devastating' Tennessee sponsor of guns-in-bars bill arrested for DUI with gun. Anonymous: James O’Keefe lives with his parents. America's growing anti-intellectualism.
Police allegedly attacked military veterans, arrested 50 others with Occupy Boston. Did Bruce Ivins Hide Attack Anthrax From the FBI? Connick v. Thompson: Clarence Thomas writes one of the cruelest Supreme Court decisions ever. Everything That’s Wrong With American Justice In Two Graphics. Getting out the vote versus getting rid of the vote. Report: New Restrictive Voting Rules Could Hurt 5 Million Americans. Joseph A. Palermo: The Big Banks Lose Control of the Optics. Topeka, Kansas City Council Considers Decriminalizing Domestic Violence To Save Money.
Land Of The Free, Home Of The Workaholics. CREW's Most Corrupt Members of Congress. 36% of South Carolina Republicans believe Obama not born in U.S. Video: FBI Trainer Says Forget ‘Irrelevant’ al-Qaida, Target Islam | Danger Room. Scamming Washington. Bank deposits soar despite rock-bottom interest rates - latimes.com.