SOME NEWS:

You Have More Money in Your Wallet Than Bank of America Pays in Federal Taxes
Zaid Jilani, ThinkProgress: "It wasn't teachers, fire fighters, policemen, and college students that caused the economic recession that has devastated government budgets - it was Wall Street. And as middle class workers are being asked to sacrifice, the rich continue to rig the system, dodging taxes and avoiding paying their fair share. In an interview with In These Times, Carl Gibson, the founder of US Uncut, which is organizing some of today's UK-inspired massive demonstrations against tax dodgers, explains .... you're paying more than the "combined income tax liability of GE, ExxonMobil, Citibank, and the Bank of America.'"
Read the Article

Tax the Rich: Minnesota's Governor Teaches Scott Walker a Lesson
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

We Are All Part of the Labor Movement Now
Read the Article at The Huffington Post

Scott Walker Appoints Political Confidante With Four Public Pensions to $90,000 State Position
Read the Article at BuzzFlash

scott walker?  FUCK HIM

DEAR TEAPUBLICAN WANNA BE UNION BUSTERS: GOOD LUCK WITH THAT. 50 photographs from the 50-State Rallies to Save the American Dream

click pic to go there.
if you are a republican
you especially need to know.
if you are a Democrat
you especially need to see
why you should VOTE
even in the midterms.

SPECIAL COMMENT FROM KIETH OLBERMANN - USE OUR SPECIAL CLICK~N~READ

Wisconsin and “The Union” | FOK News Channel

The Massacres/The Protests/Eyewitness Accounts

KEEPING THE STRUGGLE IN LIBYA UPDATED

Secret Plans for Mega Columbia River Coal Export Terminal Expansion After Permit Approved For Smaller Facility Exposed:

Click above to read the article,
click on a video image below to watch the entire video.

Cowlitz County Hearing

November 16, 2011

Coal Export on the Columbia (KGW)

 MORE about that dirty Montana coal HERE

It's like a scene from the 1960s — a Black mayor stepped out of line with powerful White politicians in a small Louisiana town, and it cost him his freedom.

Justice for Mayor Higginbotham

It's like a scene from the 1960s — a Black mayor stepped out of line with powerful White politicians in a small Louisiana town, and it cost him his freedom. Now it's up to us to help win it back.

Bobby Higginbotham, mayor of Waterproof, LA, started making policies intended to bring the town more revenue and give it more control over police matters. In doing so, Higginbotham made mistakes, but he didn't commit any crimes. But District Attorney James Paxton took advantage of the errors to arrest Higginbotham on 44 trumped-up charges and install a political ally in his place.

After being forced to represent himself in trial, Higginbotham was convicted before a nearly all-White jury in a parish where the majority of residents are Black.

This isn't the first time a Louisiana prosecutor has abused his power against Black folks who don't "know their place" — a similar scene played out in the case of the Jena Six. But if enough of us speak out, we can expose his behavior and help free the former mayor. Please join us in calling on Paxton to end his bogus prosecution of Bobby Higginbotham, and then ask your friends and family to do the same:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/mayor

Waterproof is a town of only 800 people in Louisiana’s Tensas Parish, the last parish in the state to allow Black folks to vote. The parish is more than 55% Black, but it’s the wealthy Whites who hold the power there. Journalist Jordan Flaherty writes that “Waterproof is 'reminiscent of the bygone days of southern politics,' with a White power structure maintaining political power over a black majority...”¹ Even with a minority of citizens, Whites controlled the wealth, the jobs, and the politics.

Soon after Bobby Higginbotham took office in tiny Waterproof, LA the new Black mayor began challenging the area’s most powerful White officials — namely Sheriff Rickey Jones and District Attorney James Paxton — by establishing a local police force that would provide better local service, in effect competing with the parish Sheriff. Before Higginbotham took office, the Waterproof police force was anemic. According to former Waterproof Police Chief Miles Jenkins, "[If] You called the Waterproof police for help before, [they] would say, 'wait 'til tomorrow, it's too hot to come out today.'" Under Higginbotham and Jenkins, Waterproof's new police force grew in size and collected its own traffic tickets — siphoning revenue and influence from the Sheriff.

A Black deputy sheriff warned not to push against the system too hard: “You’ve got to adapt to your environment. You can’t come to a small town and do things the same way you might in a big city. Like the song says, you got to know when to hold ’em, and know when to fold ’em.”

Mr. Higginbotham didn't fold. Instead, he brought a direct, some say in-your-face, attitude that rubbed figures like the Sheriff and DA the wrong way. According to Waterproof resident Annie Watson,“The Mayor and the Chief said you can’t treat people this way, and the Sheriff and DA said you got to know your place. If you’re educated and intelligent and know your rights in this parish, you are in trouble. They are determined to let you know you have a place and if you don’t jump when they say jump you are in trouble.”²

As a result, Higginbotham and Jenkins endured major harassment by Paxton and Jones — Jenkins alleges being beaten by Sheriff's deputies, while both Waterproof officials claim that Paxton and Jones had them arrested under false pretenses on several occasions. The harrassment culminated with Higginbotham's arrest on bogus, trumped-up corruption charges.  With Higginbotham out of the way, Paxton pulled levers to replace Higginbotham with a political ally.

It’s clear to us that Higginbotham made mistakes as mayor, mistakes pointed out in a 2008 Louisiana legislative auditor’s report. But what also seems clear is that Higginbotham's errors as mayor did not rise to the level of the criminal. In the wake of the report, the mayor sought to correct all issues highlighted by the audit, including hiring an independent auditor to review the town's financial records. That didn't stop the District Attorney from charging Mr. Higginbotham with 44 counts of corruption, all but two of which were later dropped.

Higginbotham was charged with felony theft for giving himself what the DA claims is an unauthorized raise. But this raise was in the budget passed by the Board of Aldermen, along with raises for themselves which they received, just as he did. Higginbotham was also charged with malfeasance in office for allegedly using a town credit card for personal charges — an honest mistake that Higginbotham immediately corrected. Both of these charges are the result of an intentional distortion of facts based on a personal vendetta against Higginbotham.

At trial, Higginbotham was forced to represent himself. It also appears that the record of the meeting where the mayor's raise was approved, which could clear him, is now "missing." He was convicted by a jury containing five White members to only one Black member — in a parish where Blacks make up nearly 60% of the residents. The judge gave the jury polling slips that had "guilty" pre-selected. Higginbotham was not told of the error until a week after he had been convicted and sent to jail without bond. Higginbotham wants to appeal, but the court reporter failed to keep a trial record during several of the prosecution’s key witnesses.

Mayor Higginbotham has been denied bail at every turn since his conviction — a consequence usually reserved for violent offenders and flight risks — and he's been sitting in jail for nearly a year awaiting final sentencing.

This isn't right. Please join us in calling on District Attorney Paxton to drop all charges against Bobby Higginbotham and to allow his release on bond pending an appeal — and when you do, please ask your friends and family to join the effort. It takes just a moment:

http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/mayor

Union Busting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker Shows Depth of His Lack of Character:

Blogger calls Walker as dirtbag billionaire tea party financier to visit with scumbag Walker.  Walker falls for it hook-line-and-sinker.

These teapublicans are truly horrible people!
MORE INFO ON THE KOCHS AND WALKER INVOLVEMENT HERE

LOOKS LIKE RONALD REEGAN'S GHOST IN WISCONSIN!

oil companies are our friends - just ask republicans. 4 inches of Macando oil smothers floor of Gulf of Mexico and poisons citizens.

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19336184 story

Huge Amounts of Oil Found On Gulf of Mexico Floor 223

Posted by Soulskill on Monday February 21, @07:12PM
from the no-crab-for-oil dept.

  The news of a study examining the Gulf of Mexico sea floor in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Marine scientists have found a thick layer of oil, and say it has devastated life there. "Studies using a submersible found a layer, as much as 10cm thick in places, of dead animals and oil, said Samantha Joye of the University of Georgia. Knocking these animals out of the food chain will, in time, affect species relevant to fisheries. She disputed an assessment by BP's compensation fund that the Gulf of Mexico will recover by the end of 2012. ... 'The impact on the benthos was devastating,' she told BBC News. 'Filter-feeding organisms, invertebrate worms, corals, sea fans — all of those were substantially impacted — and by impacted, I mean essentially killed. Another critical point is that detrital feeders like sea cucumbers, brittle stars that wander around the bottom, I didn't see a living (sea cucumber) around on any of the wellhead dives. They're typically everywhere, and we saw none.'"

 

WHY is the government covering these peoples' asses?

The Great Recession and its aftermath are entering a new phase in the United States

The Betrayal of Public Workers
Robert Pollin and Jeffrey Thompson, The Nation: 
"The Great Recession and its aftermath are entering a new phase in the United States, which could bring even more severe assaults on the living standards and basic rights of ordinary people than we have experienced thus far. This is because a wide swath of the country's policy- and opinion-making elite have singled out public sector workers - including schoolteachers, healthcare workers, police officers and firefighters - as well as their unions and even their pensions as deadweight burdens sapping the economy's vitality."
Read the Article

THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS PROTEST FOR DEMOCRACY!

Protesters demonstrate at the 
Capitol Square in Madison, Wisconsin, 
on February 16, 2011. 
(Photo: Narayan Mahon)

MORE HERE

As BP's stock price continues to improve, the Coast Guard, NOAA, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Environmental Protection Agency all continue to go to great lengths to convince the public, particularly those living along the Coast, that the air, water and seafood are perfectly safe.

Dahr Jamail "We're Poisoned. We're Sick."
Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld, Truthout:
"Residents who live along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, all the way from Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, to well into western Florida, continue to tell me of acute symptoms they attribute to ongoing exposure to toxic chemicals being released from BP's crude oil and the toxic Corexit dispersants used to sink it. Shirley Tillman from Pass Christian, Mississippi, and former BP Vessels of Opportunity oil cleanup worker wrote me recently: 'You can't even go to the store without seeing sick people! You can hear them talking to people and they think they have the flu or a virus. I saw a girl that works at a local store yesterday that had to leave work because she was so sick! Others, throughout the entire store were hacking & coughing. It's crazy that this has been allowed to happen to all of us!'"
Read the Article

CAPITALISM HITS THE FAN - AUSTERITY IS FOR SUCKERS, AND LOOKS LIKE WE ARE IT

When the shit hits the fan,
it will not be distributed evenly.

part 1: Three things the economic crisis is not:

part2: How we got here American exceptionalism

part3: Hstory interrupted: The trauma of flat wages

Congress eyes cuts to the VA

Republican Jeff Miller, the new chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee says he believes veterans are willing to “sacrifice again.”

YOU BET JEFF!  HERE YA GO, LET ME BEND OVER JUST A BIT!  NO NEED FOR ANY OIL, THAT WOULD COST MONEY.  JUST SHOVE IT TO US, WE LOVE PAIN.  YOU ALREADY GOT SOME OF OUR LEGS AND OTHER GOOD STUFF, YOU MAY AS WELL TAKE OUR ASSES TOO!

Michelle Bachmann agreed with the call to cut funds from the Veterans department...

YA FUCKWITS!

Obama's budget would cut heat subsidies for poor

AT THE SAME TIME PRESERVE TAX SUBSIDIES TO THE LARGEST MULTINATIONAL OIL AND OTHER CARBON ENERGY COMPANIES.

Republicans are proposing cuts to food programs for infants, trade assistance, job training, community health centers, and a host of other programs providing work and security to Americans across the country — oil companies have so far emerged unscathed. Even with oil prices clearing $100 per barrel, billion of dollars are uncritically turned over to oil companies.

HERE'S THE DEAL, SEE? IF YOU ARE A REPUBLICAN - FUCK YOU.

simple minded fucks!

Robin Hood Is Dead - Saturday 12 February 2011

by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

(Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; 

Adapted: krnlpanik, Alex Thompson, Angela Wolf) 

The streets of Cairo were alive with jubilation on Friday after the announcement that Hosni Mubarak had finally surrendered to the inevitable and lit out of town. After more than two weeks of protest, tension and sheer grit, the deal went down and the air rang with shouts of victorious joy.

In America, by contrast, all was quiet. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, millions of people went without work, and the “news” media kept everyone up to date on the latest criminal doings of Lindsey Lohan.

...but but but...

Things are better in America than they are in Egypt.

Right?

Right?

Well, let’s see.

Corporations are people, and they own the news. Money is speech. We are fighting wars in Eurasia and Eastasia simultaneously. It’s cheaper to die if you get sick, unless you’re a car, in which case you are required to have insurance. Rape isn’t rape anymore, if you ask the right people. Being gay means the Bill of Rights isn’t for you. Having brown skin is original sin. Guns don’t kill people. Keep your damn government hands off my Medicare. Clean water is a socialist plot. The polar caps totally aren’t melting and stuff. Have some seafood from the Gulf of Mexico. Visit the 9th Ward in New Orleans. Your vote counts, especially in Ohio and Florida. American citizens don’t get “disappeared,” except for Jose Padilla...remember him? He doesn’t.

...but but but...

Hosni Mubarak was a dictator who stole elections and reigned with an iron fist for 30 years. America isn’t like that.

Right?

Right?

Ronald Reagan took office thirty years ago. He was a product of General Electric and the “defense” industry, right down to his dyed roots. George H.W. Bush, a subsidiary of the Carlyle Group, followed. Clinton took him down so as to deliver NAFTA, GATT, and The Telecommunications Act. Then came Al Gor…oh, wait, right, another Bush, who was his own man, the kind of guy you’d like to have a beer with, because he wasn’t running anything. Cheney, on the other hand, was still getting paid by Halliburton/KBR while in office, and yeah...he was the boss. Or was he?

So, yeah, who’s been in charge?

Hm.

Nobody knows Pharaoh better than Egyptians. Those nifty stone triangles soaring out of the soil give testament to the benefits of absolute power, slave labor, and why it’s good to be the king. Everyone thinks Pharaoh went away thousands of years ago – it’s in the textbooks, so it must be true – but the fact of the matter is Pharaoh yet remains, and has no interest whatsoever in letting his people go. Pharaoh is ExxonMobil, BP, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon…yeah, any corporate entity dealing in oil, bombs and/or bullets is rich beyond the dreams of avarice, even in the current crummy economy…or should I say thanks to the current crummy economy.

Yes?

Indeed.

Who runs America?

Not you. Not me.

Know how I know?

I know because Barack Obama is the President of the United States. Like Bush, Clinton, Bush and Reagan before him, Barack Obama is running the show. He is in charge. He spoke oh so eloquently on Friday about Egyptian freedom, change, and the new normal in the Middle East. Barack Obama is the place where the buck stops. Hope and Change and all that good stuff.

So, yeah, “This is the way democracy works,” he said. Like he would know. Like any of us would know. Ours is a tepid, controlled, managed failure of a democracy, if the streets of Cairo are any clue.

Know how I know?

President Obama is preparing to slash home heating aid to the poorest of the poor in order to get an “Atta boy!” from the GOP that will never, ever, ever, ever, ever come. He is likewise preparing to slash environmental protections while on bended knee to economic fallacies proffered by right-wing fools. He has done nothing, but nothing, but nothing, except to give long luxurious back-rubs to the criminal bastards who stripped us of our future. He has made sure those with money will keep their money and make more besides, but for those with no job and no hope and no heat, well…there’s always suicide, I suppose. Maybe you can move to Egypt, if Pharaoh lets you.

Who runs America?

Yeah.

I thought so.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Obama administration's response to the democratic revolution in Egypt has begun to exude the odor of betrayal.

"...the administration has fallen back on the sordid option of backing a new and improved dictatorship..."
by: Robert Scheer  |  Truthdig | Op-Ed

GO.READ

"CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN" Mr. Obama? 
Please don't end up being a fraud like the rest of them.

Anti-regulatory Forces Launch Full Assault on Public Protections

Corporate lobbyists and their allies in Congress have launched a systematic, coordinated effort to attack the federal government's efforts to boost innovation and protect public health, worker safety, and environmental quality. GO.READ

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, even for a disability retiree like me, health care gets further and further away, much less my lovely wife can get none, because we simply can not afford it.  Meanwhile, the billionaires get more and more sweet deals, more and more jobs go away, teapublicans and right wing talking heads are spewing more and more hatred as President Obama sits calmly and takes it from them...what a fucking country!

Never mind the birth certificate - IS OBAMA REALLY A DEMOCRAT?

Obama chose General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head the new “White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness,” and named JP Morgan Chase executive and former COC board member William Daley as his chief of staff.
Since 2009, GE has closed more than 25 manufacturing plants in the US and slashed thousands of jobs, according to the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America. While GE has laid off at least 10,000 workers in the US, it has created more than 30,000 jobs in India over the past decade. The administration’s job czar runs a company that employs more workers overseas than it does in the US.
Immelt said, "When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China.  You need to be there. You need to change the way people talk about it and how they get there. I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to $5 billion. We are building a tech center in China.
The banks that received $13 trillion in bailout money and subsidies with no strings attached are also posting record profits and paying their CEOs multi-million dollar salaries.  2010 was JPMorgan Chase’s most profitable year.

READ THE STORY HERE AT TRUTHOUT

Hiring the leaders of America's corporate criminal mob to work inside the white house is either terribly UN-like a true Democrat, or terrifically wiley way to turn them from the dark side.  Personally I do not think this president is ANY SORT OF DEMOCRAT that I would even care to even sit and drink a beer with, though I would vote for him again before ANY lying, thieving, whore republican.

Al Jazeera English: Live Stream

Just Seeds: Colin Matthes: War Is Trauma

Just Seeds: Colin Matthes: War Is Trauma

 $15
This print was made as part of the Iraq Veterans Against the War / Justseeds Action in Chicago, “Operation Exposure: War is Trauma.” The action is a direct response to the suicide epidemic and violation of GI’s right to heal within the GI and veteran community.
For more info visit the IVAW website or check out the Justseeds blog post.
To the right is an image of the print and another image of the print in its natural habitat.
screenprint
25"x19"
acid free 100% recycled cover weight paper
signed/unnumbered

SOME NEWS:

Corporate junk economics comes to Capitol Hill
Well, at least we know who Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chair of the House oversight committee, is working for. Issa has asked more than 150 trade associations, corporations and think tanks to provide a wish list of public health, environmental and other public protections that they want eliminated. Trust us — you don’t want to see the industry responses. READ our press release.

Eyes on Trade - New data feature: Jobs at risk from Korea FTA
Public Citizen’s Trade Data Center has examined the impact of past unfair trade deals like NAFTA in your community through official government job loss data. But now, we’re going even further. We’re tallying how many jobs in each congressional district and state are predicted to be harmed by the proposed Korea free trade agreement. READ more.

SOTU speech highlights job creation, but proposed trade agreements don’t get us there

In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama talked about jobs — a lot. But his continued support of free trade agreements styled after the flawed North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) isn’t the way to put more people to work. In fact, the Korea trade pact is projected to cost another 159,000 U.S. jobs.
LEARN more.

BP panel recommends more oversight in offshore drilling

It took nearly five million barrels of oil dumped into the Gulf of Mexico to highlight the folly of oil companies having outsized control over our energy policy. The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling has concluded that both the oil industry and the government need to change before another dangerous incident occurs.
LEARN more.

House Republicans attempt to limit patients’ rights

The new House leadership apparently can’t wait to take draconian measures to limit the rights of patients injured by medical error. Before the membership of the House Judiciary Committee for the 112th Congress was even finalized, incoming chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) scheduled a hearing on medical liability. The committee is following the GOP’s talking points without heeding the facts, thereby ignoring the real problem: a malpractice epidemic.
LEARN more.

FOLLOW THESE STORIES AND MORE HERE.

 

 

For all my pals in towns with dangerous idiot sherrifs. I learned the 10% rule in the service: Everywhere ya go, there's GONNA be at least 10% assholes. Some towns have got theirs AND other towns' shares!

PALIN A SOVIET COMMUNIST SLEEPER AGENT??

REPUBLICANS SAY E.P.A. NO NO! Nothing about ANYTHING to actually HELP the average person. assholes

EPA NO! NO!

GOP FUCK YOU!

LOOK OUT republicans

we are coming to

GET YOU!

assholes

Critical Win for Alaska's Polar Bears

Critical Win for Alaska's Polar Bears 

Our fight to save polar bears from extinction scored an important victory in November when the Obama Administration designated 187,000 square miles along the north coast of Alaska -- an area larger than the state of California -- as critical habitat for the bears. The move was part of a settlement in an ongoing lawsuit filed by NRDC and the Center for Biological Diversity against the Interior Department, challenging its failure to take sufficient action to save polar bears from the threat of extinction.
The new designation of protected habitat covers a rugged range of coastal areas that are essential denning and hunting grounds for the bears, including barrier islands and stretches of offshore sea ice. "Polar bears are slipping away as the ice literally melts beneath their feet," says Andrew Wetzler, director of NRDC's land and wildlife program. "Protecting their critical habitat is an important step in the right direction, especially in helping to ward off destructive oil and gas development."
With scientists predicting that Alaska's polar bears could be extinct in as little as 40 years, however, the Obama Administration is going to have to step up and do more. We are continuing to press our case in federal court, seeking to overturn a 2008 decision by the Interior Department that denied polar bears the highest level of protection under law -- "endangered" -- and listed them as "threatened" instead. Both the Bush and Obama Administrations have argued that the polar bear is not endangered because its extinction is not "imminent." In November, the court questioned the reasoning behind this specious argument and ordered the Interior Department to reconsider or clarify its rationale. "If we wait to protect polar bears until they're nearly extinct," says Wetzler, "then we will be too late."