Evening News Reads: Monday Moorland, 1st Down and Gangtsa Fat Cats

Good Evening

I don’t know about you all, but depression has hit me big time.  It appears to be contagious, or at least seems to be affecting many people lately. Mine hit me around the second minute of Saturday’s GOP Debate. Wonk the Vote has a great term for this sort of disorder…”Political Affective Disorder” sort of like that Seasonal Affective Disorder. Brilliant isn’t it?

I think the future looks pretty bleak, it doesn’t help that we have had rain and fog for the last three days…you know, banjo music just doesn’t seem to fit in weather that looks and feels more like something that one should experience on the Moors of England.

Anyway, tonight I just don’t feel like doing homework…you remember those kind of nights, don’t you? LSU is playing Alabama later, so that is something at least.

There is a new endorsement for the Eye of Newt, Todd Palin Endorses Gingrich in GOP Race

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich on Monday picked up the endorsement of Todd Palin, the husband of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who said the former House speaker shares qualities with his famous wife.

“Newt Gingrich is a true leader, which he has proven not only since the beginning of his campaign, but throughout his career,” Palin said in a statement. “Just like Sarah, Newt has faced many successes and challenges. Despite his consultants leaving him last summer, Newt is still standing because of his ideas and his success in the debates – not by spending millions of dollars in campaign ads. From day one, he has focused on how we can create jobs to get Americans back to work. This is a true testament to his leadership, commitment and hard work.”

Ugh…you know, I can’t even bring myself to comment on this.

Did you see what Chris Christie said to a woman who heckled him at a Romney campaign rally? Chris Christie responds to female hecklers with offensive oral sex joke. [VIDEO]

On Sunday, Jan. 8., New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was speaking at a Romney for President rally in New Hampshire when he was interrupted by some female hecklers. It’s difficult to make out exactly what Christie’s critics were yelling, but it’s something to do with jobs going down. Ever the class act, Christie’s response: “You know, something may be going down tonight, but it ain’t going to be jobs, sweetheart.”

Video at the link…of course, no apology is forthcoming.

The video, which does not make Christie look great, wasn’t some hidden-camera “gotcha” depicting a private moment, a la the 2006 “macaca” video that may have cost George Allen his Senate seat. Rather, it was uploaded to the New Jersey GOP’s YouTube account. They seem to think his remark about “going down” is a zinger, something to be proud of, rather than recognizing it as flagrantly demeaning, even misogynistic. How would Christie have responded to male protesters saying the same thing? Probably not by changing the subject to what acts they perform in the bedroom. His handlers should be apologizing for the remark, not promoting it.

That is great, in addition to the GOP’s war on women, they have the audacity to flaunt tasteless sexist jokes.

Speaking of the war on women, with all this talk of no abortions even in cases of rape or incest…In US, More Women Were Raped Last Year Than Smoke Cigarettes

Even before the FBI updated its antiquated definition of what constitutes “rape” to include acts that include non-forcible assault and crimes against men, the United States was experiencing an epidemic of sexual violence.

Findings from a study started in 2010 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that nearly 1 in 5 women are estimated to have been the victims of rape. In almost all cases the perpetrator was someone the victim knew and more than half of the time the perpetrator was their own partner. For 80% of the victims their first rape occurred before age 25; for 42% that dropped to before age 18.

These are just some of the preliminary findings from the first annual report of what will be an ongoing, nationally representative survey of sexual violence in the US. The survey also looked at the rising prevalence of stalking and harassment. In 2010 the study estimates that 1.27 million American women were raped– the equivalent to one woman every 29 seconds–and 5.1 million were stalked–the equivalent to one woman every 7 seconds.

To put it in perspective, according to the findings more women have been raped than currently smoke cigarettes.

Let that sink in for a moment…

And while you do that, take this in: Ron Paul’s Campaign Chairman Angrily Cuts Off Interview With CNN’s Dana Bash

It wouldn’t be the first time on this campaign trail that the media got blamed by one of the Republican candidates for adversely affecting the campaign. It wouldn’t even be the first time Rep. Ron Paul abruptly ended an interview with CNN. This time, a second question that a Rep. Paul handler did not like did Bash’s interview in. The first question she is seen asking is about the Paul Campaign in Florida, and whether the light structure there sid something about “your efforts to win the nomination.” Rep. Paul replied that they were approaching Florida in the same way that they were approaching Iowa, and “we did pretty good there.”

Her second question was about a specific voter, “A woman who was a New Hampshire voter, voted for Obama in 2008… if she would’ve been about to shake your hand and look you in the eye, you would’ve gotten your vote,” Bash noted. “Does that say anything about your ability to connect?”

“That is a junky question, I’m stopping,” interjected the handler, while Rep. Paul answered the question: “you, the media, did that to her,” he told Bash, turning to Fox News’ Griff Jenkins while Bash appeared confused as to what she had done wrong.

Hmmm, that is the second woman reporter Paul has done this too…

The US is not the only place where “Fat Cats” make out like bandits:  Dominic Lawson: Let the public punish ‘fat cats’ if they really care

The most familiar war cry of the massed battalions of the press resounds throughout the land: something must be done! The “something” in this case is executive pay – or “fat cats”, in the argot of the tabloids. The proximate cause of the outcry is recent research showing that last year the median pay of FTSE 100 chief executives rose by 14 per cent, while the figure for the wage-earning population as a whole rose by only a tenth of that.

It is interesting to read about a hot topic over in England recently. Give it a read through if you like, I want to just bring the last two paragraphs to your attention:

The truth is neither of the two governing parties is in a particularly strong position to give big business lessons on “fairness” in pay (however defined). The Conservatives have been busy handing out peerages to party donors from the hedge fund business, who probably regard the salaries of publicly quoted company directors as pitifully small; while their Coalition partner responded to the arrest last week of its biggest-ever donor, Michael Brown, by reiterating that it had no intention of re-paying to his victims any of the £2.4m that the fugitive filched to fund the Lib-Dems’ 2005 election campaign.

So, if the political parties are tainted and the big shareholders are not much bothered about corporate excess, who should act on the media’s demand that “something must be done”? To the extent that the issue is one of shame, the public should do it themselves, if they really do care as much as is claimed: perhaps a mass campaign to switch accounts from whichever bank has the highest-paid chief executive to the one with the least well-remunerated boss? That would be “something”.

I’m sorry, but isn’t that what #Occupy was trying to do? As we have seen, the “fat cats” just called upon their hired hand, aka police, to handle it for them.

Those images still piss me off!

I want to end this post with this video by the Geto Boys…for two reasons. First, the title is so fitting “Damn it feels good to be a gansta” and secondly, there is a little person in the video. Yes, I know…but when you are depressed, you gotta do what it takes to make yourself laugh!