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Thursday Reads

Posted: May 2, 2013 | Author: | Filed under: Barack Obama, corporate greed, hunger, income inequality, morning reads, net-neutrality, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, science, The Bonus Class, the internet, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, War on Women | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |45 Comments

tea on books

Good Morning!!

President Obama isn’t looking so “progressive” this morning (what else is new?). Yesterday, his “Justice” department announced they will ignore science as well as the health needs of women and girls by fighting a judge’s order to make Plan B emergency contraception available over-the-counter without age limits. NYT:

The appeal reaffirms an election-year decision by Mr. Obama’s administration to block the drug’s maker from selling it without a prescription or consideration of age, and puts the White House back into the politically charged issue of access to emergency contraception.

The Justice Department’s decision to appeal is in line with the views of dozens of conservative, anti-abortion groups who do not want contraceptives made available to young girls. But the decision was criticized by advocates for women’s reproductive health and abortion rights who cite years of scientific research saying the drug is safe and effective for all ages.

“Age barriers to emergency contraception are not supported by science, and they should be eliminated,” Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement on Wednesday.

In December 2011 the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius, blocked the sale of the drug to young girls without a prescription, saying there was not enough data to prove it would be safe. In doing so, Ms. Sebelius took the unprecedented step of overruling the Food and Drug Administration, which had moved, based on scientific research, to lift all age restrictions.

I could use some profane language here, but I’ll spare you for the moment. You may be mumbling to yourself too, after you read about Obama’s latest picks for the FCC and Commerce Department.

First the FCC. The New York Times reports: Telecom Investor Named to Be F.C.C. Chairman.

Tom Wheeler, President Obama’s pick to be the next chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, knows all about the most advanced telecommunications systems — of the 19th century.

In his 2008 book “Mr. Lincoln’s T-Mails: How Abraham Lincoln Used the Telegraph to Win the Civil War,” Mr. Wheeler, an investor in start-up technology and communications companies, documents how Lincoln was an “early adopter” of what has been called “the Victorian Internet.”

Lincoln’s championing and advancement of popular uses of the telegraph are not unlike the challenges Mr. Wheeler is likely to face as chairman of the F.C.C., which is waging an intense battle to keep Internet service free of commercial roadblocks and widely available in its most affordable, up-to-date capabilities.

Mr. Wheeler’s qualifications for “one of the toughest jobs in Washington,” Mr. Obama said, include a long history “at the forefront of some of the very dramatic changes that we’ve seen in the way we communicate and how we live our lives.”

“He was one of the leaders of a company that helped create thousands of good, high-tech jobs,” Mr. Obama said, referring to Core Capital Partners, the Washington investment firm where Mr. Wheeler is a managing director. “He’s in charge of the group that advises the F.C.C. on the latest technology issues,” adding that “he’s helped give American consumers more choices and better products.”

They look happy, don't they?

They look happy, don’t they?

But does all that qualify Wheeler to protect consumers at the FCC? From Ars Technica:

Uh-oh: AT&T and Comcast are ecstatic about the FCC’s new chairman: AT&T calls new chairman an “inspired pick,” seeks end to “outdated” regulations.

President Barack Obama today announced his choice to run the Federal Communications Commission. As reported yesterday, the nominee is Tom Wheeler, a venture capitalist who was formerly a lobbyist at the top of the cable and wireless industries, leading the National Cable Television Association (NCTA) and Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association (CTIA).

The nomination continues the parade of lobbyists becoming government officials and vice versa, a trend that has favored moneyed interests over the average American citizen and consumer time and again. One can take solace in the fact that Wheeler will be tasked with implementing the communications policies of President Obama, who says he is eager to fight on behalf of consumers and to maintain thriving and open Internet and wireless marketplaces.

But the same President who said “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over” when he was running for office has given the FCC’s top job to a former lobbyist. Wheeler donated $38,500 to Obama’s election efforts and helped raise additional money for Obama by becoming a “bundler,” arranging for large contributions from other donors after hitting legal limits on personal contributions.

Not surprisingly, the cable and telecom companies that Wheeler springs from are ecstatic about the nomination.

Gotta get rid of those nasty regulations that protect Americans from price gauging, internet censorship, and all that bad stuff.

Penny Pritzker

Penny Pritzker

Next up, behold Obama’s nomination for Commerce Secretary, old pal Penny Pritzker.

Making official what many Democrats have expected for weeks, President Obama plans to nominate Chicago business executive Penny Pritzker, a longtime political supporter and heavyweight fundraiser, as his new Commerce secretary on Thursday morning.

Pritzker’s nomination could prove controversial. She is on the board of Hyatt Hotels Corp., which was founded by her family and has had rocky relations with labor unions, and she could face questions about the failure of a bank partly owned by her family.

With a personal fortune estimated at $1.85 billion, Pritzker is listed by Forbes magazine among the 300 wealthiest Americans. She is the founder, chair and CEO of PSP Capital Partners, a private equity firm, and its affiliated real estate investment firm, Pritzker Realty Group. She played an influential role in Obama’s rise from Illinois state senator to the nation’s 44th president, serving as Obama’s national finance chair in his first campaign for the White House and co-chair of his reelection campaign.

The president is expected to make the announcement at 10 a.m. at the White House.

If confirmed by the Senate, Pritzker would take charge of the administration’s efforts to build relations with business leaders who were often on the sharp end of the president’s first-term rhetoric.

Sigh . . .

This next story is guaranteed to make your blood boil. Bloomberg reports:

It’s been almost three years since Congress directed the Securities and Exchange Commission to require public companies to disclose the ratio of their chief executive officers’ compensation to the median of the rest of their employees’. The agency has yet to produce a rule.

So Bloomberg decided not to wait around any longer and figured out the ratios for us. See the chart at the above link. More:

Ron Johnson

CEO Pay 1,795-to-1 Multiple of Wages Skirts U.S. Law

Former fashion jewelry saleswoman Rebecca Gonzales and former Chief Executive Officer Ron Johnson have one thing in common: J.C. Penney Co. (JCP) no longer employs either.

The similarity ends there. Johnson, 54, got a compensation package worth 1,795 times the average wage and benefits of a U.S. department store worker when he was hired in November 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Gonzales’s hourly wage was $8.30 that year.

Across the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index of companies, theaverage multiple of CEO compensation to that of rank-and-file workers is 204, up 20 percent since 2009, the data show. The numbers are based on industry-specific estimates for worker compensation.

Almost three years after Congress ordered public companies to reveal actual CEO-to-worker pay ratios under the Dodd-Frank law, the numbers remain unknown. As theOccupy Wall Street movement and 2012 election made income inequality a social flashpoint, mandatory disclosure of the ratios remained bottled up at the Securities and Exchange Commission, which hasn’t yet drawn up the rules to implement it. Some of America’s biggest companies are lobbying against the requirement.

“It’s a simple piece of information shareholders ought to have,” said Phil Angelides, who led the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which investigated the economic collapse of 2008. “The fact that corporate executives wouldn’t want to display the number speaks volumes.” The lobbying is part of “a street-by-street, block-by-block fight waged by large corporations and their Wall Street colleagues” to obstruct the Dodd-Frank law, he said.

Are you angry yet? These greedheads are going to keep pushing the envelope until Americans wake up and take to the streets with pitchforks and dust off the guillotines.

My birthplace, North Dakota is changing rapidly–and maybe not in a good way. It turns out the state’s oil is even more plentiful than anyone has realized up till now.

The sea of oil and natural gas underneath North Dakota is far larger than first thought.

There are 7.4 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the western part of the state and extending into Montana, according to the latest estimate by the U.S. Geological Survey.

That’s more than twice the oil the USGS estimated could be recovered five years ago. What’s more, the USGS has nearly tripled its estimate of the natural gas available in the area.

The revised totals could make the North Dakota field the greatest oil and gas find ever in the continental United States, topping the fabled East Texas field that made Texas synonymous with oil wealth. And it would put North Dakota second to Prudhoe Bay as the largest oil producer in U.S. history.

And even this estimate may have to be “revised upward”:

“We think it’s even a little bit conservative,’’ said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council.

The new estimate will give fresh momentum to an economic boom within the state that has made it the fastest growing in the nation in both population and incomes. Per capita income has risen to $52,000 a year, sixth-highest in the nation, and once quiet farm towns have been overwhelmed by oil field workers, creating shortages of housing and services.

The USGS said the drilling of 4,000 wells since 2008 in what is known as the Bakken formation has given geologists a better idea of the riches underground. The new analysis also highlights the rapid ascent of North American oil and gas production driven by the advent of the technique known as hydraulic fracturing.

I guess I’m happy about the new jobs and population growth, but it will be sad if North Dakota no longer has clean air and vast open spaces.

Four shallow chop marks on the top of the girl’s skull, evidence of cannibalism during the “starving time” over the winter of 1609-1610. (Smithsonian Institution / Don Hurlbert)

Four shallow chop marks on the top of the girl’s skull, evidence of cannibalism during the “starving time” over the winter of 1609-1610. (Smithsonian Institution / Don Hurlbert)

You may have heard about this fascinating story–it was up toward the top of Google News much of yesterday. Archaeologists have found strong evidence that Starving Settlers in [the] Jamestown Colony Resorted to Cannibalism. From Smithsonian Magazine:

The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” But a few other newly discovered bones in particular, though, tell a far more gruesome story: the dismemberment and cannibalization of a 14-year-old English girl.

“The chops to the forehead are very tentative, very incomplete,” says Douglas Owsley, the Smithsonian forensic anthropologist who analyzed the bones after they were found by archaeologists from Preservation Virginia. “Then, the body was turned over, and there were four strikes to the back of the head, one of which was the strongest and split the skull in half. A penetrating wound was then made to the left temple, probably by a single-sided knife, which was used to pry open the head and remove the brain.”

Much is still unknown about the circumstances of this grisly meal: Who exactly the girl researchers are calling “Jane” was, whether she was murdered or died of natural causes, whether multiple people participated in the butchering or it was a solo act. But as Owsley revealed along with lead archaeologist William Kelso today at a press conference at the National Museum of Natural History, we now have the first direct evidence of cannibalism at Jamestown, the oldest permanent English colony in the Americas. “Historians have gone back and forth on whether this sort of thing really happened there,” Owsley says. “Given these bones in a trash pit, all cut and chopped up, it’s clear that this body was dismembered for consumption.”

There’s much more at the link.

Now it’s your turn. What are you reading and blogging about today? Please post your links on any topic in the comment thread, and have a great day!

45 Comments on “Thursday Reads”

  1. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 2, 2013 at 7:29 am

    Here’s something. The European Central Bank cut their main interest rate “in an attempt to drag the euro zone out of the longest recession in its history.”

    Good luck with that.

  2. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 2, 2013 at 7:51 am

    Why isn’t Henry Kissinger dead yet?

    Kissinger “jokes” about Hillary Clinton 2016 run (I didn’t get the joke.)

    • ecocatwoman's avatar ecocatwoman says:
      May 2, 2013 at 8:07 am

      Was there ever anything “jocular” about Kissinger? I was going to say that maybe it was the tone in which he made his remarks then I recalled that his only tone was “mono”.

    • janicen's avatar janicen says:
      May 2, 2013 at 8:11 am

      But her response is inspired…

      “When I became secretary of state, I spent a lot of time thinking about my illustrious predecessors – not primarily the ones who went on to become president,” she said. “But about the extraordinary generation of those leaders who were not just present at the creation but leading the creation of a liberal global order that provided unprecedented peace and prosperity along with progress on behalf of the values that we hold in common.”

      She is a national treasure.

      • ecocatwoman's avatar ecocatwoman says:
        May 2, 2013 at 8:36 am

        I don’t know much about previous SOS, but in my lifetime there doesn’t seem to have been many, besides Hillary, that I would consider as “leading the creation of a liberal global order.” Someone help me out here, please.

      • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
        May 2, 2013 at 9:38 am

        It doesn’t sound like she’s referring to recent ones. Here’s a list of secretaries of state.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Secretaries_of_State_of_the_United_States

        The ones who became president are Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Martin Van Buren and James Buchanan

        • ecocatwoman's avatar ecocatwoman says:
          May 2, 2013 at 9:47 am

          Thanks. I’d gone to wikipedia to check out the list of SOS before making my comment. Recently the best I could come up with were Muskie & Albright. I ignored the early ones and most of the earlier 20th century ones weren’t familiar to me. The older I get, the dumber I feel.

      • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:
        May 2, 2013 at 1:34 pm

        “peace and prosperity” …. sigh

        Count on HRC to have her priorities right! Kissinger is merely a small-minded male full of envy.

  3. janicen's avatar janicen says:
    May 2, 2013 at 8:18 am

    I’m thinking that the Obama administration’s swing to the right on some of these hot button issues has a lot to do with the upcoming elections this fall. Two governors’ races, NJ and VA and I think we all agree that Christie is pretty solid in NJ so basically, VA and the Plan B issue could have a big impact in the VA race.

    And there are several congressional seats up for grabs as well. I don’t like it. I’m sick and tired of women’s issues being negotiable, but the right has been successful in making that a political reality.

    • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
      May 2, 2013 at 10:23 am

      The new legal challenge does not affect the FDA’s decision Tuesday to make Plan B available to females 15 and older. That decision became effective as soon as it was issued.

      The Justice Department, in fact, relied on that new decision to argue that none of the federal case’s plaintiffs — who are 15 or older — would be harmed by a court decision to delay Korman’s ruling from taking effect.

      “The approval has the effect of ensuring that all of the plaintiffs in this case (including the youngest of them) now have access without a prescription and without significant point-of-sale restrictions to at least one form of emergency contraceptive containing levonorgestrel,” the Justice Department argued, referring to the active ingredient in Plan B.

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/01/obama-administration-plans-to-appeal-plan-b-ruling/

      Maybe the challenge is a technical one?

      • minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
        May 2, 2013 at 10:33 am

        That is what I thought too Ralph but now I don’t know…

      • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
        May 2, 2013 at 1:19 pm

        The judge ordered that Plan B be available to women of all ages, not just 15 and older. I thought that was the objection of people like Cecille Richards. It’s not clear from the WaPo article, but I think the administration is also objecting to making Plan B available on the shelf instead of behind the counter.

        The Obama administration’s appeal is the latest step in a protracted debate over whether emergency contraceptives should be sold over the counter on shelves next to painkillers and condoms.

        The FDA concluded in December 2011 that the pill is safe for over-the-counter use among women of all ages, without consulting a physician.

        Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the agency, citing concerns over a lack of data on how the medication would affect girls as young as 12.

        In his April 5 ruling, Korman called Sebelius’s decision “politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent.” He ordered the federal government to reverse its position, giving the administration 30 days to appeal the decision.

        I’ll see what else I can find on this.

      • bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
        May 2, 2013 at 1:36 pm

        OK, I guess Obama was OK with having the drug available on the shelf to anyone 15 or older, but younger women would need a prescription. IMO, hat probably also keep lots of young women from getting Plan B, because the would have to show some kind of ID to prove their age.

        Think Progress: Women’s Health Groups Slam Obama Administration’s Fight To Maintain Age Restrictions On Plan B

        But the women’s health groups that have long advocated for expanded access to emergency contraception — which prominent medical groups confirm is safe for girls of all ages — are unhappy with what they perceive as a “step backwards.” Since there is no scientific basis for age restrictions on Plan B, reproductive rights leaders argue that the White House is simply insistent on playing politics to impose an unnecessary burden on young women.

        Remember, the FDA originally said the drug was safe for all ages. It was Sibilius and Obama who overruled the scientists in the FDA. This basically goes along with Obama’s ongoing insistence that abortion is somehow morally questionable, and women should get approval from husbands/religious advisers/parents, etc.

        The youngest girls are the ones who will be most intimidated by these retrictions, but I think anyone will feel uncomfortable having to provide ID.

        – SUSANNAH BARUCH, INTERIM PRESIDENT AND CEO OF THE REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH TECHNOLOGIES PROJECT: “This appeal takes away the promise of all women having timely access to emergency contraception. It is especially troubling in light of the Food and Drug Administration’s move yesterday to continue age restrictions and ID requirements, despite a court order to make emergency contraception accessible for women of all ages. Both announcements, particularly in tandem, highlight the administration’s corner-cutting on women’s health. It’s a sad day for women’s health when politics prevails.”

      • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:
        May 2, 2013 at 1:39 pm

        I think it’s just a variant of the ol’ WORM-ing trick as the Obama Administration panders to the R nutwings.

        Politics should stay the hell away from science. I am fed up with people who couldn’t pass Biology 102 arguing that oral contraceptives or emergency contraceptives cause terminations of pregnancy.

        • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
          May 2, 2013 at 2:58 pm

          Here’s more things to pander to:

          Belief in biblical end-times stifling climate change action in U.S.: study

          http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/01/belief-in-end-times-stifling-climate-change-action-in-u-s-study/

          The United States has failed to take action to mitigate climate change thanks in part to the large number of religious Americans who believe the world has a set expiration date.

          Research by David C. Barker of the University of Pittsburgh and David H. Bearce of the University of Colorado uncovered that belief in the biblical end-times was a motivating factor behind resistance to curbing climate change.

          “[T]he fact that such an overwhelming percentage of Republican citizens profess a belief in the Second Coming (76 percent in 2006, according to our sample) suggests that governmental attempts to curb greenhouse emissions would encounter stiff resistance even if every Democrat in the country wanted to curb them,” Barker and Bearce wrote in their study, which will be published in the June issue of Political Science Quarterly.

          Yes, the invisible booga booga will destroy us to save us!!!

          • dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
            May 2, 2013 at 3:18 pm

            “[I]t stands to reason that most nonbelievers would support preserving the Earth for future generations, but that end-times believers would rationally perceive such efforts to be ultimately futile, and hence ill-advised,” Barker and Bearce explained.

            That very sentiment has been expressed by federal legislators. Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL) said in 2010 that he opposed action on climate change because “the Earth will end only when God declares it to be over.” He is the chairman of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy.

            WTF is wrong with these people? Who the hell votes them into office?

            • ecocatwoman's avatar ecocatwoman says:
              May 2, 2013 at 4:44 pm

              they honestly needed a study to figure this out? I figured it out a long time ago. All you have to do is talk to one person who has swallowed the end times bs & it would be self-evident. Let go, let god folks. his finger is on the BIG red button, don’t you know?

  4. ecocatwoman's avatar ecocatwoman says:
    May 2, 2013 at 8:22 am

    May I say that I gave a hearty cheer to your suggestion of bringing out the pitchforks & guillotines? However, they will be no match for the drones dropping bombs on the American rebels. And sadly I’m beginning to feel as if Hillary, should she choose to run, won’t bring much in the way of change.

    Chris Hayes covered the story of a 16 student in Bartow, FL who was expelled for a science experiment that went awry: http://news.yahoo.com/teen-girl-expelled-charged-felony-science-experiment-goes-050006336.html

    And Rachel reported that Governor Transvaginal McDonnell is under investigation by the FBI: http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=257266 Guess we all know who will end up getting the roughest treatment……the 16 year old student, no doubt.

  5. roofingbird's avatar roofingbird says:
    May 2, 2013 at 8:38 am

    So, I guess that’s why Obama made the effort this month to give first ever Presidential uninspired speech for Planned Parenthood. Quid pro quo, or otherwise, breaking the bad news.

    After all, they turned down the bed sheets for him in 2004.

  6. roofingbird's avatar roofingbird says:
    May 2, 2013 at 8:41 am

    This is a meaty post, BB. However, the whole thing enrages me. The FCC is maybe the most vulnerable now.

  7. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 2, 2013 at 9:25 am

    Rolling Stone: Too-Big-to-Fail Takes Another Body Blow

    The “Terminating Bailouts for Taxpayer Fairness Act of 2013” or the “Brown-Vitter TBTF Act” for short may be good legislation after all. The Big Banks and their toadies seem to hate it.

  8. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 2, 2013 at 9:39 am

    CNN: Missing Pennsylvania woman reappears 11 years later in Florida Keys

    Unusual conclusion to a missing wife/mother case.

  9. bostonboomer's avatar bostonboomer says:
    May 2, 2013 at 9:41 am
  10. roofingbird's avatar roofingbird says:
    May 2, 2013 at 10:36 am

    Did you see this?

    http://emilyslist.org/content/madam-president-join-campaign-0?ws=MPOTUSAlternet_AQ_20130502

  11. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 2, 2013 at 10:38 am

    Reuters: The systemic plight of labor

    It’s May Day, and Henry Blodget is celebrating — if that’s the right word — with three charts, of which the most germane is the one above. It shows total US wages as a proportion of total US GDP — a number which continues to hit all-time lows. Blodget also puts up the converse chart — corporate profits as a percentage of GDP. That line, you won’t be surprised to hear, is hitting new all-time highs.

    Great Felix Salmon post on our 401K world and it’s disastrous consequences.

  12. minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    May 2, 2013 at 10:54 am

    Charlie Pierce: Kentucky Rifles For Children – The Worst Quote Of The Day – Esquire

    • minkoffminx's avatar JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
      May 2, 2013 at 10:55 am

      Nobody in this story is ever going to be the same. I can’t imagine the trauma the family’s going through. The little girl is dead and the little boy is going to carry this moment to his grave. Luckily, though, there was a local official to explain it all to the visiting media.

      “It’s a normal way of life. I mean, folks – and it’s not just rural Kentucky, it’s rural America. I mean folks hunting and fishing, it’s sports shooting – it’s just a way of life. You know, you begin at an early age, learning to use and respect a gun,” said Joe Phelps, Cumberland County Judge Executive, whose position has been described as similar to that of a local mayor.

      Stop.

      No.

      Also, too: goddammit.

      Up with this, I no longer have to put. If your “way of life” involves handing deadly weapons to five-year olds, your way of life is completely screwed up and you should change it immediately because it is stupid and wrong. (And, again, also, too: goddammit, “learning to use and respect a gun” means at least knowing that the fking thing is loaded when it’s sitting in the corner of the parlor like it’s a damn umbrella stand or something, and we should talk about that part, too.) It is not in any way “normal” to hand a kindergartner a firearm. If a mother from the inner-city of, say, Philadelphia did that, and the kid subsequently shot his sister to death, Fox News never would stop yelling about the crisis in African American communities and the Culture Of Death, and rap music, too. If your culture is telling you that children who have only recently emerged from toddlerhood should have their own guns, then your culture is deadly and dangerous and that should concern you, too. If your culture demands that, in the face of a general national outrage over the killing of other children, your politics work to loosen the gun laws you have, as they apparently did in Kentucky, then your culture is making your politics stupid and wrong and you should change them, too. I do not have to understand these people any more, and it is way too early in the day to be drinking this much.

      Read more: Kentucky Rifles For Children – The Worst Quote Of The Day – Esquire
      Follow us: @Esquiremag on Twitter | Esquire on Facebook
      Visit us at Esquire.com

      • ecocatwoman's avatar ecocatwoman says:
        May 2, 2013 at 11:12 am

        Holy fking sh*t. How do people like this say things like the “mayor” did with a straight face? Please, sir, step out of your alternate reality. And, yes, Pierce is spot on about Fox & if this happened in an urban, poor community. The Rules ARE different, aren’t they? Just admit it all of you Far Right (of reality) nutjobs. Anyone remember one of Newter’s pressers about kids becoming school janitors so they would know what work is since in their environment they only saw drug dealers, guns & hookers?

      • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
        May 2, 2013 at 11:31 am

        Lousy mutated motherfkers!

      • NW Luna's avatar NW Luna says:
        May 2, 2013 at 1:46 pm

        So ol’ Joe “Mayor” grew up in that rural way of life, and accidentally shot one or two of his sisters dead too?

    • RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
      May 2, 2013 at 11:19 am

      Did you read Charles Pierce’s post on the Dead Governor Walking?

      If you want to see a politician with the gallows in his eyes, take a look at Tom Corbett of Pennsylvania, whose re-election prospects at the moment look like an offer for a free introductory case of cholera.

  13. dakinikat's avatar dakinikat says:
    May 2, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    Obama continues to appoint some of the biggest corporate flunkies ever to his cabinet. He just seems to want to try to appease the unappeasable.

    Great post BB! Full of so much stuff to chomp on!!!

  14. RalphB's avatar RalphB says:
    May 2, 2013 at 12:29 pm

    RNC is attacking Obama for the failure of gun control legislation. This may take the cake.

    http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/05/01/rnc_hits_obama_for_failure_on_gun_control.html

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