tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88532192012-01-30T12:48:24.322-05:00news, politics and blog browsingPete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.comBlogger14081100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-1231566413176025732012-01-30T12:40:00.004-05:002012-01-30T12:48:24.328-05:00

This is darling: State Rep. Jerry Torr, R-Carmel, the sponsor, claimed his goal is not to break up Indiana labor unions but to create new jobs in the state by attracting businesses seeking lower labor costs and fewer work rules. [NWI Times]Rush to pass? Though that is a lot quicker than most bills take to clear all the legal checkpoints after the legislature passes a measure but before the

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-71061052172761986522012-01-27T15:49:00.000-05:002012-01-27T15:49:05.407-05:00

Forget he said this: “I am a supporter of the labor laws we have in the State of Indiana, and I’m not interested in changing any of them. Certainly not the prevailing wage law. And certainly not the right to work law. We can succeed in Indiana respecting the rights of labor and fair and free competition for everyone.” And forget this: "The late Steve Jobs — what a fitting name he had — created

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-77056813285139070542012-01-25T11:46:00.001-05:002012-01-25T17:33:19.587-05:00

 Wikipedia The turquoise states on the map are red states, of course. Indiana is a red state going for the “right-to-work” law. Among the 22 right-to-work states: 13 are in the top half of violent crime rates by state: AL,AZ,AR,FL,GA,KS,LA,NV,NC,OK,SC,TN,TX 14 are in the top half of infant mortality rate: AL,AR,FL,GA,KS,LA,MS,NC,OK,SC,SD,TN,VA,WY 12 are above the national average

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-23972164573194663922011-11-17T12:02:00.001-05:002011-11-17T12:06:41.508-05:00

"Why have the Europeans figured out they are getting screwed, and we haven’t? Why are they taking to the streets en masse, while we seem to be watching our own control over our own futures slip from our hands almost as if from afar?" The Big Picture "11:20 am: Liberty Square re-occupied: Bloomberg, NYPD struggle to quash Occupy Wall Street." Occupy Wall Street

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-26756592198346156322011-11-13T06:36:00.000-05:002011-11-13T06:36:49.157-05:00

This is from the content and links in Angry Bear's post, The right's smoke and mirrors scam about Social Security--it ain't broke (unless China is too): The national debate about deficits has been part of a relentless push by the right to reduce as much as possible the New Deal earned benefit programs of Social Security and Medicare. The right twists the facts to suit the arguments it wants to

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-11230350588561339232011-11-07T14:39:00.000-05:002011-11-07T14:39:01.780-05:00

Best wishes for the re-election of Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry! Downtown Fort Wayne is more attractive and alive than we've seen in years; and add to this the distinction of being named No. 1 in job growth in the U.S.A.

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-22328260462278229422011-11-03T14:06:00.000-04:002011-11-03T14:06:35.891-04:00

Happy news: As reported in the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, poet Helen Frost received an Indiana Authors Award. A gem in Fort Wayne's treasure chest, Helen is also an amazing teacher. My personal favorite among her works is "Green Stem Bends and Straightens" -- "Someone may chew on your joy like a slug on a daffodil ..." Well, I won't give away the surprise ending. Congratulations to Helen

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-69741786270082826302011-10-11T17:57:00.000-04:002011-10-11T17:57:42.551-04:00

Politcal Animal: Note on American Jobs Act In effect, what the Senate will vote on tonight is whether they can have a debate on the jobs bill. That’s all this is, a vote to allow a discussion. Republicans will, of course, filibuster the motion to proceed — a concept that would have been considered patently ridiculous not too terribly long ago — even before having an opportunity to filibuster the

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-46494615274561606102011-10-08T10:52:00.000-04:002011-10-08T10:52:22.813-04:00

The link to Occupy Fort Wayne is occupyfortwayne.org and it is not associated with websites such as occupyfortwayne-dot-com, the latter presented as something called the "Occupy Party." From NPR: As the Occupy Wall Street movement inspires protests in more U.S. cities, a website has popped up that seems to be trading on the group's somewhat nebulous status and lack of formal organization.The

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-13671094353760134692011-09-26T10:14:00.000-04:002011-09-26T10:14:52.801-04:00

"If 2,000 Tea Party activists descended on Wall Street, you would probably have an equal number of reporters there covering them." Amy Goodman, Guardian "The resistance continues at Liberty Square, with free pizza ; )" Photos and videos from Day 8 [occupywallst.org] Commenter homodonjohnson refers to social media "tw_tter" and "f_ckbook" in the discussion on corporate controls over public

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-73267684690970786692011-09-14T12:19:00.000-04:002011-09-14T12:19:21.213-04:00

"The Perry model of creating more jobs through low wages seems to be catching on around America." Robert Reich "The Death of the Confidence Fairy" Paul Krugman "Death's Own Party" Terrance Heath

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-75047800100697524842011-09-05T10:26:00.001-04:002011-09-05T10:28:25.740-04:00

"...if you were to ask most people, they’d now blame the fall of American manufacturing on our workers, which serves to shift focus from the top of the food chain at a time when they’ve managed to greatly widen the gap between their pay and that of the folks reporting to them." Yves Smith Who makes up the top 0.1%? The Big Picture highlights some graphics. Making matters even more outrageous,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-67107856544928480302011-08-25T16:03:00.003-04:002011-08-25T16:07:39.689-04:00

"Wall Street is our Main Street — love ’em or hate ’em. They are important and we have to make sure we are doing everything we can to support them unless they are doing something indefensible." Kathryn Wylde "Is Wylde waiting for Goldman and Citi to blow up a skyscraper? Dump dioxin into an orphanage?" Matt Taibbi

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-62292272999055402742011-08-23T13:29:00.000-04:002011-08-23T13:29:37.538-04:00

Great new tonic. No side effects. Ask your lawyer. Look out, look out for Schneiderman!

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-23334809963487054442011-08-13T11:19:00.000-04:002011-08-13T11:19:05.573-04:00

America's debt is not its biggest problem [Bill Gross, Pimco - Washington Post] Having run up our credit card to keep on spending, we have reached market-enforced limits that force deleveraging. It is not the debt, however, but the lack of global aggregate demand that is at the heart of the crisis. As the entire world strives to put its own people to work before other nations do, policymakers

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-57454673079104190632011-08-10T09:36:00.001-04:002011-08-10T09:38:34.314-04:00

Wisconsin recall elections [MoJo] "Clearly the unions tried to take me out, and they didn't," [GOP Sen. Alberta] Darling told a local TV network Tuesday night.Shaping the Debate over Job Creation [Economist's View] It seems to me what the president and his advisors are really saying is that they are no match for the Republicans when it comes to shaping a debate in their favor. Instead of cowering

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-30434073329758746172011-08-06T20:27:00.002-04:002011-08-06T20:33:08.872-04:00

Bringing Down Wall Street as Ratings Let Loose Subprime Scourge [Bloomberg, 2008] "I view the ratings agencies as one of the key culprits," says Joseph Stiglitz, 65, the Nobel laureate economist at Columbia University in New York. "They were the party that performed that alchemy that converted the securities from F- rated to A-rated. The banks could not have done what they did without the

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-20632189583809963102011-07-28T13:05:00.000-04:002011-07-28T13:05:04.980-04:00

I guess Uncle Rondo and that stuck-up Stella-Rondo have the last laugh, after I informed them in just so many words that "I've always got the P.O." USPS: expanded access fact sheet "Don't look at the Postal Service and see only brick and mortar Post Offices." Expanded access study list: all affected states

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-81148036670099638272011-07-24T09:56:00.001-04:002011-07-24T09:58:35.106-04:00

"More Shades of TARP" Yves Smith compares the Treasury power grab in TARP: Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency. -- with the proposed "Super Congress" in the debt-ceiling dance: ...both the Washington Post, which is taking up the deadline

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-78229744072449114012011-07-23T07:50:00.000-04:002011-07-23T07:50:04.401-04:00

Anders Behring Breivik was arrested as suspect in the Oslo bombing and subsequent shootings. Journalist and author Doug Saunders posted The Political Thinking of Anders Behring Breivik: These are the collected writings of Anders Behring Breivik, accused of killing more than 84 young people at a Labour Party gathering in Norway and at least seven in a car bombing in Oslo. These are comments he

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-33605573083671729162011-07-22T08:15:00.000-04:002011-07-22T08:15:10.588-04:00

It was touching to see this from Digby, sharp and informed as she is: Until the last few months I have always argued that a Democratic president was always going to be preferable to a Republican because of the Supreme Court --- and the partisan necessity to protect the "entitlements" from the GOP's ongoing assaults. I would have assumed that any Democrat would issue a veto threat on this Gang of

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-59122485890263589822011-07-21T08:22:00.000-04:002011-07-21T08:22:12.949-04:00

Murdoch: This scandal has exposed the scale of elite corruption Seumas Milne, Guardian: If it were not for the uncovering of this cesspit, the Cameron government would be preparing to nod through the outright takeover of BSkyB by News International, taking its dominance of Britain's media and political world into Silvio Berlusconi territory. But what has been exposed now goes well beyond the

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-35059012484212260212011-07-18T18:15:00.001-04:002011-07-18T18:16:35.093-04:00

Troubles that money can't dispel NYT: ...the money the company reportedly paid out to hacking victims is chicken feed compared with what it has spent trying to paper over the tactics of News America in a series of lawsuits filed by smaller competitors in the United States. The last several posts have been following Rupert Murdoch's wide web of slime, which is more interesting than the

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-457277422642883012011-07-17T19:19:00.001-04:002011-07-17T19:20:43.035-04:00

Back to the UK... The Observer: One of the more shaming aspects of the phone-hacking affair and all the interlocking circles of corruption and compromise is that they expose a huge failure in my generation, which has allowed Murdoch to enmesh our politics, media and police. After opposing his activities for a good part of that period, even I have been astonished at the levels of penetration he

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-12759171149219758482011-07-17T05:45:00.000-04:002011-07-17T05:45:15.897-04:00

Britain's phone-hacking scandal LA Times: Reporter Nick Davies' first investigative piece about the abuses inside News Corp. ran in July 2009, and he just kept plugging away.Nick Davies' report Guardian: The payments secured secrecy over out-of-court settlements in three cases that threatened to expose evidence of Murdoch journalists using private investigators who illegally hacked into the

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-87343520188379398312011-07-16T19:21:00.000-04:002011-07-16T19:21:23.113-04:00

Hugh Grant Sues Police: Bloomberg: Suing the police has been a means for possible victims, including former government minister Tessa Jowell, to obtain evidence on whether their phones were accessed. Jowell later filed a claim against News Corp. (NWSA) over hacking. "The Bugger, Bugged" New Statesman: After a chance meeting with a former News of the World executive who told him his phone had

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-46751184967897755112011-07-15T17:35:00.000-04:002011-07-15T17:35:11.768-04:00

Rebekah Brooks goes American Journalism Review: So Murdoch made an ostentatious show of support for his close confidante, appearing with her in public, the two all smiles. Asked what his top priority was as he tried to get a grip on the snowballing crisis, Murdoch motioned toward Brooks and remarked, "This one." Five days later, "this one" was gone. She announced her resignation Friday.Les

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-25830949375982894252011-07-14T19:32:00.000-04:002011-07-14T19:32:21.694-04:00

Roger Ailes Rush Limbaugh Karl Rove Dubya Dick Cheney Ann Coulter Glenn Beck Sarah Palin...

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-37622520674725569252011-07-05T10:27:00.001-04:002011-07-05T10:39:00.859-04:00

Mojo's Tim Murphy on former governor Tim Pawlenty's Budget Busting Legacy: [Arne] Carlson, who served as Minnesota's chief executive from 1991 to 1999, marvels at how Pawlenty has distanced himself from the state's budget crisis. "He turns around and says, 'Gee, I have nothing to do with the current deficit.' Well, that's interesting!" Carlson says. "You can't say the new governor created the

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-11745068999043755042011-07-01T10:04:00.001-04:002011-07-01T10:08:09.721-04:00

Digby's post yesterday seemed in some kind of time warp. She quotes Brad DeLong's essay, "Confessions of a Financial Deregulator," in which DeLong recalls history from the time of the Great Depression to the 1990s -- without recalling the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. Here is a chronology that fleshes out the story in words and pictures (ghohnsit, 2008): Deregulation was coming fast and

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-44016815929216917162011-06-25T15:25:00.000-04:002011-06-25T15:25:57.070-04:00

in.gov Black Creek Festival Aug. 26, 27, 28 in Sandborn, Indiana, home town of gubernatorial candidate John Gregg. Sandborn is just up the road from Vincennes, Indiana's oldest city.

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-88824317846312456962011-06-22T04:13:00.000-04:002011-06-22T04:13:02.943-04:00

"His roots originate in the Wabash Valley..." Tribune-Star  Wikipedia "John grew up in Knox County and still calls Sandborn his home. He got his start in public service in 1986 when he was elected to represent Southwest Indiana in the Statehouse. "John was in the Statehouse for eight terms, rising to the office of Speaker of the House. He served as speaker for six consecutive years,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-84510244267888640412011-06-20T10:42:00.003-04:002011-06-20T11:30:16.883-04:00

Yves Smith institutes the Lobsters Really Want to be Your Dinner Prize for a published study on student debt and self-esteem by Rachel Dwyer, Laura McCloud and Randy Hodson.About the new award, Smith says:...we need a separate category for the more mundane, bread-and-butter shilldom that is dressed up to look like serious academic work.. . .It does take a certain skill to pack so much bad

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-7647067803761223022011-05-21T11:45:00.005-04:002011-05-21T13:12:52.472-04:00

This article in Mother Jones has an interesting story about a group in Chicago back in the 1950s, the Seekers, led by Dorothy Martin:Through her, the aliens had given the precise date of an Earth-rending cataclysm: December 21, 1954. Some of Martin's followers quit their jobs and sold their property, expecting to be rescued by a flying saucer when the continent split asunder and a new sea

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-16567050260305070142011-05-18T17:45:00.002-04:002011-05-18T18:08:51.509-04:00

A couple of items on The Indiana Law Blog:"The right to reasonably resist an unlawful police entry into a home is no longer recognized under Indiana law."Attorney will appeal ruling.Regarding Kentucky v. King SCOTUS decision ("exigent" circumstances case), SCOTUSblog post is cited:[Choosing the rule for police-created exigencies in Kentucky v. King]The Court’s test doesn’t answer every question.

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-13291488005344055762011-05-18T07:26:00.003-04:002011-05-18T08:09:34.703-04:00

Important Rapture Update[Joe.My.God.]According to End Times proponent Harold Camping, the rapture will occur promptly this Saturday at 6pm in each God-created time zone, giving those of you on the west coast an extra three hours ...What's Real About the Rapture?[John R. Coats, HuffPo, 2010]More than half of every summer of my childhood was immersed in that river of old-time religion with its

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-10875325861890257892011-05-10T15:24:00.005-04:002011-05-10T16:30:49.829-04:00

Alternet:The decades-long campaign to end public education is propelled by the super-wealthy, right-wing DeVos family. Betsy Prince DeVos is the sister of Erik Prince, founder of the notorious private military contractor Blackwater USA (now Xe), and wife of Dick DeVos, son of the co-founder of Amway, the multi-tiered home products business.Indiana --[No Charter School Left Behind]In Indiana,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-70128416693811291092011-05-05T10:01:00.005-04:002011-05-05T10:43:08.388-04:00

The news buzz was about the killing of Osama bin Laden, only I was so busy and fatigued at the time that my head translated bin Laden to Saddam Hussein, and I wondered why they were doing a retrospective as if it were a current newsflash. Later there was time to slow down and focus on the story. That cleared up the confusion. Then I wondered about the way I had categorized it in the first place,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-39212104320123894192011-04-14T18:02:00.005-04:002011-04-14T18:21:00.499-04:00

Fort Wayne District 5 candidates are:Richard Cline[Links to a previous run for public office.]Dennis FergusonMaye JohnsonGeoff Paddock

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-43072448313080213962011-04-08T20:33:00.003-04:002011-04-08T21:03:34.743-04:00

Jerome Corsi, the swift-boater, and Donald Trump have hopped onto the birther bandwagon. A Slate article (March 30) looks at the strategy:What Trump is embracing, and Corsi is selling, is Reform Birtherism. ... There are probably going to be more Republicans primary voters who have these doubts than think abortion should be illegal. So being a Reform Birther is saying you're in solidarity with

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-66943427834222890242011-04-07T16:51:00.003-04:002011-04-07T17:09:15.217-04:00

"Path to Prosperity" (tea-hee)On Economist's View: "Two-thirds of proposed cuts in Ryan plan come from low-income programs.""The Redistribution Fairy is Dead..."Yves Smith quotes Stiglitz:The more divided a society becomes in terms of wealth, the more reluctant the wealthy become to spend money on common needs. The rich don’t need to rely on government for parks or education or medical care or

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-20029335697997722672011-03-30T12:01:00.003-04:002011-03-30T12:15:09.595-04:00

I love these stories [Think Progress]:...[Rep. Darrell] Issa invested his fortune in a sprawling network of real estate companies with holdings throughout his district. One of Issa’s most valuable properties, a medical office building.... Around the same time, Issa made the Vista Medical Center purchase, the congressman began requesting millions of dollars worth of earmarks to widen and improve

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-77032255079940438722011-03-29T11:15:00.002-04:002011-03-29T11:39:14.657-04:00

President Obama barely began his address on Libya, when my ears turned off, just as they'd done to the speeches of George W. Bush. So this comment on Slate caught my eye:Though the sweeping claims for American action at times made Obama sound like the more recent Bush president, the central message was the one associated with his father: prudence.Well, the ears won't hear it, so I guess I'll

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-8805045585483504962011-03-10T10:16:00.005-05:002011-03-10T10:38:48.634-05:00

"We’ve heard Walker maintaining, earnestly, that the union busting was necessary to fix the budget. This new claim, that the anti-union measures have no fiscal impact, puts the lie to that claim. This is just union hating. Anyone who claims that anti-union measures were fiscally necessary can now safely be called full of shit."Masson's Blog"When Gov. Mitch Daniels repealed collective bargaining

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-62705763035844981022011-03-07T11:06:00.002-05:002011-03-07T11:20:27.369-05:00

"Remember MERS? Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems? We haven't talked about the MERS corporation for some time now but it's about to explode in our face just the way the rest of the mortgage industry has."Prairie WeatherYves Smith on Le Show:HARRY SHEARER: How many people have signed documents as supposed MERS officers?YVES SMITH: Well, it's kind of hard to know, because again MERS won't

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-74789792515283744652011-03-03T10:36:00.003-05:002011-03-03T11:08:34.005-05:00

Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels rated three "Pinocchios" at Fact Checker:...National Public Radio on Monday morning, he was asked if he was responsible for the disappearance of the projected budget surpluses, totaling $5.6 trillion over 10 years, after Bush became president. ... Daniels's answer is interesting on several levels, especially because of its selective remembering of history.[...]The

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-83112073390716842662011-02-21T09:06:00.004-05:002011-02-21T09:27:59.617-05:00

From TPM: "Walker's proposal doesn't apply to all public sector unions in the state. Broadly speaking it targets unions that consistently support Democrats (teachers and other public employees) and exempts those that are often more friendly to Republican candidates (police and firefighters)."A related story:Police Union Official Pulls Down Anti-Walker Press Release After News CoverageDivisions

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-79903374355587670572011-02-17T11:41:00.002-05:002011-02-17T11:45:26.179-05:00

Today I learn the word, "retweeter."Check out the pictures.

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-83583544839739917642011-02-16T15:58:00.003-05:002011-02-16T16:11:51.022-05:00

A gay couple can be just as creepy as any straight couple, meaning two become as one two-headed monster, which is why I prefer meeting people in settings apart from their better halves, soul mates, Best Friends, or I'm With Stupid. I like children, but certainly not in their homes, ever busy testing the definition of home as the place where, when you go there, they have to let you in.Years ago

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-17968856043879185792011-02-05T08:34:00.003-05:002011-02-05T08:46:09.355-05:00

Posted yesterday at Hullabaloo, Digby pasted a bit of call-in conversation between Mike Stark and Rush Limbaugh:STARK: Why is Reagan a hero to conservatives?RUSH: “Why is Reagan a hero to conservatives?” I don’t think you… Given what you’ve said, and I’m not trying to avoid the question, I don’t think you’d ever understand it.Video and transcript at Stark Reports:STARK: Well, he’s a tax raiser,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-21138062210517552842011-01-21T19:47:00.003-05:002011-01-21T19:57:42.129-05:00

Pro-ChoiceOath Keepers may choose to disobey orders and fight the U.S. miliary:Most of the men's gripes revolve around policies that began under President Bush but didn't scare them so much at the time. "Too many conservatives relied on Bush's character and didn't pay attention," founder Rhodes told me. "Only now, with Obama, do they worry and see what has been done. Maybe you said, I trusted

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-59449632640640641602011-01-11T15:20:00.002-05:002011-01-11T15:39:36.883-05:00

The Fact Checker at Washington Post says,It now turns out that the alleged shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, appears to have had an animus for Giffords dating back to 2007, long before Palin posted the map on her Facebook page last March. So despite media efforts to draw larger meaning from the tragedy, the charge that Palin's map had anything to do with the shooting is bogus.Run that by me again?

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-10386418101411009992011-01-08T19:38:00.003-05:002011-01-08T19:48:57.801-05:00

All the gun talk and images of Democrats in the crosshairs were metaphorical, of course. As if Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' shooter could spell, let alone define "metaphor." Raw Story has more, including Jesse Kelly's (her opponent in the election) invitation to shoot non-metaphorical guns:Get on Target for Victory in November. Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-20014583069836608382011-01-08T13:06:00.004-05:002011-01-08T13:18:40.082-05:00

Hill-arious: congressmen swear their oath of office to a TV set, and other "instant classic moments" of the 112th Congress, presented by Talking Points Memo. They read some document which begins, "Weed a peephole" or something like that.Rep. Steve King gets special mention:Some may point to his 'Dead Baby In Garbage Can' argument for the unconstitutionality of the health care law as his top

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-50880599963061857132010-12-16T06:28:00.005-05:002010-12-16T06:55:50.513-05:00

Per a quote from Digby:It's one thing to argue that you need to pass the health care bill or the liberal agenda will be stalled for decades. (That was a common argument at the time.) But it's quite another to argue that your presidency is on the line every time you want a some half-baked pile of junk passed, particularly when it's a Republican tax cut and time bomb bill with a small concession to

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-43923103896373985002010-12-09T12:15:00.004-05:002010-12-09T12:21:21.947-05:00

Excerpt from Naked Capitalism's "must-read":The past 30 years, and the past 10 years in particular, have been a huge experiment in tax-cutting, and for ordinary people, the result has been stagnation and now an absolute decline. Because ordinary people do not have pricing power, either as workers for their labor (since there are plenty of people who need jobs) or as consumers (because the

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-85736739210573036592010-12-06T06:52:00.003-05:002010-12-06T07:06:08.318-05:00

"Social Security is crucial to most Americans — but not at all to the elite."Paul Krugman, NYTNotes from Masson's Blog--Social Security Isn't The Problem:Thanks to an increase in the regressive payroll taxes back in the 80s, Social Security has been solvent. The problem has been the raiding of that regressive tax money to pay for things like tax cuts for millionaires and ill-advised wars.Also,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-52322264116432071242010-12-03T08:48:00.006-05:002010-12-04T10:27:01.045-05:00

(Updated)Letter from Ireland was posted at Angry Bear Nov. 27th, headlined Ireland is Bankrupt...a letter from an Irish citizen.Zeus-Boy writes:Was it for this the wild geese spreadThe grey wing upon every tide .... . .The famed 'Celtic Tiger' boom economy was always a high-risk, dangerous fiction. Someone dubbed Ireland the 'Wild West of Economics'. Our illusory wealth was tied to a property

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-79684511503129274322010-11-16T05:23:00.004-05:002010-11-16T06:13:23.437-05:00

The phone company representative warned me that if I discontinue the "inside line" insurance on the phone bill, I would have to pay for a service call if anything happens to that phone line. I listened to the whole hard sell, just to hear the performance. It was pretty good. I paused for two beats and then told her that I was going to take a chance on nothing bad happening to the one inch of

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-24843397546933439852010-11-10T18:11:00.003-05:002010-11-10T18:31:37.784-05:00

Joseph C. Wilson:I have a special interest in understanding how the former president sees his decision to invade Iraq and his use of intelligence to justify the invasion. I have also been curious about what he might have to say about the betrayal of a CIA covert officer's identity, my wife's, by, among others, two senior members of his staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove.The price

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-42624413238174516552010-11-03T13:05:00.003-04:002010-11-03T13:16:23.131-04:00

"What exactly is QE2?"With the Fed Funds rate close to zero, QE is perhaps the only stimulative tool left for the Fed.

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-53134671464245994782010-10-29T10:43:00.003-04:002010-10-29T11:29:04.771-04:00

"Pants on Fire" Dan Coats, candidate for US senator in Indiana, accuses opponent Brad Ellsworth of teaming up with Nancy Pelosi to cut Medicare protection for seniors.Maybe the ad works for the willfully ignorant, or anybody who doesn't have to work with seniors' health care needs. But I've done the rides, waiting rooms, doctor talks, tears, hugs, and heaps of paperwork in regard for elders. And

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-1655467156986792032010-10-28T09:45:00.004-04:002010-10-28T11:04:17.781-04:00

It was a kick to see Indiana blue, once, even though a color map of the counties showed red, red, red. So the current polls are showing Indiana as usual. It's a bit depressing in the short view, only because hope, the thing with feathers, enjoyed a flight of fancy. In real life, we re-elected George W. Bush here, and Mark Souder would still be in congress if he could have kept his ass covered.In

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-44453923673817162462010-10-27T08:01:00.006-04:002010-10-27T08:31:39.632-04:00

Lots of reports on Tea Partiers assaulting others, not so much on Tea Partiers being assaulted. Before the senate debate in Kentucky, this AP video does not show that the woman was actually head-stomped. The plaid-shirt man takes her down, and, by the force of his body weight, slams her head against the pavement. Then a sad-ass excuse for a man sets his foot on her shoulder. The woman is not

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-3532970772608049412010-10-13T16:22:00.004-04:002010-10-13T16:52:29.610-04:00

The division is not razor-blade sharp. For instance, Tea Party conservatives wouldn't be bumping elbows with the have-nots at the public trough, would they? Well, says Matt Taibbi:This whole concept of “good welfare” and “bad welfare” is at the heart of the Tea Party ideology, and it’s something that is believed implicitly across the line. It’s why so many of their political champions, like

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-3920927509180237682010-10-06T17:37:00.004-04:002011-01-21T18:01:21.448-05:00

It was all over the news that the recent Pew Forum survey found 59 percent of the respondents were able to name the current vice president of the United States. [link: pdf]I've been ill this week and my thinking is sluggish, but I noted that this number matches the roughly 50 to 60 pecent of the voting-age population who turn out for presidential elections. The Infoplease chart goes back to 1960,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-18981773462810563992010-09-25T19:41:00.004-04:002010-09-25T20:28:11.265-04:00

Reviewing some "temp links" saved during the week --Who You Gonna Believe?Paul Krugman at NYT reviews the mail. "...I found myself wondering, as I often do, about the determination with which people believe pundits who please them ideologically, no matter how wrong they have repeatedly been — wrong in ways that, if you believed them, cost you money." According to them, he says:In 2006 you would

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-62746094841410122092010-09-24T09:55:00.003-04:002010-09-24T10:01:33.232-04:00

West Central Neighborhood, Fort Wayne:Neighbors have been searching for a large, dark orange, neutered male cat, with four white paws and a white chest. He was wearing a black collar with tags.They have been searching diligently for a couple of weeks. I sure hope there's a happy outcome.

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-86950430977140144702010-09-21T16:02:00.003-04:002010-09-22T05:26:17.876-04:00

On Bill Maher's tape from 1999, Tea Party candidate Christine O'Donnell is pretty clear in stating that she "dabbled into witchcraft" but did not join a coven. She hung around with people "who were doing these things."She does not say that she dabbled into satanism. She went on a date with someone who took her to a midnight picnic on a satanic altar. But that was a date with a satanist,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-6561661842218440962010-09-13T12:27:00.004-04:002010-09-21T16:30:30.270-04:00

Tea Party: Is Glenn Beck similar to Buzz Windrip?He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover...Related links --Young Americans: Where is Iraq?Only 37% of young Americans can find Iraq on a map—though U.S. troops have been there since 2003.[2006 survey]Opinionator - NYT:So

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-89346139623029922222010-09-07T13:24:00.005-04:002010-09-21T16:31:45.598-04:00

Looking at developments under the leadership of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin (a Mormon and a non-denominational evangelical Christian), maybe this writer's comment touches upon a common note among their followers:Even if every Beckian enthusiast is not a Mormon, most belong to churches that teach individual interpretation of the scriptures. For Catholics, this is heresy: but many Evangelicals

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-23144897870078931682010-09-02T07:25:00.002-04:002010-09-02T08:02:41.050-04:00

The U.S. invasion of Iraq, which began as a hype to hunt down weapons of mass destruction and then morphed into "freeing the Iraqi people" -- as Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) switched to Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and U.S. troops guarded the oil fields while the museums were looted -- anyway, it's commonly known as the Iraq War. Several years after President George W. Bush announced that

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-6143409122350991722010-08-30T05:01:00.004-04:002010-08-30T06:02:10.638-04:00

Though I had hoped to see Karl Rove outed during the Bush years, I guess it wouldn't have made much of a difference, really. Former head of the Republican National Committee Ken Mehlman was outed, and it didn't matter a bit. He says in an interview now:The process of not being able to say who I am in public life was very difficult. No one else knew this except me. My family didn't know. My

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-7338763030887729552010-08-25T08:10:00.003-04:002010-09-05T05:14:26.306-04:00

A book by Donald F. Bouchard(Prometheus Books, 2010)Donald F. Bouchard’s book, Hemingway: So Far From Simple, aims at evaluating Ernest Hemingway’s works relative to changing circumstances in the course of his career, with a focus on the writing itself, rather than presenting another theory based on “interpretation laced with biographical details.”This could be a refreshing viewpoint. And

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-84715662414559800992010-08-24T14:39:00.003-04:002010-08-24T15:01:26.531-04:00

The Republicans "for eight years ran the economy and the middle class literally into the ground."Joe Biden

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-79447031428161587502010-08-21T16:52:00.003-04:002010-08-21T17:04:47.489-04:00

AP: Recall expands to more than half a billion eggs:Iowa's Hillandale Farms said Friday it was recalling more than 170 million eggs after laboratory tests confirmed salmonella. The company did not say if its action was connected to the recall by Wright County Egg, another Iowa farm that recalled 380 million eggs earlier this week. The latest recall puts the total number of potentially tainted

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-60879809921497302732010-08-19T12:33:00.004-04:002010-08-19T12:59:04.306-04:00

Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone says he's late in noticing David Stockman's op-ed piece in the New York Times (July 31) -- and I'm even later.Stockman was once the arch-priest of supply-side economics, but he's had a conversion over the years. . . .The line about "Keynesianism robed in the ideological vestments of the prosperous classes" is a truth that is both brutally accurate and unfortunately a

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-30244452508926459902010-08-12T06:20:00.004-04:002010-08-15T08:14:08.132-04:00

'At "Mechanical Devices, which supplies parts for earthmovers and other heavy equipment to manufacturers such as Caterpillar Inc., part owner Mark Sperry says he has been looking for $13-an-hour machinists since early last year," the Journal reports. Thirteen dollars an hour, 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year—that comes to an annual salary of $26,000. (In the adjacent Peoria, Ill.,

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-26315683251986640352010-07-31T15:11:00.003-04:002010-07-31T15:33:36.865-04:00

Word has it that Bristol's reconsidering the marriage plan, but this media buzz will be more colorful when Levi updates his announcements, "What I said was true/not true/true."Meanwhile, Newsweek reports (via New York Magazine) a quote from Andrew Breitbart on the smearing of Shirley Sherrod:"As difficult as it probably was for her, it’s been difficult for me as well, especially to hear her hurl

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-32810997352713795742010-07-29T06:28:00.003-04:002010-07-29T07:11:55.594-04:00

Here's a variation on the scheme these guys use to get inside your home.wxix.com:...a man approached a residence in Ripley County owned by an elderly widow and told her he was doing some tree trimming in the area for a neighbor. The suspect told the victim he wanted her to shown him the property line so he wouldn't cut any over her trees by mistake. When the resident and the man were in the back

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-92182329209438795792010-07-28T11:13:00.005-04:002010-07-28T11:58:42.227-04:00

Fort Wayne, especially seniors, please be careful! A young man at your door identifies himself as a city worker. He talks about plans to trim some of the trees along the street. He points out tree limbs that could be a danger to pedestrians, and tells you about his crew's plan to bring a wood chipper, etc.He persuades you to go with him to the back yard, to look at trees from that viewpoint.

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-75633657758147654212010-07-25T06:03:00.008-04:002010-09-21T16:33:46.857-04:00

The Not-Democrats Party:The striking thing about Boehner’s answers at the lunch, sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor, was how little of a positive program he presented. The Republican agenda as sketched out by Boehner was more of an absence of Democratic policies than the implementation of Republican ones.[Ruth Marcus]The Not-Democrats Caucus:First Members of the ‘Tea Party Caucus’...all

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-61758598397963932132010-07-24T19:20:00.004-04:002010-07-24T19:40:08.295-04:00

The way it works, in a nutshell:First, Breitbart posted a highly doctored video on his website that was intended to put its target (both African Americans -- hardly a coincidence) in the worst possible light. Then the right-wing echo chamber -- including Fox News and the conservative blogosphere -- picked up Breitbart's ball and ran with it. Next, the mainstream media -- the daily newspapers and

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-30169001237007776482010-07-22T10:29:00.002-04:002010-07-22T10:40:53.852-04:00

The most recent queries I've found are Riverbend – the girl blogger of Baghdad at La Dolce Vita blog:Personally, I hope to hear again from my favorite blogger, and would like to see her “round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend….”-- and Is Riverbend OK? at Bluebanshee's Weblog (which is dated 2008 but the comments continue into 2010):We can only hope and pray that

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-76803132761634429592010-07-19T14:45:00.004-04:002010-07-19T21:08:40.941-04:00

Recent invitations from Facebook show that a good portion of my address book has been compiled at that site. I was careful to protect my address book, I forget why now. It seems to have outed itself. The invitation to open an account is all friendly-like, and then there's a list of account-holders' names, as if to say, "WE KNOW WHO YOUR FRIENDS ARE."Tom Tomorrow says "resistance is futile." I

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-42706516246509159442010-07-14T11:00:00.004-04:002010-07-14T11:12:25.938-04:00

Peasant ancestors:Landless peasants made up the majority of the population. They had few possessions of their own. Most owned no land, no farm, and often no home. Sometimes landless peasants built little temporary houses. Other times, they lived in the homes of landowners. They went from place to place, working on the farms of other people. They had no power and no rights.[Understanding Your

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-73420176396990017072010-07-09T10:57:00.004-04:002010-07-09T11:26:22.268-04:00

Sarah Palin's imagery overlays definitely do for the big-screen congregations. Take the conservative, commonsense (and of course Christian) woman from the old Bible movies, and trick her out for the law of the jungle, baby! -- a pit bull bitch, a mama grizzly, and then finally, an elephant ...Check out the matriarch overlays.She calls it a "mom awakening." Could their men be any more infantalized

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-32321088349612408332010-07-05T15:23:00.006-04:002010-07-05T15:54:24.651-04:00

Blackwater (now called Xe) is pulling in the contracts for Afghanistan and beyond, since hooking up with Stuart Eizenstat (Muckety maps the connections), trustee for BlackRock Funds:...BlackRock’s enormous and growing influence and its sheer size—too big to fail, some say—has begun to raise questions. “It’s like the Blackwater of finance, almost a shadow government,” says one senior bank

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-86223684816773114152010-07-02T17:52:00.003-04:002010-07-02T18:00:28.772-04:00

One U.S. president ranked lower, from the past century, according to new survey. Others are in the 19th century.Here's link to score sheet [pdf].

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-85416406975659782222010-06-29T08:08:00.003-04:002010-06-29T08:52:11.007-04:00

Glenn Greenwald's post in defense of Michael Friggin Hastings' article on Gen. McChrystal in Rolling Stone came as a bit of a shock:...Michael Hastings has become both the personification of, and spokesperson for, Real Journalism...Well, Greenwald is a journalist and I'm not. Looking at his post as a debate (or maybe more like a catfight) with his colleagues, and a journalism lecture for students

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-2379444321529114972010-06-28T09:32:00.003-04:002010-06-28T10:14:41.103-04:00

Some of the scenes appear to be on a direct route to the history files -- like the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression, we've got the Oil Spill, the Oil Wars, and the Financial Crisis all on the edge of the Third Depression, as termed by Paul Krugman:We are now, I fear, in the early stages of a third depression. It will probably look more like the Long Depression than the much more severe Great

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-45189364062142237432010-06-23T12:54:00.002-04:002010-06-23T13:07:02.984-04:00

The Rolling Friggin Stone article on Gen. McChrystal is a media event, so one does need to friggin go to the friggin source and read Michael Friggin Hastings' report:McChrystal takes a final look around the suite. At 55, he is gaunt and lean, not unlike an older version of Christian Bale in Rescue Dawn. His slate-blue eyes have the unsettling ability to drill down when they lock on you. If you've

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-77531769053818343242010-06-18T07:17:00.003-04:002010-06-18T07:33:28.651-04:00

With Texas Rep. Joe Barton's comedy act, it wasn't the "shakedown" bit, but his presuming to apologize for President Obama, where the bs was laid on too thick. He apologized to BP for President Obama. Then he apologized for the "misconstrued" statement. That was another too-thick slather of bs. So, then, he retracted his apology to BP, which is bs-slather number three, and the act is so bad it's

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-80892852404011642602010-06-12T06:33:00.003-04:002010-06-12T07:24:15.951-04:00

A post on Angry Bear takes a look at Betsy's man, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels:Now, raising the net disposable income of individual Hoosiers (or anyone else, for that matter) is, to be honest, relatively easy. In general, incomes, net disposable or otherwise, tend to rise. A more useful question is the net disposable incomes of Hoosers are doing relative to the incomes of similarly situated

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-33460334162694285502010-06-09T11:29:00.003-04:002010-06-09T11:41:33.400-04:00

PERRspectives: Bush's Last LaughPresident Bush, Tom Delay and Congressional Republicans pushed through the secret Cheney energy plan, virtually gave away U.S. oil leases, loosened regulations on offshore drilling and perverted the federal agency overseeing it, all while breaking Bush's promise to "jawbone" OPEC into lowering prices.And now that the Gulf of Mexico is being killed by an almost

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-15983437838787536592010-05-31T10:50:00.005-04:002010-05-31T11:00:20.431-04:00

Rich Guy Feeling Left Out Of Recession:[The Onion, April 2010]According to the multimillionaire, the past 18 months have been incredibly difficult to endure, as he is often left feeling excluded from an American populace that includes millions who struggle every day to make ends meet. Chandler, who watched helplessly as his enormous fortune easily withstood the market freefall, has been "

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-56911707658478482252010-05-30T05:55:00.002-04:002010-05-30T06:10:45.558-04:00

BECK: "Did you plug the hole yet, daddy?" Is that's their -- that's the level of their education, that they're coming to -- they're coming to daddy and saying 'Daddy, did you plug the hole yet?' " Plug the hole!Beck issued an apology for picking on President Obama's daughter. Sometimes the boys in the back of the seventh-grade classroom have to stand up and apologize.Here's a sampling of Beck's

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-45952254393158369082010-05-28T15:52:00.004-04:002010-05-28T16:06:25.529-04:00

Muckety maps can be quite interesting, such as the networks of relationships between BP and government agencies -- if not the "Where's Waldo" game, clicking on Dick Cheney. But those little dark-green squares get hard to read, don't they?

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-51700009750634435832010-05-20T17:30:00.003-04:002010-05-20T17:42:21.892-04:00

Joe Conason on Oil Rules:Free-market ideologues and other corporate shills insist that this is the most efficient way to do business, which is true enough for a corporate manager or a stockholder.Kevin Costner & Ocean Therapy Solutions have cleanup machines for BP's oil in the Gulf of Mexico, reported by Christian Science Monitor.

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8853219.post-79848567040243338472010-05-18T18:44:00.005-04:002010-05-18T18:59:49.998-04:00

“My reaction is that I'm still strongly focused on fighting hard for more jobs and better jobs for citizens of Northeast Indiana,” Hayhurst said. “I wish Congressman Souder the best in the future, but I'm not into focusing on personalities or individuals. I'm solidly focused on issues.”Dr. Tom Hayhurst[Indiana's News Center]Campaign website: Hayhurst for Congress

Pete Chttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12104928824159202457noreply@blogger.com0