Rachel Maddow Explains to Mitt Romney How Birth Control Works

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Last night Rachel Maddow showed a clip of a "hero" voter who asked Mitt Romney an important question: Does he want to outlaw birth control?

This is an issue because Romney supports so-called "personhood" amendments, in which fertilized eggs are considered people. Not only does this type of legislation effectively ban abortion (Roe v. Wade be damned) -- it could also lead to bans on hormonal birth control, as well as murder investigations of women who miscarry. So if Romney supports personhood amendments, does that mean he also wants to ban some forms of birth control? Read more

Mortgage CEO Gets 40-Month Sentence for $3 Billion Fraud, Homeless Man Gets 15 Years for Taking $100

This image has been making the rounds this week, and for good reason. It elegantly illustrates how our nation treats the haves vs. the have-nots -- the 1% vs. the 99%, if you will. We live in a country where white collar criminals convicted of multi-billion-dollar fraud schemes get less than 3.5 years in prison, while homeless men who take a hundred bucks (and feel bad about it) are tossed behind bars for 15 years. The stories aren't new (the first is from June and the second from 2009), but it hardly matters; you could sub in any of the numerous stories of white collar criminals getting away with enormous crimes, and of poor people being targeted because of their class, and you'd get a similar result. Read more

WTF? Louisiana Bans Cash For Second Hand Transactions

Posted: 20 Oct 2011 07:00 PM PDT

I'm struggling to understand the reasoning behind this, much less the priorities that make the Louisiana legislature decide to make this move.

Cold hard cash. It's good everywhere you go, right? You can use it to pay for anything.

But that's not the case here in Louisiana now. It's a law that was passed during this year's busy legislative session.

House bill 195 basically says those who buy and sell second hand goods cannot use cash to make those transactions, and it flew so far under the radar most businesses don't even know about it.
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This is Your Brain After Too Much Fox News and Listening to Erick Erickson

Posted: 21 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT
By Heather



On Tuesday's morning call-in show on C-SPAN, Washington Journal, a caller from Texas demonstrates what happens to your brain after watching too much Fox News and paying attention to Red State's Erick Erickson and his ridiculous "We are the 53%" campaign he launched in response to the Occupy Wall Street protests.READ MORE

Bank of America Trying To Stick Taxpayers With A $74 Trillion Bill By Moving Derivatives Into FDIC-Insured Accounts

And this is why we've been screaming about regulating derivatives! I kind of think that the Occupy movement is going to have something to say about this corporate sleight of hand that came to light earlier this week. Do they really think we're going to look the other way and let them stick us with a $74 trillion bill -- just to let good old "too big to fail" Bank of America off the hook? I don't think so:

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Tea Party to Businesses: "Stop Hiring!"

Just when I think conservatives can't surprise me any more, they surprise me with another jaw-dropper. And, no, I'm not talking about the recent Republican debate — though that yielded some real stunners, both from the candidates and the studio audience.I'm talking about the latest attempt by conservatives to (further) sabotage the economy and smother any hope of recovery. There have been a more than few. But this latest one takes the cake.

The tea party has a message for American businesses: "Stop hiring!"

It wasn't enough to demand that Democrats "Stop talking about jobs."
It wasn't enough to pen an unprecedented letter Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, demanding that the Federal Reserve basically let the economy fail
and let America suffer, by keeping unemployment high and keeping the economy lousy through the 2012 election. (The tea party assault on the Fed failed, anyhow. The Fed ignored them.)
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Sunday Show Mashup - 10/16/2011

Occupy DC Flashmobs Conservation International Gala Featuring Wal-Mart Chairman & Harrison Ford

Sometimes, at the end of a long day, you're trudging home in your suit, and a flashmob breaks out. That's what it's like these days in cities across the nation, and your nation's capital is no exception.

There I was, trudging through Union Station in my suit, and a flashmob broke out at around 7 p.m., EDT. Occupy DC staged a raucous demonstration in the majestic main hall of the station, just outside a $1,000-a-plate gala for Conservation International, where the scheduled speakers were Rob Walton, chairman of the board of Wal-Mart Stores, and Wes Bush, chairman and CEO of the defense contractor Northrop Grumman International, were scheduled to speak, along with the movie actor Harrison Ford, who is vice chair of CI.

Conservation International has come under fire for greenwashing at least one bad environmental actor, BP, as reported last year by The Nation's Johann Hari. BP, you'll recall, dealt a horrific blow to the Gulf Coast with when its Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April 2010.
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What Happens When the Woman Wants Sex Way More Than the Man? How Unfair Sex Stereotypes Strain Relationships

Men with lower libidos than their female partners are subject to a slew of unfair stereotypes. READ MORE

The Neocons Are Coming!

By Leslie H. Gelb, The Daily Beast

20 October 11



No, no, no, writes Leslie H. Gelb, to the neoconservatives once again rising from the undead to lead America to another war, bigger Pentagon budgets, and a bizarre blame game over Iraq.


hey're back! The neoconservatives who gave America clueless, unpaid-for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus a near doubling of military expenditures during the Bush years, have risen from their political graves. Someone, maybe a media tiring of President Obama's interminable plight, pulled the stake from their heart. Now they've returned to the op-ed pages, the talk shows, the think-tank discussions, and the advisory ranks of Republican presidential candidates.

Once again, the neoconservatives mount their steeds. They hint that we need another war or at least a little military strike, this time against Iran. They're pushing to increase military spending; the China threat, you know. They're also trying to further weaken Obama by charging that he's losing Iraq to Iran by not keeping US forces there (without mentioning, of course, that Iraq is throwing them out).READ MORE

Axelrod: GOP Doesn't Understand Occupy Wall Street

President Obama's top political adviser said Sunday that Republican presidential candidates who want to "roll back Wall Street reforms" obviously don't understand the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"I don't think any American is impressed when they see Gov. Romney and all Republican candidates say the first thing they'll do is roll back Wall Street reforms and go back to where we were before the crisis and let Wall Street write its own rules," David Axelrod told ABC's Christiane Amanpour.READ MORE

SNL Takes a Shot at Mayor Bloomberg for His Response to #OWS Protesters

By Heather



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Right-Wing Voices Scoff at Occupy Wall Street

Republic of Gilead has a post on the Stop the Machine and Occupy D.C. demonstrations in Washington D.C., as well as commentary links on the Occupy Wall Street movement. For this post, I'd like to direct attention to the hostile comments some right-wing voices have made about the movement.

Whatever one might think of Occupy Wall Street's strategy, the motivations behind it are genuine. Too many Americans have fallen victim to hard economic times, with no help in sight. Meanwhile, the close relationship between corporations and lawmakers angers those who believe in democracy. There is a hunger for economic justice in this country, and Occupy Wall Street is channeling that hunger into something positive.

However, many voices on the far right do not agree. As the Occupiers grow in strength and numbers, several right-wing figures continue to mock the movement, accusing it of a litany of wrongs.

-- First, as mentioned in a prior post, Glenn Beck told an audience at the 2011 Values Voters Summit that "The violent left is coming to our streets, all of our streets to smash, tear down, kill, bankrupt, to destroy." He insisted that Occupy Wall Street, flash mobs, and "redistribution-of-wealth people" want to take from others and seek revenge.

Beck did not stop there. On the October 10th edition of his radio show, he also made inflammatory comments about Occupy Wall Street. At the 2:51 mark of the video below, Beck claimed that a "top down" effort reminiscent of the Night of Long Knives would be necessary to contain the protesters. (Hat tip to the Huffington Post.)

"Nancy Pelosi, do you really think these people are your friends? Are you guys stupid? ... Do you really think that you're going to be able to somehow or another control these people? The only way you'll do it, gang, is top down, bottom up, and inside out, and it will be the Night of Long Knives. It will be a purging of this country. You encourage this, and it's going to require the top to come down and stop it."
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The GOP is the Problem

by BooMan
Sat Oct 15th, 2011 at 12:40:54 PM EST
Recently, we've seen more and more former Republicans showing consternation about the mental health of the GOP. Even some who still would still like to consider themselves Republicans are simply unable to stomach the duplicity and magical thinking of the current incarnation of their party. There are any number of problems. The politicization of foreign policy is a major one. But the problem that is currently causing the most damage is tax policy. The Republican Party sees every possible economic condition as an excuse to reduce taxes on the wealthy. When we were running surpluses during the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush argued that the fact that the government was taking in so much money was proof that we were being taxed too much. After all, if we're raising more money than we're spending, we must be taxing more than we need, right?
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Carnival of the Animals: GOP Presidential Contenders

Without comment
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Cain Doubles Down on His Claim That Liberals Want to Destroy This Country

Posted: 17 Oct 2011 06:00 AM PDT



Earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference, otherwise known as CPAC, Herman Cain made the statement that "The objective of the liberals is to destroy this country. The objective of the liberals is to make America mediocre." When asked if he still believed that by David Gregory on this week's Meet the Press,Cain decided to double down on his remarks. Naturally one of the reasons he gave here is that heaven forbid, liberals would like to see defense spending cut.

Cain hasn't shown much interest in understanding foreign policyand has said he'll have to rely on advisers to guide him along if he is elected president, but he seems to be dead sure that we have to continue spending outrageous amounts of money on America's militarism.
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Which Bank Is the Worst for America? 5 Behemoths That Hold Our Political System Hostage

We've ranked the banks based on how shamelessly they game the political process through lobbying, revolving door politics and campaign donations.
October 19, 2011

The economic crash led to the loss of 9 million jobsand the biggest drop in American home-ownership since the Great Depression. Long-term unemployment, poverty and hunger have increased dramatically. People are angry. The Occupy Wall Street movement, a stand against Wall Street's greed, excess and criminality, has captured the imagination and participation of millions across the nation and the globe.

The giant mortgage bubble and the irresponsible and corrupt practices that caused the catastrophic economic crash didn't emerge out of thin air. They were a consequence of decades of pay-to-play politics rife with conflicts of interest; a political system awash in cash and legal pay-offs, designed to undermine the checks and balances that could have prevented the meltdown.
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Rush Limbaugh: Pro-Child Kidnapping

In the race for Most Disgusting Demagoguery of the Year (there are so many contenders!), my vote goes to the old pro Rush Limbaugh for a piece headlined Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians.

And yes, in case you were wondering, the headline really does accurately summarize the piece:

Now, up until today, most Americans have never heard of the combat Lord's Resistance Army. And here we are at war with them....Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That's what the lingo means, "to help regional forces remove from the battlefield," meaning capture or kill. Read more

How Much Do Americans Really Know About Democracy? Turns Out We Could Learn a Few Things From Nature

Democracy is not something we have but something we do, together; how we organize ourselves and relate to and behave with each other. And it's not unique to humans. READ MORE

As Attacks on Planned Parenthood Aim for Sex-Ed Funding, Let's Remember How Bad Religious-Backed Abstinence Only Programs Are

Live Action and Lila Rose want to replace Planned Parenthood's sex-ed funding with false information and religious fundamentalist preaching. READ MORE

Occupy Wall Street Goes Global: 900 Protests Around the World, Thousands in Times Square

As the rest of the world joined the protests, New Yorkers flooded Times Square--including some police who may be posing as protesters. READ MORE

Grassroots Movement for Paid Sick Days for Workers Picking Up Steam Across the Country

Photo Credit: Connecticut Working Families Party

A broad coalition across the country is fighting--and winning--battles for workers' right to stay home when they're ill.
October 16, 2011

It may seem like a no-brainer: get sick, stay home from work. But 44 million American workers do not get paid sick days from their employers, according to Ellen Bravo, director of Family Values at Work, a 16-state consortium that advocates for family-friendly work policies. In tough economic times, many workers simply cannot afford to stay out of work until they get well. Some employers will even fire workers for taking time off when they or their kids are sick, Bravo said.

“Bad [economic] times are the worst time to lose your job because you're being a good parent,” said Bravo. “We can't say we [as a nation] care about family values, and have those values end at the workplace door.”
READ MORE

Cage Match: Is Chris Christie Worse for the Citizens of New Jersey than 'Jersey Shore'?

A new poll shows Jerseyites despise the boozy reality show, but we'd like to make the case that their governor is worse. READ MORE

One Month In, Occupy Wall Street Protesters Appear Poised to Change US Politics

What a difference a month makes. Not only has OWS survived, it has captured the imagination of multitudes of embittered Americans. READ MORE

America’s Secret Empire of Drone Bases: Its Full Extent Revealed for the First Time

A ground-breaking investigation examines the most secret aspect of America's shadowy drone wars and maps out a world of hidden bases dotting the globe. READ MORE

Scott Walker Reneged on Campaign Pension Promise

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker at the State Capital in Madison. (photo: Reuters)

By Scott Bauer, Associated Press

16 October 11

isconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who forced public workers to pay more for their pensions as part of a push to curb union rights, broke his campaign promise to pay the full cost of his state pension immediately after taking office in January.

The Associated Press requested copies of the governor's pay stubs to see if he had fulfilled the campaign promise he made in June 2010. Walker said then he would begin paying the cost immediately in order to lead by example since he was proposing all state employees do the same.

"As governor, I'll pay my share toward my retirement because everyone should pay their own way, including me," Walker said during the campaign.

Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch made the same pledge and also didn't pay as promised.
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CIA's Account of 9/11 Under Attack

Rory O'Connor and Ray Nowosielski, Salon
Excerpt: "As we sought to clarify how the CIA had handled information about the hijackers before 9/11, we found a half dozen former government insiders who came away from the Sept. 11 tragedy feeling burned by the CIA, particularly by a small group of employees within the agency's bin Laden unit in 2000 and 2001, then known as Alec Station."
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FOCUS: Is Massachusetts Anti-Woman?

Linda Killian, The Daily Beast
Intro: "Massachusetts may revel in its liberal reputation, but it has struggled to elect women to statewide office. Linda Killian on whether Elizabeth Warren will smash the glass ceiling."
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As Herman Cain Surges, Corporate Media Ignore His Koch Connections

As the GOP campaign progresses, David Koch, and his brother, Charles -- two of the richest men in America -- will likely be felt in ways large and small.READ MORE

GOP Panic Sets In

Tom Degan, LA Progressive
Degan writes: "You can almost feel the panic reverberating from both sides of the aisle in Congress this week. They're trying to convince themselves that this is a passing fluke, that we're not yet at the point of no return. If these corrupt nitwits know a damned thing about history (and sometimes I wonder if these knuckleheads know anything) they must realize that - if this isn't the end of the right wing's 30-year-long orgy - it is most definitely the beginning of the end."
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Protests Spread as Thousands Gather in Europe, Asia

Bloomberg
Report begins: "Protests against widening income disparity took place across western Europe and Asia today as the Occupy Wall Street movement spread around the globe, with about 1,000 converging in London and 5,000 in Frankfurt. In the U.K. capital, police barred protesters from entering Paternoster Square, home to the London Stock Exchange. In Frankfurt, marchers gathered by the European Central Bank headquarters, firing soap bubbles from toy pistols with plans to camp out, ZDF German television reported."
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Occupy Wall Street's Remarkable Success

OWS expresses the grievances and concerns of what must be the majority of Americans. And everyone is listening and watching.
October 13, 2011
On October 2 a few of the participants of Occupy Wall Street invited me to speak to the protesters in Zuccotti Park, a little below Wall Street, right next to the building Merrill Lynch once inhabited. Some of my friends were concerned. Seven hundred people were arrested during the protest march the day before. Others wondered why I’d lend myself to this seemingly ragtag group. It took little—in fact, no—courage. Wall Street excess was the principal cause of the current economic strife. Essentially, the protestors are right. And what they are seeking is information, not more slogans.
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Matt Taibbi: Break Up the 'Too-Big-to-Fail' Financial Behemoths that Destroyed the Economy

Taibbi and Keith Olbermann discuss whether it's possible to break apart "too-big-to-fail" institutions.
October 14, 2011

Editor's note: This week, finance industry journalist Matt Taibbi put together a list of five political demands Occupy Wall St. protestors could agitate for. First on his list was the breakup of the "too-big-to-fail" financial institutions holding the global economy hostage. In the following transcript from "Countdown with Keith Olbermann," Taibbi elaborates on how to break up the financial behemoths that sunk the economy.

Taibbi: First of all, nobody asked my advice on any of this and they're doing great without the advice of people like me. But ...

Olbermann: It's a democracy, everybody has a voice, take your platform.

Taibbi: Everybody has a voice. But there are a lot of people who have been following this whole issue of Wall Street corruption for years. There's a small community of those people and we've been talking amongst each other for the past few weeks -- trying to think about, what would the demands be? What would a good demand be if it came time to make one?
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Did Tenet Fail to Share Information That Could Have Prevented the 9/11 Attacks?

Insiders Voice Doubts About the CIA’s 9/11 story
Former FBI agents say the agency's bin Laden unit misled them about two hijackers.
October 14, 2011

A growing number of former government insiders — all responsible officials who served in a number of federal posts — are now on record as doubting ex-CIA director George Tenet’s account of events leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Among them are several special agents of the FBI, the former counterterrorism head in the Clinton and Bush administrations, and the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, who told us the CIA chief had been “obviously not forthcoming” in his testimony and had misled the commissioners.

These doubts about the CIA first emerged among a group of 9/11 victims’ families whose struggle to force the government to investigate the causes of the attacks, we chronicled in our 2006 documentary film “Press for Truth.”

READ MORE

You might also enjoy reading what actual airline pilots have to say

How Christian Fundamentalism Helped Empower the Top 1% to Exploit the 99%

As the Occupy Wall street movement spreads across the country and the world, we must bring attention to the enablers of the top 1 percent exploiting the 99. Fundamentalist religion made this exploitation possible.

Evangelical fundamentalism helped empower the top 1 percent. Note I didn't say religion per se, but religious fundamentalism.

Why? Because without the fundamentalists and their "values" issues, many in the lower 99 percent could not have been convinced to vote against their (our) economic self-interest; in other words, vote for Republicans who only serve billionaires.
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Belmont stable owners insist foreign workers are needed for dirty jobs that NYers refuse to do

Ken Goldfield for News
Horse handlers at Belmont Park do a crucial job that New Yorkers shun, say stable owners who are suing the feds on visa policy.

BY Edgar Sandoval and John Marzulli
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, October 18th 2011, 4:00 AM

Horse handlers at Belmont Park do a crucial job that New Yorkers shun, say stable owners who are suing the feds on visa policy.

It's a dirty job - and no one in New York wants to do it.

Or so say the stable owners at Belmont Park, who are battling the feds for the right to import foreign workers to take care of their Thoroughbreds.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials have said nay to the Long Island race track's request for temporary visas to let in nearly 100 grooms, hotwalkers and exercise riders.

The New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association has asked a judge to overturn the agency's ruling, claiming the move threatens to wreak havoc on the racing season.

New Yorkers, the association says, have failed to respond to help-wanted ads.

And the stable hands who work at Belmont say they know why.

"There are not a whole of people who want to do what we do. You have to wake up at 4 a.m. You have to clean the horses, care for them," said Jose Calderon, 31, who was handling horses at Belmont Park on Sunday.

He said the majority of workers at Belmont are Latinos.

"Without immigrants, this would not work properly," said Calderon, who got into the business at 16. "You really have to love thiswork."

"There aren't many people like us here," said Wanceslao Gutierrez, 29, a horse trainer.

"It can be a dangerous job. If you fall, you risk breaking your back. You also work seven days a week."

He grew up around horses in Puebla, Mexico. "I'm used to horses," he said. "You need people like that from our countries to do this kind of work."

"These are the behind-the-scenes workers that are the backbone of the racing industry, that bed down stalls, wash and care for the horses and put them through their exercise workouts on horseback on a daily basis," said Jim Gallagher, executive director of the New York Thoroughbred Horsemen's Association.

"It cannot be stressed how important these individuals are to the success of any racing stable operation," he said in an affidavit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.

Stable owners say they have already been forced to turn away horse owners because they don't have enough workers to care for their steeds.

Their suit contends H-2B temporary visas have been routinely approved in the past to hire workers - mostly from Mexico and South America.

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Jesse Jackson locks arms with Occupy Wall Street protesters, who vow to continue

By Erin Einhorn, Lore Croghan AND Corky Siemaszko
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Originally Published:Monday, October 17th 2011, 2:03 PM
Updated: Tuesday, October 18th 2011, 7:53 AM

Marcus Santos for News
Occupy Wall Street protesters spend their 30th day in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan Monday.

The Occupy Wall Street protesters may have taken over Zuccotti Park, but they haven't breached Mayor Bloomberg's bedroom door.

"I can tell you that pillow talk in our house is not about Brookfield or Occupy Wall Street," Bloomberg said Monday, referring to Brookfield Properties, owner of the park where the protesters have camped out for a month.

Bloomberg gave the TMI answer when asked if gal pal Diana Taylor, who sits on Brookfield's board, had talked to him about theprotests that have spread fromlower Manhattan to cities around the world.

On Friday, Brookfield suddenly abandoned plans to clear out the park after local pols, including some allies, slammed the scheme.

Bloomberg maintains Brookfield blinked - not he. He said he has not been in touch with the company since "they changed their minds."
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Herman Cain beats President Obama in latest poll with another GOP debate on tap

Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg; Andrew Harrer/Getty
GOP candidate Herman Cain has been slowly gaining on President Obama in recent weeks.

WASHINGTON - Herman Cain enters the Republican presidential debate Tuesday night with soaring poll numbers - and a bull's-eye on his back.

Republican rivals will be hustling to knock Cain down a peg, likely by targeting his "9-9-9" tax plan and probing his grasp of federal policy.

"They will need to knock Cain off his game, show he has holes in his experience," said Democratic media strategist Julian Mulvey.The former CEO of Godfather's Pizza has ridden his tax plan - which calls for a 9% personal and corporate income tax and a 9% sales tax - and a host of catchy phrases to the front of the GOP field.

The 65-year-old political neophyte is now in a dead heat with Mitt Romney for the GOP nomination, a new CNN poll found.

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The modern history of Iran

NYPD Arrests Woman For Closing Her Citibank Account (VIDEO)

Be patient through the first 90 seconds — haha, attention span of a gnat! — because a remarkable little drama unfolds with protesters inside the Citibank branch communicating with protesters outside, all very reserved, collecting names and birthdates of the people about to be arrested inside. And then, brutish cops seize a woman in a business suit who is saying, “I’m a customer, I’m a customer,” and showing her Citibank checkbook. Apparently she is here to close her account, and for that she is manhandled by a bunch of thug cops who should be careful where they go from now on. Anyway, closing your account is now a go-to-jail offense.
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The Tale of Two Assassination Plots

Sunday 16 October 2011
by: Robert Parry, Consortium News | Op-Ed

With Official Washington abuzz over a bizarre U.S. accusation that Iran’s Quds spy agency plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, it might be worth recalling how American authorities responded to an actual terror bombing in Washington 35 years ago that killed a former Chilean foreign minister and an American co-worker.

Because that 1976 assassination was carried out by an allied intelligence agency, Chile’s DINA, against a perceived “leftist,” Orlando Letelier, the CIA – then run by George H.W. Bush – hid evidence of Chile’s guilt and circulated false cover stories of Chile’s innocence that were picked up by the major U.S. news media.READ MORE

Al Gore | OWS: Count Me In

Portrait, Al Gore, 11/03/09. (photo: Graeme Robertson)

By Al Gore, Reader Supported News

16 October 11

or the past several weeks I have watched and read news about the Occupy Wall Street protests with both interest and admiration. I thought the New York Times hit the nail on the head in an editorial Sunday:

"The message -- and the solutions -- should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention since the economy went into a recession that continues to sock the middle class while the rich have recovered and prospered. The problem is that no one in Washington has been listening."

"At this point, protest is the message: income inequality is grinding down that middle class, increasing the ranks of the poor, and threatening to create a permanent underclass of able, willing but jobless people. On one level, the protesters, most of them young, are giving voice to a generation of lost opportunity."
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Arrests, Huge Crowds in NY, Protests World-Wide

Chris Hawley, Associated Press
Intro: "Thousands of demonstrators protesting corporate greed filled New York City's Times Square, mixing with gawkers, Broadway showgoers, tourists and police to create a chaotic scene in the midst of Manhattan. 'Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!' protesters chanted Saturday from within police barricades."
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Congressional Aide Lies About Identity To Avoid Answering Questions

By Nicole Belle

Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) was named by John Boehner to be part of the Super Committee on Debt, due in part to his chairing the Ways and Means Committee. It is a choice assignment which Camp has been eager to cash in on:

On the same day that House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., got picked to join the 12-member Congressional super-committee that is charged with deciding the country’s spending and taxation fate, his political action committee sent out [an invitation to a $2500 a head "meet & greet"]

Just think, for $2,500, you too can have “fun” as Camp’s PAC refills your wine glass over chats about mortgage interest deductions, profit repatriation and S-Corporation pass through rates.

We need no longer guess whether Pfizer will have a chance to play a role in the upcoming negotiations, thanks to the Pfizer PAC host duties.
Ah...capitalism! READ MORE

Late Show Scheduling Guide for the GOP Debates

Late Show Scheduling Guide for the GOP Debates
By Heather

David Letterman and the crew at the Late Show's "scheduling guide for the GOP debates."

Okay, okay, okay... Here, go have a look at some real blogs

Fried Green Al Qaedas gives us the GOP debate we've always wanted.

The Lester & Charlie Review go to the front lines of Occupy Wall Street in lower Manhattan.

Obalesque heard about Jesusween, the alternative to Halloween.

Bonus Track: Zen Comix quits Facebook.

I think you're gonna love Fried Green Al Qaedas today, almost as much as you love my fake blog, eh? (har har har).

The Very Troubling Partisanship of John Roberts

By Jon Perr
Speaking to students of the University of Alabama law school, Chief Justice John Robertslaunched a blistering attack on President Obama's State of the Union criticism of the Court's Citizens United decision.Calling Obama's prime-time critique "very troubling,"Roberts complained that the President's annual address to Congress "degenerated to a political pep rally." Of course, when Robert's political godfather Ronald Reagan or his sponsor George W. Bush used the State of the Union to berate, badger and batter the Supreme Court, that was just fine with the Chief Justice.
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Andrew Breitbart's Pathetic Attempt to Smear Occupy Wall St.

Breitbart's latest attention grab illustrates just how afraid the right is of the 99% of Americans who are waking up to the injustice and corruption of the 1%.
October 15, 2011
The last time Andrew Breitbart got any significant notice in the media was when he publicized the Twitter sexting of former congressman Anthony Weiner. It was a particularly repulsive bit of gossipy sensationalism that furthered no public interest, but ruined a man’s career (and possibly his family), just to satisfy Breitbart’s craving for attention and his obsession with destroying what he calls “the institutional left.” READ MORE

No Jail for Beating Up Women? Topeka Let Up to 30 Alleged Batterers Walk Free, After Briefly Decriminalizing Domestic Violence to Save Money

As the county and city volleyed back and forth over the budget, suspected batterers went free.

October 12, 2011 |

The news that Topeka, Kansas, actually overturned its local domestic violence ban during a budgetary tussle--an effort to force the county DA's hand in prosecuting cases--has made national waves. Emails flooded into officials' inboxes and outrage spread on social media.
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News Corp. Investors Starting to Wonder About This Murdoch Guy

10/14/11 at 10:47 AM 6Comments

With the company's annual general meeting planned for October 21, two shareholder advisory groups have now recommended that investors vote against any member of the Murdoch family for reelection to the board."The time is right for the company to appoint an independent chairman to rebuild trust, help correct the governance discount, and ensure that the interests of all investors are properly represented," said the director of Hermes Equity Ownership Services, alluding to the sweeping corruption charges that have plagued the media conglomerate since the phone-hacking scandal exploded. Earlier in the week, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. also recommended the ouster of Murdoch and ten loyal News Corp. directors, arguing that the ongoing investigation has "laid bare a striking lack of stewardship and independence."READ MORE

Study Shows Regulations Account for Only 0.2% of All Layoffs

By: David Dayen Friday October 14, 2011 6:22 am

The new new thing in journalism is a little thing called fact-checking. I know, it’s very novel. What happens is that claims are actually tested and subjected to a rigorous analysis. We’re still one step away from the test happening BEFORE the alleged facts get into stories; usually the “fact check” article is separate from the he said/she said article. But the discriminating reader can actually determine the truth from the lies after several years of reading.

So one of these fact-checks has gone ahead and debunked one of the two central themes of Republican job creation plans, that simply deregulating industry will bring about a job boom. Turns out that regulations aren’t responsible for jobs:
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House Passes H.R. 358, the "Let Women Die" Act of 2011

Yesterday the GOP-led House of Representatives, with the blessings and encouragement of the United States Council of Catholic Bishops and extremist religious groups such as the Family Research Council, passed a bill in a vote of 251 to 172 that would, among other things, allow doctors and hospitals to "exercise their conscience" by letting pregnant women facing emergency medical conditions die.

Yes. Die. READ MORE

The Occupy Wall Street Anthem

Know anyone who's still wondering what Occupy Wall Street is all about? Send them this inspiring video, the "Occupy Wall Street Anthem," featuring music by The Roaring and Ari Herstand. You can pay-what-you-want download the song here, with partial proceeds supporting Occupy Wall Street.

By Lauren Kelley | AlterNet
Posted on Friday, October 14, 2011 @ 08:07 AM

Paul Krugman | Rabbit-Hole Economics

Paul Krugman, The New York Times
Paul Krugman writes: "Reading the transcript of Tuesday's Republican debate on the economy is, for anyone who has actually been following economic events these past few years, like falling down a rabbit hole. Suddenly, you find yourself in a fantasy world where nothing looks or behaves the way it does in real life."
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Robert Reich | The Triumph of Dogma

Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Robert Reich writes: "The American public doesn't want or need to hear 'representatives' from the so-called right or left. It wants insight into what's best for America. Yet over and over again - on the radio, on TV, in print, in the blogosphere, and all over Washington - political ideology is substituting for thought. Politicians take oaths and sign pledges. Special-interest groups abide by litmus tests and ideological labels. The media is either assertively liberal or conservative. Pundits are either on the left or the right."
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