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A pretty lady claims she had a 13-year-long sexytime affair with Herman Cain, the chain restaurant executive who is apparently still running for president. Coincidentally, the lady claims Herman quit wanting to get sexytime with her just eight months ago, just before he launched his presidential campaign in May. Cain denies the sexytime, but says he knows the lady and was "just trying to help her financially," which is a very kind thing to do! Who would not appreciate some financial help from a wealthy businessman like Herman Cain? And who among us would turn down maybe 13 years of getting busy with Herman Cain, for romantic reasons? READ MORE »
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This may be the most scathing political ad out of the DNC I've ever seen, and it is glorious.
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Corporate profits versus personal income, via the New York Times:
More information here.
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This is insanely bad news:
Japan's science ministry says 8 per cent of the country's surface area has been contaminated by radiation from the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant. It says more than 30,000 square kilometres of the country has been blanketed by radioactive caesium.
The ministry says most of the contamination was caused by four large plumes of radiation spewed out by the Fukushima nuclear plant in the first two weeks after meltdowns.
The government says some of the radioactive material fell with rain and snow, leaving the affected areas with accumulations of more than 10,000 becquerels of caesium per square metre.
Think Progress has more.
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Since Occupy Wall Street began, American police officers have arrested thousands of people for exercising their constitutionally protected right to protest. On Monday or Tuesday, the US Senate will vote on a bill that would give the President the ability to order the military to arrest and imprison American citizens anywhere in the world for an indefinite period of time.
A provision of S. 1867, or the National Defense Authorization Act bill, written by Senators John McCain and Carl Levin, declares American soil a battlefield and allows the President and all future Chief Executives to order the military to arrest and detain American citizens, innocent or not, without charge or trial. In other words, if this bill passes and the President signs it, OWS protesters or any American could end up arrested and indefinitely locked up by the military without the guaranteed right to due process or a speedy trial.
This bill was written in secret and approved by committee without a single hearing. Senate Republicans support the bill and enough Democrats support it to give it a great chance of passing. This provision does have opponents. President Obama has threatened to veto the bill and even Ron Paul is concerned enough to bring it up during one of the GOP debates. An amendment called the Udall Amendment has been offered by Democratic Senator Mark Udall that would delete the dangerous provision.
If you are an American citizen, protect your constitutional rights. Call your senator and tell them to approve of the Udall Amendment. No American citizen should be arrested by the military and held indefinitely without charge or trial. It's not conducive to American values and would give the military and the government more power over the American citizenry. The last time Americans had to deal with an overreaching military was during the Revolutionary era. Because of that, the Founders included the 3rd Amendment to ban the quartering of troops during times of war and peace. Once again, Americans are under threat of dealing with a military that has more power than it should have. And it could cost us most of the freedoms we tend to take for granted.
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Where's our bailout? "While the nation's largest banks were publicly reassuring nervous investors of their stability during the height of the financial crisis, they were also quietly approaching the Federal Reserve, hat in hand. The total price tag: $7.77 trillion, many times the amount of the better-known TARP bailout. ... The magnitude of the government's assistance to struggling banks allowed them to grow even bigger and continue paying executives billions in compensation, a report in Bloomberg Markets January issue said Monday. ... A win in court against a group representing the banks and a FOIA request filed by Bloomberg LP revealed the extent of the central bank's largesse -- as well as the $13 billion in profits banks earned from those bailouts. The so called "big six" -- JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- accounted for $4.8 billion of that total -- nearly a quarter of their net income during that time. ... Those borrowed trillions were a deeply-buried secret. It appears that even high-ranking Fed officials didn't know about the scale of the handouts. According to Bloomberg, then-president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis Gary H. Stern "wasn't aware of the magnitude," and unnamed sources say that even top aides to Treasury Department head Henry Paulson were kept in the dark."
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Nicholas Kristof: Boy, this irritates me. Bloomberg reports that the Fed gave banks secret low-interest loans that netted them $13 billion in profits. That worked to rescue them, and we had to save the too-big-too-fail banks to avoid blowing up the economy. But the next step should have been to shrink them to prevent the same thing from happening again. And if we rescue big banks we should rescue struggling homeowners rather than have them lose their homes -- they collectively have a huge impact on the economy as well. Grrrr.
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