Thursday, December 15, 2011

Headlines - Thursday December 15

Huge Increase in Executive Pay for America's Top Bosses
Exclusive survey shows America's CEOs enjoyed pay hikes of up to 40% last year – with one chief executive earning $145m (a healthcare CEO)
 
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The Iraq war is over, but on the way out the door, we have to give them 96 F-16 fighter jets, six C-130J Hercules transport aircraft, 24 Bell helicopters armed with Hellfire missiles and launchers, 140 Abrams battle tanks, 160 Guardian M1117 armoured security vehicles, 392 light armoured vehicles, 26 M72 light anti-tank weapons, AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, along with laser-guided bombs and reconnaissance equipment.
 
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Someone just got a Murphy's Wood Soap™ spa treatment.
 
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When serial adulterer and notable blow job aficionado Newticles suggested putting little Jonny to work, did he have Chuck E. Cheese in mind? "Nine Chuck E. Cheese's pizza parlors in the Bay Area have been fined a total of more than $28,000 for violating federal child-labor laws," says the SF Chronicle.
 
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BS Alert: Mickey Mouse And Adolf Hitler Have Not Joined Scott Walker Recall Effort
 
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FSM (Flying Spaghetti Monster) tree topper
 
Get a Flying Spaghetti Monster tree topper here.
 
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How to beath your child for Jesus

Last month Pastor Michael Pearl made national news after one of his followers beat their child to death using the instructions in his book. Pearl has sold over 700,000 copies to Christian home schoolers. Watch this video. 
 
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Epic Fail
 
Stadium's Closed Roof Dooms Birthers' Aerial Message

 
Strategists at noted Birther hive WorldNetDaily flew a banner over Cowboys Stadium this weekend asking, "Where's the real birth certificate?" Thankfully, the 90,000+ fans weren't able to see this embarrassing display through the stadium's closed retractable roof, sparing WorldNetDaily even further shame. [via Wonkette]
 
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Eagle Forum: We Hates Gays, Blacks, Mexicans, And Non-Christians

Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum has posted their list of demands on Congressional candidates. I've gone thru the lengthy list and compiled a Top Ten. Unsurprisingly, much of their list is drenched in anti-gay hate, racism, and xenophobia.

1. Will you vote to protect the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)?
2. Will you vote for federal school appropriations to require informed, written parental consent for curricula, surveys, classes or books that may be privacy-invading or offensive to religion or conscience?
3. Will you support legislation for Congress to use its Article III power vote to deny jurisdiction to the federal courts over areas where we don't trust them, namely, the definition of marriage, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, the Cross on veterans' memorials, and the Boy Scouts?
4. Will you vote to prohibit the federal courts from hearing challenges to the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) or similar state laws respecting the definition of marriage?
5. Will you oppose federal hate crimes laws?
6. Will you vote against any legislation to help Puerto Rico to become a state?
7. Will you vote against any legislation to pretend that the District of Columbia is a state or entitled to a state's representation in Congress?
8. Will you vote to end federal funding of so-called bilingual education (teaching immigrant children in their native languages) which the voters of CA, AZ, and MA have rejected?
9. Will you vote to revoke the citizenship of naturalized citizens who betray their oath of U.S. citizenship by claiming "dual citizenship" with their native country?
10. Will you support federal funding for abstinence-until-marriage education instead of for explicit sex education programs, school-based clinics, and the distribution of contraceptives in schools?

Hit the link if you've got the gut for much more bile.

 
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I lack the vocabulary to adequately describe how despicable this is.

The University of Vermont chapter of fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon is being suspended for passing out a survey to its members that asked questions including, "If I could rape someone, who would it be?" The university may take further disciplinary action, and women on campus are circulating a petition to have the chapter shutdown entirely that has already received over 1,000 signatures.

Sigma Phi Epsilon. The future rape-culture supporting, war-on-women facilitating, conservative shitkickers of America.

Not surprising, since we seem to be living in the but we're living in the Golden Age of Women Hate. The age where:

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Two years to go

The states will have to scramble to set up their health exchanges under the new healthcare reform law. Note the states that are lagging behind.

Yeah, I wonder how predominantly Republican legislators will manage to help establish "Obamacare" — which, in Republican speak, is worse than cancer — in their states. In other words, there's such a feverish movement to repeal the Affordable Care Act, can you imagine these guys voting to help it along? Should be very, very interesting.

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Mario:

Gingrich is a goldmine for people like me.  There is nothing like a bloviating clown in a suit to inspire the creative soul. So for as long as Newt is still a contender, I'm helpless to do much else than mock him as best I can.  Here's the full David Axelrod quote.

"I told my colleagues yesterday a bit of homespun wisdom that I got from an alderman in Chicago some years ago when one of his …colleagues wanted to run for higher office and he was really dubious. He said, 'just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt.' So, you know, the Speaker is very high on the pole right now and we'll see how people like the view."

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Bad Lip Reading Soundbite of Newt Gingrich

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Here's some "change" I didn't expect or want ....

The White House on Wednesday abandoned its threat to veto a defense bill that sets in stone the commander in chief's authority to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects, including Americans, in military custody.

"By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "In the past, Obama has lauded the importance of being on the right side of history, but today he is definitely on the wrong side."

We already know that there is an entire political party which regards "the rule of law" as an outmoded principle for a gentler age, like back when the enemy was the Soviet Union and we lived under the threat of being annihilated in less time than it took Herman Cain to deliver a pizza. But now we have a president, a man who once taught Constitutional Law, saying that it's OK if he has dictatorial powers as long as he doesn't use them.

Does this make sense to anyone?

Oh, and once again,
the Democrats showed their negotiating ability on the matter of the payroll tax cut. But that's nothing new

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Geography according to Faux News:

And this:

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Sadly, the only people who will be punished for this are the ones who forgot to destroy the documents:

Read the whole piece, and about how many civilians were killed for getting too close to checkpoints because they were either illiterate and didn't know to stop or because they didn't have glasses and couldn't even see they were near a checkpoint. The price for that was to be gunned down.

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Mission (Almost) Accomplished

And no, it's not about the endiing of George W. Bush's My Dick Is Bigger Than Daddy's war in Iraq.

It's about the deliberate and systematic demolition of the American middle class.

They aren't quite there yet, but
there is definitely significant progress:

Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.

"Safety net programs such as food stamps and tax credits kept poverty from rising even higher in 2010, but for many low-income families with work-related and medical expenses, they are considered too 'rich' to qualify," said Sheldon Danziger, a University of Michigan public policy professor who specializes in poverty.

"The reality is that prospects for the poor and the near poor are dismal," he said. "If Congress and the states make further cuts, we can expect the number of poor and low-income families to rise for the next several years."

But don't worry. I'm sure a Kardashian is up to something, and there's a woman in a hijab at the Publix to worry about, and gee that Newt Gingrich sounds like a smart fella and he's from the south so I know we can trust him. And after all, the Rapture is coming and we good God-fearin' folk won't have to worry about poverty anyway, so let's just keep on keepin' on. And oh yeah, those dirty hippies protesting should just STFU.

Because poverty can't happen to those who love Jesus, right?

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We love that Newticles got Mic Check'd, but we would pay cash money to see his fat ass get checked by a hockey player..."Protesters affiliated with the "Occupy Wall Street" movement on Wednesday interrupted Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich during a speech at the University of Iowa. ... "Mic check," the protesters shouted. "We are here to protest your speech today. We object to your callous and arrogant attitude toward poverty and poor people." ... The protesters also denounced his "vilification of people as shiftless and unwilling to work" and his "disgusting suggestions that we bring back child labor." ... Some of the protesters were escorted out of the room but were not arrested, according to the Los Angeles Times."

And the mic check was probably less uncomfortable for him than what this heckler had to say. "Newt Gingrich fancies himself an academic. He has authored more than a dozen books. And after all, he did make more than a million bucks in his housing "historian" role for mortgage company Freddie Mac. ... But on Wednesday, a heckler in Iowa criticized Gingrich's publishing career ... and his infidelity. The heckler, who isn't identified, said Gingrich claims money isn't everything, yet he has had a lucrative publishing career. "And it seems like you have a Ph.D. in cheating on your wife," he added."

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Not going back, no way, no how

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Nearly half of the country's public schools failed to meet federal standards in 2011, the largest rate of failure in the 10-year history of No Child Left Behind, according to a report released today. The report found that 48 percent of public schools, including 89 percent of schools in Florida, failed to meet "adequate yearly progress" in 2011.

From the 14 Points of Fascism:

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts

Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

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Tens Of Thousands March On Koch Industries For Suppressing Voting Rights | This past Saturday, tens of thousands of civil rights activists marched on the New York offices of Koch Industries to protest the Koch brothers' support of restrictive voting laws that disenfranchise millions. In dozens of states, Republican politicians have pushed laws that disproportionately keep Democratic voters, including blacks, Latinos, students, and the poor, from the polls. U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) was among the lawmakers and labor leaders who locked arms and led the march on Madison Avenue. The billionaire Koch brothers help fund the shadowy corporate front group ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) that has modeled restrictive voting legislation.

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Ever since Arafat turned him down, Newt swears Palestinians don't exist.

Oh come on, Newt was just getting high with Ringo Starr.

 

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