High fructose corn syrup might make you stupid

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 16 May 2012 11:00:32 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

Sugar is related to a lot of health issues and now scientists are saying it's bad for the brain as well. It's something that many of us enjoy so cutting back is not easy, but probably a good idea. As they say, moderation is generally the key.Eating too much sugar can eat away at your brainpower, according to US scientists who published a study Tuesday showing how a steady diet of...

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Unions Back Obamas Stand for Marriage Equality

post from Everyday Citizen on 16 May 2012 10:36:44 PM. © Everyday Citizen

Cross-posted from Talking Union AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee and Sec.-Treas.[...]

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Austerity Everywhere: Fiscal Drags Coming Out of,
Prolonging Great Recession

post from Firedoglake on 16 May 2012 10:15:45 PM. © Firedoglake

Austerity has clear negative consequences for Greece, but one of the major problems in that country is an inability to collect taxes. That's why all the austerity measures to "increase taxes" in Greece, without setting up or funding a new tax[...]

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Rush Limbaugh Inducted into Hall of Famous
Missourians Behind Locked Doors

post from Crooks and Liars on 16 May 2012 10:00:39 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Rush Limbaugh Inducted into Hall of Famous Missourians Behind Locked Doors

Click here to view this media

Missouri Republicans decided to shame and embarrass our state yesterday with the induction of Rush Limbaugh into the Hall of Famous Missourians: Doors Locked, Dems Banned As Missouri Honors Limbaugh:

Rush Limbaugh was inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians yesterday, but the whole affair seemed strangely cloaked in secrecy.
The AM talker was ushered into an invite-only ceremony that took place behind closed doors inside the State Capitol's House chambers, "which were locked and guarded by armed members of the Missouri Highway Patrol while the ceremony took place," according to the Kansas City Star. Democratic lawmakers were banned from the induction.
A bust of Limbaugh, a Cape Girardeau native, was unveiled at the Hall of Fame ceremony. But for the first time in memory the chamber galleries were closed to the public. And the Republican Speaker of the Missouri House, Steve Tilley, who selected Limbaugh for the honor, gave the media just twenty minutes notice before the event took place.
The hush-hush nature of the event, which more closely resembled a clandestine political event than a feel-good acknowledgement, likely stemmed from the extraordinary controversy the selection sparked. Owing to Limbaugh's growing toxicity outside the narrow confines of right-wing talk radio, the backlash to the Missouri announcement was swift and fierce, coming as it did directly on the heels of Limbaugh's searing Sandra Fluke controversy.
The local chapter of the National Organization of Women sent hundreds of rolls of toilet paper to Tilley's office as part of its "Flush Rush" campaign. The state's Democratic governor and U.S. senator both denounced the choice of Limbaugh, and more than 35,000 people signed a petition condemning the decision to add Limbaugh's bust to a collection that includes Missourians Harry Truman and Mark Twain.
Despite the protests, the induction took place on Monday. In secret. It turns out using government employees (i.e. law enforcement) to keep the public at bay while the taxpayers' (Republican) representatives honored a talk show host wasn't the only bout of irony that hovered over the Limbaugh event.

You can read the rest of Eric's take down of Limbaugh and the Missouri Republicans at the link above. Video is from local affiliate KMOV's reporting on the event.

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Not everyone has a ground to stand on in Florida.
And Rodney King style justice in Texas.

post from field negro on 16 May 2012 10:00:23 PM. © field negro

It looks like yet another one of you Florida Negroes have come up empty in an attempt to seek shelter under Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law. Sorry, these laws aren't meant for everybody. (Not even abused Negro women. NRA where are you?) In A-merry-ca, you Negroes are the threat. These laws were meant to protect certain people from you folks.

"A Florida judge on Monday ruled that an elderly black man charged in the shooting death of his neighbor can't use the Stand Your Ground defense, the second time in a week that the controversial law at the center of the Trayvon Martin case failed to provide cover to a defendant.

Monday's ruling dealt with the manslaughter case against Trevor Dooley, who has admitted to shooting his neighbor, David James, in 2010 after a verbal dispute over a teenager's right to skateboard on a local basketball court turned physical. (James was defending the kid's right to skate, fwiw.)An ABC News affiliate in Tampa explains that Dooley?who had a concealed weapons? permit?maintains that he only shot James after he became aggressive and threatened him. But a circuit judge ruled Monday that the evidence suggests that it was not until Dooley "reached for and pulled out his weapon?indicating an intent to escalate from an argument to violence?that Mr. James exerted and used physical force against Defendant." You can read more on that case over at ABC Action News and TBO.com." (h/t Nancy Lockhart) (Source)

I don't even know why they have "Stand Your Ground" type laws in places like Texas. They truly do not need them. White folks in Texas have the police force to put a beat down on you Negroes when you get out of line, and just like in the days of the Citizens' Council, they make sure that the po po walks after administering their form of justice.

"Even though a security camera showed Houston, Texas, police officers stomping and kicking then-15-year-old burglar Chad Holley (pictured below), jurors unfortunately decided Wednesday afternoon that the first officer on trial for the beating, Andrew Blomberg (pictured left), is not guilty of official oppression, according to the Associated Press.

On the videotape, Holley is seen laying face down on the ground, while several officers kick and stomp him. Still, Blomberg testified that Holley was resisting arrest ? and while it may have looked as though he was abusing the teen ? he was actually using his foot to move Holley?s arm.

Even Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland Jr. testified that he believed that Blomberg assaulted the teen.
The Associated Press reports:

Prosecutors told jurors that Blomberg kicked the teenager several times and Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland Jr. testified that he believed Blomberg kicked and stomped on the teen.

Not surprisingly, the all-White jurors still came to the decision that Blomberg was not guilty of abusing Holley. If Blomberg was found guilty of his misdemeanor charge, he would have faced up to a year in prison. Three other police officers will stand trial for the offense. Relieved that he had gotten off, Blomberg contemplated whether he would consider going back in to law enforcement:

?This is the only thing I?ve ever wanted to do in my entire life,? Blomberg said referring to being a police officer. ?And I?m just glad this part is finally over.? [Source]

Yes, I am sure you are. Next time just watch for the video camera.

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Bush to publish a book on economic strategies for
growth

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 16 May 2012 10:00:17 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

Yes, I think that's called "Do the complete opposite of what George W. Bush did from 2000-2008." For those who don't remember, the Bush administration averaged 20,000 new jobs per month during his term in office. According to mathematicians that would be 111,000 fewer jobs per month than during the Obama administration.Bush's ability to ignore his own failed economic policies ought to be...

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A Few Thoughts From a Drained Accidental Activist

post from Firedoglake on 16 May 2012 09:30:16 PM. © Firedoglake

After passing through the horrible fire of battling Amendment One here in North Carolina, I felt drained, not just because of the results, but the battle on this front and many others shows just how far we have to go in addressing society's myriad[...]

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Wednesday Stuff

post from The Liberal Doomsayer on 16 May 2012 09:28:00 PM. © The Liberal Doomsayer

I?m probably about five and a half months early for this, but here it is anyway...

...and inspired loosely (very loosely) from the latest post from here, I give you the following (time for a change of pace).

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Right-wingers always want to leave important
business to the states -- secure in the knowledge that it'll never get done

Shouldn't those state-level misappropriators of bankster mortage blood money be facing prosecution (and ideally execution)?

by Ken

Take most any issue of national importance to ordinary Americans, and the standard right-wing meme is: "It's best left to the states. Health care, for example. Yessiree, leaving those insurance exchanges to the states is going to result in really bang-up implementation of the pathetically modest "reforms" of the health care "reform" package. Notice how all the states you knew were going to drag their feet and/or screw it up to start with are banking on the Supreme Court to get them off the hook.

Of course one might ask, in how many of those states are backup plans being developed to improve health care delivery and control health care costs in the event that the Court strikes down all or part of the "reform" package? I don't have the exact number in front of me, but I would guess that it's in the vicinity of zero. A crisis in the delivery of affordable and effective health care? Never heard of it.

Leave it to the states, right! The perfect formula for not getting something done.

I read this report from The American Propect's Balance Sheet and was nauseated. Not surprised, mind you, just nauseated.

STATES GO ROGUE WITH
FORECLOSURE SETTLEMENT CASH
Big banks gave the states $2.5 billion to help homeowners facing foreclosure, but only 27 states plan to use the money toward that end. At least 15 other states have already funneled the money into work as a stopgap in their ailing budgets. Texas' $125 million was deposited right into its general fund, Missouri is trying to prevent major cuts to higher education, Arizona is using half of its money for prisons, and Virginia is giving its $67 million to local governments.

Homeowners are left to fend for themselves. "If you leave homeowners hanging out there to dry, then in the short term maybe you help to meet the budget gap this year,? said Maeve Elise Brown, executive director of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, to The New York Times. ?But in the long term the more people we have going through foreclosure, the worse it?s going to be for our economy as a whole.?

I suppose it's possible to have deep-rooted ideological objections to helping victims of the housing bubble and the economic meltdown stay in their homes. In which case, I guess, when you're offered some of that modest bankster blood money, you just say, "No, thanks, we're happy to see those people booted out of their homes. It's the American way."

You can do that. It would be nice to know whether your state's troubled mortgage holders agree, but still, I guess you can do that. What you can't do is misappropriate the money for other uses, like to try to plug the gaps left by the right-wing ideological sociopaths' war on government. That's stealing, and the offenders should be prosecuted and, ideally, executed. (What's the point of having a death penalty if you don't use it on people like this?)
#

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Establishment Dems Proving Themselves Clueless in
Washington's 1st District Race

If you want a classic example of the way Establishment Democrats are perfectly tone-deaf when it comes to the concerns of the working families they like to flatter themselves as representing, take a look at how the race in Washington's brand-spanking-new First District is shaping up, particularly on the Democratic side.

Because instead of backing Darcy Burner, the progressive candidate with far and away the greatest name recognition and a record of working for working-class families and their interests -- particularly when it comes to things like protecting Medicare and Social Security, and getting their children out of war zones -- the state's establishment Dems seem to be lining up behind Susan DelBene, a pro-business faux-progressive Dem with little popular support but very deep pockets.

Evidently, it's all about the money. In a year when Democrats should be listening to the anger of their constituents at the failure of Washington politicians to take care of the interests of ordinary people, these dimbulbs are going back to politics as usual and backing the candidate with the deepest pockets, not the deepest support among voters.

On the Republican side, Tea Party nutter John Koster is running largely unopposed and leads in early polling -- largely because it's a six-way race on the Democratic side right now. Things will be different in the fall, when his far-right record and rhetoric will come front and center.

A weekend Seattle Times story laid out the contours:

The Democratic establishment is coalescing behind Suzan DelBene, a former Microsoft vice president who largely self-funded her losing 2010 campaign against U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, who represents the 8th District.
But in this year of economic anxiety and the noise surrounding the Occupy movement, DelBene's opponents are taking jabs at her wealth, to appeal to struggling families.
As Darcy Burner, a progressive activist who twice lost to Reichert, says: "There's already an overrepresentation of the 1 percent in Washington, D.C."

You may notice something important missing from this story. There's plenty here touting DelBene's candidacy, for instance, but nothing telling readers how the candidates actually stack up in terms of support:

DelBene's résumé looms largest. She was appointed Gov. Chris Gregoire's Department of Revenue director after an executive career at Microsoft and Drugstore.com, among others. She and her husband, Kurt, a Microsoft president, live in a $4.8 million Lake Washington waterfront home and said she would, like last time, put her own money into her campaign.
"We talk about the American dream, yet we're in a place where we're making it harder and harder. I don't know if I would be able to tell my same story if I were growing up today," she said.
In an apparent effort to trim the field, Gregoire and Larsen endorsed DelBene, as did the state Washington State Labor Council.

What the story neglects to mention is that despite all this Establishment support -- including, amazingly, the support of labor unions, despite the fact that they have been struggling with (and loudly complaining about) a Congress full of Blue Dog Democrats who always fail somehow to actually come to the defense of working families -- there is hardly any popular support for DelBene, who wasn't even a Democrat until a few years ago, and who tells interviewers that she became a Democrat because she thought the party needed to be more friendly to business interests. That is, DelBene is a classic Blue Dog in the making, and her progressive positions have no action behind them to suggest she would carry through with them once in Congress.

Rather the contrary -- it's clear that DelBene instead intends to attack Burner for having fought for progressive positions. If you keep reading the Times story, you'll discover the scandalous thing that Darcy tweeted that the DelBene campaign used to scare off her supporters in King County:

But King County Democrats struggled with their pick.
A subcommittee recommended DelBene and Burner, but then backed away from Burner when a Twitter message she sent in August 2011, while at Progressive Congress, became public. In it, she criticized President Obama during the debt-ceiling debate, writing, "Barack Obama isn't a bad Democrat ? because he's not a Democrat. He's a Republican."

Burner's tweet, it should be understood, came just as word had circulated on Capitol Hill that Obama intended to put Social Security and Medicare on the table as negotiating chips during the debt-ceiling showdown that was occurring then -- and she was properly criticizing the President, as should have any progressive worth their salt, for making these items negotiable. Pressure from people like Burner helped persuade the President to change course, which (thank God) he did.

If it had been up to Susan DelBene or the King County Democrats, apparently, that wouldn't have been the case.

Here's what else the Times story didn't tell you: What the actual polls show.

Polls taken in March, for instance, clearly demonstrated Burner's big lead among actual Democratic voters in the new first District: nearly half the total vote, 45 percent, went to Burner, and some 54 percent of them have a favorable impression of her. DelBene, in contrast, comes in fourth with only 12 percent support, and only 21 percent of Democratic voters have a favorable impression of her. (The other progressive in the race, Laura Ruderman, comes in a consistent second with 15 percent support and a 17 percent favorability rating.)

In other words, it's clear that the voters want a real progressive to vote for, not a fake one. But the Establishment Dems are so enamored with DelBene's deep pockets that they are willing to risk running a candidate who inspires no actual support just because she can finance enough ads to sell her way into the seat.

I have a hunch the voters will have other ideas come August, when the primary is actually held.

As the story notes:

Steve Zemke, chair of the King County Democrats, said the party likely won't endorse a single candidate because Burner, Ruderman and DelBene each have fans and are running vigorous campaigns. "I'll say this, they're not easily scared out of the race," he said.

Not by deep-pocket money, at least.

If you want to help make the point that there are other ways to finance a political campaign than with the pocket money of the 1 percent, you should go to Darcy's Blue America page and chip in some nickels. (Here's Darcy's campaign site.)