January 30, 2012

Royal Bank Of Scotland boss bows to pressure and gives up £1m bonus

RBS boss bows to pressure and gives up £1m bonus
Threat of Commons vote on pay may have proved final straw for RBS chief executive

Stephen Hester, head of the Royal Bank of Scotland, gave way to
heavy political pressure last night to forego his £963,000
bonus.

The final straw for the RBS chief executive appears to have been the looming threat of a vote in the House of Commons condemning the Government for failing to block the payment.

He is reported to have feared becoming "a pariah" over the controversy.

Just a few hours before Mr Hester made his decision known, Ed Miliband announced he would force a Commons vote at the first opportunity. Labour strategists were anticipating that a substantial number of Tory and Lib Dem MPs would support them, giving them a chance of defeating the Government.

MORE:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/rbs-boss-bows-to-pressure-and-gives-up-1m-bonus-6296565.html

January 30, 2012

WOW-Buried at the "ass end" of the article: Independents Siding BIG TIME With Obama In FLORIDA!!!

A Poll Arising Situation

by Zandar

The latest NBC/Marist poll in Florida this weekend finds Mitt Romney up big over Newt Gingrich now, 42%-27%. That’s not the big news. This is, buried at the ass end of the article:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/29/10260572-nbcmarist-poll-romney-up-15-over-gingrich-in-florida

Romney and rest of the candidates, however, continue to trail President Obama in Florida among all voters. Romney does best, but loses 49-41 percent, a point worse than a month ago.

As in the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, Gingrich fares the worst of the entire GOP field against Obama, worse even than Santorum or Paul. Obama beats Gingrich, 52-35 percent, a five-point wider advantage for Obama from December.

Obama: 49%
Romney: 41%

Obama: 52%
Gingrich: 35%

Obama: 50%
Paul: 36%

Obama: 50%
Santorum: 35%

Obama, whose approval rating in Florida is 46 percent, has a lead over Romney, in large part, because of independents. Independents sided overwhelmingly with the president—50-36 percent over Romney, and by 20 points or more over Gingrich, Santorum and Paul.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/2012/01/29/a-poll-arising-situation/

January 30, 2012

McCain: ‘Stop the debates'

McCain: Stop The Debates, enough with the debates’

By Andrew Jones
Sunday, January 29, 2012 13:46 EST


Former presidential candidate and Mitt Romney supporter John McCain (R-AZ) expressed Sunday morning his fatigue over the number of debates in this Republican nomination cycle.

“We’ve got to stop the debates,” McCain told Meet The Press‘ David Gregory. “Enough with the debates, because they are driving up our candidates’, all of them, unfavorability. We have enough of that. They’ve turned into mud wrestling instead of an exposition of all our candidates views. And it’s time to recognize who the real adversary is, and it’s not each other.”


http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/29/mccain-stop-the-debates-enough-with-the-debates/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheRawStory+(The+Raw+Story)&utm_content=FeedBurner

January 30, 2012

SHE Is ObamaCare

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/29/1059789/-She-is-Obamacare-?via=siderec

January 29, 2012

FANTASTIC!!! New Yorker cover

http://brooklynmutt.com/post/16698638746/buzzfeedben-fantastic-new-yorker-cover

January 29, 2012

Occupy Oakland PRESS RELEASE: Oakland Police Violate their Own Policies

PRESS RELEASE: Oakland Police Violate their Own Policies
JANUARY 29, 2012
by Scott
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

January 29, 2011 – Oakland, CA – Yesterday, the Oakland Police deployed hundreds of officers in riot gear so as to prevent Occupy Oakland from putting a vacant building to better use. This is a building which has sat vacant for 6 years, and the city has no current plans for it. The Occupy Oakland GA passed a proposal calling for the space to be turned into a social center, convergence center and headquarters of the Occupy Oakland movement.

The police actions tonight cost the city of Oakland hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they repeatedly violated their own crowd control guidelines and protester’s civil rights.

With all the problems in our city, should preventing activists from putting a vacant building to better use be their highest priority? Was it worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars they spent?

The OPD is facing receivership based on actions by police in the past, and they have apparently learned nothing since October. On October 25, Occupiers rushed to the aid of Scott Olsen who was shot in the head by police, and the good Samaritans who rushed to his aid had a grenade thrown at them by police. At 3:30pm this afternoon, OO medics yet again ran to the aid of injured protesters lying on the ground. Other occupiers ran forward and used shields to protect the medic and injured man. The police then repeatedly fired less lethal rounds at these people trying to protect and help an injured man.

Around the same time, officers #419, #327, and others were swinging batons at protesters in a violation of OPD crowd control policy, which allows for pushing or jabbing with batons, but not the swinging of them.

In the evening, police illegally kettled and arrested hundreds of protesters. Police can give notices to disperse, if a group is engaged in illegal activity. However, if the group disperses and reassembles somewhere else, they are required to give another notice to disperse. Tonight, they kettled a march in progress, and arrested hundreds for refusing to disperse. Contrary to their own policy, the OPD gave no option of leaving or instruction on how to depart. These arrests are completely illegal, and this will probably result in another class action lawsuit against the OPD, who have already cost Oakland $58 million in lawsuits over the past 10 years.

OPD Crowd Control Policy: “If after a crowd disperses pursuant to a declaration of unlawful assembly and subsequently participants assemble at a different geographic location where the participants are engaged in non-violent and lawful First Amendment activity, such an assembly cannot be dispersed unless it has been determined that it is an unlawful assembly and the required official declaration has been adequately given.”

“The announcements shall also specify adequate egress or escape routes. Whenever possible, a minimum of two escape/egress routes shall be identified and announced.”

“When the only violation present is unlawful assembly, the crowd should be given an opportunity to disperse rather than face arrest.”

At least 4 journalists were arrested in this kettling. They include Susie Cagle, Kristen Hanes, Vivian Ho who were arrested and then released, and Gavin Aronsen who was taken to jail.

One woman was in terrible pain from the cuffs. Dozens of fellow arrestees shouted at the OPD to check her cuffs. But, contrary to their own policy, the OPD refused and simply threw her in a paddy wagon.

OPD Crowd Control Policy: “Officers should be cognizant that flex-cuffs may tighten when arrestees’ hands swell or move … When arrestees complain of pain from overly tight flex cuffs, members shall examine the cuffs to ensure proper fit”

Numerous protesters were injured: some shot with “less lethal” rounds, some affected by tear gas, and some beaten by police batons. There are no totals yet for the numbers of protesters injured. One 19 year old woman was taken to the hospital with internal bleeding after she was beaten by Officer #119.

Cathy Jones, an attorney with the NLG gave the following statement to Occupy Oakland’s media team: “Through everything that has happened since September, from Occupy to the acceleration of “Bills” — NDAA, SOPA, PIPA, ACTA — never have I felt so helpless and enraged as I do tonight. These kids are heroes, and the rest of the country needs to open its collective eyes and grab what remains of its civil rights, because they are evaporating, quickly. Do you want to know what a police state looks like? Well, you sure as hell still do not know unless you were watching our citizen journalists.”

Today, Occupy Oakland events continue all day with a festival in Oscar Grant (Frank Ogawa) Plaza:

http://occupyoakland.org/2012/01/occupy-oakland-rise-up-festival-has-been-moved-to-oscar-grant-plaza-tomorrow/

Occupy Oakland is an emerging social movement without leaders or spokespersons. It is in solidarity with occupations currently occurring around the world in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Oakland Media is a committee of Occupy Oakland, established by the Occupy Oakland General Assembly.

CONTACT:

Occupy Oakland Media Committee
(510) 473-6250
[email protected]

http://hellaoccupyoakland.org
http://occupiedoaktrib.org/2012/01/29/press-release-oakland-police-violate-their-own-policies/

January 29, 2012

I remind myself, everyday - "It's all made up"

By Kathy Kelly (4-14-00)
www.emperors-clothes.com

Introduction
by Jared Israel

In the following article, Kathy Kelly refers to the testimony before Congress some ten years ago given by a woman named Nayirah.

You probably heard about her testimony. She was the volunteer nurse who said she witnessed Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and tossing them on the cold floor to die. She told of witnessing other horrors as well.

What you may not know is: Nayirah's entire testimony was fabricated. Not a word was true. Nayirah was actually the daughter of Kuwait's Ambassador in Washington and she had been in her family's palatial home in Washington during the period described below. She never left the U.S. There was no vacation in Kuwait, no sister with a newborn baby, no volunteer work in a hospital. There were no leaflets seized by Iraqi troops; there were no Iraqi troops. There were only stories, products of imagination - hers and the people who coached her.

Reading these lies is useful. It prepares us to treat with skepticism the atrocity stories we are fed on CNN et al, and which are used to justify wars of Imperial conquest. Notice as you are reading that even though you know Nayirah is lying, she effects you. Reading it you want to sympathize. You have to remind yourself: she never left Washington. It's all made up.

................

more (lies and how they originated)
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/kelly/what.htm

January 29, 2012

"MoonGate": Lunar Landings and Lies - Republican Debate Veers Toward the Absurd

Lunar Landings and Lies
Republican Debate Veers Toward the Absurd
A Commentary by Marc Pitzke


The US Republican candidates' debate in Florida quickly devolved into a horror show of absurdities on Thursday night as candidates argued about immigration and moon colonies. Mitt Romney was branded the winner, but the real losers were the viewers, the truth and politics in general.

..............

And space travel took up almost a half an hour of the debate, thanks to Gingrich who recently promised voters a colony on the Moon, including a lunar US state. "I'm not looking for a colony on the moon," Romney said. "I'd rather be rebuilding housing here in the US."

...................

So what did viewers learn? Each candidate loves Marco Rubio, the Senator from Florida and Tea Party darling, who has not yet endorsed a candidate and was hopefully listening very carefully.

Each candidate loves Israel. They all love Ronald Reagan. Each loves his wife, a born first lady, for a number of reasons: "She is the author of a very famous cookbook, 'The Ron Paul Cookbook'" (Paul); "She wrote a book about manners" (Santorum); "she plays the French horn" (Gingrich).

..............

MORE:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,811786,00.html

January 29, 2012

Where is Obama as police brutalize citizens?

Please Mr. President - DO/SAY Something....

(THIS IS NOT AMERICA!!!)

We have a Democratic administration in Washington.

We have an escalation of police being militarized.

(THIS IS NOT AMERICA!!!)

We are seeing the takeover of our public police force by corporations. Corporates hire the police we pay for with our tax dollars... to protect them from us. It is amazing.

MORE (tons of links)
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/29/1059609/-where-is-Obama-as-police-brutalize-citizens-?via=siderec

NYT: when the police go military
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sunday-review/have-american-police-become-militarized.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Alternet: How the Feds fueled the militarization of police
http://www.alternet.org/story/153567/how_the_feds_fueled_the_militarization_of_police

The Atlantic: How the war on terror has militarized the police
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/how-the-war-on-terror-has-militarized-the-police/248047/
Forbes: Militarizing the police
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bradlockwood/2011/11/30/the-militarizing-of-local-police/

*****************

Obama has spoken out

http://www.cosmopolis.ch/english/politics/e0013000/transcript_obama_middle_east_speech_01300000000.htm
BUT: Unfortunately, those eloquent remarks were not directed at the US.

*************

imho
one more thing:
The President is NOT helpless:
He CAN Speak Out Or He Can:
talk about police brutality the same way Reagan talked about AIDS?!
F__k That, kp

January 29, 2012

Should the world really be run by men who never finished emotional high school?

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29, 2012

Republicans: The World as Pulp Science Fiction

.......................


Pulp science fiction, like the Westerns of a prior generation, is a genre aimed mostly at adolescent boys. John W. Campbell, perhaps the most influential editor/publisher in SF, made this explicit. Meanwhile, just as the odd Western transcended the genre's limits and became high art--'The Searchers', 'High Noon', 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre' and others come to mind--so, too did some authors make science fiction more than it was/is at baseline. But the overall appeal was based on uncomplicated, mostly male characters, enabled by strength of ego and special talents/abilities to triumph over unambiguous evil.

There's a strong libertarian streak in pulp SF, of which Heinlein's 'The Moon is a Harsh Mistress' is perhaps the classic example. Again, this suits adolescent boys down to the ground: get off our backs, let us stand up for ourselves, freedom and independence will unshackle our greatness. And, as with adolescent boys much of whose freedom relies on adults paying for car insurance and food and the like, so, too, libertarians reject the necessity of common enterprise arising out of collective action, in the absence of private action, in mitigating problems or addressing unmet needs.

Which brings me to Ayn Rand, beloved of Alan Greenspan and many others, whose novels I find well written as pulp science fiction, with cardboard characters standing in for archetypes, who also appeals to adolescents: few boys never succumb, at one time or another as their personalities and egos develop, to the notion that they are Men (sic) of the Mind.

We now live in a time when Romney, Gingrich and Greenspan, and most of the right, explicitly embrace ideas that are adolescent to the core, have not developed into an adult grasp of reality, and which center on their own virtues and just rewards, and others' evils and inadequacies and the just deserts arising therefrom. It is possible, I'd hope, to be conservative, and, nonetheless, a grown up. I see no evidence of it these days.

Should the world really be run by men who never finished emotional high school?

http://profwombatsecondopinion.blogspot.com/2012/01/republicans-world-as-pulp-science.html