Drowning In BS

As lifeguards are paid and trained to do, Tomas Lopez rushed down the beach to rescue a drowning man — and then got fired for it.

The problem: Lopez stepped out of the beach zone his company is paid to patrol, a supervisor said Tuesday.

Topics Companies and Corporations Hallandale Beach Aventura "I ran out to do the job I was trained to do," said Lopez, 21, of Davie. "I didn't think about it at all."

At least two other lifeguards have quit in protest. "What was he supposed to do? Watch a man drown?" asked one, Szilard Janko.

Company officials on Tuesday said Lopez broke a rule that could've put beachgoers in his designated area in jeopardy. The firm could ultimately have been sued, officials said.

"We have liability issues and can't go out of the protected area," said supervisor Susan Ellis. "What he did was his own decision. He knew the company rules and did what he thought he needed to do."

The company doesn't say they had to fire him, so it must still be a choice, right?  This guy barely makes over minimum wage and saved a dying man, only to lose his job.  That makes no sense whatsoever, and the fake tone of regret doesn't help a bit.

What a crock. No company worth a damn fires a man for saving a man drowning right in front of him, because someone else may have chosen that minute to drown.

Life After Independence Day

This is just a freebie, the normal 3:30 will be following.

I'm sure just about everyone has seen Independence Day with Will Smith.  It was a great movie, and the battle speech still gives me chills when I'm in the mood.

TMZ tracked down the adorable little boy who played Vivica A Fox's son (Will's soon to be stepson) and gave us a little "where is he now."  Hint: he's still adorable.  He also makes me acutely aware that I have aged too much since I watched Independence Day in the at the movies.

TomKat's Divorce Will Get Interesting

Katie Holmes has been very smart.  According to sources, she had planned this for a long time.  When Tom Cruise had to leave the country, it was her chance to act.  She had a place to live lined up, physical custody of Suri, and a plan.  She is acting like a concerned parent, and the independent woman that many claimed was lost when she married Tom Cruise.  She is also acting like a terrified woman, which is a bit alarming.  She went to the press, that's breaking the first rule of Celebrity Divorce Club.  She contacted the press before just about anyone, my only assumption is that it was to protect her from any abuse from Cruise or the church.  She surely knows better than we do, and for her actions to be so methodical and thorough, it makes sense she may know something that put her in fear for her life, or safety.

TMZ is running new info, this is what they live for.  Harvey must have taken my advice, the typos have been better.  Anyway, here is the most recent nugget of terror about Scientology, courtesy of the TMZ website:

Ex-Scientologists call the process "sec checking."  Here's the way it works.  The subject holds electrode handles on a device called an e-meter and is then asked a series of personal questions that help the Church locate "areas of spiritual distress."

Some ex-Scientologists claim the questions include:
-- What has somebody told you not to tell?-- Have you ever decided you did not like some member of your family?-- Have you ever bullied a smaller child?-- Have you ever lied to a teacher?-- Have you ever done something you were very much ashamed of?-- Have you ever refused to obey an order from someone you should obey?-- Have you ever gotten yourself dirty on purpose?

During the process, a person called an "auditor" collects e-meter readings. 

They interrogate children, to get them to betray their parents and any family secrets that may be lurking.  They interrogate children.

This could be the death of Scientology, and maybe the one last card Holmes has to play.  "Leave me alone or I blow the lid off everything" is a mighty weapon for an organization that has so much to lose.

Romney's Offshore Shell Games

Nick Shaxson's devastatingly brutal Vanity Fair piece on Mitt Romney's offshore bank account shell games is your must-read holiday assignment for this evening, and you'll want to tackle the piece sober.

Then you'll want to share it with your friends.  It's that important.

To give but one example, there is a Bermuda-based entity called Sankaty High Yield Asset Investors Ltd., which has been described in securities filings as “a Bermuda corporation wholly owned by W. Mitt Romney.” It could be that Sankaty is an old vehicle with little importance, but Romney appears to have treated it rather carefully. He set it up in 1997, then transferred it to his wife’s newly created blind trust on January 1, 2003, the day before he was inaugurated as Massachusetts’s governor. The director and president of this entity is R. Bradford Malt, the trustee of the blind trust and Romney’s personal lawyer. Romney failed to list this entity on several financial disclosures, even though such a closely held entity would not qualify as an “excepted investment fund” that would not need to be on his disclosure forms. He finally included it on his 2010 tax return. Even after examining that return, we have no idea what is in this company, but it could be valuable, meaning that it is possible Romney’s wealth is even greater than previous estimates. While the Romneys’ spokespeople insist that the couple has paid all the taxes required by law, investments in tax havens such as Bermuda raise many questions, because they are in “jurisdictions where there is virtually no tax and virtually no compliance,” as one Miami-based offshore lawyer put it.
 
That’s not the only money Romney has in tax havens. Because of his retirement deal with Bain Capital, his finances are still deeply entangled with the private-equity firm that he founded and spun off from Bain and Co. in 1984. Though he left the firm in 1999, Romney has continued to receive large payments from it—in early June he revealed more than $2 million in new Bain income. The firm today has at least 138 funds organized in the Cayman Islands, and Romney himself has personal interests in at least 12, worth as much as $30 million, hidden behind controversial confidentiality disclaimers. Again, the Romney campaign insists he saves no tax by using them, but there is no way to check this.

Trust Mitt.  He and Ann have paid all the taxes on his offshore millions, according the blind trusts set up by his own personal lawyer, and with zero accountability or oversight.  You'll just have to take his word for it.  Oh, but it gets worse.

Mysteries also arise when one looks at Romney’s individual retirement account at Bain Capital. When Romney was there, from 1984 to 1999, taxpayers were allowed to put just $2,000 per year into an I.R.A., and $30,000 annually into a different kind of plan he may have used. Given these annual contribution ceilings, how can his I.R.A. possibly contain up to $102 million, as his financial disclosures now suggest?

The Romneys won’t say, but Mark Maremont, writing in The Wall Street Journal, uncovered a likely explanation. When Bain Capital bought companies, it would create two classes of shares, named A and L. The A shares were risky common shares, to which they would assign a very low value. The L shares were preferred shares, paying a high dividend but with the payoff frozen, and most of the value was assigned to them. Bain employees would then put the exciting A shares in their I.R.A. accounts, where they grew tax-free. With all the risk of the deal, the A shares stood to gain a lot or collapse. But if the deal succeeded, the springing value could be stunning: Bain employees saw their A shares from one particularly fruitful deal grow 583-fold, 16 times faster than the underlying stock.

So when Mitt bankrupted companies like Kay-Bee Toys to make his millions, he didn't just clean up, he made sure he would have tens of millions in retirement cash, tax free, while the employees in the companies he shredded for profit saw their jobs and retirement accounts and their savings completely wiped out.  He didn't just make a mint, he made a mint and paid zero taxes on it.  Zero.

And now this asshole is running for President.  Even worse, people who make jack squat for wages will vote for this guy "because he's good for business."

Do you see why now you need to share this article with your friends?

The Fight Ahead On Medicaid Expansion

There's two schools of thought on how to approach the notion of red states opting out of Medicaid expansion in the ACA.  The first, championed by wonks like Ezra "Charts" Klein and Kevin Drum, basically says that there's so much in health care industry cost savings (and in new customers for insurance giants) that lobbyists and economic reality will drive states like Texas, Louisiana and Florida to take the money and run.  In other words, economics trumps politics.

But given the Republican Party's behavior over the last four years, I question that.  Not only do I question that, I outright laugh at the notion.  I may not agree with FDL's Marcy Wheeler and David Dayen on Obama, but they are both absolutely right about how the GOP will play the race card on this for as long as it's politically expedient, no matter what the economics say.  Politics trumps economics.  First, Wheeler:

Already, my anecdotal experience is that a proportion of voters in the states in question claim that the first black President has spent his first term making sure that people of color get more than their fair share of benefits (I think they make this argument based on expanded food stamp usage, though of course the argument is not coherent). The GOP frame for the Medicaid argument will not focus at all on insuring the uninsured. It will not breathe a word of how insured people subsidize uninsured people who use emergency rooms for care. Rather, it will extend and enlarge on this argument about a black President giving free stuff to black people (or Latinos in states like Texas). And I believe that will remain true even if Obama loses in November.

Dayen also agrees with this assessment:

But that’s arguing with logic. I don’t know why, given shared history, anyone would believe that logic will rule the day, and red state governors will go against their entire ideological worldview and spend taxpayer dollars – however small – to cover poor people, in many states largely people of color. And if you rely on this numbers game, if you never make a moral argument for WHY poor people shouldn’t have to choose between food or medical care, you have a whole bunch more problems than just this Medicaid expansion.

Democrats, Dayen argues, must now be prepared to go full out and assault GOP governors and say "Here's your death panels, boys. We know that being uninsured leads to people dying earlier, and the Republicans are sentencing millions of the poor to die rather than lift a finger to help just to spite President Obama.  It's the same thing they did with jobs and fixing the economy.  They'd rather score political points than fix anything.  They don't care about saving their states money.  They'd rather kill or drive off all the poor to make them somebody else's problem."

This is where I'm in complete agreement with the FDL guys. Now, the expansion of this logic over at Digby's place inevitably leads to OBAMA FAILED US ON SINGLE PAYER because Medicaid will be seen as unpopular welfare rather than a universal program like SS/Medicare, and I argue that single payer never had a chance here anyway...at least not until next time.

But it has more of a chance than it did before Obama.  Then again, as Yellow Dog points out, the red state that will benefit the most from Obamacare?

Kentucky.  And you better believe Dinosaur Steve will take the money here.

StupidiNews!

• A copy of a 500-year old map showing America as "The New World" has been located at a German university.
• Iran has threatened to destroy all US bases in the Middle East in retaliation for any attack, in response to reports of increased US military activity in the region.
• Federal officials are apparently vehemently denying that mermaids exist in a new report out in response to a recent Animal Planet special.
• Apple plans to debut a smaller, less-expensive iPad to compete directly with Samsung's Galaxy tablets and Amazon's Kindle Fire.
• Verizon is suing the FCC over net neutrality laws, saying the evening of the playing field is a violation of the company's First Amendment rights.

Last Call

Dear Wall Street Journal:

While you're busy this Independence Day telling us how great America was economically in 1776 with low taxes and high per capital income compared to the rest of the world (and waxing nostalgic for that time again, apparently):

Almost every American knows the traditional story of July Fourth—the soaring idealism of the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress's grim pledge to defy the world's most powerful nation with their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor. But what else about revolutionary America might help us feel closer to those founders in their tricornered hats, fancy waistcoats and tight knee-breeches?

Those Americans, it turns out, had the highest per capita income in the civilized world of their time. They also paid the lowest taxes—and they were determined to keep it that way.

By 1776, the 13 American colonies had been in existence for over 150 years—more than enough time for the talented and ambitious to acquire money and land. At the top of the South's earners were large planters such as George Washington. In the North their incomes were more than matched by merchants such as John Hancock and Robert Morris. Next came lawyers such as John Adams, followed by tavern keepers, who often cleared 1,000 pounds a year, or about $100,000 in modern money. Doctors were paid comparatively little. Ditto for dentists, who were almost nonexistent.

Let's recall that a good part of out national GDP was built on one rather large omission from your article there:  SLAVERY, YOU ASSHOLES.  Frederick Douglass said it best 160 years ago:

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.... 

Or as the Wall Street Journal seems to think, "We miss the good old days."  See, there's a mild problem with all this tricorner hat and drum and fife bullshit, because my ancestors at the time sure as hell didn't have much to celebrate on the 4th of July for the first 175 or so years of this country's existence other than "Well, at least we're not slaves and we can finally vote, so that's pretty good, right?"


Sure.  Happy 4th and all.

Disenfranchised On The Fourth Of July

Hypothetical question for you.  Say you're a Republican politician.

What if, as a Republican politician, you were the deciding vote on a law that would, in the state you are a politician in, legally throw out the votes of:

• 15% of people who make $35,000 or less
• 18% of senior citizens
• 18% of 18-24 year olds
• 19% of Latinos
• 20% of Asian-Americans
• 25% of African-Americans.

It would cost you 8% of the white voters in exchange.  Your campaign manager would walk over hot coals to get you a deal like that.  You would be a moron not to take that deal, given the demographics of who votes for Democrats, namely, the people in that list above, and who votes for Republicans.  You would assure wins for a very long time if you could pass a law that would give you the above results.

And yet Republicans in state after state have already passed laws that do just that.

They're called Voter ID laws that require a state-approved photo ID to vote.



Any questions?

Oh, and as far as women go?  What about disenfranchising them?  Republicans surely would love to find a way to do that, right?  What if I told you Republicans could pass laws that would cut the number of eligible women voters in half?

They already have.

Last year, 12 states introduced laws requiring birth certificates or other proof of citizenship to vote; 3 passed.

Only 48 percent of women have a birth certificate with their current legal name on it.

Coming to a red state near you:  Voting laws that require Photo IDs only obtained through proof of citizenship.  Congratulations.  You maintain absolute power in the state for a generation, power exercised overwhelmingly by wealthier white men.

Do you understand why Eric Holder and the Department of Justice's Voting Rights Division have to be utterly destroyed now as far as the GOP are concerned?

Do we understand now?

Good.  We have work to do.

Don't Buy This Cease Fire For A Second

This may arguably be the most politically naive article I've seen out of the National Journal in some time, and you'll see why pretty quickly:  the notion that Romney is "declaring a cease fire" on health care reform is patently ridiculous.  Josh Kraushaar:

For an issue that's supposedly potent against Democrats, Romney's campaign is declaring a cease fire. This, even as the law polls unfavorably and it proved to be a motivating force for Republicans and disaffected independents in the 2010 midterms.

It's becoming clear that Romney has decided to focus on the economy at the expense of everything else, even issues that could play to his political benefit. He's avoided criticizing the administration's handling of the botched Fast and Furious operation, even as it threatens to become a serious vulnerability for the president. He's been silent in responding to Obama's immigration executive order, not wanting to offend receptive Hispanics or appear like a flip-flopper. He appears more likely to tap a safe, bland running mate like Ohio Sen. Rob Portman or former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty who won't do him any harm but won't benefit him much either. If the economy continues to sputter, that safe strategy might be enough. If not, his options are limited.

In football, there's a well-worn cliché about the prevent defense (a scheme utilized when a team holds a big lead over its opponent): It prevents teams from winning games. In politics, Mitt Romney is testing that proposition as far as he can. 

I don't use profanity much around here, but this calls for it.  Bullshit.

There are three main reasons to just laugh at the notion that Romney will walk away from healthcare:  One, his base will not let him.  Two, his propaganda outfit at Drudge and Breitbrat Land won't let him.  Third, Romney is a habitual liar. 

Romney himself may think he's above the fray, but I guarantee you by the end of this month at the absolute latest, he'll be at campaign stops spewing the same lies about the ACA that the Breitbrat crew tells him to until it becomes the "truth", just like President Obama was born in Kenya and Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet.

Nope, Romney's too far into the red meat Birther twilight zone now to recover into a "above the fray" campaign.  That's nonsense.  Romney will be in the mud, flinging feces, with the worst of them.

Reaction To Cooper's Announcement

As everyone knows by now, Anderson Cooper came out of the closet.  I don't think many were surprised, except that he went on record.  In a very direct, unapologetic and yet eloquent announcement, he announced he was gay and completely happy with his life and himself.  Of course, the stupidity rolled out (doesn't it always?) but there was a lot of positive response and good Twitter discussion.  His beautiful phrasing gave supporters a lot to work with.  It didn't give the homophobes a lot of ammo.  I thought his delivery was just stunning.  "Yup, you knew it, I'm not gonna hide it.  I hope you're cool but if you're not then blow it out your ear and have a lovely evening."  Smashing.

Some reactions were unexpected.  Star Jones, who claims to be a big supporter of the gay community, said Cooper basically revealed it for ratings.  I'm not sure what she was thinking, but she made an ass of herself.  "There were times that you generate information for ratings."  Ouch.  Also, her word choice makes me wonder if she wasn't about to say it wasn't true.  She then apologized, but the damage was done.  It was clear, in the conflict of insulting him and apologizing, in which instance she was truly speaking her mind.

A New York Times opinion starts off trying to compliment Cooper and missing.  Because yes, there it is, about halfway down the author then turns on him and complains he didn't speak up earlier.  After acknowledging in a half-assed attempt at fairness how much he stood to lose if there was a backlash, the author gripes that he didn't put it in a memoir from 2006.  There is no sense of waiting until he was ready, and while the words hint that since it's none of our business the writer's mindset seems to really be the opposite.  Cooper said he wanted to be relentlessly honest about everything, including himself.  Instead of understanding what he did, the author chooses to bash every day of his life that he didn't come out singing about his sexuality.  The author continually swings between passive-aggressive pats on the back and whining about why he didn't wear a scarlet G on his forehead to relieve us of our burden.

Also from the Times, a debate page is up where people have discussions about whether celebrities and people in general have a "moral obligation" to come out.  They have a mostly calm exchange in which they discuss forcing people to sexually identify themselves.  Some people believe you should have to identify yourself visually or go on record to satisfy their curiosity about your love life.  I cannot say how disgusting that is, both the idea itself and that some people don't see the harm in it.

And then I got it. Straight people are checked out all the time and we are "accepted" as normal when we don't ping the gaydar.  But for gay citizens, each ping must feel like a test.  One that you fail simply because the only people who care seem to be the jerks who want to make it a bad thing.  That led to another epiphany, why some people really seem to fear gays.  It's because you can be anybody, anywhere and that scares the hell out of the 'phobes.  See, if they want to discriminate against blacks, Asians or any other group you can usually pick them out of a crowd.  If hating women is your thing, the boobies are a dead giveaway.  But if you want to hate gays... well, you have to actually discern who your bad guy is.  The small-minded want to believe that all gay women have mullets and all gay men love the Latin dances because it makes them feel comfortable.  The idea that their coworker, in-law or neighbor could be gay is terrifying to them.  I guess I knew all of that, but it all came together in a new way before, one that let me understand so much better what my gay friends go through, and more importantly, why.

That is the real value Anderson Cooper had to share, and he did it well.  He called it the value of standing up and being counted, and for him in particular it does matter.  He reaches people everywhere.  He was not obligated to do so, but he did knowing people would benefit.  That is what makes him a hero in my book.  Going on record means he has nothing to hide, and I can't think of a better definition of freedom than that.

Andy Griffith Already Laid To Rest

We were all surprised to hear Andy Griffith passed away yesterday.  He was relatively private, so it wasn't a surprise that he died quietly and had private burial plans.

What is weird, however, is that he was buried within a few hours of his passing.  This came from TMZ late afternoon on the same day:

Andy Griffith only passed away a few hours ago -- but TMZ has learned, the Hollywood icon has already been buried.

A rep for Twiford Funeral Homes in Manteo, North Carolina tells us, Andy was buried at 11:30 AM on his family farm on Roanoke Island. We're told Andy had previously requested to be buried immediately after his death ... so that's why it all happened so fast.

We made calls to find out if Andy was embalmed. No one was talking, but we're told it's legal in North Carolina to bury people without embalming them.

We're told Andy's burial followed a small, private service with close friends and family in attendance.

RIP, good sir.  He was in show business longer than I can imagine being alive.  Yet I cannot recall a single instance in which he was a jerk or caught doing something unkind.  He seemed to be a good man by all accounts, a rarity nowadays.

Baby You're A Fire, Work

And this July is already setting record temperatures in pretty much the first day of the month for not just the date, not just the month, but for new all-time highs as the country is melting under a brutal heat wave combined with devastating drought over nearly three-quarters of the US.  And if you find it to all be a bit too much, keep in mind most likely that this is the new normal.

So far this year, more than 2.1 million acres have burned in wildfires, more than 113 million people in the U.S. were in areas under extreme heat advisories last Friday, two-thirds of the country is experiencing drought, and earlier in June, deluges flooded Minnesota and Florida.

"This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level," said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. "The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfire. This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about."

Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in fire-charred Colorado, said these are the very record-breaking conditions he has said would happen, but many people wouldn't listen. So it's I told-you-so time, he said.

As recently as March, a special report an extreme events and disasters by the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned of "unprecedented extreme weather and climate events." Its lead author, Chris Field of the Carnegie Institution and Stanford University, said Monday, "It's really dramatic how many of the patterns that we've talked about as the expression of the extremes are hitting the U.S. right now."

"What we're seeing really is a window into what global warming really looks like," said Princeton University geosciences and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer. "It looks like heat. It looks like fires. It looks like this kind of environmental disasters." 

And the bottom line is after nearly 25 years of warnings that we've ignored, we now face the very real prospect that it's now too late to save coastal cities from rising oceans.  The window is all but closed, folks...and we've lost.  Now it's time to pay the piper.

"Even with aggressive mitigation measures that limit global warming to less than 2ºC above pre-industrial values by 2100, and with decreases of global temperature in the 22nd and 23rd centuries ... sea level continues to rise after 2100," they said in the journal Nature Climate Change on Sunday.
This is because as warmer temperatures penetrate deep into the sea, the water warms and expands as the heat mixes through different ocean regions.
Even if global average temperatures fall and the surface layer of the sea cools, heat would still be mixed down into the deeper layers of the ocean, causing continued rises in sea levels.
If global average temperatures continue to rise, the melting of ice sheets and glaciers would only add to the problem.

Now the choice is between limiting the damage to the coasts and full-blown catastrophe.  That's the political battle we'll be fighting for the next generation.  That and who will suffer the most due to climate change.

Get used to triple digits, mega-cell storms like the derechos that flattened DC and West Chicago and deadly wildfires in June, folks.  It's here to stay.

Incarceration Nation

Welcome to the newest source of revenue for cash-strapped states and counties:  massive fees for tickets, probation and violations that are leaving more and more Americans broke and at the mercy of private companies collecting debts for counties and cities....and if they can't pay, into the new American Debtor's Prisons you go.

In Georgia, three dozen for-profit probation companies operate in hundreds of courts, and there have been similar lawsuits. In one, Randy Miller, 39, an Iraq war veteran who had lost his job, was jailed after failing to make child support payments of $860 a month. In another, Hills McGee, with a monthly income of $243 in veterans benefits, was charged with public drunkenness, assessed $270 by a court and put on probation through a private company. The company added a $15 enrollment fee and $39 in monthly fees. That put his total for a year above $700, which Mr. McGee, 53, struggled to meet before being jailed for failing to pay it all. 

“These companies are bill collectors, but they are given the authority to say to someone that if he doesn’t pay, he is going to jail,” said John B. Long, a lawyer in Augusta, Ga., who is taking the issue to a federal appeals court this fall. “There are things like garbage collection where private companies are O.K. No one’s liberty is affected. The closer you get to locking someone up, the closer you get to a constitutional issue.” 

The issue of using the courts to produce income has caught the attention of the country’s legal establishment. A recent study by the nonpartisan Conference of State Court Administrators, “Courts Are Not Revenue Centers,” said that in traffic violations, “court leaders face the greatest challenge in ensuring that fines, fees and surcharges are not simply an alternate form of taxation.” 

J. Scott Vowell, the presiding judge of Alabama’s 10th Judicial Circuit, said in an interview that his state’s Legislature, like many across the country, was pressuring courts to produce revenue, and that some legislators even believed courts should be financially self-sufficient. 

In a 2010 study, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law examined the fee structure in the 15 states — including California, Florida and Texas — with the largest prison populations. It asserted: “Many states are imposing new and often onerous ‘user fees’ on individuals with criminal convictions. Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe — and often hidden — costs on communities, taxpayers and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well as to meet child support obligations.” 

Squeezing blood from a turnip, folks.  Get caught these days in the courts for misdemeanors and because courts and justice are expensive (and in the Republican Party world, must be profitized) then the cost of doing business is being taken in pounds of flesh off people who don't have legal representation and get crushed in the courts.  Our lovely friends in Jesusland simply declare "those people" are getting what they deserve, and of course it means we can never raise taxes on the good, Christian Republicans in the tax base.

Meanwhile, states are sucking ordinary Americans dry for being too broke to pay...and if they can't pay, they end up in prison until they can come up with the money.  The Supreme Court made such a practice directly illegal, but in the world of misdemeanors and fees as opposed to felonies, everybody looks the other way as states impose a massively regressive tax on the poor and indigent.

This is what happens when you introduce profit motive into the justice system.  The poor always lose and the rich get richer.

Coming soon to a broke-ass red state near you.  Try not to get any traffic violations.

StupidiNews, Independence Day Edition!

• Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider say they have discovered a subatomic particle "consistent" with being the long-sought Higgs Boson, which could explain mass in the universe.
• Female Olympic boxers will take to the squared circle this year in the London Olympics for the first time ever.
• The American Automotive Association reminds you that July 4th remains the deadliest day of the year for auto accidents, especially for teenage drivers.
• Famed British football club Manchester United will raise $100 million in the US with a stock offering as the legendary Premiere League giant continues the sport's cash-fueled arms race.
• Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom says he has "insider information" proving that the order to shut down the New Zealand data haven came from no less than US Vice President Joe Biden himself.

Last Call

I'm glad to see Eric Holder realizes exactly what's going on here as far as the GOP Fast and Furious witch hunt.

In his first interview since Thursday’s vote, Holder said lawmakers have used an investigation of a botched gun-tracking operation as a way to seek retribution against the Justice Department for its policies on a host of issues, including immigration, voting rights and gay marriage. He said the chairman of the committee leading the inquiry, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), is engaging in political theater as the Justice Department tries to focus on public safety.

“I’ve been doing all of these things all the time Darrell Issa and his band have been nipping at my heels,” a defiant Holder said. “They’ve been nipping, but I’ve been walking.”

The attorney general has long been a lightning rod for Republican lawmakers’ anger toward the Obama administration. But Holder said the debate over documents related to the gun operation, known as “Fast and Furious” — along with the National Rifle Association’s attempts to make it an electoral issue — have made matters worse.

“I’ve become a symbol of what they don’t like about the positions this Justice Department has taken,” he said. “I am also a proxy for the president in an election year. You have to be exceedingly naive to think that vote was about . . . documents.”

Ding ding ding!  Holder understands all too well what's going on here:  impeachment by proxy.  It's also impeachment for interfering in the GOP plan to disenfranchise millions of Democratic voters.  Holder has to go, he knows exactly how the game works.  There's a reason why there's such a massive show of force on the program with the intent of forcing Holder out and paralyzing the Justice Department.

Stopping GOP voter fraud is the number one issue in 2012's election.  The GOP knows it, and so does Holder...oh, and the race thing?  There's that, too.

I'm glad he's aware of what's at stake here, not that I doubted him.