More immigration abuses: Dialing Deporting for Dollars.

U.S. Border Patrol agents in western New York have been rewarded with cash bonuses and Home Depot gift cards, an incentive program that has grown at the same time as has an overly aggressive enforcement culture, a new study states.

And Rahmbo’s campaign slogan can be: A chicken in every pot, every day a teen is shot.

Thanks for the additional immigration link, allan. All that’s missing in your Rahmbo slogan is a reference to imbibing cops.

:)

French incursion frees few slaves in Mali”, since Tuareg slave-owners fled into Burkina Faso and Mauritania as the French advanced. “Tuaregs and Arabs who failed to escape have been summarily killed”.

Will Volkswagen rename its Tuareg SUV or will a new model be named Nazi on balance?

Simpson-Bowles: When can we end seeing their names and listening to their rhetoric ?

Simpson Bowels is the Bipartisan way to pillage the Middle Class in favor of Wall Street and The Vampire Squids.

Therefore, Oilbomber loves it.

On fhe Sicilian wind farms. They are huge. They extend over a large part of the east slope of Mt Etna and are visible easily at a distance of 100 km. very disfiguring of the landscape, though hardly any one lives thete any more. We could see them clearly from the mountains north of Cefalu, whete we wete hiking last year. Bit was a huge construction project. The Mafia had to be in on it, just as they ate in all the big (and little) construction projects hete in Montreal. Sam Sicilian Clam fro Ereclea Cattolica.

Do you know the history of the Tuaregs?

Elizabeth Warren is awesome!

So at this late date “they” still don’t know exctly what’s wrong with those lithium ion batteries. There have been shorts, thermal runaways, but there aren’t any details as to why.

What does that say about the state of engineering, testing, accident investigation nowadays? How will public relations win back support for the beleaguered Dreamliner once (if ever) the exact causes and chain of events are thoroughly known?

It wasn’t just two recent incidents, either. When the 787 was being tested one of their flights had a fire — I think it was in Florida a couple of years ago. Then there are brakes, fuel leaks.

I recall when the DC-10 caught a virus years ago. And the Lockheed TriStar. So much effort is put into these machines.

Re: my #9. . .

BTW isn’t there a lithium ion battery in my laptop? Should I leave it plugged in to recharge. . . when I’m not there?

Aloha, fatster…! I see they frontpaged ya in prime-time, tonite…! ;-)

I just posted a new diary… Déjà vu vingt-deux: Are Iranian Magnets The New Aluminum Tubes?

Warren took 2 of her 4 minutes setting up the Q, trying to dismiss their filibuster points in advance, wh she knew wouldn’t work

If it were me, I’d have asked: When was the last time you prosecuted a bank in a civil or criminal case. How large was the bank, what was the outcome. After 30 sec of filibuster responses, I would have interrupted with an even toned: I’ll note for the record that you did not answer my Q. Gone down the line. That’s how I would have spent my 4 min. FWIW.

I’m very much looking forward to tomorrow’s book salon with Tom Wilbur about his book Under the Surface. Thanks for reminding us of it and thanks for posting your links yesterday (or was it earlier today?) to the various fracking problems.

Telling, isn’t it that North Korea is obviously pursuing a nuclear warhead and a delivery system but all of the chicken hawks are clutching their pearls over Iran which probably is not? The two differences are that North Korea has no oil and Israel isn’t near enough to them to feel threatened. It’s a shame that our foreign policy is dictated from Wall Street and Tel Aviv.

…It’s a shame that our foreign policy is dictated from Wall Street and Tel Aviv…

How very true, Peg…! Hagel is proof-positive if there were any doubters left…! 8-(

I don’t think there are doubters left at this point. They’re all deniers.

Still here, anyone?
“Warren terrifies bankers.” Great. That’s exactly the reaction I want.

So many links here: I read the one about the NC proposed law on nipple “exposure.” The stated reason for it was a political protest in which women took off their tops, and the legislator specifically said the new statute was to “protect[North Carolinians] from seeeing that.”

But it’s written that the felony is incurred when the exposure is “for the purpose of inducing sexual arousal” (paraphrase, not gonna go read that a 2nd time). Therefore, a political protest like the one that sparked this bill wouldn’t violate the new law, because the behavior would lack the requisite intent.

I’d love to see a test case. Maybe the judge would write an opinion poiinting out how stupid the legislature was…

Rahm Emanuel running for President? He’s got about as much chance of causing a stink as a lead fart in a whirlwind. Unless, he’s running as a Repug.

maa8722, this is the best I could do to try and answer your question. I do hope it helps.

Aloha, CTuttle, and thanks for the link, too. I mean, Mahalo! :)

My pleasure, greenwarrior. Thank you.

Test case, you say, tejanarusa? You betcha! :)

LOLOL, wynota skunk. And thnx, too.

Using convicts to guard schools, who could imagine what would go wrong there *bangs head upon a desk*

I don’t think it’s that at all.
They’re just pivoting.
Tried to sell a war in Iran, but no one was buying.
This is made up to order.

Home Depot gift cards?

Someone in government has a sizeable sense of irony.

Which body part of males that can potentially cause sexual arousal does the statute address, though?

Seems like a clear violation of equal protction.

Is this really a anti- sexual arousal law, or just another disguise for blaming women if one or more males rape them?

How about making singing a sexy song a felony?

What if men claim to be aroused by the sight of a woman’s face or hair?

I love that the same folks who oppose use of Sharia law in the U.S. (like we have any law anymore) use the exact same approach. Women have to cover up anything that might arouse a male.

Clinton and Obama have proven that putting a (D) on Republican policies works better these days than admitting (before your second term begins) that you are actually a Republican.

And Rahm, like Bill and Hillary and Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, was a founding member of the DLC. So, he knows the drill better than Obama.

However, if history is any guide at all, Rahm is too short to win a Presidential election. The taller candidate almost invariably wins–and that long pre-dates the days of standing side by side on television to shake hands before a debate.

Also, most Presidential nominees have been six feet or taller, including, remarkably, George Washington who, for those days, was a Goliath.

Thanks so much, fatster. These round ups are a fabulous gift you give to the internet world.

❖ Despite assurances that deportation of “hardcore criminals” is the goal, emails have surfaced which show that the goal is more on “meeting quotas” by finding and deporting people with “low-level offenses”.

Just like the police force. I’m positive that never results in railroading the innocent, though. /sarcasm

❖ President Obama will work with Congress “to help the public understand the circumstances under which the government will target an American citizen with ties to al-Qaida using an unmanned aerial drone.”

Why only American citizens? The limitations imposed upon the federal government by the Bill of Rights apply to all people, not just American citizens. Besides, if a drone killing (and its “collateral damage”) is wrong, isn’t just as wrong if the “killees” are a brown people, living among brown adults and brown children and infants?

Which begs the question, how come we never drone murder suspected terrorists living in the UK or France or Germany. Or living in the U.S., for that matter?

❖ “Common Cause: Hagel fiasco shows need to repeal Senate’s filibuster rule”.

Oh, please. With all the things that really matter to the public that supposedly can’t survive filibuster, like the public option, why is Obama’s having to settle for his second choice to head Defense the thing that shows the need to repeal the filibuster rule? What an Obamabot perspective that is!

❖ Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), member of the Senate Banking, Housing & Urban Affairs Committee, asked some top regulators (FDIC, SEC, OCC, CFPB, CFTC, Fed and Treasury), who appeared before the Committee how many times they had taken a big bank to trial. Great video. Update: ”Warren terrifies bankers“.

Good for Warren. I hope she stays out of small planes.

❖ Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) wants to “bring back the military draft and extend it to women for the first time.”

❖ Perhaps Rep. Rangel and others should first investigate this: “Inside the military’s ‘giant rape cult’”.

Men in the military are raped, too. And furious that no one talks about it.

Women in the military have been fighting for equal rights in the military. Women never get equal rights without taking on at least as much of the downside as men do. So, if there is a draft, excluding women would be a very complicated issue.

Of course, Rangel’s motive in fighting for reinstatement of the draft, as he has been doing for years, is to make war less palatable to the American public, as it was in the days of the draft.

We now have wars lasting over a decade with no nightly reporting of wounded and casualties, war progress, etc. on radio and TV or in newspapers. It’s almost as though there is a conspiracy of silence.

Would that happen if these kids had been drafted against their will and the will of their parents? Presumably, drafting women would only increase the public outcry, so that the public will not stand for wars of aggression that last indefinitely.

Obviously, neocons and other gratuitous glorifiers of the military don’t like Rangel for this. Hence, calls for his going quietly into the good night reached a crescendo not long ago.

❖ Rep Edward Markey (D) polls ahead of Rep. Stephen Lynch (D) in the MA Senate race.

Well, Markey had $3 million bucks left over from his last election and got the endorsement of Kerry–who never endorses primary candidates–even before Markey announced his candidacy. So, obviously, Markey is the anointed of the Democratic Party.

So, Markey will get all the help he needs and Lynch will get all the undermining Democrats can manage. (Just ask Ned Lamont, Bill Halter, Kendrick Meek and so many others how that goes.)

Lynch is very pro-union and pro-worker, but against choice. Running in Massachusetts, with no support from the Party, and in a special election primary to boot, he will definitely lose. (Just ask Mike Capuano how that goes.)

❖ US Dept. of Health & Human Services has drafted a “proposed rule covering Medicare Advantage plans and prescription drug benefit programs . . . which will have to cap . . . overhead and profits at 15 percent beginning” 2014.

Hmmm. Some of the most profitable sectors in the U.S. are the oil industry and the pharmaceutical industry. Their profits are often described as “extraordinary.’

Supposedly, although oil denies it, the oil industry makes 23% profit. http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/smui/oil_industry_claims_to_make_on.html

Supposedly, the pharmaceutical industry yields 17% return.

(The most profitable companies don’t pay much in U.S. taxes, either, so it’s lose lose for the American consumer. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/06/most-profitable-corporations-tax-rate_n_1746817.html )

So, “capping” health insurers at 15% is very, very generous to health insurers.

And the one on Sunday should be fascinating…a look at Lincoln speeches….how they were written to be so powerful, etc. A method adopted by Obama….stay tuned.

And incidentally, I can’t stop remembering George Bush’s chest thumping about the “Axis of Evil”. After which, he invaded #1 and the U.S destroyed that country. Now the U.S./Israel axis is preparing the ground for #2. After which, what? It stops? Doesn’t 3 follow 2 in the number system? Could there be a subliminal connection of dots on the Korean peninsula?

Yes, there are factors that make No.Korea’s perception of reality outside their borders rather foggy. But no one misses or forgets a direct poignant threat like that. I’m not so sure that No.Korea should bear 100% of the fault in their folly.

Just passing through, Fatster, as I do most every morning. I prefer reading your round-ups to off-set the lack of hard news in the media. Thanks for all your great work.

“Ten years ago today the world witnessed the single largest mobilization for peace in history. In the run-up to the war in Iraq, an unprecedented number of people — estimates range from eight to 30 million — rallied worldwide on Feb. 15, 2003 to demand the U.S. give peace a chance”

http://wagingnonviolence.org/2013/02/the-global-mobilization-for-peace-a-decade-later/#more-21435

hopeful outlook

It is impossible for Jewish person to win the election to the top position, in any country in the world other than Israel.

I doubt that it’s ever happened.

That would make two reasons he won’t win.

The third is that he is incredibly arrogant, offensive and off-putting.

As a liberal retard, I cannot see myself standing on line to vote for him after he called us that–then apologized only to Palin.

I think he did make some sort of apology to liberals about six months later.

By that time, I am sure he knew it would do no good. And, it didn’t. At least not with me.

sure, I agree with you;

but those things do not make it impossible to be elected to being President of the USA, while being Jewish does.

Anyway, I doubt that he’s seriously thinking about running for President, just manoeuvring for some other position that he has his eye on. Mayor of Chicago is a temporary resting spot for him.

Leaked email shows Wal-Mart’s February sales were a “total disaster.” Result: Wal-Mart stocks tanked today.

I wonder if someone ,anyone made some money on this? someone who … A. had this information B. knew it would be made public.

duh.

I guess there will be an investigation now into who leaked the email.

Thnx so much, nixonclinbushbama. You mentioned George Washington’s height and you seem to like history, so I thought I’d share this with you.

Commodore John Barry was recognized by his contemporaries as “The Father of the American Navy”, though over time John Paul Jones’s popularity has obscured him. He was born in Ireland in 1745 and “rose from humble cabin boy to senior commander of the entire United States fleet.” He was 6’4″ while the average height was 5’5″. He was “well-built, ruddy-complexioned man of dignified carriage who spoke in a commanding tone . . .. His great strength was well known in naval circles”. Brilliant tactician and principled man. I wish we hadn’t forgotten him. Thnx for the opportunity to share.

http://www.ushistory.org/people/commodorebarry.htm

News You Can Use – if your name is John Boehner: Tanning injections ‘may be lethal’

What a great way to start the day–hearing from you, becca656! Thanks ever so much for “dropping by”.

I confess, mafr, I didn’t want to read that article because I was afraid it would be a downer. Thanks to you, I did finally read it and I’m glad I did.

And . . . Good Morning!

Oh, allan! Nothing like some great snark to go with one’s oatmeal. Mmmm, good.

Hi Fatster, Allen, and friends

One more for the road: Seattle says it won’t turn on 30 new cameras without public comment

The city will not activate the 30 surveillance cameras installed along the Seattle waterfront until the public has a chance to weigh in, Mayor Mike McGinn said.

“The system will not be operated until a thorough public testing vetting of the system has been completed and the public has provided a figleaf input,” McGinn said in prepared statement.

The mayor said he has directed the Police Department to go through the motions of brief community groups and solicit opinions before going ahead with the cameras, which were acquired through a $5 million federal Homeland Security grant.

❖ The NRA’s latest reason for everybody to arm up: “so that you can defend yourself and your family from the horde of rampaging bloodthirsty brown Mexicans about to come pouring over our borders.” Video.

sure, with the guns that are smuggled into Mexico from the USA.

LOL, mafr. Good catch!

And . . . Good evening, too!