Oh by all means let's have more of this over here:
From holding 80th place in the 176 countries on Transparency International's corruption perceptions index in 2011, Greece's global ranking, this year, fell to 94, the global watchdog announced on Wednesday. In terms of perceived levels of public corruption, Greece was on a par with Moldova and Mongolia. In the 27-strong EU, there was no other state that fared worse.
In a country not only mired in a fifth straight year of recession but enduring a third year of unprecedented austerity, where one in three now lives below the poverty line and a quarter of the population is unemployed, corruption is a means to an end.
It is, say analysts, the flipside of austerity in an economy in freefall. "To survive in such a hostile situation, you have to bend the rules," said political commentator Giorgios Kyrtsos. "There is no other way when things are so hard – you are forced to resort to corruption to deal with the state mechanism."
Austerity has created a nation no longer on the road to ruin, but taking up residence there.
The only solution forced upon the pople, of course, as Atrios has repeatedly stated, is more austerity.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]
Jim DeMint one of the Senate's most vociferously inclined members of Alternative Earth, is leaving the August body of skull-fuckery for the Heritage Foundation, America's premier think-tank for those who might as well be ocularly violated.
The word “lunatic” will be stricken from federal law under legislation that passed the House on Wednesday and is headed to President Obama for his signature...
The Congressional action is the latest effort to remove language from federal law that has become outdated or is considered demeaning. Two years ago Congress took out references to “mental retardation.”
“The term ‘lunatic’ holds a place in antiquity and should no longer have a prominent place in our U.S. code,” said Representative Robert C. Scott, Democrat of Virginia, shortly before the 398-to-1 vote in the House. The word, derived from the Latin word from moon, arises from ancient beliefs that people could become “moonstruck” by lunar movements.
...
The lone “no” vote was cast by Representative Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas
Love means never having to say you're sorry...as long as you love money.
February 2009:
Citi vows to use bailout money correctly
"Citi understands that (the bailout) is about helping the American people, and supporting U.S. businesses and our communities," Citi CEO Vikram Pandit said in the report.
Citi has received $45 billion from taxpayers in the last four months.
Citigroup announced on Wednesday that it will cut 11,000 jobs, or 4 percent of its workforce, in an effort to trim expenses.
The moves comes one month after Citigroup paid out nearly $14 million to two former executives, CEO Vikram Pandit and Chief Operating Officer John Havens, who were ousted for poor management.
We better keep the CEO and COO's taxes low though, to do otherwise would be a crime against freedom.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]
Armey received an $8 million buyout to step down as chairman of FreedomWorks at the end of last month, but the dispute between him and the group’s president, Matt Kibbe, is still straining the organization.
Remember, the tea party is a grass-roots movement, a spontaneous uprising of ordinary Americans against the snooty, coffee-drinking elite.
A former death row inmate with intellectual disabilities has languished in the Texas prison system for over 30 years despite having no valid criminal conviction. Jerry Hartfield, an illiterate man with an IQ of 51, had his capital conviction overturned in 1980 because the jury at his trial had been improperly selected. A Texas appeals court ordered a new trial for Hartfield, but that trial has never happened.
In 1983, then-Governor Mark White attempted to commute Hartfield's former death sentence to life without parole. However, a federal court has recently ruled that the commutation was irrelevant since Hartfield was not convicted of a crime. No action had been taken on the case until 2006, when another inmate helped Hartfield file a handwritten motion, asking that he be either retried or set free. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the petition, but a federal judge agreed with Hartfield, saying the decision overturning his conviction still stands.
U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Hughes said, "Hartfield's position is as straightforward and subtle as a freight train....The court's mandate was never recalled, its decision never overturned, the conviction never reinstated; yet Hartfield never received the 'entirely new trial' ordered by the court." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit called the state's defense of Hartfield's incarceration "disturbingly unprofessional" and returned the case to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for further action. Given the Sixth Amendment's right to a speedy trial, it is not clear that Hartfield could be re-tried.
Fresh off the news that 25 percent of registered Republicans want their State to secede, comes this:
A new PPP survey released Tuesday finds that 49% of Republican voters nationally think that ACORN, a now long defunct community organizing group, stole the election for President Obama. That measure is down from 52% in 2008.
Of course, in 2008 ACORN's level of existence was 100%, in 2012 ACORN's level of existence is 0%.
John Boehner may be able to purge some arch-conservatives from some committees, but he cannot purge the evangelical strain of faith before facts from the caucus he leads as a whole.
Hell, the Republicans in the Senate do not even have any rationality or conscience.
Frail and in a wheelchair, former Sen. Bob Dole was a startling presence on the Senate floor as lawmakers voted on a treaty on disabilities.
The 89-year-old Republican was in the well of the Senate on the GOP side of the chamber, his wife Elizabeth nearby. Dole recently had been hospitalized but came to the Senate to push for the treaty.
Sen. John Kerry acknowledged Dole's presence said the former Kansas lawmaker and World War II veteran was in the Senate to advocate for the treaty and ensure that disabled American veterans are treated with dignity and respect.
Why the GOP should just rename itself the "FoxNewsParty" and challenge the Democrats traditional mascot by having THIS jackass as its symbol:
So in spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.
The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.
McFarland also said that Ailes — who had a decades-long career as a Republican political consultant, advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — might resign as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign. At one point, McFarland and Petraeus spoke about the possibility that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., which owns Fox News, would “bankroll” the campaign.
No doubt he will soon respond with a video-blogged diatribe about haggis or something:
Now, far from home, Mr. Trump is a loser once more, if only because a
man he had cruelly and publicly bullied has emerged as a surprise
winner.
A few days ago, a fellow named Michael Forbes was designated Scotsman of the year — “Top Scot,”
to be precise — in a popular contest sponsored by the Glenfiddich
whiskey company and The Scotsman, a leading newspaper in Scotland.
He was voted that by the general public because he refused to sell his home and small farm so Trump could build a golf course.
House Republicans on Monday introduced a counter-offer to President Barack Obama's proposed solution to the so-called fiscal cliff, trumpeting that the proposal would not raise tax rates on personal income. The plan does, however, include a sizeable tax hike.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) would allow the payroll tax cut to expire at the end of this year, an aide in his office told The Huffington Post.
Yeah, that's the ticket, raise taxes ONLY on employees. That is incredibly fair, and no doubt popular.
No wonder Congress is so currently beloved:
Orly Taitz is still around. Yeah, I know, awesome. And she has lost again, the Orange County California summed up Orly's lawyerin' skills quite succinctly in his opinion...and perhaps gave her an epitaph for her future tombstone:
“You should know that evidence is not stuff printed from the Internet,” Margines told Taitz, according to the Occidental Weekly.
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson vowed to spend as much as $100 million to defeat President Barack Obama and help the GOP take control of Congress. According to two GOP fundraisers with close ties to the Las Vegas billionaire, he made good on that promise -- and then some. Adelson ultimately upped the ante, spending closer to a previously unreported $150 million, the fundraisers said.
Rising Hegemon
