kpete
kpete's JournalHorsey: Filibusted
http://crooksandliars.com/mike-lux/obama-s-messy-narrative
FOX Loses Star Reporter
Memories
Palin's gone from Fox News. I'm reminded of that two year or so period when Politico was basically Sarah Palin Daily. And reporting was basically about what she would put on Facebook. Journalism!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/sarah-palin-fox-news-out_n_2553421.html
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2013/01/memories.html#disqus_thread
Barbie, Closet Activist?
“Escape from Tomorrow” is, essentially, a commentary on a shared social phenomenon, namely the supposed bliss of an American family’s day at Disney World. In Moore’s version, the day is a frightening and surreal mess that destroys the family forever. The film isn’t so much a criticism of Disney World itself but of the unattainable family perfection promised by a day spent at the park.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/movies/escape-from-tomorrow-at-sundance-scrutinizes-disney.html?_r=1&
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A famous case over the artist Thomas Forsythe’s “Food Chain Barbie” series is similar to this one. In the late nineteen-nineties, Forsythe created a line of artistic photographs of Barbie under attack by various vintage appliances. According to Forsythe, he wanted to “critique the objectification of women associated with [Barbie], and to lambast the conventional beauty myth and the societal acceptance of women as objects because this is what Barbie embodies.” His work made just thirty-seven hundred dollars, but Mattel sued for both copyright and trademark infringements. The courts threw out the complaints under a fair use and First Amendment rationale. The judges were so annoyed by the lawsuits that they awarded attorney’s fees of nearly two million dollars to the artist.
The similarities with “Food Chain Barbie” are obvious. Both make use of an American icon with associated social ideals (perfect womanhood, in Barbie’s case). Both use art to comment on or criticize that social meaning. In neither case is the commentary the only purpose of the art work, but it doesn’t need to be. Ultimately, both “Food Chain Barbie” and “Escape from the Future” are legitimate art projects, and it is a serious thing for judges to place prior restraints on cultural output. This is not a case about counterfeit Mickey Mouse watches or bootlegged “Toy Story” DVDs. Disney is free to stop that sort of thing all it likes. But a judge has to think about the First Amendment when asked to ban art work.
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Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2013/01/escape-from-tomorrow-disney-world-and-the-law-of-fair-use.html#ixzz2J0rRM4e7
Senate Dems Abdicated Their Duty
Senate Dems Abdicated Their Duty
by BooMan
Fri Jan 25th, 2013 at 01:01:48 PM EST
The deal preserves the concept of the modern Senate as a body in which 60 votes are required to get most things done, which has drawn the ire of liberals, such as Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, and a host of outside groups. Harkin predicted President Barack Obama’s agenda will suffer as a result of the deal.
“I said to President Obama back in August ... and the night before the election, ‘If you get re-elected and we don’t do something significant about filibuster reform, you might as well take a four-year vacation,” Harkin said.
The deal Harry Reid struck with Mitch McConnell was not significant. It was a lost opportunity that did not take into consideration Mitch McConnell's precarious reelection prospects and desire to avoid a primary from his right. It forecloses the one hope we had to advance legislation through the Senate and force the House to respond. It was an abdication of duty. And the only hope left now is that Obama can change the political landscape somehow, either through his Organizing for Action group, or through some fortuitous and yet unforeseen events.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/1/25/13148/9705
So, Obama has no House, no Senate,
I guess He REALLY needs us NOW!
peace, kp
Another American Patriot With Guns: 'Ex-Marine' With 'Right-Wing' Manifesto Built Bombs for Cocaine,
'Ex-Marine' With 'Right-Wing' Manifesto Built Bombs for Cocaine, Hoarded Assault Weapons
A Colorado man, who said that he was an ex-Marine and claimed a "right-wing declaration of independence/constitutionalist political manifesto," built improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to trade for cocaine and hoarded several military-style assault weapons that may have been converted to machine guns, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.
According to an affidavit, federal agents with the Bureau of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) raided the home of Richard Lawrence Sandberg in Jefferson County on Thursday after he provided an undercover agent with homemade bombs.
After receiving a tip from a Denver Police Department detective, ATF Special Agent Shane Abraham contacted Sandberg and told him he needed an explosive device to protect a building. Sandberg, who claimed to be "former Special Ops Recon SS Marine Corps," allegedly said that he was in possession of "incendiary" or "napalm" explosives, but the devices were wrong for the job. The suspect then recommended a "frag" -- or fragmentation device -- and suggested that he could provide something that was also waterproof.
Sandberg claimed that the kill zone for his "frags" was 20-meters and the hurt zone was 60-meters, the affidavit said. He called his IEDs "homemade shit" that were built with materials from Home Depot and were "life or death." The suspect said that he also had 18 military-grade M67 fragmentation hand grenades, but would only sell five.
More plus video:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/david/feds-ex-marine-right-wing-manifesto-built-bo
Obama likely to name Wal-Mart Foundation head as budget director
Source: The Hill
Obama likely to name Wal-Mart Foundation head as budget director
By Erik Wasson - 01/25/13 11:01 AM ET
President Obama is likely to announce soon that Sylvia Mathews Burwell will be his next budget director, sources said Friday.
Burwell is a veteran of the Clinton administration, where she served as deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget. She is a close associate of former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and outgoing White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew, who is Obama’s pick to be Treasury secretary.
Acting Budget Director Jeff Zients would either return to his previous role as the deputy OMB director overseeing the management of the government or assume a new role, should Burwell get the nod. His name has been mentioned as a possible replacement for U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, who leaves next month. Zients took over the budget role after Lew left OMB to become chief of staff last year.
A key consideration in the Burwell pick might be her gender, given the number of white males Obama has tapped for Cabinet posts in recent week.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/budget/279311-obama-likely-to-tap-burwell-to-be-budget-director
Foul Play in the Senate - by Bill Moyers
The inauguration of a president is one of those spectacles of democracy that can make us remember we're part of something big and enduring. So for a few hours this past Monday the pomp and circumstance inspired us to think that government of, by, and for the people really is just that, despite the predatory threats that stalk it.
But the mood didn't last. Every now and then, as the cameras panned upward, the Capitol dome towering over the ceremony was a reminder of something the good feeling of the moment couldn't erase. It's the journalist's curse to have a good time spoiled by the reality beyond the pageantry. Just a couple of days before the inaugural festivities, the New York Times published some superb investigative reporting by the team of Eric Lipton and Kevin Sack, and their revelations were hard to forget, even at a time of celebration.
The story told us of a pharmaceutical giant called Amgen and three senators so close to it they might be entries on its balance sheet: Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Democratic Senator Max Baucus, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, and that powerful committee's ranking Republican, Orrin Hatch. A trio of perpetrators who treat the United States treasury as if it were a cash-and-carry annex of corporate America.
The Times story described how Amgen got a huge hidden gift from unnamed members of Congress and their staffers. They slipped an eleventh hour loophole into the New Year's Eve deal that kept the government from going over the fiscal cliff. When the sun rose in the morning, there it was, a richly embroidered loophole for Amgen that will cost taxpayers a cool half a billion dollars.
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much much much more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/01/25/1182003/-Foul-Play-in-the-Senate
Austerity Bites.....Pizza?
Britain's 'Triple Dip' Recession Perilously Close As Economy ShrinksIn Britain it's 100% clear that the chosen policies are destructive, that contractionary policy is contractionary, that the recovery was under way until they decided to kill the economy.
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2013/01/let-it-burn.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/britain-triple-dip-recession_n_2550520.html
They were all staying overnight in the mountain town of Davos, where the world's most influential businessmen and politicians gather for a summit on economics each year.
A pizza with smoked ham, rocket salad and parmesan is £20, or 31 Swiss Francs.
He posted on Twitter: "I watched Cam, Os and BoJo's raucous Davos dinner last night, wondering if GDP figures great or if they didn't care. Guess we know now..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9826104/Dave-George-and-Boris-out-for-pizza-night-before-GDP-woe.html
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