It’s happening in Egypt right now.
What will the president do. Condemn it while it happens here?
Perhaps Bloomberg can say something.
UC Davis?
The Mayor of Oakland?
Nicely done, folks.
You’ve shown America to be empty words, truncheons, night sticks and pepper spray and the world has taken notice.
C’mon, Gingrich. Tell those people in Egypt they need showers and jobs.
To every politicians on the left and right that decided it was okay to attack people for protesting, this is what you have sown. From our President’s silence down, congrats.
The world is a worse place for your efforts.
Been looking for this for a while. Found it via Wonkette
Forwarded by @dorienrose on twitter.
In the meantime, enjoy some people in Chicago letting him know that he’s unwelcome in the region, not just his state!
First this, from Neighborhood Scout
With a crime rate of 73 per one thousand residents, Oakland has one of the highest crime rates in America compared to all communities of all sizes - from the smallest towns to the very largest cities. One’s chance of becoming a victim of either violent or property crime here is one in 14. Within California, more than 94% of the communities have a lower crime rate than Oakland.In fact, after researching dangerous places to live, NeighborhoodScout found Oakland to be one of the top 100 most dangerous cities in the U.S.A.
So, with that in mind, what were the Oakland police doing yesterday?
That’s right. Beating and gassing #OccupyOakland protesters. Nice priorities, guys.
Oakland Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan said arrests were continuing and the total number might rise. Eight-five of those arrests were made early Tuesday, when officers raided the Occupy Oakland encampment on the plaza along with an annex in a park near Lake Merritt.
PHOTOS: Occupy Oakland protest
Jordan justified his department’s use of tear gas.
“We were in a position where we had to deploy gas in order to stop the crowd and people from pelting us with bottles and rocks,” he said.
Isn’t this the kind of sh*t we frown upon unless it’s done in a country where we buy oil?
“Interim Police Chief” Jordan needs to become “Assistant Manager at Foot Locker” Jordan as of yesterday.
Cops in that city have better things to do than worry about people not being able to hit “Tully’s Coffee.”
Ridiculous.
I love this.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Herman Cain. I used to be worried about him. Guess what? Now, as someone who is 99% sure he’s voting for Obama based on the current pack of lunatics running on the right, I am absolutely pulling for him.
But first, a little history:
Actress and activist Janeane Garofalo threw down the liberal gauntlet while blasting Tea Party motives on MSNBC in 2009
“It’s about hating a black man in the White House. That is racism straight up. This is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks,” she said.
A YouTube video titled “Tea Party Racism” shows signs seen at past Tea Party events. They include:
- Obama as a witch doctor
- A monkey face next to the words, “Obamanomics: Monkey See, Monkey Spend”
- Obama’s Plan: White Slavery
- The Zoo has an African Lion
- The White House has a Lyin’ African
Former President Jimmy Carter claimed to NBC “Nightly News” that “an overwhelming portion” of the animosity aimed at President Obama is because Obama’s black.
However, author Ron Miller doesn’t buy it. He’s written the book “Sellout,” which is a label often tossed at him because he’s a black Republican who speaks at Tea Party events.
He points out that two of the Tea Partiers favorite politicians are a black congressman and a black presidential candidate.
“If the Tea Party movement, fragmented as it is, had an opportunity to select the one man that they’d want as president of the United States right now, it would be Allen West and followed closely by Herman Cain,” he said.
“I simply say two things. First of all, the accusation of racism within the Tea Party movement is ridiculous. Why? Number two — the black guy keeps winning the straw polls. So how could they be racists?” Cain asked.
“Would a racist organization take that much interest and be that passionate about two men who are obviously black?” Miller asked.
Fox News commentator Juan Williams can often be a little suspicious about the Tea Party embrace of West and Cain.
“Maybe sensing that they are very vulnerable on this racial issue, they’re taking to people like West or like Herman Cain because they’re seeking to defend themselves against those charges,” he said.
But Williams said he wished people wouldn’t always be dragging out the race card.
“And I just find it abhorrent to American ideals that you would try to defeat your opponent with some blanket charge of racism or bigotry when in fact there’s something else on the table, and it’s a very legitimate difference of opinion,” he said.
“It’s not about race. It’s about policies, it’s about issues,” Miller told CBN News.
This was back in September when it was written, long before Cain was elevated to the status of front runner, whatever that means in the pack of dimwits, zealots and snoozers the GOP is running. Man, they thought it would be easy, didn’t they?
And I’m okay with that. Because here’s who runs against Obama if Cain gets the nomination:
Herman Cain is heartlessly out of touch with main stream America: (statement about Occupy Wallstreet)
“Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself. It is not someone’s fault if they succeeded, it is someone’s fault if they failed,” the ex-Godfather’s Pizza CEO declared.
Hermain Cain is a typical right-leaning islamophobe:
He had to apologize to Muslim leaders for vitriolic remarks in which he said communities have a right to ban mosques because Muslims are trying to inject sharia law into the U.S. and that he would not want a Muslim bent on killing Americans in his administration.
And yet for all for his issues with Islam being used to make law in America, he’s willing to his faith to make law here:
“I believe that life begins at conception, period. And that means that I will have to see enough evidence that someone I would appoint shares that same view. “
And, of course, Hermain Cain is a mouth piece for the uber-rich:
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has cast himself as the outsider, the pizza magnate with real-world experience who will bring fresh ideas to the nation’s capital. But Cain’s economic ideas, support and organization have close ties to two billionaire brothers who bankroll right-leaning causes through their group Americans for Prosperity.
Cain’s campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending. Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his “9-9-9” plan to rewrite the nation’s tax code. And his years of speaking at AFP events have given the businessman and radio host a network of loyal grassroots fans.
So how does this guy rise to the top of the polls? Why is everybody talking about him?
Because, as Juan Williams suspects, Hermain Cain is a human shield for the Tea Party. The perfect defense against what Janeane Garofalo (and many others, including myself) have stated a long time ago: There’s a sick little undercurrent of racism going on in the tea party, and something had to be done to deflect.
To me, this is what it’s about: Being able to keep the hard-right agenda going, but neutering the race card. How many days did Rick Perry’s “N*****head” story get? A day and a half? The Texas Governor’s family getaway uses the N-word and this carries the news cycle less than 48 hours? C’mon, If Obama went to the Cracker Barrel for a soda, we’d hear about how he was calling white people “Crackers” through November.
What better way for the tea party to go “See? We’re not bigots!” than elevating Herman? It’s beautiful, beautiful strategy. And I hope it backfires.
I have grown to love Hermain Cain as the Republican Candidate for the United States of America. Do you hear me? I love him having to go toe-to-toe with Obama.
Because the election becomes race neutral. Obama’s skin color suddenly is no longer in the “plus” column for that bigoted chunk of Americans who don’t like a president who doesn’t look like their money — even if they don’t HAVE any money.
And if Cain wins the nomination, pow: Their party ALSO has a candidate with the same skin color. Now it’s about ideas. And who best represents the majority of Americans.
So for now, I’m pulling for him. Taking race out of this election is a PR move for the Tea Party. But it’s one of the best things that could happen to Obama. It makes this election about policies, the direction of the country, and who has the best interest for the majority of Americans.
So go, Herman. Go.
But honestly, by the time the GOP candidate is chosen, I think we all know he’ll be gone, Herman, gone.
Your heroes are liars. Your megaphones blare falsehoods. The only way you could be okay with this is if the people who built your foundation were not up to code.
By SCOTT BAUER 10/14/11 05:30 PM ET 
MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who forced public workers to pay more for their pensions as part of a push to curb union rights, broke his campaign promise to pay the full cost of his state pension immediately after taking office in January.
The Associated Press requested copies of the governor’s pay stubs to see if he had fulfilled the campaign promise he made in June 2010. Walker said then he would begin paying the cost immediately in order to lead by example since he was proposing all state employees do the same.
“As governor, I’ll pay my share toward my retirement because everyone should pay their own way, including me,” Walker said during the campaign.
Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch made the same pledge and also didn’t pay as promised.
Walker’s pay stubs provided Friday in response to the AP’s open records request made in September had details about his pension payments redacted. But Walker’s spokesman Cullen Werwie said the governor did not start paying the full cost until August, when the state law he pushed required elected officials and other state employees to contribute more.
The requirement that state workers pay their 5.8 percent contribution was part of Walker’s bill that also took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most public employees. The fight over that measure resulted in protests as large as 100,000 people, led to all 14 Democratic state senators fleeing to Illinois to block the bill, and made Wisconsin the center of the fight over union rights.
If Walker had fulfilled his campaign promise, he would have been paying his pension costs during that fight in February and March.
Werwie did not have an explanation for why Walker didn’t pay until the law forced him to. The law required Walker and other elected officials to make payments of 6.65 percent of their salary starting in August. That goes up to 7.05 next year.
Over four years, that will result in Walker paying $34,108.
But Walker didn’t pay anything between January and August when the law kicked in. When asked how he could say the promise was fulfilled given that lack of payment for seven months, Werwie said, “that’s a fair point to raise.”“Ultimately, we feel like we’re fulfilling what our campaign pledge was,” Werwie said.
Had the governor paid 6.65 percent of his salary during that time, it would have cost him $5,600.
Democrats were beside themselves.
“You’re asking people to do what you won’t do,” Democratic Party spokesman Graeme Zielinski said. “It shows you this is a person whose priorities are warped.”
Democrats, unions and others plan to start collecting signatures in November to force a recall election of Walker next year.
“It is indefensible Scott Walker promised to live by these rules and then broke his word to Wisconsin,” said Scot Ross, head of the liberal group One Wisconsin Now. “Scott Walker tore Wisconsin in two to pass these unnecessary changes and then tells us `Do as I say, not as I didn’t.’”
Marty Beil, executive director of the 23,000-member Wisconsin State Employees Union that fought bitterly with Walker over the collective bargaining changes, said the governor’s broken promise wasn’t surprising.
“Apparently Rebecca and Scotty boy want the world to believe they’re working men and women and treat themselves like everyone else, but clearly they didn’t do that,” Beil said.
This isn’t the first time Walker has run into trouble fulfilling promises related to his pension.
Immediately after winning election as Milwaukee County executive in 2002, Walker promised that any staff under his control would waive all salary and benefit increases enacted after 2000. But his opponent in 2004 revealed that Walker’s staff had been taking a higher pension benefit for two years. Walker then asked the county board to reduce it.
Walker also promised to return $60,000 of his $130,000 annual salary as county executive, which he did every year until winning re-election in 2008 when he dropped it to $10,000 a year. Democrats said that amounted to a broken promise, but when Walker made his original pledge he never said how many years he would return $60,000 annually.
Walker also collected pension benefits based on his higher salary for two years before having it calculated based on the lower amount.
Kleefisch also promised during the campaign to pay her full pension cost, but she didn’t start paying until August either.
“Just like Scott Walker, I’ll pay my share of my pension, because everyone should pay their own way including me,” Kleefisch told a tea party group in September 2010.
Her chief of staff Jeanne Tarantino did not explain in an email why Kleefisch didn’t make the contribution starting in January as promised.
Talk about burying the lead.
Keep in mind, this isn’t even the third top story of the page, it was buried below the lead and down the ladder of all sorts of other stories.
