Fact-esque

Guess Where I Was Last Night.

The quality of the video is the pits but you can get an idea of what the scene was like on ground outside the National Constitution Center for last night's debate.   Every time I'm on the ground either at a candidate appearance or at a protest, I am reassured that the primary should go all the way to the Convention.  It's insane to think that this giant exercise in Democracy is  anything but great for the country. 

The True Majority Iran Mobile fit right into the Peace and Justice Circus.  We were able to march around Independence Hall, which was a terrific feeling - very much the opposite of what Thomas experienced when he greeted impeachment activist, John Nirenberg, in D.C.   

I was skeptical about the value of the circus theme because it leaves us so completely open to the usual criticisms, but the debate - with it's media circus - happened the same day that the Ringling Bros and Barnum and Baily circus came to Philly so the temptation was too great to resist.  In order to appreciate how well the theme of circus fit in with the themes of Peace and Justice, you probably have to have heard Bob Smith of the Brandywine Peace Community and the lead organizer of the event, speak.  He called us Jesters for Justice and reminded us that non-violent civil action with a sense of humor as well as a sense of purpose is never a bad thing.  As for gravitas, anyone watching the circus parade learned more about current challenges facing the country than most of the people who watched the debate last night.  We didn't mention Rev. Wright or Bosnia even once.   So, you know, who were the clowns?

As for the campaigns, Clinton won the visibility challenge with about four times as many people standing opposite the debate site.  I tried to get them to hold my signs ("Invest in [Clean Energy, Health Care, Real Security] Not War in Iraq") but they were locked down on-message.   You'll see that the Wake Up WalMart crew was standing near the Obama crowd.  One of those nice people gave me a shirt off his back, so now I have a Wake Up WalMart t-shirt to wear around town.  Success!

There's much better video of the evening at the Daily News' site.   They got shots of the Free Tibet crowd, which was about a hundred people - very impressive.  As far as I know, the Daily News was the only outlet to cover the protests.

And now, to prove my commitment to the event, here's what I looked like.   I'm the one on the right.

Wal-mart Tapes: For Sale to the Highest Bidder

There's an old saying that what goes around, comes around. There are a few others along the same lines, like, ye'll reap what ye sow and what goes up must come down. Or, as the late, great Lowell George wrote, "Be careful what you say on the way up 'cause you could meet the same people on the way down."

You're wondering why I've come over all sweet revengey on you when none of the monsters we've discovered in the past 7 yrs - Bush, Cheney, John Yoo, James Inhofe, Donald Rumsfeld, etc etc - is facing any accountability whatsoever. Not so. Wal-mart is about to be hoisted on its own petard. So to speak.

About 15,000 videotapes of Wal-Mart executives at work and at play over the past 30 years have suddenly become available to the public thanks to a series of blunders by the retail giant, which paid too little attention to the company it hired to make the tapes before abruptly terminating their relationship two years ago.

The company, Flagler Productions Inc, depended on Wal-Mart for 90 percent of its revenue at the time the plug was pulled in 2006, and had just moved into a new 20,000-square-foot building in its home base of Lenexa, Kan.

At first Flagler thought it was facing bankruptcy, but then realized the footage it was sitting on could be a goldmine. It offered the tapes to Wal-Mart, but the retail giant was willing to pay just $500,000 for the lot, and Flagler turned the offer down.

Now they are available -- for a price n to researchers, labor rights campaigners and lawyers looking for dirt of all kinds. It's turning into quite a lucrative business.

Yes, kids, videos of the dirt-makers making dirt are for sale to the highest bidder - the highest, that is, who isn't Wal-mart. And who might be bidding? Lookee lookee.

A Kansas City lawyer representing a 12-year-old boy who suffered extensive burns when a gasoline can bought at Wal-Mart blew up in her face was astounded and delighted to find footage of employees making jokes about their gasoline cans blowing up at a Christmas party.

The lawyer, Diane Breneman, is hoping to present that footage in court to challenge Wal-Mart's claim that it couldn't have known the gasoline cans it sells "presented any reasonable foreseeable risk."

Another lawyer pursuing a multibillion-dollar sex discrimination lawsuit has found clips of Sam Walton, Wal-Mart's founder, and other top company officials lamenting the lack of women executives -- sentiments that the lawyer believes bolster his argument that Wal-Mart knew of the problem but failed to act.

Oops. Starts to make the mere $half-mil WM offered look a bit on the cheap side, don't it?

But wait. WM isn't the only one to be smarting. Attachment to the Great Satan doesn't look good on a supposed liberal's resume, and this one is liable to be on YouTube minutes from now.

The archive also includes footage of Hillary Clinton, who served on Wal-Mart's board from 1986 to 1992, praising the company to the skies -- a position she has since sought to mute.

"I'm so proud of this company and everything it represents," Clinton said at a store opening in Arkansas in 1991. "It makes me feel real good about what we've been able to do."

Like what? Remember, dear old Hil used to be a corporate lawyer. Wal-mart's corporate lawyer, for one. Did she help them crush another attempt to unionize? Is that what she's "so proud of"? Or slam workers trying to get the healthcare she now says (during a campaign) she wants them to have? Is that what makes her "feel real good"? Because it couldn't be for creating the health care she didn't create or increasing the safety of workers that didn't increase or forcing WM to pay the living wage it still doesn't pay. So what, exactly, is she so proud of?

But the big payoff is going to come in the proof they can provide (and have already begun providing only days after they went on the block) that Wal-mart is everything it has spent a small fortune in PR trying to claim it isn't: a bunch of greedy, unscrupulous liars who despise their own workers and train managers to rip them off to keep costs down.

Among other crimes.

The next time a WM spokesperson denies that Wal-mart did something underhanded, shady, or just illegal, immoral and unethical, we'll be able to shift into the videos to see for ourselves.

This can't be good for them. Send your favorite WM exec a carton of Pepto-Bismal. S/he's going to need it.

Oh, and btw: you can get in on the act, too. For pretty short bread.

Flagler is now cashing in, charging $250 a time for video research, and there are plenty of takers.

I don't know about you but Flagler is going in my Bookmark file. Permanantly. I'm saving my pennies for the first one as we speak.

Wal-mart Scams Settlement from Injured Woman (Updated)

Via Bitch Ph.D. and hilzoy at Obsidian Wings comes a truly enraging story of unbridled corporate greed and the collusion between Big Business and the justice system that will curl your hair if it isn't already.

A collision with a semi-trailer truck seven years ago left 52-year-old Deborah Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Her husband, Jim, and three sons found a small source of solace: a $700,000 accident settlement from the trucking company involved. After legal fees and other expenses, the remaining $417,000 was put in a special trust. It was to be used for Mrs. Shank's care.

Instead, all of it is now slated to go to Mrs. Shank's former employer, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Two years ago, the retail giant's health plan sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care. A federal judge ruled last year in Wal-Mart's favor, backed by an appeals-court decision in August. Now, her family has to rely on Medicaid and Mrs. Shank's social-security payments to keep up her round-the-clock care.

***

The reason is a clause in Wal-Mart's health plan that Mrs. Shank didn't notice when she started stocking shelves at a nearby store eight years ago. Like most company health plans, Wal-Mart's reserves the right to recoup the medical expenses it paid for someone's treatment if the person also collects damages in an injury suit.

Until recently, many employers didn't vigilantly enforce the provision, and some states and federal courts didn't think the claim held water. But as the cost of covering workers continues to escalate, employers and health plans are getting more aggressive about going after the money. A Supreme Court ruling last year also has given them a clearer legal map to suing employees and winning.

(emphasis added)

Get that? The corporate/Bush SCOTUS, which usually acts as if it has never seen and never expects to see a situation in which it could or would find a corporate defendant guilty of anything, last year apparently gave companies a green light to steal back any money they might have to pay to settle a lawsuit in which they were at fault. They might have to steal it from a different person, but they get to take it back.

So, because businesses are becoming less concerned for their employees' safety and well-being, there are more being being hurt or even killed and therefore more lawsuits filed against the companies' negligence. Obligingly, the SCOTUS gives them a whole new avenue for recouping their losses - the insurance company.

But we're not done yet. District Court Judge Lewis Blanton, a Republican from Missouri and a Bush appointee, found in favor of Wal-mart despite the fact that the money Wal-mart wanted to grab was never intended to pay Shank's medical costs. From an earlier WSJ article via Wake-Up Wal-mart:

Mrs. Shank's own settlement was $700,000. After legal expenses and attorney fees, the remaining $417,477 was placed in a court-created special trust designed specifically for Mrs. Shank's future care. The Shanks' lawyer, Maurice Graham, wrote the Wal-Mart health plan informing them. Mrs. Shank had received no funds directly, he said, and therefore had nothing to pay Wal-Mart back.

Nearly three years went by, Mr. Shank says, before they heard again from Wal-Mart. Mrs. Shank struggled a year rotating in and out of the hospital and rehabilitation programs. She could no longer use her right arm or three fingers on her left hand because of neurological damage. She couldn't feed or dress herself and conversations with her family were limited to all but simple questions. Eventually, her husband moved her to a nursing home for around-the-clock care. Medicare and Medicaid pay for the nursing home. Mr. Shank used some of the trust's proceeds to continue paying a private aide to care for her there.

'A Decent Quality of Life'

"We wanted her to have a decent quality of life, and we still had the money," he says. He hoped he could also use it to pay the roughly $130,000 in bills for Mrs. Shank's rehabilitation and a return hospital visit after her coverage expired.

But in August 2005, Wal-Mart re-emerged with a lawsuit against the Shanks demanding repayment for $469,216 in medical costs out of their settlement. It charged that the Shanks had violated the terms of the health plan by not reimbursing it. The company also demanded payment of legal fees and interest for the cost of suing the Shanks for the money.

Mr. Graham, the Shanks' attorney, says he approached Wal-Mart's attorneys about negotiating a compromise, but was told the health plan wanted to proceed with the lawsuit. "We're not contending that Wal-Mart isn't entitled to a payment. We're saying they're entitled to one based on equity," he says. Since Mrs. Shank wasn't fully compensated for her damages in the first place, he argues, Wal-Mart should also expect only partial reimbursement.

(emphasis added)

They don't, of course. This is Wal-mart. THEY WANT IT ALL.

Any legitimate legal reading of the insurance clause and the trial transcript would have given a normal judge ample reason to find for Shanks. There was NO evidence of double-dipping by the Shanks or a double payment by Wal-mart, therefore WM didn't have a legal leg to stand on. But in the corporate-owned Federal courts, set up by Bush who loaded them with people who make decisions based on narrow right-wing ideology rather than settled law, a Lewis Blanton can feel perfectly free to reverse both law and common sense in order to hand Mrs. Shanks' future over to her one-time insurance company.

This is a breach of justice - not to mention fairness - so extreme as to be indefensible, yet it is the kind of decision Bush-appointed judges make every day without batting so much as an eyelash. Corporate America bought the GOP at least in part so it could use them to control Federal courts by making sure that corporate-friendly judges were appointed and unfriendly ones rejected. The result is a system where legal decisions are more often guided by corporate interests than by public law.

Something else the Democrats probably won't get around to fixing, what with them being so tied to corporate $$$ themselves.

Updated 4/02/08: Wal-Mart just announced it's backing off its lawsuit. An acre of bad publicity convinced them it wasn't worth pursuing, and now Shanks doesn't have to pay back the money she didn't owe in the first place.

I don't know who to give the credit to, the media or the blogs that made the stink (of which we were a teensy, tiny part), but who ever deserves it, it's important to know you can still win one against the Great Satan.

Closing Windows

I'm so depressed by the latest revolting developments abetted by the Republocrats that I only have energy to point you to some very good blogging.

You know about that stupid NPR capitalist cheerleader, Marketplace, right?   Hate it.  Well, there's an antidote to it and it's Mick Arran's TrenchNews.   The last update he posted came in June.  It covered, among other things, stories about Wal-Mart's latest injustice to the wage earner, which just happens to be one of the sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance; Maryland's living wage law - file that one under virtues/justice; and Circuit City firing its higher paid workers so that they could be re-hired at lower wages, see Heaven re: vengeance.  God bless America, fast!  Go visit Trenches - reward excellent behavior with some positive feedback.   Maybe we'll get a new installment.

Thomas wants a discussion of Congress' decision to cave yet again to Dear Leader because someone told them that something scary might happen and that they'll take the blame if they don't give Daddy what he wants.   All I can say is that if nothing I've written in defense of not proceeding with an official impeachment of the war criminals and traitors who run this sham of a government made my case, then the Dems' latest refusal to protect and defend the Constitution must.  That's because the impeachment charges that would be brought against Dear Leader and his cohorts would not be about the way they lied us into the disaster in Iraq and their prosecution of it - would not be about the malfeasance surrounding Katrina - would not be about anything that would be easy for Americans to get their heads around - but would involve the intricacies of FISA directly.  Let's wake up and see the character of the Democrats in Congress for what it truly is:  When faced with the possibility of being called weak - when looking down the road to guess how blocking the president and his coterie of Party-Over-Country enablers would play in the corporate media over the recess and beyond - when realizing what a  heavy lift that all would be, they didn't have the courage to block an unnecessary overhaul of FISA and fulfill their oaths of office.   Certainly they don't have the courage, fortitude or PR sense to endure an impeachment built around exactly the same issues.   

As I say, agitate for impeachment, but be glad that you'll never get one of this administration.  Halfway through it, you'd have Sen. Reid on the floor of the Senate weeping his way through an apology to the president, the country and our brave heroes on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan for ever taking such a reckless step.

Avedon Carol, in a post that marvels over the fact that we who opposed the war are now still forced to defend our reasons why, has hit on the exact combination of twenty five words to remind bobble heads why pro-war pundits should not be listened to now and why the people who were right all along should:

[The war] was a stupid idea, it would kill lots of people, it would alienate world opinion, it would be bloody expensive, and it wouldn't work.

Mick caught Obama in the friendly confines of Yearly Kos remembering what the oath he would be taking as president would actually say and so Mr. Charisma joins Chris Dodd in the ranks of candidates who don't make me want to leave the country.  Too bad I haven't heard the Charismatic One talk so tough in front of a crowd outside the YK convention and of his own initiative instead of in response to a citizen who actually values our system of government.   But if Obama gets away with this babystep, can Edwards - ever the water-tester - be far behind?   Not if Mudcat is telling him that such obvious weakness and terrist-lovin' won't play well in the all-important South.  Maybe Hillary will see Obama get a favorable poll result and suddenly venture bravely onto the side of restoring our Democracy.   Then we'd be able to see what the corporate media does with the whole idea of Democratic candidates tacitly impeaching Dear Leader.   This leadership stuff is risky business when  you'd really rather follow. 

Oh No He Didn't

Over at the Trenches, Mick dares to remember something I wrote in a comment at his place over thirty years ago and then adds insult to injury by disagreeing with it.   Look, I'm the first to admit that I am always wrong, but in this case - the case wherein I claim that a boycott of WalMart is the best way to get them to cave on their kill-the-worker business model - in this case, I'm right. 

Mick read this:

The new Wal-Mart in Landover Hills doesn’t sell alcohol or guns. It does have skylights to cut down on energy use. It does not operate 24 hours.

Such concessions were unheard of at Wal-Mart’s cookie-cutter stores several years ago. But they are just a few of the compromises the world’s largest retailer reached with Prince George’s County residents and community leaders concerned about the store’s impact on the neighborhood.

It’s a new way of doing business for the company, whose hopes for domestic growth lie in conquering urban areas such as Landover Hills, where it has faced strong opposition from labor unions and small businesses. The store symbolizes how far Wal-Mart was willing to go to gain a foothold….

and wrote:

I knew this was coming, and I knew it would work. The only question was: would the community be willing to co-ordinate its opposition with unions?  That question is still to be answered, but the Good News is that at least unions themselves are beginning to realize that they can’t beat Wal-Mart without it.

Well, of course, he's right.  Community is important.  Gotta have community.  Can't have a good boycott without community involvement for heaven's sake.  But we have seen what happened when a community tried to do the right thing and drag big box retailers along with them.  Last year Chicago's City Council passed a living wage ordinance, Lowe's and Target backed out of a big development deal, Daley used his first veto in seventeen years to squash the ordinance and then didn't get overidden. 

Skylights and gun-free stores are great and they, along with the stocking of energy efficient lightbulbs and "organic" food, show that WalMart will respond to what they identify as market trends.  But health care and a living wage are another thing altogether.  Getting concessions on WalMart's class war as business model strategy is going to require causing stockholders real pain.  Happily, I think that WalMart runs on such a razor-thin margin and has a stockprice that's so important to the market in general that a serious single-day boycott would shake them up pretty severely.  Keep it going for a week and they'll blink.  The apparently insurmountable trick is to get it going.  God bless America.

Quel Suprise

Arrrgh.  So WalMart won't actually be doing anything to reach the shared belief in Universal Healthcare that Lee Scott recently announced with the SEIU's Andy Stern.  WalMart will, in fact, be funding people who will work against Universal Healthcare.  Waltastic!  But Andy Stern must have known that WalMart's support was this shallow.  Did he figure that the initial publicity would be worth standing next to Lee Scott as he lied? 

Labor Creates All Wealth

Wayne, of PSoTD, tagged me with the hardest question I've had in a long time:  "What Does Labor Day Mean to Me?"   It's hard for a few reasons.  First, I feel like I should be reaching for my wide-ruled yellow composition paper and sharpening my pencil.    That always makes me nervous.   And he tagged, like, everyone, so now I'm in a virtual test room surrounded by brainiacs to boot. 

Second, I have deep anger issues with American Labor all the way from the elite, who betrayed a sacred trust by letting their corruption and greed give anti-labor forces a gigantic wedge to use against the movement, all the way down to the rank and file workers who are so easily manipulated to vote against their interests day and and day out.   As a result, my first inclination is to say that Labor Day is a day of mourning for me.   But that's so Chekov and a cop-out as well. 

Third, I'm not big on holidays.  They put too much pressure on one day for my delicate psychological constitution.  They lead people to ask deep questions they expect answered in public and to overeat.  No thank you.   So I'm tempted to say that every day is Labor Day around here.   If you could ask any of the people who would be my friends if I weren't so overbearing on this topic, they'd tell you that I'm right. 

"Oh my god," they'd say at once, fighting to be the one to tell the story that most perfectly expresses exactly how annoying I am.  "She never stops.  If we're talking about the class Halloween party, she finds a way to bring up the crisis in American Labor.  She won't shop at WalMart for sensible reasons (there's discount and then there's trash, if you know what I mean).    No.  With her it's all about 'political reasons' and then we have to hear about slave labor at home and abroad.  I mean, really.  All I wanted to know is if she bought the orange plates or the black ones."

So instead of answering the question, I'll duck it by listing my go-to, daily-read labor sites in honor of the struggle to bring dignity and prosperity to the workers of the world.

Nathan Newman
Confined Spaces
Warren Reports
Progressive States Network

Happy Labor Day.

Big Boxes Line Up Against American Workers and Their Families

                  

Are you keeping up with the story about Chicago's living wage ordinance?   Basically, it asks the following question:

Will the future of the American economy be one that brings workers along for any expansion on the horizon or will it work to leave those workers behind in increasingly desperate straits while the investor class profits? 

If you want the corportist, WalMart perspective, it's easy to find.   All you have to do is google "chicago big box" and a bunch of stories screaming the corportist line will pop up.   In fact when the story broke, the top stories were all about Target, which has pulled out of the development that would have been affected by the new ordinance.  Here's a story which delivers the big box line.  Try to hold back your tears for the billionaires:

The Chicago City Council approved the big-box ordinance 35-14 last week, ignoring the protests of Daley and aldermen who represent some of the city's poorest neighborhoods, all who said the measure will drive businesses to surrounding suburbs.

Primestor's $90 million development was expected to produce 450 construction jobs and 750 retail jobs. On Thursday, the developer bringing Target to the North and South Sides officially ended the project, issuing a letter to the mayor and aldermen saying, in part: "The fundamental fact is that under this ordinance, wages will increase 40 percent to 60 percent, making future Chicago stores economically unviable."

"Their real estate committee is not interested in investing in a store that will lose money," said Chicago Planning Commissioner Lori Healey.

The ordinance mandates companies with $1 billion in annual sales and 90,000 square feet of retail space to pay workers $10 an hour plus $3 in benefits by July 2010.

Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) lamented Target's loss, saying the store was to anchor a 32-acre shopping mall in her district that has already secured $23 million in city funding.

"I'm depressed. Calumet Park has land right across the street they can develop," Austin said. "Our development will just sit there for another century."

Today Lowe's delivered their blackmail note:

Lowe's has put its plans for two home-improvement centers in Chicago on hold in the wake of the city's new "big-box" minimum-wage ordinance, following similar steps taken by Wal-Mart and Target, a developer and alderman said.    

...

"They are waiting to see if (Mayor Richard Daley) will veto the ordinance," he said, adding that "chances are they will pull out" unless the ordinance is vetoed.

   

Lowe's spokeswoman Jennifer Smith would not discuss the company's development plans Wednesday but said they were "very disappointed" with the city's passage of the big-box ordinance.

   

"The ordinance is something that will weigh very heavily in our consideration of new store sites in the city of Chicago," she said.

Oh my goodness, how can any company with billions of dollars in annual sales ever be able to pay its employees a living wage?    If you want that question answered by people interested in creating a tide that lifts all boats instead of one that drops and drops and drops until we're all scraping the bottom, working for tips, then you can read Nathan Newman.  He's an economist who answers Target, Lowe's and the rest of the big-box whiners, who can't find a way to pay their employees a living wage with one word - Costco:

And while large retailers covered by the ordinance are making noises about not building new stores in the city, the reality is that after Santa Fe created a living wage of $9.50 per hour for large employers, Wal-Mart asked for approval to build a new Supercenter. The fact that leading retailer Costco already pays all its employees a living wage of $10 per hour plus benefits nationwide emphasizes that "big box" retailers can thrive paying a living wage. See this economic analysis of why the expansion drive by large retailers means higher wage standards will not deter their growth.

Here's what the big box defenders of keeping workers in poverty have planned: (emph mine)

Conversely, such efforts will not go unopposed. Prior to its passage, Mayor Daley threatened to veto Chicago's Big Box ordinance, yet in order for such a veto to be effective, he will be forced to use his political heft to change the votes of two council members. The Illinois Retail Merchants Association has already threatened to mount a constitutional challenge to the Chicago ordinance suggesting that the ordinance, by targeting large retailers, violates constitutional equal protection guarantees.  Similarly, other business groups are lobbying and organizing to enact state-level legislation prohibiting local wage laws. Such preemption laws have already passed in Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina, Louisiana, Missouri, Utah, Oregon and Texas. Other preemption campaigns are being mounted in Michigan, Kansas, Tennessee and New Mexico.

I didn't know about those preemption laws.  I'm starting to hate that word, "preemption."

So right now it's a game of chicken in Chicago.  The big boxers are holding jobs and progress hostage in the hopes that local and state governments will cave under that pressure and the propaganda from the corporate media.    In my ideal world, CostCo would step in to fill Target's void.    But I'm not even sure the developers of that site want someone to come in to save the day - yet.    They definitely don't want any progress to happen while the blackmailing is full swing.    But if Chicago's aldermen hold the line and the ordinance stands, we'll see how long it takes for poor Target and Lowe's, victim of workers united for justice,  to come to the realization that they can afford to pay those workers what they are worth: a wage that keeps them out of poverty.

UPDATE:  The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce is throwing its weight around as well on the side of the corporations, hoping to scare enough of the alderman into changing their votes by September 13:

The president of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce admits some aldermen are being pressured by the business community to change their votes. "We will go talk to the aldermen and say, 'If you're not with us, obviously you're against us,' "Roeper said.  "What that means is that they won't be around the next one or two elections cause we're going to unelect them."

I have to admit that it's refreshing to see the terms of the class war laid so starkly on the table.   

I guess that's the cue for Chicago's community action groups organized around the principle of keeping working people of out poverty and all the people they represent to say "Bring it on."   

You Are the Focus of WalMart's Attention and They Will Respond to Your Needs

Thomas found this brilliant work of protest art based on WalMart's unfair labor practices. 

SweatShopper.org is an ongoing art project and  home of
        — The Wal-Mart Standoff —
      a soundseeing tour designed to be experienced in your local Wal-Mart.

      The tour calls attention to Wal-Mart's surveillance practices and the lives and working conditions of those who pay the true cost of low prices all the time.

It takes about twenty minutes to listen to and it gets better as it goes.  Give it a shot.  Tell your friends.

From the tour:

You've just performed a small revolutionary act.  You've entered the armed fortress that has been designed for only one thing, to obtain your money, and you've left without buying anything.   What will you do now?

Prince Spaghetti Goes Great with Link Dumps

Lou Dobbs, crazy man when it comes to immigration, has found an actual threat to our country to rail against: electronic voting!  But don't get too excited.  He's mostly upset because some of the companies that make the machines that are "an outright threat to our democracy" are owned by foreigners.  Lou, mi amigo, it doesn't matter where the machines are made.  This is the issue:   Voter-verified paper ballots and proper audits are essential to free and fair elections and the privatizing our elections is a bad thing. 

Lots of smart people (here's one now) are warming up to Al Gore and the possibility that he'll run in '08.  I posted about that effort earlier in the week.  But they I saw these videos courtesy of KathyF.  They're on YouTube and were taped during the lull before the 2000 campaign began in earnest.   I came away with two feelings from them. 

1) Al Gore is serious, smart and clearly interested in important crises facing the country; he would have made a very good president able to get us through 9/11 rather than cynically exploiting it at home and abroad to our eternal shame. 

2) He will never be able to overcome the labels that the corporate media slapped on him and will slap on him again and so, he should not run.   We're seeing a "new Al" now that he's not having to worry about campaign politics and is able to pursue a passion.  But he's still the same guy who walked around his house on vacation clearly frustrated and confused by the corporate media's potrayal of him.  I don't think he has it in him to take them on the way they'd have to be taken.  The fight would be too consuming.   And I'm sure if he did turn into a person capable of that kind of vitriol and honesty, he would not have the support of the party while he did it.   Al Gore is a gentleman and there's no place for people like him in presidential politics once the Kewl Kidz get a taste of their blood. 

Fat and greed.  Chris Clarke explains it all for you as only he can.

WalMart hearts Marx!  It's the dialectic, man.

I'm suppsed to be at the Street.  We'll see what happens with that.

UPDATE: I remembered something I wanted to write about!  New York Magazine stumps me.