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SAN ANTONIO, Texas – The Southwest Workers Union’s living quarters, called “Solidarity House,” was sprayed with 15 rounds of semi-automatic rifle fire early Sunday, July 11. A 23-year-old man, James Domingue, was severely injured. His pelvis was shattered by bullets. He remains in critical condition in the hospital.

via Progressive center machine-gunned » peoplesworld.

It was conservative laissez-faire free market ideology — that maximizing profit comes first — that led to:
The corrupt relationship between the oil companies and the Interior Department staff that was supposedly regulating them
Minimizing cost by not drilling relief wells
The principle that oil companies could be responsible their own risk assessments on drilling
Maximizing profit by outsourcing risk assessment that told them what they wanted to hear: zero risk!
Maximizing profit by minimizing cost of materials
Maximizing profit by failing to pay cleanup crews and businesses for their losses
Focusing only on profit by failing to test the cleanup methods to be used if something went wrong
Minimizing cost by sacrificing the health of cleanup crews, refusing to allow them to use respirator masks to protect against toxic fumes.

via George Lakoff: Conservatism’s Death Gusher.

For the better part of the last couple of decades, conservatives took a fairly aggressive approach to constitutional amendments: they wanted several more.

Indeed, by the mid-point of his presidency, George W. Bush was on record supporting at least six different proposed amendments to the Constitution: (1) prohibiting flag burning; (2) victims’ rights; (3) banning abortion; (4) requiring a balanced budget; (5) prohibiting same-sex marriage; and (6) allowing state-endorsed prayer in public schools. As a wise blogger noted at the time, Bush “really seems to think the Constitution is just a rough draft.”

via Conservatives vs The Constitution, Make Up Your Minds | Progressive Nation.

New data show that the gaps in after-tax income between the richest 1 percent of Americans and the middle and poorest parts of the population in 2007 was the highest it’s been in 80 years, while the share of income going to the middle one-fifth of Americans shrank to its lowest level ever.

via Income Gap Between Rich and Poor Is Highest in Decades, Data Show.

A Twitter feud between blogger Markos Moulitsas and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough has resulted in Moulitsa’s temporarily being banned from the network.

Markos Moulitsas Banned From MSNBC After Twitter Feud With Joe Scarborough.

* Attacked and took over two countries.

* Spent the surplus and bankrupted the treasury.

* Shattered record for biggest annual deficit in history.

* Set economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.

* Set all-time record for biggest drop in the history of the stock market.

* First president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.

* First president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.

* First year in office set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.

* After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, presided over the worst security failure in US history.

* Set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips than any other president in US history.

* In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.

*Cut unemployment benefits for more out of work Americans than any president in US history.

* Set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12 month period.

* Appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.

* Set the record for the least amount of press conferences than any president since the advent of television.

* Signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any president in US history.

* Presided over the biggest energy crises in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.

* Presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.

* Cut healthcare benefits for war veterans.

* Set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.

* Dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.

* My presidency is the most secretive and un-accountable of any in US history.

* Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history. (the ‘poorest’ multi-millionaire, Condoleeza Rice has an Exxon oil tanker named after her).

* First president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.

* Presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud of any market in any country in the history of the world.

* First president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation.

* Created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.

* Set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any president in US history.

* First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the human rights commission.

* First president in US history to have the United Nations remove the US from the elections monitoring board.

* Removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.

* Rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.

* Withdrew from the World Court of Law.

* Refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.

* First president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US elections).

* All-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.

* My biggest life-time campaign contributor presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).

* Spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.

* First president in US history to unilaterally attack a sovereign nation against the will of the United Nations and the world community.

* First president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1)

* First US president to establish a secret shadow government.

* Took the biggest world sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).

* With a policy of ‘dis-engagement’ created the most hostile Israeli-Palestine relations in at least 30 years.

* First US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.

* First US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than their immediate neighbor, North Korea.

* Changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

* Set all-time record for number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.

* Failed to fulfill my pledge to get Osama Bin Laden ‘dead or alive’.

* Failed to capture the anthrax killer who tried to murder the leaders of our country at the United States Capital building. After 18 months I have no leads and zero suspects.

* In the 18 months following the 911 attacks I have successfully prevented any public investigation into the biggest security failure in the history of the United States.

* Removed more freedoms and civil liberties for Americans than any other president in US history.

* In a little over two years created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided the US has ever been since the civil war.

* Entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.

via George W. Bush: accomplishments as president.

The answer is that we’re facing a coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused. Nothing can be done about the first group, and probably not much about the second. But maybe it’s possible to clear up some of the confusion.

via Op-Ed Columnist – Punishing the Unemployed – NYTimes.com.

“Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too,” said Lieberman.

via “Misrepresentations in the Cybersphere,” or, Why Congress Shouldn’t Touch the Internet | The Seminal.

Grumpy Alan Simpson, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and the President who appointed both, plan to protect the lesser people by cutting their benefits and raising their taxes.

Don’t Get Fooled Again: Cat Food Comm Tries Greenspan’s Old Tricks to Cut Social Security | Firedoglake.

I wonder if the spectacle of members of Congress allowing the very small, corporate-organized Tea Party demonstrations to sway them on the health care bill and deficits will lead to disruption attempts becoming a preferred tactic instead of constructive policy debate with the best interests of the country in mind.

via Seeing the Forest: Pelosi Speech At AFN Heckled – With Video.