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Conservative blogger asks if there is a culture of violence in the Met.

The investigation reported is one of those connected to Burges. Do you notice ... 1. That the authorites are just looking into the members of Burge's crowd, as if they were the only problem on the CPD. Please. Dealing with these thugs is a nice start, but it's only a start. One is left wondering, though, if this is where it will end. 2. That this wasn't exactly late breaking news or unknown in Chicago - the Reader did a series of articles on these fun, fun people back in the 90s, and word had hit the street long before then. Why wasn't anybody looking into this, then? That last question being rhetorical, of course, for reasons I'll get to, in a second. 3. That the human rights abuses mentioned took place during the 1980s, meaning that prosecution has been stalled for so long that, even if caught, most of the offenders will escape justice. 4. When, some years back, I and a few other demonstrators were on the street in Chicago, trying to raise a little consciousness about the issues surrounding the death penalty in Illinois, mentioning this very case, there's a reaction to which we became accustomed. The man on the street seeing absolutely nothing wrong with torturing confessions out of those accused of crimes. This is why, below, you see me suggesting that I was not surprised to see popular acceptance of the Bush administration's lavish use of torture. As a society, we had been there before, and hadn't seemed to be in any great hurry to get anywhere better.

WARNING: Profanity is present at the other end of this link. Tedious reading, but informative for those who, on hearing a job seeker complain about how he was treated by the people in personnel, think "oh, it's just him complaining". No, not even close. Horror stories from those dealing with Human Resources, and the rest of management, from those lucky enough to have permanent jobs to suffer through. How the neocon and libertarian supported doctrine of "employment at will" has been working out in the real world.

A Libertarian rebuttal to the post two links down on my profile, written a little more intelligently than most, from somebody who I find myself liking a little - but still showing some of the glib blindness that drove me away from that movement. Eg. responding to the report of the selling of tainted meat by saying that one could prevent the problem by cooking the meat until it's medium (ie. greyish red, instead of grey outright, and only mostly tasteless). "See", she seems to be saying, "even without governmental regulation, you have a choice", not quite getting that it isn't a reasonable choice. Selling meat that doesn't have to be cooked to death to be safe is absolutely possible; my grocery does it with regularity and I cook it rare with regularity, without problems following. So is it reasonable that people in places where the merchants or those they buy from are not as ethical should have to maybe choose between enjoying their meals, or surviving them, just so that somebody else be slimy without undue interference? With how ever much charm, the author of this piece answers that question with a resounding "yes", and shows why Libertarianism is, as I've said, not about the promotion of personal freedom so much as it is about the promotion of personal irresponsibility.

So bad it's worth reading, because you're going to see this argument, again, I'm sure. The author argues that universities are, themselves, victims of censorship if they are not free to fire faculty members for expressing political viewpoints which they don't like, because they are being forced to support views they don't like. This is question begging, because it presupposes that by allowing them to stay on its payrolls, a university has allowed those faculty members to speak for it; that the very act of allowing them to stay signals support for their views. This is nonsense. They are paid to teach. Their political views are their own business. Making the point, quite unintentionally I would guess, that the last thing Libertarianism promotes is individual liberty. If you're not free to speak your views openly without fear of destitution, then just how free is speech, really?

Someone may be taking potshots at Lou Dobbs. It's not that I can't understand the impulse, every time he comes on the tube I want to make like an Iraqi journalist and go all Hush Puppy on his ass. Still, you'll not hear me defending the shooter.

It takes a crapweasel with unbelievably huge balls to suggest that God thinks it's great CEOs to make more money than - well, God. John Varley, CEO of Barclays Bank, has had an epiphany.

Since the financial crisis of 2008, one of the most revealing spectacles has been the parade of financial elites who petulantly insist that they are the victims of societal hostility:  political officials heap too much blame on them, public policy burdens them so unfairly, the public resents them, and -- most amazingly of all -- President Obama is a radical egalitarian who is unprecedentedly hostile to business interests.  One particularly illustrative example was the whiny little multi-millionaire hedge fund manager (and CNBC contributor), Anthony Scaramucci, who stood up at an October, 201o, town hall meeting and demanded to know:  "when are we going to stop whacking at the Wall Street pinata?" The Weekly Standard now has a very lengthy defense of -- including rare interviews with -- Charles and David Koch, the libertarian billionaires who fund everything from right-wing economic policy, union-busting, and anti-climate-change advocacy to civil liberties and liberalized social policies -- though far more the former goals than the latter.  In this article one finds the purest and most instructive expression of billionaire self-pity that I think I've ever seen -- one that is as self-absorbed and detached from reality as it destructive.  It's really worth examining their revealed mindset to see how those who wield the greatest financial power (and thus the greatest political power) think of themselves and those who are outside of their class.

For months, Speaker John Boehner and his fellow Republicans have been threatening a government shutdown.   They've been unwilling to compromise, instead choosing to follow the shrill, irrational calls of their base to take a slash and burn approach to government funding, regardless of the consequences.  They've ignored the havoc such a shutdown would wreak upon our still fragile economy, and the hardships it would cause for millions of Americans, including the poor and the elderly.  The most unbelievable thing of all?  In their version of a shutdown... Congress would still get paid.  We're not kidding.  It's taking hypocrisy to an 11. That's why we're making a simple request to Speaker Boehner: "Speaker Boehner, if you and the Republicans in Congress really are foolish enough to threaten a government shut-down, then put your money where your mouth is, pass Senate bill 388, and make your members give up their own government salary too!"

'The underlying problem isn't the budget deficit. It's that so much income and wealth are going to the top that most Americans don't have the purchasing power to sustain a strong recovery.' Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog

It's become a TV ritual: Every year in mid-January, around the time of Martin Luther King's birthday, we get perfunctory network news reports about "the slain civil rights leader." The remarkable thing about this annual review of King's life is that several years - his last years - are totally missing, as if flushed down a memory hole. What TV viewers see is a closed loop of familiar file footage: King battling desegregation in Birmingham (1963); reciting his dream of racial harmony at the rally in Washington (1963); marching for voting rights in Selma, Alabama (1965); and finally, lying dead on the motel balcony in Memphis (1968). An alert viewer might notice that the chronology jumps from 1965 to 1968. Yet King didn't take a sabbatical near the end of his life. In fact, he was speaking and organizing as diligently as ever. Almost all of those speeches were filmed or taped. But they're not shown today on TV.

Once again, many liberals have bought into American power as a force for good. But it's just another ugly, expensive war we now own

US Uncut, an organization working to stop corporations from getting away with tax-dodging, has been organizing actions across the country all weekend, and there are still dozens of actions going on today. Check out the list here to get involved.

Republicans figure that if they can't sell the pig, they'll just put lipstick on it and find some suckers who will think it's something else. That's the proposal emerging in the Senate from Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee and also Democrat Claire McCaskill of Missouri. It would get the deficit down not by raising taxes on the rich but by capping federal spending. If Congress failed to stay under the cap, the budget would be automatically cut. According to an analysis by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the McCaskill/Corker plan would require $800 billion of cuts in 2022 alone. That's the equivalent of eliminating Medicare entirely, or the entire Department of Defense.

Since America's political and media class steadfastly ignore this glaringly obvious point, it's nice (albeit self-interested) of the Chinese to point it out for us.  As we endlessly hear about a massive debt crisis, the current President has started one optional war that has already exceeded its estimated costs, plans to continue (if not escalate) two more, is drone-attacking a new country on a seemingly weekly basis, expands sprawling covert military actions in still other countries, builds new overseas detention facilities, all while offering only the most modest, symbolic and illusory "cuts" in military spending.  The alleged need to slash the financial security of American citizens -- and the notion that America faces a severe debt crisis -- would be more persuasive if the country didn't continue its posture of Endless War and feeding the insatiable, bloated National Security State (to say nothing of the equally insatible and wasteful Drug War and its evil spawn, the increasingly privatized American Prison State, which the Obama administration is expanding as aggressively as the War on Terror).

Social Security didn't create the deficit, but America's seniors are being presented with a fake Social Security crisis to try to trick them into accepting reduced benefits. Social Security will be able to pay 100% of its benefits through 2037 without any changes whatsoever. So, why the panic today? If seniors accept cuts to Social Security benefits today, a surplus cash flow will build in the Social Security trust fund. According to the Congressional Research Service, "Social Security's cash surpluses are borrowed by the U.S. Treasury and can be used for tax cuts, spending or repaying debt." Social Security benefit cuts are increasing taxes paid to Social Security or extending retirement age will give more money for tax cuts spending or repaying the debt. Except for one thing: Social Security money belongs to those who have paid into the fund, it's not the government's money to use it; it shouldn't be the government's money to play with. Senior citizens should not have to accept a reduced standard of living to finance tax cuts for the rich. We must take a stand for senior citizens and protect Social Security and protect future generations from this raid on Social Security's funds.

One expects the debt-ceiling mess to involve a lot of ostentatious chest-pounding on both sides, for despite the fact that this is a deadly serious issue - the fact that we're even considering incurring an intentional catastrophe via a default is incredible, a testament to the bottomless stupidity inherent in our political climate - this whole debate is primarily an exercise in political posturing. That Republicans are holding up what should be a routine, if unpleasant, decision to raise the debt ceiling in order to portray themselves as the uncompromising defenders of the budget-balancing faith (a howling idiocy in itself, given what went on during the Bush years) is obvious to most rational observers. It's the obvious play for the lame-duck party entering an election year, and they're playing it, with the requisite hysteria. But what is becoming equally obvious, to both sides, is that the Obama White House is using this same artificial calamity to pitch its own increasingly rightward tilt to voters in advance of the 2012 elections.

This will be a slightly longer letter than common for the internet age - it's serious stuff. The short version is we want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will likely get you arrested.

'If more Americans paid attention to the fate of neighbors and loved ones who have fallen victim to the cruel dysfunction of our healthcare system, they would see through the onslaught of lies and propaganda perpetrated by special interests profiting from the status quo.' Wendell Potter, Reader Supp

We are at a pivotal moment in American history, and many Americans watching the deficit talks in Washington are confused, perplexed, angry and frustrated. This country, which has paid its debts from Day 1, must pay its debts. Anyone who says it is not a big deal for this country to default clearly does not understand what he or she is talking about. This is a nation whose faith and credit has been the gold standard of countries throughout the world. Some people simply say we're not going to pay our debt, that there's nothing to really worry about. Those are people who are wishing our economy harm for political reasons, and those are people whose attitudes will have terrible consequences for virtually every working family in this country in terms of higher interest rates, in terms of significant job loss, in terms of making a very unstable global economy even more unstable. Our right-wing friends in the House of Representatives have given us an option. What they have said is end Medicare as we know it and force elderly people, many of whom don't have the money, to pay substantially more for their health care. So when you're 70 under their plan and you get sick and you don't have a whole lot of income, we don't know what happens to you. They forget to tell us that if their plan was passed you're going to have to pay a heck of a lot more for the prescription drugs you're getting today. They we're going to throw millions of kids off health insurance. If your mom or dad is in a nursing home and that nursing home bill is paid significantly by Medicaid and Medicaid isn't paying anymore, they forgot to tell us what happens to your mom or dad in that nursing home. What happens? And what happens today if you are unemployed and you're not able to get unemployment extension? What happens if you are a middle-class family desperately trying to send their kids to college and you make savage cuts to Pell grants and you can't go to college? What does it mean for the nation if we