As a former secretary of labor and current professor, I feel I owe it to you to tell you the truth about the pieces of parchment you're picking up today.

You're f*cked.

Well, not exactly. But you won't have it easy.

First, you're going to have a hell of a hard time finding a job. The job market you're heading into is still bad. Fewer than half of the graduates from last year's class have as yet found full-time jobs. Most are still looking.

As you watch this or read the transcript, keep in mind that from 2001 to 2003—during which time the Bush administration launched two wars, one of which we are fighting to this day, and two rounds of tax cuts for the wealthy—Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels was George W. Bush's budget director. Yet now he is blaming President Obama for allegedly creating a debt bomb:

"[F]orcing individual and institutional stakeholders to sponsor and subsidize an otherwise widely available product over their religious and moral objections serves no legitimate, let alone compelling, government interest," lawyers for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in a letter to federal regulators.

Scott Brown has a little JPMorgan Chase problem:

All of which smells slightly fishy to the Massachusetts Democratic Party, which has filed a Freedom of Information Act request with six government agencies, seeking to find out whether Brown was involved in helping JPMorgan Chase with its lobbying.

Today has not been a good day. I mentioned before that the previous Republican occupant of the White House had endorsed me; for some reason this led to me having to have a phone conversation with him today. I am still unclear why. He is a nice enough fellow, and I attempted to bond with him over our mutual love of elevators, and riding in elevators, and putting things into elevators. I believe he enjoyed my banter. (I also invited him to come view our many fine horses, but he was strangely quiet during that part of the conversation.)

I mentioned to an audience of commoners yesterday that if my wife and I were going to move to any place in America, I would move to their state. This was a brilliant move on my part, especially because I ...

Thinking of packing up and moving to another state this year? If so, you’re an outlier. Americans on the whole are becoming increasingly less mobile. In the early 1990s, 3 percent of Americans moved across state lines each year. Today, the rate is half that.

But a recent paper (pdf) from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis suggests that none of these theories match the data. (For instance, the decline in migration is most pronounced among the young, not the ...

When gas prices rise, more people start taking the bus, train, or subway. Not everyone can do this — only about 54 percent of U.S. households have access to public transit, after all — but economists have found that the relationship is quite robust.

This research is all discussed in a new policy brief (pdf) by the American Public ...

“Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned,” said President Obama in his 2012 State of the Union address, “doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

It was a “rah-rah America!” applause line for a president who needed to get the assembled Republicans out of their seats a few times over the course of the evening. But the line works literally, too. Whenever someone tells me that the United States is in decline, I have no idea what they’re talking about. And neither, I tend to think, do they.

The claim is maddeningly vague. What does it mean for the United States to be in decline? Are we talking about our geopolitical influence relative to other world powers? Our standard of living relative to other nations? Our current standard of living compared with some assumption about its appropriate rate of improvement ...

Are you sitting down? Because you're not going to believe this. The Senate actually got something done yesterday. Something big! They confirmed both Jeremy Stein and Jerome Powell to the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors. That means, for the first time since 2006, there are no vacancies on the Fed's Board.

The next question is whether Stein and Powell will exert ...

Over the past few years, the price of solar power in the United States has been dropping at a dramatic pace. Part of the reason for the drop: China has been flooding the U.S. market with dirt-cheap solar panels. But that’s all about to change.

Some companies worry that it might. It’s important to remember that there’s a ...

WASHINGTON -– Austerity is out. Growth is in. And Mitt Romney's campaign has taken notice.

Politicians in Europe and in President Barack Obama's administration can't get enough of the G word these days. "Growth must be a priority, at the same time as we put in place some fiscal compact to improve our finances," said the new French President Francois Hollande, during a visit with Obama in the Oval Office on Friday.

Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month, riding a backlash in France against programs that have sought to reduce sovereign debt by cutting government spending. Voters in Greece have rebelled even more fiercely against cuts to government jobs and benefits, placing their country on the verge of an exit from the European Union and a potential collapse.

National Review writer Katrina Trinko ended up with egg on her face Friday evening after accusing Democratic senate candidate Elizabeth Warren of plagiarism -- a charge that was quickly debunked.

Trinko published an item early Friday evening bearing the accusatory title, "Plagiarism In Elizabeth Warren's 2006 Book." The article, which appeared on the Review's "Corner" blog, made the following claim about "All Your Worth," a personal finance guide Warren published with her daughter:

The Cannes Film Festival is known for its amazing and daring fashion moments -- and so far this year we haven't been disappointed.

In fact, Jada Pinkett Smith decided to don a bold design with an extremely low-cut neckline while dining with the co-stars of her children's animated film "Madagascar 3."

With a silhouette like that, we're sure the 40-year-old actress was on major wardrobe malfunction watch. But thankfully there was no nip slip..or even belly button slip to report.

ROYAL NAVAL AIR STATION CULDROSE, England -- Even the wind cooperated at this normally blustery naval station, remaining calm as David Beckham lit a celebratory cauldron and signaled the start of the 2012 London Olympics torch relay.

There was a hushed "oooooh" as the former England national team captain and current star for the Los Angeles Galaxy took center stage as the flame arrived in the United Kingdom from Greece on the eve of a 70-day relay. Then, as the fire roared to life in the gold and white cauldron, there was an "ahhhh" of relief. Even the vagaries of British weather wouldn't interfere this time.

"This is a big acceleration of the heartbeat," London Mayor Boris Johnson said as he summed up the moment. "This is the final furlong for us."

The spare, modern courtyard at LACMA transformed into a bass-thumping hip hop venue Thursday night.

Rap trio 3MG (Murs, Eligh and Scarub) performed together for the first time in five years, drawing about 1,000 underground hip hop fans to the fine arts bastion.

The event was the first in a series of hip hop concerts called "Through The Mic," a performance schedule focused on Los Angeles acts, curated by Murs. It's also LACMA's boldest attempt thus far to directly engage the local hip hop community.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- Just as more restaurants, eateries and ordinary consumers embrace Meatless Mondays, Old Town food emporium Society Fair is going whole hog -- or at least cow -- in the other direction on the first day of the work week.

Society Fair’s chef, butcher and charcutier, Julien Shapiro, will be leading special 90-minute "Beast" artisan butchery sessions on Mondays once a month, where up to 10 people can sign up to watch him demonstrate his skills. Those who attend get to sample some of the meat along the way and have first dibs on specialty cuts.

This season's sessions, which kick off this Monday, will focus on the Randall Lineback heritage breed, but later iterations of Beast might feature other animals, like lamb.

Fox News is attempting to downplay and discredit its own poll, which found that if the election were held today, voters would re-elect President Obama by a 7-point margin. This is hardly the first time Fox has tried to distort poll findings to advance a certain narrative.

Fox News Poll Found That Registered Voters Would Vote For Obama Over Romney If Election Were Held Today. In a Fox News poll conducted May 13-15, 46 percent of registered voters said they would vote for Obama, as opposed to 39 percent who would favor Romney: 

[Fox News, 5/16/12]

Fox & Friends Co-Hosts Dismissed Poll, Pointed To Independents' Importance, And Challenged Methodology. Discussing the Fox poll on Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson dismissed the findings, emphasizing that independents "decide every election." Co-host Brian ...

Conservatives have seized on Vice President Biden's remarks during an Ohio campaign speech about the issues facing the middle class, characterizing Biden as "unhinged" and "deranged," and claiming the administration is perpetuating "class-warfare." But with tax levels for the wealthy at historic lows set against the stark contrast of middle-class wage stagnation and reduced economic mobility, there is every justification to be passionate about the issue.

Biden Argued Against Programs That Help The "Guys At The Top To Do Well" While Others Have To "Fend For Themselves." From a CNN.com post on a May 16 speech by Biden in Ohio:

In a sometimes fiery speech at M7 Technologies, an advanced manufacturing plant in Youngstown, Ohio, Biden added new emphasis to the attack on Romney's tenure at Bain Capital that the ...

Fox's Brian Kilmeade suggested that it was wrong for the Obama administration to have considered apologizing for an accidental deadly military strike against Pakistani troops by U.S-led forces. Fox is reporting that Obama will not apologize, but even if he were to do so, such an apology would hardly be the first time a U.S. president has apologized to a foreign nation.

Kilmeade: If Obama Apologized, "This Would Not Be The First Time President Obama Has Apologized To A Questionable Friend Of The United States." During the May 18 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy reported that the Obama administration will not apologize to Pakistan. Nevertheless, Fox & Friends co-hosts Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy suggested that it was problematic for the administration to have considered making such an apology, with Kilmeade saying ...

Thomas E. Mann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman J. Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, are well-respected centrist congressional experts who are often cited by the media. But their recent conclusion that Republicans are responsible for political dysfunction -- laid out in an April 29 Washington Post op-ed and their recently released book -- has been largely ignored, with the top five national newspapers writing a total of zero news articles on their thesis.

Mann And Ornstein: "Let's Just Say It: The Republicans Are The Problem." In their April 29 Washington Post op-ed, the duo lay out the thesis of their latest book, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than ...

On Sean Hannity's Fox News show, conservative pollster Frank Luntz asserted that an Americans for Prosperity ad attacking President Obama over stimulus spending was successful in part because it is "fact-based, not assertions." In reality, nearly every claim in the ad is false or misleading.

Hannity Touts AFP Ad As "The Highest-Tested Campaign Ad So Far To Date" By Luntz. From Fox News' Hannity:

HANNITY: All right. You've found -- and you've gone over so many ads. And I think a lot of them have been really good, by the RNC in particular, Obama in his own words I like the best. But this one is by American Crossroads, and you say it's the highest-tested campaign ad so far to date.

LUNTZ: And this one's Americans for Prosperity, and what makes it so --

HANNITY: Oh, but I thought it ...

Fox News is decrying the inclusion of needed provisions in the Violence Against Women Act that would protect immigrants, Native Americans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered individuals from domestic abuse. Critics contend that not extending these protections would render victims more vulnerable to domestic violence.

Jon Scott: "Why Not Just Pass The Simpler House Version?" After outlining the dispute over the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act -- including noting that the House Republican version of the bill does not include protections for immigrants, LGBTQ individuals, and Native Americans -- Fox News anchor Jon Scott asked: "Why not just pass the simpler House version?" [Fox News, Happening Now, 5/16/12]

Scott: "This Isn't The Violence Against Men Act. ... It's The Violence Against Women Act." After Fox News contributor Santita Jackson said that it's "particularly cruel" for Republicans to ...

So I know you guys are probably missing Inkblot and Domino, but fortunately I have a few cat pictures for you. At the moment I live in a house with four fat orange cats I affectionately refer to as a "herd of Garfields" for reasons that will become immediately obvious below.

Here's Burns and Pumpkin falling asleep in a sunbeam:

And here's Pumpkin again, dressed up in his Sunday best (slightly Instagrammed):

I hope you guys can be okay with these until Kevin gets back. See you next week.

Adam Serwer is filling in while Kevin is on vacation.

Slate's Dave Weigel checks in on Jack Cashill, the conservative writer who intiated the conspiracy theory that Bill Ayers actually wrote Barack Obama's autobiography, and finds Cashill in disbelief over mid-20s love letters Obama wrote to a girlfriend that were uncovered by David Maraniss:

[W]riting longhand, presumably from memory, Obama has the wherewithal to put an umlaut over the “u” in Münzer. In college, I was an Honors English student and a Classics minor, not a political science major like Obama. I had not even heard of Münzer before reading this letter.

That Obama could embark upon a sophisticated, spontaneous discussion of T.S. Eliot – he claimed not to have read “The Waste Land” for a year and never bothered “to check all the footnotes” – should have alerted Maraniss.

So, Cashill's argument that Obama didn't write his book, or the letters, is that ...

Though the web headlines have been altered since, several news organizations (including Mother Jones) led their stories on Thursday's evidence dump in the Trayvon Martin shooting case with the revelation that Martin had small amounts of THC in his system.

This in itself is not all that surprising—Martin was suspended from school for possession of marijuana shortly before he was killed. The decision to lead with that information, however, suggests that it's somehow material to the guilt or innocence of George Zimmerman, and I'm puzzled as to why anyone would think that's the case. Here's National Review's Andrew McCarthy, who in response to a report from ABC seems to regard the news as fully exonerating Zimmerman:

The report neglects to mention that in the 911 tape, George Zimmerman reported to the police dispatcher that Martin seemed suspicious to him because it seemed Martin ...

At least it's on the record: Most House Republicans support the indefinite detention without trial of American citizens. 

During Thursday's floor debate over the latest national defense authorization act, the House GOP brought out their long knives for Reps. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.), who, in their view, had collaborated on a nefarious plot to undermine national security. Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) accused the lawmakers of wanting to "coddle terrorists," while Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) warned that under an amendment they'd introduced, "as soon as a member of Al Qaeda sets foot on US soil, they hear you have the right to remain silent." National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who has never heard of a same-sex marriage supporting, pro-financial regulation liberal who wasn't secretly a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, wrote that their proposal was the result of "libertarian ...

Thursday's New York Times had news sure to provoke demographic panic in some of the more unsavory corners of American society: the Census Bureau announced that non-white babies now account for the majority of births in the US. Here's the Times writeup: 

Non-Hispanic whites accounted for 49.6 percent of all births in the 12-month period that ended last July, according to Census Bureau data made public on Thursday, while minorities — including Hispanics, blacks, Asians and those of mixed race — reached 50.4 percent, representing a majority for the first time in the country’s history.

Such a turn has been long expected, but no one was certain when the moment would arrive — signaling a milestone for a nation whose government was founded by white Europeans and has wrestled mightily with issues of race, from the days of slavery, through a civil war, bitter civil rights battles and ...

My former colleague Jamelle Bouie's cover story for the American Prospect suggests that if elected, Mitt Romney would be the most conservative president in recent memory:

These aren't idle expectations. If Romney wins the White House, it's a sure bet that Republicans will also win the Senate—Democrats are defending a disproportionately large number of seats this year—and maintain their majority in the House of Representatives. More important, Romney's agenda is almost entirely fiscal: cuts to taxes, cuts to entitlements, and cuts to domestic programs. All of this can be passed through budget reconciliation, which makes it immune to a filibuster. Republicans could force through their ideas without a single Democratic vote.

In terms of figuring out what you're actually voting for, it makes more sense to think about yourself as voting for a party rather than a candidate. That candidate will pursue the ...

Here's one that's real good. Happy Friday!

Click here to view this media

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Friday suggested that it would be "legitimate" for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to attack President Barack Obama for his association with Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

"As far as Rev. Wright is concerned, I think it had a lot of relevance and I think when you look back on it, [former Republican presidential nominee John] McCain was crazy not to bring it up," Wallace told Fox News host Gretchen Carlson. "Not in a matter of exploiting it, it's a legitimate issue."

"That is the church that Barack Obama prayed in, worshipped in for 20 years. And he's been president for four now so I don't know that it is as relevant as it used to be."

On Thursday, The New York Times revealed that a pro-Romney super PAC was considering an ad campaign ...

It seems to me if you can afford to spend $10 million on an attack ad, you can probably afford to renovate your own damned stadium. And it seems like Mayor Emanuel has come to the same conclusion:

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is not returning calls from the Ricketts family and is “livid” over a New York Times report that Joe Ricketts commissioned a proposal for a multimillion-dollar ad campaign linking President Obama to the president’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, according to an Emanuel aide.

Joe Ricketts’s children, which include Obama bundler Laura Ricketts, bought the Chicago Cubs in 2009 and have been in talks with the city about renovating the team’s 98-year-old stadium, Wrigley Field.

That appears to be on hold now.

“The Mayor was livid when he read that the Ricketts were going to launch a $10 million campaign against President Obama – with the type ...

enlargeIt's Friday, folks, and a good laugh is in order after Bizarro Week from hell, don't you think? So sit back and laugh at Phyllis Schlafly's son Roger who is terribly upset about the fact that the (former) minority population is growing faster than the white population.

Via Right Wing Watch:

Roger Schlafly, son of Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, today mourned on the Eagle Forum Blog a Census Bureau report showing that non-white births have now exceeded white births in the U.S. “It is not a good thing,” Schlafly said, warning that “immigrants do not share American values” and therefore “will not be voting Republican when they start voting in large numbers.” He went on to claim that “NY Times liberals seek to destroy the American family of the 1950s,” saying that immigrants “do not share” American values like working hard and self-sufficiency, and ...

Predictably, Fox Nation is using the latest developments in the Trayvon Martin case to inflame racial conflict, this time with a headline called, Limbaugh: Trayvon Martin Case Is ‘Duke Lacrosse Case All Over Again. Just as predictably, Fox Nation readers took the cue. But even knowing what we know about Fox readers' racism, we were shocked by the following comment from "IMPEACH_BOBO_THE_FLEABAGGER." (H/T A.M.)

Think that's a rogue comment that somehow slipped past a moderator? It's hardly uncommon from this guy.

Neil Cavuto stopped short of lauding Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin yesterday for his decision to renounce his U.S. citizenship and leave the country just as he was about to get hit with a big capital gains tax bill for his share of the IP dough. But while calling Saverin “a little selfish,” Cavuto also presented his decision in a sympathetic light and suggested the U.S. was more to blame. Addressing the pool of ex-pats leaving the country, Cavuto asked, “What the hell took you so long?”

Cavuto “damned” Saverin with faint criticism, by calling him “hardly sympathetic” and “a little selfish.”

Maybe we should spend less time punishing people who want to leave this country. And find out exactly why… For many, it’s taxes. For Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, it was enough. Let me be clear, Saverin's hardly a sympathetic character here. After all, he stands ...

When does Fox News not cheerlead for Mitt Romney? When he disapproves of featuring Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a smear campaign against President Obama. Last night, Sean Hannity forgot about how much he opposes “besmirching” in politics and was now complaining that his own candidate wouldn’t engage in it. But guest Kimberly Guilfoyle – who was liberal before it was expedient for her to be otherwise – took it a step further and suggested it was Romney’s patriotic duty to go that route. “Show us that no matter who our enemies might be… you’re going to be the president that’s going to stand for us,” she said in her most calculatedly rousing voice. I'm surprised she didn't stand up and salute the flag or start singing the Star Spangled Banner.

“I want Romney to treat Obama the way he did Gingrich and the way he attacked ...

On Tuesday's Special Report (5/15/12), the topic for the "All-Star" panel was JP Morgan Chase losing two billion dollars, and the head of JP Morgan apologizing to shareholders for making "risky bets."  Panelist Steve Hayes said, "You hear from Washington immediately calls for tighter regulations. It's not even clear that this would've been prevented by the regulations had they been been fully implemented, at this point and yet you have these calls for tighter regulations. It's a typical Washington response to a problem that may not yet even need a solution."

Paul Krugman wrote an excellent column about why we need to regulate banks. Hayes should read it.

Video via Media Matters.

During Night Two of Sean Hannity’s suck up interview with discredited author Ed Klein, Hannity continued his uncritical fascination with Klein’s questionable revelations about President Obama in his latest book. In Part 2 of last night’s go-round, Hannity once again fixated on Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But this time, Hannity used Klein’s lengthy interview with Wright to draw Klein into suggesting President Obama is or was a Muslim – and then pretended otherwise – despite dropping his own little Obama-as-Muslim hints. The only real challenge Hannity presented to Klein was to ask why he had spoken ill of Hannity during the interview with Wright. Curiously, Klein “explained” that away by saying he had deliberately misrepresented his views in order to dupe Wright into confiding in him. So there was an author – whose credibility was already dubious - admitting on prime time television that he used dishonest tactics in his big ...

Is the right running out of material to smear Obama with? Are they so desperate for dirt that they have to create it themselves? That’s what Fox News seems to be doing by covering the story of a “secret” deal President Obama made with pharmaceutical companies in 2009, to get them to back his health care reform law.

A post on Fox Nation bears the inflammatory headline “Did the White House Cut a Backroom Deal with Drug Companies to Get Obamacare Passed?” It links to this article from the Washington Examiner about an investigation by the House Energy and Commerce committee (or the Republican members of it anyway). They want to know more about a "secret" deal the President cut with the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America to get their support for his health care legislation. What goodies he offered the pharma industry, that kind of thing. Congressman ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 18, 2012) -- Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) today released the following statement after Congress passed H.R. 4310, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013.

“In addition to language saber-rattling and preparing for war with Iran, the FY013 NDAA includes language that could undermine our diplomatic relationship with Russia and thwart the implementation of the historic Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) follow-on. For example, the House accepted an amendment that adds to efforts to delay the implementation of START by preventing any reductions to our nuclear arsenal until the Secretary of Defense reports to Congress on Russia’s compliance with the Treaty. 

“Another such amendment, adopted by voice vote in the middle of the night, singles out Russia by limiting the availability of funds for Cooperative Threat Reduction Activities with Russia until the Secretary of Defense ‘can certify that Russia is no longer supporting ...

Lee Calls for Cuts to Bloated Pentagon Budget, Swift Withdrawal from Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) was one of 120 Members of Congress to vote against H.R. 4310, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).  Lee offered amendments to the bill which would safely and responsibly bring our troops home from Afghanistan, keep Pentagon spending within the limits of the Budget Control Act, and ensure that a meaningful diplomatic option with Iran is on the table.

Lee introduced an amendment to enforce the terms of the Budget Control Act which was signed into law on August 2, 2011, to avert a government shutdown.  Congress voted to limit Pentagon spending, but the House Republican leadership proposal spends$8 billion more than allowed under the Budget Control Act.  The bi-partisan amendment was not adopted (170-252). 

read more

Now here's a book that's meant to be used: "Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution" edited by Andrew Boyd and Dave Oswald Mitchell.  The subtitle should be "Try this at home -- but innovate!"  Instead it's "From the people who brought you the Yes Men, Billionaires Against Bush, etc."

Beautiful Trouble is a terrific addition to Gene Sharp's catalog of nonviolent tactics, less comprehensive, more up-to-date, more U.S.-centric, and focused on the artistic and the entertaining. When someone whines about what they can possibly do if it's really true that voting won't fix everything, hand them this book.  When someone proposes violence as the only serious option available, hand them this book.  

Here is a guide to activism that focuses on the serious moral case for fundamental change and on making it fun as hell.  Here is a sophisticated tool for shaping strategies ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (May 18, 2012) – Today the House is expected to vote on H.R. 4310, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2013. Kucinich took to the House Floor to warn Members of the Congress that the bill prepares the United States for war with Iran. It specifically calls for aggressive deployment of our armed services to begin “credible, visible preparations for a military option.”

See video here. Kucinich’s remarks follow:

“If you want peace, you prepare for peace. If you want war, you prepare for war. The NDAA prepares for war against Iran.

“It calls for pre-positioning planes, bombs, ships, munitions and for naval maneuvers in the Strait of Hormuz. [Sec. 1221 (b) and Sec. 1222 (A)]  This is not about defense. This is about offense.

“I was a third string quarterback on not a very good varsity football team and I know the ...

  Greece Reflects Growing Economic Turmoil

by Stephen Lendman

Straightjacket Eurozone rules trap 17 dissimilar countries. Greece proved most vulnerable. It's cratering under imposed austerity. 

It's the epicenter of Europe's deepening economic crisis. Fed up Greeks want change. May 6 parliamentary elections favored anti-austerity candidates.

read more

  Ziyad Yaghi: Guilty of Being Muslim in America

by Stephen Lendman

Post-9/11, America declared war on Islam. Wars rage abroad. At home, innocent victims are wrongfully charged, prosecuted, convicted by intimidated and pressured juries, and imprisoned.

read more

Here's one that's real good. Happy Friday!

Click here to view this media

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Friday suggested that it would be "legitimate" for presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to attack President Barack Obama for his association with Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

"As far as Rev. Wright is concerned, I think it had a lot of relevance and I think when you look back on it, [former Republican presidential nominee John] McCain was crazy not to bring it up," Wallace told Fox News host Gretchen Carlson. "Not in a matter of exploiting it, it's a legitimate issue."

"That is the church that Barack Obama prayed in, worshipped in for 20 years. And he's been president for four now so I don't know that it is as relevant as it used to be."

On Thursday, The New York Times revealed that a pro-Romney super PAC was considering an ad campaign ...

It seems to me if you can afford to spend $10 million on an attack ad, you can probably afford to renovate your own damned stadium. And it seems like Mayor Emanuel has come to the same conclusion:

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is not returning calls from the Ricketts family and is “livid” over a New York Times report that Joe Ricketts commissioned a proposal for a multimillion-dollar ad campaign linking President Obama to the president’s former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, according to an Emanuel aide.

Joe Ricketts’s children, which include Obama bundler Laura Ricketts, bought the Chicago Cubs in 2009 and have been in talks with the city about renovating the team’s 98-year-old stadium, Wrigley Field.

That appears to be on hold now.

“The Mayor was livid when he read that the Ricketts were going to launch a $10 million campaign against President Obama – with the type ...

enlargeIt's Friday, folks, and a good laugh is in order after Bizarro Week from hell, don't you think? So sit back and laugh at Phyllis Schlafly's son Roger who is terribly upset about the fact that the (former) minority population is growing faster than the white population.

Via Right Wing Watch:

Roger Schlafly, son of Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, today mourned on the Eagle Forum Blog a Census Bureau report showing that non-white births have now exceeded white births in the U.S. “It is not a good thing,” Schlafly said, warning that “immigrants do not share American values” and therefore “will not be voting Republican when they start voting in large numbers.” He went on to claim that “NY Times liberals seek to destroy the American family of the 1950s,” saying that immigrants “do not share” American values like working hard and self-sufficiency, and ...