DAILY SHOW: As Jon Stewart reported on last night’s Daily Show, 30 GOP Senators (that’s 75% of all Republicans in the Senate for those keeping score at home) recently voted in favor of KBR and Halliburton’s right to gang-rape employees. It’s shocking, I know. However, it is important to keep in mind that KBR and Halliburton directed Chinatown. MORE THE GUARDIAN: US defence firms are to be barred from lucrative government contracts if they refuse to allow employees access to the courts, after a woman working for a Halliburton subsidiary in Iraq was prevented from taking legal action over an […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
[CLICK TO ENLARGE] FRESH AIR While most record companies of the 1940s and 1950s made money in one genre, Cincinnati-based King Records spread the love to R & B, rockabilly, bluegrass, western swing and country. Jon Hartley Fox tells the story in his new book King of the Queen City. Combining archival research with contemporary interviews, Fox describes the company by focusing on the people who made up the culture, including executives Sydney Nathan, Henry Glover and Ralph Bass, as well as artists like Red Foxx, Johnny “Guitar” Watson and James Brown. A Dayton resident now based in California, Fox […]
MEDICAL MARIJUANA: High Anxiety
NEW YORK TIMES: “I’m so totally paranoid I can’t stand myself,” said the distributor, who runs a nonprofit group here that grows and sells marijuana for medicinal purposes and who insisted on meeting in the privacy of a hotel room. It was not meant to be this way. New Mexico’s new medical marijuana law was intended to provide safe, aboveboard access to the drug for hundreds of residents with chronic pain and other debilitating conditions. By licensing nonprofit distributors, New Mexico hoped to improve upon the free-for-all distribution systems in some states like California and Colorado, where hundreds of for-profit […]
BREAKING: Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize
BLOOMBERG: U.S. President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” the Nobel Committee said in Oslo today. Obama, 48, last year was elected the first black U.S. president on a platform of extracting the U.S. from the Iraq war while increasing focus on an eight-year conflict in Afghanistan. Obama is the third sitting U.S. President to be awarded the prize, following Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson in 1919. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter won in 2002. MORE GLENN GREENWALD: As critical as I’ve been of […]
Bill Clinton Awards Spielberg The Liberty Medal
INQUIRER: Steven Spielberg has grown accustomed to praise. One of the world’s most successful filmmakers, ever, anywhere, he has received Oscars and honorary doctorates, won awards for public service and humanitarianism, and been granted nearly every superlative a man of art, thought, and heart could imagine. But he still seemed sincerely moved last night to be joining the ranks of the distinguished recipients of Philadelphia’s Liberty Medal. “I am very, very genuinely humbled by this,” Spielberg said after bowing his head so former President Bill Clinton, chairman of the National Constitution Center, could slip on the red, white, and blue […]
MANAN TRIVEDI FOR CONGRESS: Decorated Soldier, Doctor, Democrat, Health Care Reformer, Eagles Fan
BY PHILLYGRRL Last month, 35-year old Manan Trivedi, a physician and Iraqi war veteran, announced that he was running for the position of U.S. Representative in the 6th Congressional District of Pennsylvania. The post has been held by Republican Jim Gerlach for four terms despite a significant increase in Democrat voters in the district. The post became vacant when Gerlach announced in February that he will be running for governor of Pennsylvania in 2010. Since then, Trivedi, a Democrat who grew up in Berks County and currently works and resides in Reading, PA, has been spreading the word about his […]
GAMBLOR: Dozen Casino Protesters Arrested
INQUIRER: The organized act of civil disobedience by Casino-Free Philadelphia came as the casino company announced it planned to have a formal groundbreaking ceremony on Oct. 8 for its slots parlor. More than 40 people gathered for the protest on Delaware Avenue about 6 a.m. They carried signs and banners wore red shirts that read “Bankrupt them” on the front and “Before they bankrupt us” on the back. About a dozen chanting volunteers sat down and linked arms in front of the construction gate. MORE
OBAMA: Is That All There Is To A Teabagging?
[Photos by TIFFANY YOON] BY GREG ADOMAITIS President Barack Obama came to town this afternoon to attend an invitation only fundraiser for Senator Arlen Specter at the Convention Center. White House press pool reports indicate the haul was hefty. Christopher Nicholas, Specter’s campaign manager, said that they were “within striking distance” of the $2.5 million goal for the two-tiered event. Proceeds were to be split between the Specter campaign and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee. Guests dined on steak, crab cakes, potatoes, carrots and green beans. For giving $10,000 or raising $50,000, donors posed for photos with the president and […]
OFF THE RECORD: Obama Calls Kanye A ‘Jackass’
During an off-the-record portion of an interview with CNBC, ABC reporter Terry Moran overheard the president call Kanye West a ‘Jackass’ — for storming stage and grabbing the mic from Taylor Swift in the middle of the country star’s acceptance speech — and immediately Twittered it, along with the snarky zinger “now THAT’s presidential”. ABC quickly pulled the tweet and apologized, but the damage was already done — ABC’s Twitterstream has a million-plus followers and Obama’s remark was immediately screencapped, retweeted ad nauseum and then picked up by the MSM, becoming the latest much ado about nothing to burn up […]
PUNKING THE HATERS: Man Parades PUBLIC OPTION NOW Sign Through Sea Of DC Teabaggers
FLICKR: This brave man walked through the anti-health care crowd with his large poster and was immediately set upon by the crowd. One person spit on him, while others pushed and tried to grab his flag until the police intervened. Most of the crowd around him turned on him like rabid dogs, yelling epithets and things like commie, why dont you leave this country etc. Impressively, he remained unflappable and had this little smile on the whole time. MORE SALON: Why then do nearly all of the Republicans in Congress find it so difficult to empathize with the tens of […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Edward M. Kennedy, who died Aug. 25, 2009 after serving 46 years in the U.S. Senate, kept careful notes and journals about his life for nearly 50 years. Now, in his posthumously published memoir True Compass, Kennedy reflects on the controversies, successes and tragedies of his famous family. The book, which was co-authored by Ron Powers, is published by Twelve Books. Jonathan Karp, editor-in-chief and publisher of Twelve, speaks with Terry Gross about his experiences working with the late senator in the final year of Kennedy’s life. RADIO TIMES Hour 1 According to the most recent Department of […]
DUH: Another ACORN Office Falls For Hooker Sting
NEW YORK POST: The scandal surrounding the left-wing activist organization ACORN has spread to New York, with employees at its Brooklyn office caught on video helping supposed ladies of the night get loans for their dream houses of ill repute. Rather than reminding the women that prostitution is dangerous and illegal and advising them to change their careers, counselors at the social-services group shockingly offer suggestions on how they can launder their earnings. “Honesty is not going to get you the house,” a loan counselor at the offices told two activists posing as a mortgage-seeking pimp and prostitute. “You can’t […]