Watering Hole: Monday, March 5, 2012 – American Slave Labor

Posted on by

Putting people and keeping people in prison is a money maker.

This is our Open Thread.  Speak Up!

About these ads

187 thoughts on “Watering Hole: Monday, March 5, 2012 – American Slave Labor”

  1. This concept was tried by Nazi Germany and it was disasterous.
    The sabotage rate and quality of work was exactly what they paid for.
    The tax payer will be stuck with this in one way or another.

    Something ironic about using prison labor to assemble “Patriot” missles.

    • On paid administative leave of course.
      This may be a naive question but, isn’t that grounds for immediate termination?

      • At the moment it is only an accusation. There is a “due process” in academia as well, although the specific nature of that process will vary from one college to the next. (For the non-tenured, the “due process” can be pretty minimal; they are basically “at will” hires and can be canned w/o much ceremony. However, there are some efforts in a few places to provide a measure of protections for these folks as well.)

  4. I guess I now know what George Bush meant when he said he looked into the eyes of Vladimir Putin and saw his soul.

    Election fraud

    • Dubious saw someone who could achieve what he could only fantasize of.
      A dictator.

  5. The prison report reminds me of a book I read a few decades back. It’s title was “The Gulag Archipelago” by Alexander Solzhenitzen. Hmmh. He was a Russian. From the Soviet Union. A commie-socialist-Marxist-Nazi-Stalinist country. What’s up with that?

    We’re supposed to be different. Ain’t we?

  6. Bill Press and Stephanie Miller are going to have morning shows on Current TV. They’ll still be in their current time slots (Bill 6-9am Eastern, Steph 9am-noon Eastern). They’re keeping their radio shows, the new shows will simply be TV broadcasts of the radio show itself.

    Sadly for us in the Twin Cities, is they’re dropping Bill Press in that time slot. They’re going to go with a local morning radio show. It will be progressive, but the guy who’s going to be heading it up has the evening drive-time show currently, and he’s not one of my favorites.

    Anyway, will be fun to see Bill and Steph on Current.

    • Eric was on Stephanie Miller this morning, and they were discussing that piece that he wrote (in your link). One bit point he makes in there, but they discussed it in more detail on the radio is this was a multi-day smear campaign. This wasn’t just one “absurd” comment. This was an ongoing attack.

  13. i guess Monty Python was right all along…

    The Wilmington City Council has gone on record urging the U.S. and Delaware governments to confer the “rights of personhood” on each and every human sperm.

    In a resolution, the council declared: “Laws should be enacted by all legislative bodies in the United States to promote equal representation, and should potentially include laws in defense of ‘personhood,’ forbidding every man from destroying his semen.”

    The resolution passed, 8-4, Thursday night.

  14. Under the Cheney-Bush mis-administration, there was a significant increase in private (corporate) run prisons.
    Halliburton was a prime contractor in the building of these institutions.
    Connect the dots.

    • Actually, he came to more resemble a shitty wad of used TP, the major difference being that at least the TP served a useful purpose during its time on earth. Can’t say the same about Limpy.

  17. Fluke says Rush’s “apology” doesn’t change anything.

    The Georgetown law student who drew an apology from Rush Limbaugh this weekend after the conservative radio host called her a “slut” on his show said that his public apology wasn’t sufficient during an appearance on ABC’s “The View” today.

    “I don’t think that a statement like this issued, saying that his choice of words was not the best, changes anything, and especially when that statement is issued when he’s under significant pressure from his sponsors who have begun to pull their support,” said the 30-year-old student, Sandra Fluke.

    We need to continue to go after Rush’s advertisers. It clearly hits him where it hurts. Dare to dream of a day where Rush is reduced to the media abyss that now claims Glenn Beck.

  19. Apologies if this was mentioned in the past few days – I’ve only been able to skim some of the posts and may have missed it.

    Bain Capitial is a co-owner of Clear Channel Communications; which is the company that owns Limbaugh’s show.

    We need to make this thing with Rush stick to Romney too. Clear Channel has defended Rush. That would suggest the owners are fine with it too.

  21. Lush Rimjob surprised me and actually used the word “apologize” on the air. Then he devoted the rest of the show to painting himself a victim of the left’s “extortion, pressure, and threats”. Oh well. 50/50 isn’t bad when predicting the actions of a madman.

    • Didn’t you just love his scientific explanation about tornadoes?
      God has to put the hot air somewhere.
      Don’t blame god that people build houses in the way of tornadoes – oh and earthquakes.

      Marion’s bottom line:
      Blame the victim
      not
      the
      invisible being!

    • As far as I know, tornadoes never occur in predominantly Muslim countries. Pat?

    • The tornadoes ripped through the Midwest because God thought if he sent enough of them, one of them might just shred this asshole who has been claiming to speak for him on TV for 30 years…..

    • Badmoodsister:

      “I think Robertson is to Christianity what al Qaeda is to Islam.”

    • If any of the present GOP clowns are selected::

      By the time I am 90, hurricanes will form in the west of the Iberian peninsula and hit the United States North of South Carolina. The tornado belt will extend from Illinois to Northern Massachusetts. Warming trends indicate that Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and down to the Carolina’s. . and Georgia will become desert.

      If I am wrong, please email me in 2031, I may have a new ISP then!

    • A bust? Maybe they’ll find oxycontin and viagara in out-of-prescription quantities again…

  24. Nathan Pippenger breaks down Rush’s 15 million devotees:

    “80 percent of Limbaugh’s listeners identified themselves as “conservative,” compared to 35 percent of the total U.S. population. About three-quarters of his listeners are NRA supporters, compared to 40 percent of all Americans. The same proportion identify themselves as Tea Partiers and Christian Conservatives. Why do they listen to Limbaugh? In one survey, 37 percent said they tune in for opinion, but another 28 percent say they enjoy the blend of news, opinion, and entertainment. Among Republicans, 13 percent say they tune in to Limbaugh “regularly.” There’s one more interesting number to keep in mind, and after the events of [last] week, it will hardly come as a surprise: According to a 2009 survey, only 28 percent of Limbaugh’s audience is female—a smaller proportion than any other news source included in the questionnaire.”

    http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-study/101319/who-earth-listens-rush-limbaugh-anyway

    • Internet publishing giant AOL said Monday that “one of our core values is that we act with integrity. We have monitored the unfolding events and have determined that Mr. Limbaugh’s comments are not in line with our values.”

      How can what he says or does ever be in line with a corporation’s “values?”

  27. George W. Bush impersonator dies

    Steve Bridges — who made a living impersonating President George W. Bush, including a celebrated appearance at the 2006 White House Correspondents Association dinner — died over the weekend at his home in Los Angeles.

    I’m sure the right-wing blogs will say Obama is responsible.

  29. Limbaugh says he apology was “heartfelt.” Gee. What a rotten heart he has.

    Of course he’s also claiming that he descended to the level of the left, so his comments were really the left’s fault somehow.

    The thing about apologies, is there shouldn’t be other attacks in them. They’re about personal responsibility and contrition. They also don’t have any caveats or other strings attached. Only then is it heartfelt.

    • Apparently Lumpy opened his show with “Easy Lover” by Phil Collins.

      Leave Rush aloooooooooooooooooone!!! :shock:

    • Compare Ed Schultz and Fat Bastard’s apology…. all you need to know about this.

      • I envision the Hindenburg at Lakehurst with an EB on the side.

        One can dream…

    • How did that happen? I wasn’t even ‘replying’ to a post. (or didn’t think I was)

    • Yes, pure luck to have it in focus as it went winging by at approximately the same range as the long billed dowitchers!

  31. Over-the-top QOTD:

    “A 30-year-old poses as a 23-year-old, chooses a Catholic University to attend at $65,000 per year and can not afford ALL the birth control pills she needs… so she wants the US taxpayers to pay for her rampant sexual activity. By all accounts she is banging it five times a day. She sounds more like a prostitute to me. She must have an gyno bill to choke a horse (pun intended). Slut was a softball. Obama calls her and tells Sandra Slut Fluke that her parents should be so proud of her. He’s a pimp,” – Pamela Geller.

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/40014_Pamela_Geller_Spews_Hatred_at_Sandra_Fluke-_Banging_It_Five_Times_a_Day

    • Watch this space for bird photos this summer. Just booked three nights at a spot in the high desert with spectacular views and plenty of Nature. The birds there are completely different from those I’m used to. For example: http://tinyurl.com/7ko3oh3

      I’m getting pretty excited about this vacation.

  33. Something has gone completely screwy — for some reason we are all in italicized mode!

  38. Don Imus issues restrained remarks for Rush. Not really, he completely throws Rush’s fat ass under a fleet of buses:

    “It was a vile personal attack on this woman and it was sustained,” Imus noted on Monday. “It was Wednesday and then come back and double down on Thursday and then come back and double down on Friday. And then, issue a lame apology on your website.”

    “So were it me and I ran a radio station or whatever, I would make him go down there and apologize to her face to face. He owns a Gulfstream IV (jet). Get on it, go to Washington, take her to lunch and say, ‘Look, I’m sorry I said this stuff and I’ll never do it again. Period.’ Now, he’s an insincere pig. Pill-popping pinhead.”

    Imus continued: “I mean it’s disgraceful. You got to show some guts. He has no guts. Look what I did. And what I did was a lame attempt to be funny. And it was three words and I went and met with these people after I’d been fired! You got to show guts. He has no guts. He’s a punk.”

    • “Have you stopped beating you wife yet?” – over and over again.

    • Gingrich has steered clear of criticizing Limbaugh, instead re-ocusing the issue on President Obama, whom he says “opportunistically” interjected himself into the issue by calling Fluke on Friday.

      Neutered-one is running scared – doesn’t want Uncle Limpy to hate on him..

      • And it still hasn’t stopped him from continuing his attacks (he just toned it down to calling her a liar trying to force a religious institution to forsake their values) or blaming “the left” for somehow orchestrating the whole incident in an effort to deprive Lushbo of his 1st Amendment rights.

        • I hope that Rush’s ego is so big it keeps him going forward with this until women in this country show their wrath on the men that support/accept him. I suspect that a general withholding of favors by women will have an effect on men’s thinking.

          A “No Sex Until Sexism Is Ended” campaign could do wonders for women, I do believe.

          • Unfortunately the type of men who like Rush Limbaugh would likely beat their women to get the sex. Or beat them more.

            • I was thinking the same thing. I would think that the poor women shattering their husbands’ kneecaps with a cast iron frying pan and then running like Hell would be far safer. Of course, I would never actually recommend that they shatter their husbands’ kneecaps with a cast iron frying pan but, should the vile slobs turn their back for a second or pass out dead drunk, I would definitely recommend the running like Hell part.

  41. Egad! I followed a link to Atlas Shrugged, which I won’t repost anywhere, and Pam Geller is taking a position that makes her even more vile than Lushbo.

  42. Ann Romney today: “I don’t even consider myself wealthy… it can be here today and gone tomorrow…”

    As opposed to the vast majority of people who don’t have it today and may have less tomorrow.

    • She tried to confuse the issue with some horseshit about “real wealth” being some intangible spirituality… easy to say when you’re worth $250 million. Rmoney and MrsRmoney, this is not a winning issue for you.

    • It is so sad and trying when a natural disaster take one of your vacation homes.

    • I find it strange that Pat is dissing the very people who make up his credulous audience — those people living in tornado country have to make up a huge portion of his dupes. Hey folks! Pat Robertson thinks you’re too stupid to move!

      • I’d feel sorry for his followers, but they’re following fucking Pat Robertson.

        At what point do they look around, blinking stupidly, and say “Hey, wait a minute…”

      • No. You got it all wrong. It’s not his worshipers’ fault. It’s the fault of their neighbors, the bar owner down the street, the Catholics, the Methodists, the gal who wears too tight a dress to church, Muslims, brown people, unruly children, gays… It’s never their fault. That’s why they keep sending Marion the big bucks.

      • It’s only strange to you, gummitch old bean, because you are forgetting the concept of original sin and thus tests of faith.

        The only path to a better life free from gum diseases and gays ad flatulence and arthritis and dial-up internet and rusted leaf springs on your pick-up truck is to BELIEVE HARDER because you didn’t believe harder enough! It’s only YOUR WEAK FAITH THAT MAKES GOD
        SMITE YOU–You know he does mean it, baby, it’s just that He loves you SO GODDAM MUCH, but you keep pushing Him and pushing Him… but He’ll make it better baby, He will! He promises! Now Go make him asome Bacon and Eggs and give Him $1,000 as a SEED and you will be rewarded TENFOLD baby, just a s soon as I get back from the liquor store.

        .

  45. What do you call a man who marries a slut? What ever that is I’m that sort of man, twice! Maybe that’s a good new saying for a bumper sticker or tee shirt; I Married A Slut.

    • I’ve always been a huge fan of sluts and married at least one. Many of my friends back in the day were sluts and thank goodness for that. I did my level best to be a slut myself during my 20s and early 30s.

      • When I was young(er) I occasionally tried words out before learning their meaning. Slut was one of these words. The girl behind me in class who had been jabbing me in the back with her pencil for the past 3 days slapped me so hard my neck popped.

    • I’ve loved a few sluts, never married one. Never married a non-slut either but that’s a moot point. But, after a few decades of getting it wrong, I finally learned how to be friends with sluts and that has made my life richer. Some of my best friends are sluts and/or lesbians. Now if you can get a lesbian slut to drop her defenses enough to be your friend? You are rich indeed.

  46. Zxbe’s info about the simulcasting of Bill Press and Stephanie Miller’s radio shows on Current brings up an interesting conundrum. Both are syndicated by Dial Global, as is MSNBC host Ed Schultz, and RT America/Free Speech TV host Thom Hartmann.
    Dial Global and NBC News recently announced a partnership in radio news. Since NBC’s MSNBC prime time lineup is in direct competition with Current for left leaning news viewers, how long will NBC let this continue, before pressure is applied to Press and Miller to be team players and stop helping the competition? Perhaps their deal with Dial Global allows them the autonomy to distribute their shows as they see fit. Hartmann regularly mentions he and his wife Louise own his show, and he’s spread all over the place between his Dial Global affiliates, Pacifica Radio affiliates, Free Speech TV, and those who watch/listen, as I do, from his Ustream channel.

    In any case, I’ll be having Bill Press on in the mornings, until I leave for work. I’m still working on getting up the cash to get a better phone that can handle I Heart Radio, so I can listen during work.

    • I just have to bring out my broad brush. I’ve read most of The Book of Mormon and anyone who believes a word of that crap is stupid and/or insane. Not wandering the streets ringing a bell insane but giving your worldly possessions, except for a year’s worth of canned food in your cupboard, to an 80 year-old guy with a 13 year-old “wife” insane.

      BTW. If she really thinks it can all be gone tomorrow, rather than after that first year when the canned goods give out, she’s not doing it right.

  48. WBEC in Massachusetts, has dropped Limbought, according to Jennifer Granholm, whose show is on in place of Keith tonight, for some reason…

    • I do believe it will be these stations dropping his program that will, eventually, cause his ego to deflate.

      He’ll never, ever take responsibility for his downfall – which is ok -they are the ones who fall hard then wonder “what happened”.

      It’s a bit interesting his handlers haven’t parade wife #4 out to spout the virtues of … oh who am I kidding even she must see the bloated dead bull she married.

    • For a while, Dobbs concentrated on outsourcing jobs by US companies, and the vanishing middle class. Then his inner corporatist emerged, and he sold out.

    • They hate women and children..nice life each must lead.

      Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) was brilliant in the way he reaches so many children with valuable lessons on friendship; tolerance; co-operation, etc.

      • No doubt about it. We had the fortune to see a display of his work in San Diego. He was brilliant.

    • I knew that was coming!! “The Lorax” has been mondo controversial in Idaho for years and years. Damn environment!!

  51. It’s funny to see a wimp in a sweater vest telling anyone else to “man up.” Ohhh, he’s such a little tuffy!

    • Well, that’s an easy thing for him to say, since he’ll never be in that office.

    • Screen shot caption:
      “I have 5! 5 sperm I tell you, and I will not waste a one of them!”

    • Could you imagine sneaking up behind him and popping a paper bag? He would either jump so high that he would look like the Roadrunner taking off, spinning his wheels as it were, or just faint. A sliver would probably send him into a coma. Come to think of it; he does remind me a bit of Frank Burns. The religious fanaticism of the character in the movie with the cowardice of the one on the TV show.

    • I’ve got a solution for these poor blighters I’ll put up as a new post… stand by at the top of the blog.

  53. OMG, crammed into 1,200 square feet? And having to do dishes by hand?!!!
    -snerk-

  56. An open letter to the people who hate Obama more than they love America

    Now that you have thrown everything and the kitchen sink at President Obama and it still hasn’t worked you are panicking. Obama’s approval ratings are still near 50% despite your best efforts to undermine the economy and America’s recovery at every step you can. You tried to hold the American economy hostage to force America into default on its’ debts, debts that YOU rang up under Bush, so you could blame it on Obama and it failed. You’ve used the filibuster more than any other Congress ever, going so far as to vote against providing health care access to 9/11 first responders. You remember 9/11, don’t you, it’s that thing you used to lie us into a war in Iraq, and then when Obama killed Bin Laden and ended the war in Iraq you told people that he hates America and wants the troops to fail. You monsters.

    Fuck yeah.

  58. Game wardens don’t need a warrant to stop cars

    The U.S. Supreme Court granted California game wardens the authority Monday to stop and question motorists on the way out of hunting or fishing grounds to check on what they’ve bagged.

    The need to protect wildlife for future generations outweighs the minor intrusion of a vehicle stop, said state Supreme Court Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye in June.

    She said a warden would be acting for the purpose of conservation and not criminal law enforcement, which would require a search warrant or probable cause of wrongdoing.

      • My neighbor and others who stop by his house talk about the Game Wardens in Florida frequently. Evidently the wardens here can enter into peoples homes without warrants. The “good old boys” miss the days when they could raid turtles nests for eggs and hunt and fish whatever they wanted whenever they wanted. With the economy the way it is they don’t have the money to pay any fines if they get caught and they curse the technology (hidden cameras) used to catch them.

        What is really crazy is how a couple of them brag about the seafood they get from areas that are closed because of pollution. I wonder if that might help explain their demented thinking?

        • When I lived in Louisiana, I was always amazed that the people would gush about eating the bounty of the land and waters (poached or otherwise), but didn’t hesitate for a second to pollute the same.

          That’s a serious disconnect. And yes, it probably does explain their demented thinking!

Comments are closed.