Supercommittee Progress

Here's the headline from this morning's Washington Post: Supercommittee appears unlikely to reach agreement.

Raise your hand if you're shocked.

Occupy Wall Street Tweets

The New York Times has a pretty interesting Twitter exchange this morning between a celebrity that spotted the cops on their way to break up Occupy Wall Street, and the people at OWS themselves.

You can read it here.

By the way, even if you don't agree with the message of these OWS guys, you must admit the optics of the police tactics are not helpful. They didn't just evict these kids, they forcibly removed them with policeman in riot gear, and tore up their personal affects along the way.

There's a reason why police tried to keep the press away, and it wasn't to protect them. It was to keep the images away from the public. In this new social media world, even if you control one of the biggest news gathering operations in the world (Bloomberg), that's no longer possible.

Occupy Wall Street evicted

The protesters at Occupy Wall Street were evicted overnight. People were arrested. They were told that they were welcome to come back, but there is one huge caveat to that...

"Police said protesters would be allowed to return once the park was cleaned, but would have to abide by rules banning items like tents, tarps and the storage of belongings."

Or in other words, you can come back, but you can't stay. If police removals in other cities are any indication of what we can expect, buckle up for a bumpy ride. And if the rumors of the Super Committee are true, and the Democrats really have agreed to deep cuts in spending with zero new taxes on the 1%, look for it to come back stronger than ever.

They may be a bunch of dirty hippies, but they aren't wrong.


LATE UPDATE: Court Order Allows Occupy Wall Street Protesters Back

Catcher Kidnapped

The starting catcher for the Washington Nationals, Wilson Ramos, was kidnapped at gunpoint in his home yesterday in Venezuela. Ramos was in his native Venezuela to play winter ball, and was simply relaxing outside with his family when he was abducted. As of this morning, the kidnappers have not made any demands.

RIP Andy Rooney

Andy Rooney passed away over the weekend, and 60 Minutes said farewell to him last night...

Goldline Charged with Fraud

Details are here.

I'm sure Goldline's celebrity endorsers Glenn Beck, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin are preparing their "it's a liberal conspiracy" defense as I write this, but as someone with a pretty good radar for scams, to me, this one was a flashing red light the very first time I heard about it. I'm not declaring Goldline's guilt or innocence, but let's just say that they wouldn't want me on the jury.

A Positive Sign?

I thought I read this story incorrectly this morning, but no, I didn't. A group of 40 Republican lawmakers signed a letter along with 60 Democrats urging the Super-Committee to consider raising revenue. Those Republicans, by the way, had signed that stupid Grover Norquist no-tax-hike pledge.

You read that correctly. I double checked.

Can I allow myself to hope that the American people might have actually gotten the attention of Congress?

Things That Lasted Longer Than Kim Kardasian's Marriage

This list is pretty funny.

My favorite? Kim Kardasian's marriage: 72 days. Number of days "The Macarena" was the #1 song in the country: 98 days.

The "Super" Committee

Yesterday former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles (Democrat) and former Senator Alan Simpson (Republican) testified to the super-committee about what obviously needs to be done to resolve the huge debt problem.

You need to raise revenue, and you need to cut spending.

Everybody in the country knows this. It's a big gigantic DUH. Only the most strident (and clueless) partisans on both sides think that only doing one (revenues or taxes) will take care of the problem. But, of course, the Republicans won't raise revenue and the Democrats won't cut spending until Republicans agree to raise taxes, so...guess what? They're deadlocked.

The approval rate for Congress right now is 9%. 9%!

Fellas, listen. The overwhelming majority of Americans (something like 70% in all the polls I've seen) are perfectly willing to accept a slight raising of taxes (even Republicans) and cutting of benefits (even Democrats) because we know we're in a crisis situation here. This isn't even controversial.

You can't possibly be that cowardly (or stupid), can you?

Hitler's Stationery

A very cool story about a letter written by an American soldier to his three year old son on V-E day. It was written on Adolf Hitler's personal stationery, and it was written by a man that would go on to run the CIA one day.

Full details are here.

Zombie Backlash

Who could have known this would be taken the wrong way? A GOP chairman from a county in Virginia sent out an e-mail with among other things, a picture of Obama as a Zombie with a bullet hole in his head. Needless to say, he was forced to apologize. I got a kick out of the apology...

“Apparently, some individuals have interpreted an image of Barack Obama that appeared within the e-mail as intending to portray the president as a victim of a violent crime. Nothing could be further from the truth, and we deeply and sincerely apologize to the president and anyone who viewed the image if that was the impression that was left."

What is happening to this politically correct country when you can't even innocently portray the president with a bullet hole in his head anymore without somebody misinterpreting it? Presidents who receive record numbers of death threats can be so sensitive.

Wouldn't you have loved to be there for the secret service visit?

"What, oh, the bullet hole? Wow, now that you mention it, yikes, I guess that could be taken another way. We simply drew that on there because zombies often have bullet holes in their heads, and we wanted it to be totally authentic."

Protesting Occupy Wall Street

Coming on the heels of the CBO report yesterday that showed that the top 1% has seen their income rise by 275% in the past three decades, and that the top 20% of this country now officially earns more than the bottom 80% (sheesh), Funny or Die comes through again...

Occupy Main Street - watch more funny videos

Public Enemy #2

A court case about a dog doo.

The big pile of info about this smelly case is here.

By the way, there's a picture of the dog in question at the link. I'm guessing that little dog's poop is about the size of a Raisinette.

Naomi Wolf Arrested at Occupy Wall Street

I think she's the first celebrity to be arrested in the protest. If you're not familiar with Naomi, she's a feminist writer (for the Huffington Post among others). She was arrested for using a megaphone without a permit.

That's really the charge.

The World is Ending on Friday

He was wrong in May, but that's not stopping crazy radio man Harold Camping from predicting the end of the world again.

Just in case you're wondering...it's Friday.

No need to buy that Halloween candy this year.

Occupy The World

The Occupy Wall Street movement is getting harder and harder to dismiss as a bunch of hippies financed by George Soros. This weekend there were similar protests in 900 cities around the world.

That's not a misprint. 900 cities.

I do wish they had some solutions to go along with the anger, but at least the people that destroyed the entire world's economy are being forced to feel slightly uncomfortable. Right now they're probably on the phone with their security companies finding out how much it costs to build a moat.

Whoops

The case of the insulting tipper, the distraught waitress, the solidarity campaign, and the innocent victim.

Sounds like a TV movie of the week to me.

Occupy Wall Street

I haven't commented on the Occupy Wall Street movement because I realize these protesters are not exactly the perfect messengers for a movement. However, Business Insider (that's right, Business Insider) presents an incredibly compelling case that there are two things these protesters have gotten correct.

#1: They are correct to be mad.
#2: They are protesting against the correct people.

Read the article. Look at the raw figures, charts, and graphs. It's jaw dropping.

I wish the protesters had some answers, which they clearly don't, but then again--no one else does either. At least they are protesting the correct problems, and they're protesting the correct people.

The Tea Party was wasting their time protesting the government. The government is owned and operated by the people being protested now. All these Occupy Wall Street guys are doing is eliminating the middle man.

The Sedentary Parade

I think I have a new favorite city.

Lexington Kentucky was named as the "least active" city in America by Men's Health Magazine, so they mockingly held a "sedentary parade". The mayor appeared on a couch.

Gotta love that.

Weezer Obit

From this morning's RAMP newsletter...

"Fans of Weezer are mourning the loss of former bassist Mikey Welsh, who passed away in a Chicago hotel room on Saturday. He was only 40. In a weird twist, Welsh seemed to have a premonition that this would happen, having tweeted a couple of weeks ago that he dreamed he died while on this trip to Chicago to see his former bandmates play at the RIOTfest. He was a part of Weezer from 1998-2001 and was featured on The Green Album, but also contributed material to a Juilana Hatfield record. Welsh retired from music after leaving Weezer and turned his attention to painting, moving to Burlington, VT."