Enjoy the weekend, all!

Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts are also available on i-Tunes, and may not be safe for work.

Fresh Air: Rachel Maddow has been everywhere this week promoting her book, but this interview is a nice in-depth conversation.

Electric Politics: Two guys working out the entire Defense Department Budget back-of-an-envelope style. Absolutely gripping -- I listened to it twice.

Blacking It Up: Where's the blood? [The go-to podcast on the Trayvon Martin murder]

Liberal Oasis: Why Can't Mitt Romney Talk Like A Real Person?

Open Thread below....

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Chris Hayes took a shot at Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for where he apparently gets his news and for his hypocrisy with basing his rulings on partisan ideology and whether he likes a particular law or not when it comes to his opinion on interstate commerce.

HAYES: We now know that many of the conservative Justices appear to be getting their information from reading right wing blogs. We know Justice Scalia even referenced the infamous “Cornhusker kickback”, a bete noire of Michelle Malkin and Red State, even though the deal cut with Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson to secure his vote for the ACA, didn't end up in the final legislation.

Most importantly we were reminded that just seven years ago, while voting to uphold a federal law that outlawed marijuana grown for private medicinal consumption, Justice Scalia thought the Constitution's interstate Commerce Clause was so broad that Congress could regulate even non-economic interstate activities, so long as failure to do so could undercut its regulation of interstate commerce.

I just assumed it was from watching Fox, but maybe Chris Hayes is correct as well.

Night Fever (2007 Remastered)

If you were Dj'ing at a disco, what song would you play?

Chicago Mercantile Exchange CEO Craig Donohue was mic checked by working families as he gave a speech to attendees at a trading industry conference in Houston. Four protesters chanted a preprepared message to Donohue and the audience for more than a minute before being escorted out of the room. In particular the protesters complained that CME was getting $1 billion in taxpayers' money while threatening jobs in Chicago.

From a press release issued by Stand Up Chicago:

“Mr. Donohue, as you stand here today, preparing to give the 1% tips on how to get even richer, you are 1,000 miles away from the struggling families of Chicago and Illinois and they are further from your thoughts, even though CME will line its pockets with over 1 billion of their tax dollars over the next ten years.”

“You were only able to get that money by making empty threats to relocate. The 99% of Chicago and Illinois can’t afford to travel here so we are here to ask you a question on their behalf and on behalf of all 99% families everywhere.

Security officers and conference representatives surrounded the protesters and asked them to leave before they could finish their address. The protesters cooperated, allowing themselves to be slowly escorted out of the room, continuing to deliver their message as they went.

One protester managed to capture the Mic Check on video. Even though the video fades to black while the group is being escorted out of the conference room, a final haunting question is audible: “‘What will working families get for their billion dollar investment?’”

When the Illinois state legislature, pressured by empty threats of relocation, voted in late 2011 to give the CME Group over $1 billion in tax breaks over the next ten years, the working families of Chicago and Illinois became unwilling stakeholders in the highly profitable exchange.

Continue reading »

Night Fever (2007 Remastered)

If you were Dj'ing at a disco, what song would you play?

March 30, 2012: Spring Training is a series of weekly Friday afternoon exercises developed by the Occupy Wall Street Direct Action Work Group to improve communication, coordination, and build team spirit in marches leading up to May Day. The weekly exercises culminate in the "People's Gong" in front of the New York Stock Exchange, an action designed to raise the voices of the 99% in contrast to the NYSE's closing bell representing the 1%.

This week, protesters were successful in entering Wall Street despite hastily set up police barricades. Protesters approached Wall Street from multiple entry points and once inside patiently waited until pacers gave the signal to assemble the action, it was very much like a flash mob.

Tim Poole can be seen in the video livestreaming from the steps of Federal Hall. Stopmotionsolo is there also sitting underneath the statue later on, and OccupyMusician is there with her trombone. The Granny Peace Brigade are dressed in yellow.

Some "fighting" chants heard:

"Ain't no power like the power of the people, 'cause the power of the people don't stop; say what?"

"A-Anti-Anticapitalista!"

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Starting with news that PTL Club televangelist Jim Bakker resigned his position with the "church" over alleged sex scandals involving an assistant. Bakker was quick to blame fellow Bible thumper Jimmy Swaggart for spreading the dirt around as part of a plot of overtake Bakker's ministry and promised to spread some dirt of his own on Swaggart. Those wacky Evangelicals.

The ensuing defecation storm involved, not only Swaggart but Jerry Falwell and figures from The Moral Majority who characterized the seedy goings-on as attributed to "sex, money and power: The Unholy Trinity". Falwell would take over the PTL Club temporarily while the Bakker's aired tons of dirty laundry in public.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone by theatrics from the PTL kids, the Inimitable Oral Roberts announced he was told by God to "raise $8 milllion" or "be called home" by March 31st. Roberts gleefully announced around the first of the week that, yep, he raised the money via a $1.3million check given by a race track owner and that he wasn't going to go anywhere. Further evidence God has a sense of humor, but what kind, remains to be seen.

And over on Capitol Hill - President Reagan ventured out from the soothing climes of K Street, his first since November, and visited a grade school in the Mid-West and later addressed a Governor's Conference where he loudly committed to "making sure Education in America was the best in the world". He also vetoed the 65 mph Highway Bill before he left town.

Over at SCOTUS - a blow was struck for Affirmative Action in upholding a lawsuit brought about by a male employee who was passed over in preference for a Female employee, which Reagan loudly voiced disapproval over. And it was ruled Baseball Team owners did not have to share revenue from Broadcast rights with Team members.

In Beirut Lebanon, a video was released showing two kidnapped American teachers being held in exchange for PLO members being held in Israeli prisons. No dice, at least for the time being.

The FDA finally approved the drug AZT for fighting the effects of the AIDS virus. Still, a cure for the disease wasn't expected to be found until "sometime by the end of the century". Still waiting.

Alexander Haig announced his intentions to run for the Presidency on the Republican ticket in 1988.

And "Music Man" icon/actor Robert Preston died. And Dean Paul Martin, son of Dean Martin, was killed in a military plane accident.

What a week.

Here I thought the police brutality in New York was reserved for just Occupy Wall Street activists. But here a group of New York City police officers were so busy kicking and beating a man with their batons that it took them a little while to realize they were being recorded.

They had the man on his back, ordering him to put his hands behind his back while continually beating him with their batons, and stomping him with their feet making it impossible to actually comply with their orders as he was trying to dodge the blows.

Once they finally noticed the videographer, one of them pulls out a pepper spray canister, shakes it and walks toward the videographer with the canister pointing towards him.

“Move back, Move Back! Move Back!"

This took place in the Bronx and the video was uploaded on January 30, 2012.

[Via Tim Pool @Timcast]

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Here we go again with the talking heads over at Fox complaining about "liberal media bias" at MSNBC and other outlets. This Saturday, it was Liz Trotta complaining about the coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting, the media daring to allow black journalists to give their opinions about the case, and for their outrage over a lack of an arrest of George Zimmerman.

Fox's Greg Jarrett opened up the segment above with a slip of his own, where he said Trayvon Martin was "allegedly" killed, before quickly correcting himself. Things went downhill from there with Trotta. Her first example of the coverage she didn't like was Lawrence O'Donnell and The New York Times' Charles M. Blow, grilling George Zimmerman's "friend" Joe Oliver. Trotta disregarded the fact that they had a right to be skeptical of him, given some of the ridiculous statements he was being allowed to get away with making in other interviews, such as the one we posted of Oliver on ABC, where he claimed Zimmerman used the word "goon" instead of "coon" and that we were supposed to believe that anyone would use a "term of endearment" just before fighting with and shooting someone.

Trotta was also terribly upset that Mr. Blow has written "glowing portraits" of Martin and his mother, even though he did not know either of them before the shooting. Her next gripe was that MSNBC's Tamron Hall and anchor Lester Holt were allowed to talk about how they've been racially profiled on NBC Nightly News. Because lord knows we can't have any "objectivity" if we allow black people to discuss the fact that this kind of thing goes on every day and that it had everything to do with why Zimmerman was suspicious of Martin in the first place. But that's not allowed at Fox.

And naturally Trotta doesn't like it that Al Sharpton is allowed to be anchoring a show at MSNBC and be an advocate for this cause as well. Because we all know Fox would never do something like that ... right? Unless of course you consider the "tea party" or Bill O'Reilly being allowed to come on the air and rail about an abortion doctor until someone killed him.

No one at Fox has a right to complain about another network's biases when they're operating as a political arm of the Republican Party on a daily basis and allowing their guests like Liz Trotta to do the same.

And one final thought on this. Liz Trotta was complaining that Zimmerman is being convicted by the media and how unfair that is. One, the media was late to this story. This didn't really garner any national attention until over a month had already gone by and there was no arrest. If Zimmerman is not arrested and charged within a certain amount of time, there's a statute of limitations where he's going to just walk free and never make it into a court of law, which is something one of the attorneys discussed on Al Sharpton's show this week. And Jarrett's remarks about black on black crime are ridiculous because if the police know who shot someone in those incidences, they're arrested and charged. That's not the case here which is what's sparking the outrage.