Crap-O-de-Day!!!

A protest in front of the Oswego Border Patrol Office was held in October, 2008 as a response to an immigration raid two weeks earlier. Under employer sanctions the effects of immigration raids on communities continue. (Photo: Richard Vallejo) -->

The Rise and Fall of Employer Sanctions

Friday 31 December 2010

by: David Bacon and Bill Ong Hing | Fordham Urban Law Journal | Report

Workplace raids by gun-wielding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents that resulted in the mass arrests of dozens and sometimes hundreds of employees have ceased under the Obama administration. But "silent raids," or audits of companies' records by federal agents, that replaced them have resulted in the firing of thousands of undocumented workers. The administration defends these "softer, gentler" operations, yet the result is the same: workers who are here to support their families are out of work.

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the eve of christmas eve

the-crap-o-merry-christmas-craps-ONE!

President Barack Obama on a phone call in the Oval Office on December 21, 2010. (Photo: Pete Souza / whitehouse.gov) -->

Jim Hightower | Obama to the Corporate Powers: I Feel Your Pain

Jim Hightower, Truthout: "Guess who's whining the loudest these days, wailing that they're getting a raw deal from Barack Obama. Not the unemployed and barely employed - even though the White House has blithely ignored their critical need for a national jobs program. Not the poor, even though their ranks are swelling as millions of Americans fall out of the middle class."

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misty grey sunday

Crap-A-Pop!!!

A group of Afghans outside a market in Bamiyan province, Afghanistan, on June 8, 2008. Public opinion polls show that support for the U.S. military is only slightly higher than support for Osama bin Laden. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

Two young Afghan boys watch a group of armored vehicles. (Photo: MCpl Kevin Paul / lafrancevi)

Afghans Overwhelmingly Want US Troops Out - and Soon
Jean MacKenzie, GlobalPost: "More than half of all Afghans - 55 percent - want U.S. forces out of their country, and the sooner the better. Add it all up, and it is pretty bad news for the U.S. military as it examines its options ahead of next week’s Afghanistan strategy review.... The poll ... shows a nation yearning for an end to hostilities."
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<-- Shibuya, Tokyo. (Photo: - reuben -)

Reconsidering Japan and Reconsidering Paul Krugman
Sunday 12 December 2010
by: Steven Hill, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis

Steven Hill, Truthout: "The New York Times is doing a series on Japan, which the Times describes as an examination of 'the effects on Japanese society of two decades of economic stagnation and declining prices.' Reading the series is about as cheery a task as rubbernecking at a car wreck on I-95, but, unfortunately, the Times series simply repeats the 'conventional wisdom' about Japan put out by the same economic experts who missed an $8 trillion housing bubble in the United States, and, in fact, have been wrong on most of the big economic issues over the past two decades."
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rainy sun-day

Crap-O-Day !!

(Photo: Nataraj Metz)

9.8 Percent: The Number That the Deficit Commission Left Out

Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future: "Congress clearly doesn't see what the rest of us see. If they did, how could they possibly do the things they are doing? There is an absolute emergency going on in the country and Congress refuses to even see it. With 9.8 percent of us jobless - that is the official rate, not counting the people who have given up or are 'under' employed or took pay cuts or whatever - Congress is debating tax cuts for the rich and cutting back on programs for the rest of us."

(Read the Article)

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deafening sunday

Crap-A-Economy !!

Let's Build the New Economy
Sunday 21 November 2010
by: Joe Brewer, Cognitive Policy Works | Report

I say let the U.S. economy collapse. It’s not serving us anyway. Now before you go off and think I’m just a heretic who hates this country, please hear me out.

We need to build a new economy, one that promotes widespread prosperity while protecting us against ecological disaster. The problem is that the current economy has been structured explicitly to extract wealth from the global commons and accumulate it in the coffers of an extremely powerful elite. And it is standing in our way.

The current economy is designed to: (Read the Article)

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Beuteful Saturaday

Businesses Do Not Create Jobs
(Businesses Want To Kill Jobs, Not Create Them)

Dave Johnson, Campaign for America's Future: "Many people wrongly think that businesses create jobs. They see that a job is usually at a business, so they think that therefore the business 'created' the job. This thinking leads to wrongheaded ideas like the current one that giving tax cuts to businesses will create jobs, because the businesses will have more money. But an efficiently-run business will already have the right number of employees."

Businesses do not create jobs. In fact, the way our economy is structured the incentive is for businesses to get rid of as many jobs as they can.

Demand Creates Jobs

A job is created when demand for goods or services is greater than the existing ability to provide them. When there is a demand, people will see the need and fill it. Either someone will start filling the demand alone, or form a new business to fill it or an existing provider of the good or service will add employees as needed. (Actually a job can be created by a business, a government, a non-profit organization or just a person doing the job, depending on the nature of the good or service that is required.)

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nausiac friday

Valerie Plame Wilson. (Photo: Red Maxwell / Flickr)

After Valerie Plame: Obama Makes "Fair Game" of Today's Whistleblowers

Art Levine, Truthout: "This week, the taut but surprisingly emotional thriller, 'Fair Game,' hits selected theaters. It's about the Bush administration's retaliation against CIA operative Valerie Plame and former Ambassador Joseph Wilson because he exposed the administration's lies about Iraq buying uranium 'yellow cake' from Niger. But although Wilson and his wife recently returned in triumph to the AFI Theater in Silver Spring for its Washington-area premiere, the event served as a reminder that the damage inflicted on Wilson and Plame continues - both in the form of continuing right-wing smears about them and, some critics say, an Obama presidency that is even worse than the Bush administration in punishing whistleblowers."
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