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The New York Times Chronicles The Life And Times Of Rich White People

Oh no! A white person was denied access to their local organic food co-op!!!! Praise be Allah, the New York Times was there to document the bourgeois tragedies that the ‘mainstream media’ refuse to acknowledge:

“You’re suspended,” the entrance worker at the Park Slope Food Coop announced as I swiped my membership card. Some entrance workers speak softly, but not this one. Worse, there were a dozen other shoppers within earshot.

Flushed, defeated and taken aback — I knew I owed the co-op some work, but I didn’t know I had been blacklisted — I slunk around the corner for a takeout burrito…

The Flatbush Food Coop in Brooklyn, where guests are allowed to shop without joining and members who don’t want to serve work hours can pay a slight markup for items — Park Slope has one of the stiffest work requirements: 2.75 hours every four weeks for each adult member of a household.

It also has some of the best bargains. The organic spinach that costs $2.97 at the co-op fetches $3.99 at the Whole Foods in Union Square; 17 ounces of Bionaturae Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil costs co-op members $7.80 and Whole Foods shoppers $13.99.

Can you imagine that? Being denied at your fucking local organic totally locally organic Park Slope organic co-op? Imagine the shame and ridicule — that guy must feel like the Pol Pot of the Brooklyn nouveau-aristocracy! Plus, cheerleading 8 years of neoconservatism just gets so tiresome.. you know, with all the manufacturing of evidence and statistics and so forth.

Anyway, long story short, everytime a quotidian tragedy of being rich and White in America is reported by the New York Times, an Iraqi child loses a limb.

See Also: This is One Reason Red America Hates “Coastal Elites,” and They’re Right, NYT: Food Co-op Exile’s Story Demands 2,000 Words, “flunking out” at the co-op, The New York Times’ on The Ultimate Brooklyn Cliches, and This Weekend in ‘New York Times’ Food News.

[tags]i hate the new york times, the new york times provides us with the names of people who need to be guillotined, bourgeois, iraq war, hey who cares about the world white people have problems, ny times, coops, brooklyn, aristocracy, the new york times is for uncritical bourgeois toolbags, rich people news[/tags]

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Leave The Helpless Health Care Industry ALONE!!!

Stats to make you blue:

Percentage change since 2002 in average premiums paid to large US health-insurance companies: +87%

Percentage change in the profits of the top ten insurance companies: +428%

Chances that an American bankrupted by medical bills has health insurance: 7 in 10

[via Common Dreams]

There are six lobbyists [from the health care industry] for each of the 535 members of the House and Senate, according to Senate records, and three times the number of people registered to lobby on defense. More than 1,500 organizations have health-care lobbyists, and about three more are signing up each day. Every one of the 10 biggest lobbying firms by revenue is involved in an effort that could affect 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

These groups spent $263.4 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group, more than any other industry. They spent $241.4 million during the same period of 2008. Drugmakers alone spent $134.5 million, 64 percent more than the next biggest spenders, oil and gas companies.

[via Pensito Review]

One thing is for certain with these kinds of numbers — health care reform is going to RULE!

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Barack Obama Turns His Back On Change And Embraces Bush

Remember Barack Obama during the campaign — full of hope, change, and promises to make a clean break from the disastrous policies of George Bush? 6 months into his Presidency, not only has he failed to live up to the most basic of his promises, but he has embraced many of Bush’s most asinine and destructive positions.

Days before his inauguration, Obama made it clear he would close Guantanamo Bay, begin the process of moving current detainees through US or international legal systems, and stop torture from being committed by Americans. In fact, he blankly stated [via MSNBC]:

“I was clear throughout this campaign and was clear throughout this transition that under my administration the United States does not torture,” Obama said… “We will abide by the Geneva Conventions. We will uphold our highest ideals.”

And now? [via Wall Street Journal]

The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission…

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration argues that the legal basis for indefinite detention of aliens it considers dangerous is separate from war-crimes prosecutions. Officials say that the laws of war allow indefinite detention to prevent aliens from committing warlike acts in future, while prosecution by military commission aims to punish them for war crimes committed in the past.

Yes, you read that right folks! Barack Obama’s administration is using the same legal justification as George Bush’s to detain ‘suspected war criminals’, even if they are found innocent by a military tribunal or American court.

Oh, and remember how he was opposed to Bush’s consolidation of powers in the executive branch and the NSA wiretapping program:

This is in late 2007, but Obama’s message is clear: Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program is illegal, against the principle and spirit of the Constitution, and completely unjustifiable, even with ‘terrorist threats’.

Welp, 6 months into his administration, guess what! Obama now wants to protect the warrantless wiretap program [via the Electronic Frontier Foundation]:

The Obama administration formally adopted the Bush administration’s position that the courts cannot judge the legality of the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) warrantless wiretapping program, filing a motion to dismiss Jewel v. NSA late Friday.

The Obama Justice Department claims in its motion that litigation over the wiretapping program would require the government to disclose privileged “state secrets.” These are essentially the same arguments made by the Bush administration three years ago in Hepting v. AT&T, EFF’s lawsuit against one of the telecom giants complicit in the NSA spying.

Oh, and not to mention that he is now encouraging failed banks and companies receiving government bailouts to hand out large bonuses to their executives, staffed his entire Treasury Department with Goldman Sachs alumni, has refused to prosecute Americans who committed torture, and held private meetings with coal executives and continued to push for mythical ‘clean coal’.

See Also: Judge Suppresses Coerced Confessions and Refuses to Delay Hearing in Gitmo Case, Obama Fails as America’s CEO, Obama Task Force To Delay Report On Detainee Policy, Now even the report on Guantanamo is delayed, Civilian court: first stop for terrorism cases?, and Obama Stalls On Guantanamo Accountability.

[tags]barack obama, torture, geneva convention, detainees, indefinite detention, warrantless wiretaps, warrantless wiretapping, campaign promises, Guantanamo Bay[/tags]

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Daft And Dimwitted Gets You Tenured At The Atlantic

So Megan McArdle, who has been on the wrong side of every financial issue since she started with the Atlantic, whose economic abilities are on par with a second-year economics major who can spout off rehearsed appraisals of current affairs through the dim lens of free market axioms, and whose writing style consists of the kind of mealy-mouthed observations you’d usually find buried in the Metro section of the Washington Post…. has this to say about Matt Taibbi’s article on Goldman Sachs:

What I think, sadly, is that Matt Taibbi is becoming the Sarah Palin of journalism. He seems to deliberately eschew understanding his subjects, because only corrupt, pointy-headed financial journalists who have been co-opted by the system do that. And Matt Taibbi is here to save you from those pointy headed elites….

The more dangerous thing is that Taibbi makes a lot of people feel like they finally understand how they were conned. Taibbi’s facile use of technical terms, his lengthy explanation of little-known secrets that have been endlessly rehashed on every financial page for going on a decade, gives people the illusion that they have acquired valuable information about the financial crisis. They haven’t. They’ve acquired a bunch of disconnected vignettes.

Yes, Megan McArdle, who has spent her lifetime on earth regurgitating the talking points from Business Week on how to solve economic problems, is calling out Taibbi for misuse of technical terms (who ever said he was an economist?) and committing the egregious error of making people angry about things they should be angry about.

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AIPAC Rules Everything Around Me

Nothing like a fake-suicide to cover up your espionage:

Two people asked a Pentagon official cooperating with prosecutors in an investigation into the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to fake his own death to avoid testifying against two pro-Israel lobbyists charged in the case, according to the Justice Department.

Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin pled guilty in October 2005 to participating in a conspiracy with AIPAC officials Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman to obtain and distribute classified information. The Justice Department dropped the case against Rosen and Weissman last month as a trial approached.

Remember kids: it’s treason and espionage, unless you do it for Israel.

See Also: Islamo-fascism, Judaeo-fascism, Bapto-fascism, and Why We Need More Bars, They Asked Him To Fake Suicide, AIPAC Case Witness Asked To Fake Suicide, Wag The Dog–Israel Threatens “Punishment” Against the US, and Why aren’t Jews outraged by Israeli occupation?

[tags]Lawrence Franklin, Steven Rosen, Keith Weissman, DOD, department of defense, espionage, aipac, jewish lobby, israeli lobby, traitor[/tags]

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