Conservative Governor Haley Barbour Pardons 4 Killers

And this is supposed to be a top Conservative voice in the Republican Party.

In his last days in office, outgoing Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour pardoned four men convicted of murder, a state official said Monday.

David Gatlin, Joseph Ozment, Charles Hooker and Anthony McCray received full pardons and were released at 1 p.m. Sunday, said Suzanne Singletary, spokeswoman for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. All four were serving life sentences and worked as trusties at the governor's mansion, she said.

Full article

Obama and NeoConservatives Turn 'Innocent Until Proven Guilty' On Its Head

If re-elect Obama it is clear that there will continue to be an erosion in our rights. So what was the point of elected Obama if continue the Bush gang's attack on American freedoms? What makes it so bad is that the left that supported Obama in 2008 are willing to give him a pass in 2012 despite his betrayal of their trust:

...very little ink has spilled regarding the Administration’s newly codified authority to suspend certain liberties enshrined in the Bill of Rights.

Defense is one of the few legitimate federal functions. The military may be government’s most effective endeavor. Nonetheless, we do not want our streets subject to martial law; one of the “long train of abuses” precipitating our Declaration of Independence.

Under the National Defense Authorization Act, the military may incarcerate U.S. citizens indefinitely without formal charges. Should the Justice Department declare you a terrorist, or simply associate you with terrorists, your rights may be abridged. Instead of innocent until proven guilty, citizens deemed guilty will be unable to prove innocence.

Despite Obama’s veto threats and publicly prattling about “reservations,” Senator Carl Levin (D, MI) claims the administration privately pushed for the enactment of several of the most frightening provisions embedded in this legislation. Apparently the White House specifically sought that American citizens, even those detained domestically, can at government’s discretion, be indefinitely incarcerated without recourse to a speedy trial.

American citizens can now be treated in the same manner as foreign combatants captured overseas.

Full article

'Doomsday Clock' moved closer to midnight

Source:

The Doomsday Clock, a symbolic indicator made famous by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists since its inception in 1947, was moved Tuesday from six minutes to five minutes before midnight as a warning about nuclear dangers and climate change.

"Despite the promise of a new spirit of international cooperation, and reductions in tensions between the United States and Russia, the Science and Security Board believes that the path toward a world free of nuclear weapons is not at all clear, and leadership is failing," the group said in its statement explaining the move.

The group also cited Japan's nuclear reactor disaster last year as a concern. "A major question to be addressed is: How can complex systems like nuclear power stations be made less susceptible to accidents and errors in judgment?"

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons.

The clock was not moved in 2011; in 2010 it was moved back one minute.

Confidence Grows, but Remains In Recession Territory

The economy is still weak. And if there is any financial turbulence the whole thing will come crashing down again. And then there will be no helping the economy:

Today, two new indicators provide yet more evidence that Americans are feeling better about the economy. Gallup reports that Americans' economic confidence is at a seven-month high. The National Federation of Independent Business reports that small business confidence is also up for the fourth straight month. Likewise, the most recent Reuters/University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment has shown four straight months of improvement. And the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index jumped more than 9 points, to 64.5, in December.

Yet while confidence is definitely trending upward in recent months, levels appear to be mired in recession territory, long after the recession ended.

Full article

PolitiFact: Jon Huntsman says Utah was No. 1 in job creation when he was governor

PolitiFact | Jon Huntsman says Utah was No. 1 in job creation when he was governor

Jon Huntsman says Utah was No. 1 in job creation when he was governor

During the Sept. 7, 2011, Republican presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman tried to burnish his economic credentials.

Taking a swipe at Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another Republican presidential candidate, Huntsman said, "I hate to rain on the parade of the Lone Star governor, but as governor of Utah, we were the No. 1 job creator in this country during my years of service. That was 5.9 percent when you were creating jobs at 4.9 percent."

We decided to check whether Huntsman was right -- and in a tale that only a statistical economist could love, we found that the answer is a lot more complicated than you might expect.

When we asked the Huntsman campaign for data to back up the claim, they directed us to a blog post at National Review Online, the website of the well-known conservative magazine. The item, posted June 20, 2011, compared employment statistics for several governors.

Monitor: Why Romney's Win in NH will be Bigger than You Think

Monitor: Why Romney's Win in NH will be Bigger than You Think - The Huffington Post

The last 48 hours have been horrendous for Mitt Romney. A poor debate performance Sunday morning (his first one) was followed by 2 gaffe filled days on the trail. Newt Gingrich's suicide charge at Romney is full on and Huntsman appears to spit venom anytime the topic is Romney. Add to this the DNC attacks the last several months and you have a candidate facing one of the most severe multi-front political attacks in modern political history. So it may come as a surprise to hear that we think Romney is going to win big today in NH, crossing the 40% threshold and become the first non-incumbent GOP presidential candidate to ever win both Iowa and NH.

And this is why we need to build our own on-line community

And this is why we need to build our own on-line community

How long should the PEOPLE depend on Facebook, Twitter, etc... for our networking needs????

The reason I have worked so hard to get We are the Democracy up and running is because of this dynamic. Big Money is buying the internet. They are NOT our allies. Facebook is already systematically censoring activists. How much worse will it get when Goldman Sachs gets involved in the management of Facebook?

Please share this thread with everyone you know. Ask them to get involved in the WE are the Democracy project. This is the one place on the internet where you can connect with folks across the broad spectrum of the PEOPLE's Movement. Please do your best to help us grow so that when Facebook and twitter, etc... become unusable - there will still be a place "of our own" on the internet.

Who Is New White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew?

Predictably Obama has replaced one banker with another. This is another poke in the eye for the left. Did Bush have as many bankers in his administration? Still, Obama's supporters will continue to support this fraud of a President no matter how much he betrays them and gives them the finger. Because he is the 'lesser of the two evils.' This is the mistake we make every election cycle. We vote either party because there is no alternative to the two-party system:

President Obama announced Monday afternoon that White House Chief of Staff William Daley is stepping down after just 361 days in the job (back in November, he was effectively demoted, giving up many of his duties but not his title, so the move isn't totally unexpected). Replacing Daley as the president's right-hand man will be Jacob Lew, better known as Jack. Here's your cheat sheet on the new White House chief of staff.

1. He's a numbers guy. Lew is currently the director of the Office of Management and Budget, running the numbers for the administration. It's his second tour of duty in that job. He also held it from 1998 to 2001 during the Clinton administration. Prior to returning to his OMB chair, Lew worked for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as deputy secretary for management and resources, a chief operating office-like position he inaugurated.

[...]4. He's part of the 1 percent. Don't take his liberalism to mean that Lew is a wild-eyed socialist though. In fact, he's a former banker. In 2008, he served as chief operating officer of Citigroup Alternative Investments, a division of the Wall Street behemoth. That group was involved in controversial practices like proprietary trading, and was involved in shorting the housing market as the economy lurched toward collapse. Perhaps in keeping with his resume, Lew has rejected the view of many fellow liberals who argue that deregulation of the financial sector contributed to the crash, saying, "[I don't] personally know the extent to which deregulation drove it, but I don't believe that deregulation was the proximate cause." Expect to hear muffled howls of unhappiness from the left, which will be glad to see Daley go but upset at Lew's positions.

Full article

Video: Arkansas Grandmother Forced to Rob Bank?

Saudi Denies Bank Info Breach by Israeli Hackers

Source:

A top Saudi banking official on Tuesday denied an Israeli media report that hackers from Israel obtained credit card and bank account details of thousands of Saudi citizens, retaliating for an attack on Israeli accounts.

Talaat Hafez, secretary-general of the media office in the kingdom's banking authority, denied a report by the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot that Israeli hackers were threatening to release the financial information they obtained if hackers continue to publish Israeli credit details on line.

Hafez was quoted by the Saudi online newspaper Sabq.org as saying that Saudi bank customers' financial information was safe and there was "no need for customers to be concerned" because Saudi banks' information networks were very secure.

Hafez also said officials had received no reports from Saudis about their data being breached.
The dueling reports underscored the hostile relationship between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Saudi Arabia does not recognize Israel's statehood.