Metta World Peace Suspended 7 Games For Elbowing James Harden

The NBA dropped the ball on this one. Instead of doing the right and suspending him permanently they caved to the players' union and the pocket book. This scum should not have the privilege of playing in an NBA uniform. That elbow was a criminal act. How many more incidents do we have Artest before he really hurts someone, not that a concussion is anything to sneeze at. At the very least the league should force "Peace" to take anger management courses:

The NBA responded to Metta World Peace's latest act of aggression with a seven-game suspension that will lighten the Los Angeles Lakers troublemaker's wallet and playoff schedule.

World Peace was suspended Tuesday for throwing a vicious elbow at Oklahoma City's James Harden, keeping the Lakers' starting small forward sidelined for most of the first postseason round.

World Peace was ejected from Sunday's game against the Thunder for striking Harden in the head with the back of his elbow, giving Oklahoma City's top reserve a concussion. The former Ron Artest claimed the blow was an accidental, overzealous celebration of a dunk, yet even Kobe Bryant and his Lakers teammates weren't defending his inexplicable actions.

"It's hard to get into a guy's head and know exactly what happened in that situation," Bryant said. "I haven't really spoken to him about it. You've really got to ask him."

Former TSA chief: Airport security in America is 'broken'

It's broken just like the two-party system:

As head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) from 2005 to 2009, Kip Hawley was the public face of an agency despised by millions of Americans. Today, he says that hatred is understandable because the agency’s approach to airport security is “broken,” arguing that it should forgo standardized procedures and a focus on prohibited items in favor of increased flexibility and mitigating risk.

Hawley elaborates on the concept in a new book, out today, called “Permanent Emergency: Inside the TSA and the Fight for the Future of American Security” (Palgrave Macmillan, $27), co-written with Nathan Means. In it, he reveals the thinking behind the agency’s actions, the problems they’ve caused — in terms of cost, wasted effort and an angry public — and the possibility that someday we may be able to travel with our liquids, lacrosse sticks and large jars of peanut butter.

Shaky economic prospects threaten both parties

This is why both Presidential campaigns spend most of their time attacking each other. They have no answers to the economic quagmire we find ourselves in:

In the short term, the recovery looks shaky. In the long term, the economy looks shaky — so shaky that it may be many years before a president of either party or any ideology can count on winning a second term.

Polls show that President Obama’s lead over Mitt Romney is narrowing, but should Obama lose in November the decisive factor won’t be Romney (who is as inept a presidential candidate as this country has produced in decades). The real culprit will be the economy.

Mad cow case confirmed in California

Mad cow case confirmed in California

Occupy Evicted From Its 'Headquarters'

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A group of Occupy Wall Street protesters were evicted Monday from a Lower Manhattan space that had served as an informal headquarters and a crash pad for the movement's stalwart supporters.

A late-day request to stay the eviction was denied by a judge, leaving the group without a central location to plan several coming events, including what they hoped would be a galvanizing May Day march that is being coordinated with labor unions.

Protesters moved into the space in late October, a few weeks before New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered police to clear out the group's Zuccotti Park encampment. The loft space at 40 Exchange Place is located a few blocks away from the park that served as the heart of the anti-corporate movement until the Nov. 15 raid.

Ghost of Occupy Wall Street to haunt GE meeting

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An offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which rose to prominence last year with its anticorporate stance, plans to bring its populist message to General Electric Co's shareholder meeting in Detroit on Wednesday.

Members of the "99 Percent" movement plan to picket the largest U.S. conglomerate's meeting to protest its low tax rate. The loosely organized coalition, whose name is a contrast to the top 1 percent of wealthy Americans, expects to have more than 2,000 protesters in attendance, according to organizers.

"It's the 99 percent and we want to serve notice to the 1 percent that it's time to start paying your fair share in taxes and being a little more responsible," said Christian Gary, an organizer with Good Jobs Now in Detroit.

Home prices remain near post-crisis low; new-home sales fall 7%

Because home owners don't count. Unless they happen to work on Wall St.

Home prices remain near post-crisis low; new-home sales fall 7%

1 in 2 new Graduates are Jobless or Underemployed

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The college class of 2012 is in for a rude welcome to the world of work.

A weak labor market already has left half of young college graduates either jobless or underemployed in positions that don't fully use their skills and knowledge.

Young adults with bachelor's degrees are increasingly scraping by in lower-wage jobs — waiter or waitress, bartender, retail clerk or receptionist, for example — and that's confounding their hopes a degree would pay off despite higher tuition and mounting student loans.

Metta World Peace deserves lengthy suspension

Source:

Within a five-second span, Metta World Peace threw everything away.

His vicious elbow didn't just damage Oklahoma City forward James Harden. It damaged World Peace's reputation. His ensuing ejection didn't just hang the Lakers out to dry as they somehow managed to escape with a 114-106 double-overtime victory Sunday over the Oklahoma City Thunder. It left them wondering if they can win without him, since World Peace probably will draw a lengthy suspension. And his apology afterward that it was an "unintentional elbow" isn't just laughable because the Lakers' public relations staff refused to allow him to take follow-up questions. It's head-scratching because the replays show World Peace's blow was hardly an accident.

There's no reason World Peace would cock his arm and then rear back with such force unless he was planning to hit somebody. And because of the severity of that incident, World Peace deserves a suspension that lasts as long as Harden remains sidelined as he tries to recover from a concussion.

"Pro-Romney super PAC declines to give details behind $400,000 donation"

Source:

The super PAC promoting Mitt Romney’s presidential candidacy would not reveal precisely Monday who wrote a $400,000 check to the group in March. Restore Our Future said, however, who did not write the check: Scott DeSano, the man whose business address is listed on a report to the Federal Election Commission.

Restore Our Future on Friday reported to the FEC $8.7 million in March contributions, including a $400,000 gift from “Seaspray Partners LLC” at a Palm Beach, Fla. address. The company at that address belongs to DeSano, a former stock trader at Fidelity Investments.

DeSano told USA Today that he and his company have not contributed any money to Restore Our Future, and a spokeswoman for the super PAC told the Globe that a clerical error was responsible for the incorrect attribution.

US economy faces likely slowdown, big year-end decisions

US economy faces likely slowdown, big year-end decisions

NJ Father Records Teachers Bullying His Autistic Child

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A New Jersey father says he was so desperate to save his autistic son from he calls the bullying of teachers that he sent him to school with a hidden tape recorder.

You'll never believe the shocking things the teachers were caught saying.

FOX 29's Sara Madonna has the recordings from a disappointed, outraged father.

Stuart Chaifetz says his 10-year-old who has autism has always been a very gentle, loving boy. So when he started getting reports from school that his son was hitting teachers, he knew something was wrong after putting a recorder in his pocket for a day.

Anti-union Right’s alternate reality on NLRB election rule

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A vigorous opponent of unions, the Workplace Fairness Institute, according to the New York Times, was founded by “several long-term Republican operatives” and is funded by undisclosed corporate donors. However, Mr. Wszolek’s arguments should be considered on their merits, so let’s take a closer look at his so-called “facts."

Fact No 1: Is “regulatory uncertainty” destroying jobs? On this point, Wszolek might read the Economic Policy Institute’s study, “Regulatory Uncertainty: A Phony Explanation for our jobs problem.” EPI director Larry Mishel concludes, “An examination of current economic trends, and especially what employers are doing in terms of hiring and investment, debunks this story about regulatory uncertainty as the cause of our dismal
job growth.” With regard to the NLRB rules, GOP lawsuits and legislation are responsible for creating the current uncertainty.

Va. couple accidentally shot at gun safety class

Guns are dangerous even for trained people:

A Roanoke, Va., man and his wife were recovering after he accidentally shot himself and her during a firearms safety class.

RNC Spokeswoman: Republican Economic Platform Will Be The Bush Program, ‘Just Updated’

RNC Spokeswoman: Republican Economic Platform Will Be The Bush Program, ‘Just Updated’

Old, Rich White Men Are Buying This Election

Source: Frank Rich, New York Magazine:

This isn’t quite what was supposed to happen. When the Supreme Court handed down its five-to-four Citizens United decision in 2010, pre-vetting Mitt Romney’s credo that “corporations are people,” apocalyptic Democrats, including Obama, predicted that the election would become a wholly owned subsidiary of the likes of Chevron and General Electric. But publicly traded, risk-averse corporations still care more about profits than partisanship. They tend to cover their bets by giving to both parties. And they are fearful of alienating customers and investors. Witness, most recently, the advertisers who fled Rush Limbaugh, or the far bigger brands (­McDonald’s and Wendy’s, Coke and Pepsi) that severed ties with the conservative lobbying mill responsible for pushing state “stand your ground” laws like the one used to justify the shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida. While corporations and unions remain serious players in the campaign of 2012, their dollars don’t match those of the sugar daddies, who can and do give as much as they want to the newfangled super-PACs.

Sugar daddies—whom I’ll define here as private donors or their privately held companies writing checks totaling $1 million or more (sometimes much more) in this election cycle—are largely a Republican phenomenon, most of them one degree of separation from Karl Rove and his unofficial partners in erecting a moneyed shadow GOP, David and Charles Koch. At last look, there were 25 known sugar daddies on the right (or more, if you want to count separately the spouses and children who pitch in). You’ve likely heard of Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas tycoon who is Benjamin Netanyahu’s unofficial ambassador to the GOP. But you may be less familiar with Irving Moskowitz, the bingo entrepreneur who funnels his profits into East Jerusalem settlements. Or Robert Mercer, the hedge-fund master of “flash trading” who poured a clandestine $1 million into ads attacking the “ground-zero mosque” and nearly another $3 million into a scale-model railroad in his Long Island mansion. Or Steven Lund, the co-founder of Nu Skin, which became “direct selling” sponsor of the Romney-run 2002 Winter Olympics after having spent much of the nineties settling complaints over false advertising and other unscrupulous practices with the Federal Trade Commission and six different states’ attorneys general.

Research Shows the US is a Low Wage Country

This should be a wake-up call to the supporters of this President. If Obama were a Republican this stat would be used against him. But it seems that the left has been drinking the cool aid and refuse to see reality for what it is. President Obama serves the interest of big business. He's proven that over and over again. Don't be fooled any longer.


Source: CBS

Study: ID thieves robbing the grave

Link

Nearly 2.5 million dead people are victims of identity theft every year, according to a study being made public Monday.

U.S. Economy Demands New Policy to Rescue Jobs and Growth

Sources: Forbes.com

Obviously China has been a place of radical institutional change to effectively transform its economy in a mere 30 years, from a poverty-stricken political backwater to a global economic powerhouse. Certainly China has been a country that used the blunt edges of government – heavy investment, government protections and cheap labor – to attract companies from overseas and to grow its own sectors, yet it has worked, quite effectively.

In the United States, it has been anathema to call for a deeper interplay between government and corporate America. While China sets an industrial goal and provides the appropriate policies and assistance to reach it, the U.S. government invests little energy in industrial policy and frequently must be cajoled into investing in new science and technology research.

Almost all major sectors in the United States that have become powerful industries have had some level of support from the government. This is not unfair treatment to be challenged in the World Trade Organization. It is smart capitalism to be emulated. The reality is that building industries – particularly fledgling industries with uncertain markets – requires early investment, an investment risk that the government alone is capable of bearing.

As a nation, the United States needs to think deeply about how best to develop new industries to rebuild its economy. Information technology, biotechnology and renewable energy are critical areas of opportunity. While China is struggling to catch up with the West on information technology and biotechnology, it has made great leaps in the area of renewable energy. China is rapidly moving ahead of the United States and Europe on the development of renewable energy products, despite the fact the technologies are often created here in the United States. Why? The Chinese government aggressively supports renewable energy compared to the U.S. government. China invested some tens of billions in renewable energy.

China’s investment in new industries explains many of the recent defections of U.S. companies to China. Unlike the United States, China perceives the benefit, and, more importantly, the necessity of public-private partnerships to grow and sustain industries today.

ALEC Hit With IRS Compliant Filed By Common Cause

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Open government advocates accused a conservative legislative group Monday of falsely claiming tax-exempt status while doing widespread lobbying.

Advocacy group Common Cause said Monday it had filed an IRS complaint accusing ALEC of masquerading as a public charity. ALEC is formed as a nonprofit that brings together lawmakers and private sector organizations to develop legislation and policy.

ALEC says its work is not lobbying.

Common Cause disagrees. "It tells the IRS in its tax returns that it does no lobbying, yet it exists to pass profit-driven legislation in statehouses all over the country that benefits its corporate members," said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause, in a statement. "ALEC is not entitled to abuse its charitable tax status to lobby for private corporate interests, and stick the bill to the American taxpayer."