Safeway Execs Are Jackasses!

What would you do if you were in a grocery store, you turned into an aisle, and you saw a man beating his pregnant girlfriend? Would you run for help? How long would that take? Would it be too late by the time security arrived?

Ryan Young worked at the meat counter of a Safeway supermarket. Reports say that when Ryan saw a customer push and kick his pregnant girlfriend last month, Ryan stepped in to stop the beating. 

According to the press, Ryan's actions earned him praise from his local police chief, but not from his employer. Instead of treating Ryan like a hero, Safeway claimed Ryan should have called security and suspended him without pay while it investigates the "altercation." Pending the results of that investigation, Ryan could be fired for good.

Doug Castro is a security guard who shops at the Safeway where Ryan works, and he believes Ryan did the right thing by intervening. That's why Doug started a petition onChange.org asking Safeway to lift Ryan’s suspension and give him backpay for the income he lost during his involuntary time away from work.  Click here to sign Doug's petition. www.change.org

Ryan says one reason he felt so compelled to intervene is that he's an expectant dad himself -- his wife is 5 months pregnant. "We're expecting a child," Ryan says. "I've been suspended for just about a month now without pay for doing something I feel was right, that police said was right."

Indeed, local Police Chief Ron Langford told reporters, "In my mind, in this case Ryan did the right thing." 

The police have already turned over security footage of the incident to prosecutors so that the man who beat his girlfriend can be charged, yet Ryan has been suspended for almost a month with no income. Doug believes that if thousands of people sign his petition, Safeway will bow to public pressure and put Ryan back on the job.

Ann Romney is a jackass...

Why should women be paid equal to men, you ask - MRSsssssssss Romney?

Let's hope your (probably) philandering husband does not decide to leave you, because you'd find out why the hard way.  Oh, wait, does your daddy have money to support you?  Maybe that's what you'd rely on.  It is daddy's money - right - because in your world - women don't deserve any, including your mother.  Because your hubby (and apparently you) want to destroy all women along with their rights.  That way if your husband left you, you would have no recourse because you would have no rights!

Maybe, like Jackie Kennedy, you've been paid to stay with your husband and so you aren't worried about finances.  But in my opinion, it's a good thing you're married because beliefs like yours make you too stupid to be able to support yourself outside of your marriage.  What's your arrangement with him?  You make the money and support me and I'll give you sex on your birthday!  It would be amazing if he hasn't cheated on you, with ideas like yours that have clearly been fed to you throughout the years, you must be a really boring woman.  No wonder he's running for president, that way he doesn't have to spend time with you.  Boy, there are an awful lot of women for him to choose from out there on  the campaign trail.  And some of them are just as stupid as you

Wait!  Wait!  That's right - you cheated on him!  You already had a commitment with him but you hedged your bets by screwing another guy in case your meal ticket fell through.  That is what it has to be, you married so someone would support your lazy ass.  You are one of the last women I would want to see as First Lady.  With pre-fed thoughts like yours, and your inability to think for yourself, all of it makes you less than qualified to represent our nation.

Sure, everything on www.freewoodpost.com is probably all made up by the GOP to get everyone's goat, but you'd better watch out because it will backfire on the Tea Party, the GOP and all those fools out there that think you can keep poking the sleeping lioness without worry.  One day you'll wake up to find the stick you've been using, your arm and shoulder will be gone and that lioness will be moving closer.

Bon appetit my sister lioness.

Congress is filled with jackasses!

This picture is worth a trillion $$...your tax dollars hard at work! House Minority Leader pictured standing, far right, speaks while colleagues play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to vote on a new budget. 

The guy sitting in the row in front of these two....he's on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores. These are the folks that couldn't get the budget out by Oct. 1, and are about to control your health care, cap and trade, and the list goes on and on…. 

This is one of their 3-DAY WORK WEEKS that we all pay for (salary is about $179,000 per year).

I've written a petition on Change.Org calling for 50,000 signatures from Americans sick and tired of Congress bailing themselves and the 1% out of everything and then screwing the rest of us.  Please sign my petition if you are sick and tired of this.  Change.Org will hand deliver it to Congress to show our disapproval!

Thanks!

http://www.change.org/petitions/you-pay-congress-179000-to-play-on-computers?pe=d4e

Proof our congress is corrupt!

You cannot read the description of the personal stock trading allegedly conducted by Rep. Spencer Bachus and other members of Congress during the financial crisis and conclude anything other than the following:

Our government is completely corrupt.

Yes, this behavior may be technically legal, because of an absurd loophole that makes insider-trading rules not apply to Congress.

Yes, this behavior may be widespread on Capitol Hill.

But there is no universe in which a reasonable person would consider this behavior ethical or okay. And for the 300+ million Americans who aren't members of Congress, it would be just plain illegal

Many members of Congress seem guilty here, including John Kerry, Dick Durbin, and Jim Moran. But Spencer Bachus takes the cake.

According to a new book called Throw Them All Out by Peter Schweizer, as relayed by Dave Weigel at Slate, Rep. Bachus made more than 40 trades in his personal account in the summer and fall of 2008, in the early months of the financial crisis.

The fact that Bachus personally traded on private information he received as a result of his job is bad enough. The fact that he was the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee at the time is simply outrageous.

In one case, the day after getting a private briefing on the collapsing economy and financial system from Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson, Rep. Bachus effectively shorted the market (by buying options that would rise if the market tanked.)

A few days later, after the market tanked, Bachus sold his position and nearly doubled his money.

If a corporate executive or Wall Street trader did this--cashed in personally after getting private, non-public information from his work--Rep. Bachus and every other member of Congress would be screaming from the rooftops about how the financial system is deeply corrupt and how the executive should be charged with insider trading.

And they would be right.

Rep. Bachus should return whatever money he made by betting on the direction of the markets (or anything else) in the fall of 2008. He should apologize for his behavior and jaw-dropping lack of judgement. He should urge his fellow members of Congress to immediately enact legislation that defends the fairness of the markets by holding Congress to the same insider trading laws as everyone else. He should then resign in disgrace.

Here's the passage from Throw Them All Out, as relayed by Slate's Dave Weigel. According to Weigel, it is only one of many examples of Bachus's insider trading:

On the evening of September 18, at 7 p.m., Bachus received [a] private briefing for congressional leaders by Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke about the current state of the economy. They sat around a long table in the office of Nancy Pelosi, then the Speaker of the House. These briefings were secretive. Often, cell phones and Blackberrys had to be surrendered outside the room to avoid leaks.

What Bachus and his colleagues heard behind closed doors was stunning. As Paulson recounts, "Ben [Bernanke] emphasized how the financial crisis could spill into the real economy. As stocks dropped perhaps a further 20 percent, General Motors would go bankrupt, and unemployment would rise . . . if we did nothing." The members of Congress around the table were, in Paulson's words, "ashen-faced."

Bernanke continued, "It is a matter of days before there is a meltdown in the global financial system." Bachus was among those who spoke. According to Paulson, he suggested recapitalizing the banks by buying shares.

The meeting broke up. The next day, September 19, Congressman Bachus bought contract options on Proshares Ultra-Short QQQ, an index fund that seeks results that are 200% of the inverse of the Nasdaq 100 index. In other words, he was shorting the market. It was an inexpensive way to bet that the market would fall. He bought options for $7,846 on a day when the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at 8,604. A few days later, on September 23, after the market had indeed fallen, he sold the options for over $13,000 and nearly doubled his money.

By Henry Blodget | Daily Ticker – Tue, Nov 15, 2011 7:23 AM EST

What happened to the right of free speech?

Dear Friends, 

An Iraq War veteran who survived two tours of duty gets his skull fractured in ... Oakland!
53 activists arrested in Atlanta. SWAT teams deployed to boot out peaceful protesters. 

Recent actions against Occupy protesters are irresponsible and tragic. They're an assault on our democracy. These protesters are bravely exercising their right to freedom of expression, to bring attention to a political and economic system that's rigged against most Americans. I stand with them; and, all Americans -- left and right -- should join me in protecting their freedom to non-violently create change. 

This isn't a Democratic or Republican movement. It's not about one party or one policy. It's about standing up to a financial system that's completely backwards. Wall Street banks get billions in bailouts and emerge with massive profits. Most Americans see a program of austerity in a painful economic climate -- benefit cuts, high unemployment, declining wages, and crumbling infrastructure. Congress moved swiftly to "save" banks (something I strongly opposed), and now Congress is paralyzed, unable to create jobs and to save our middle class.

It's no surprise Americans are standing up. Our country's economic policies have consolidated and accelerated wealth to the top. One percent of Americans now control 42% of our wealth. It's not radical to think this is out of balance or to demand a government that is of the people and for the people. I've been to these protests, and I can tell you they're filled with honest, hard working Americans who are concerned with the direction of our country and our economic future. 

I am deeply concerned. I'm concerned about an economic system which tethers job creation toChina and big banks. We shouldn't have to borrow money from China -- or Japan or South Korea -- to get out of this ditch. We should stop the Fed from giving billions to the big banks. We have to take back the power to manage our own economy, to regain control over our monetary system, consistent with the U.S. Constitution. That's why, one month ago, I introduced the National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act. The legislation would put the Federal Reserve under the Department of the Treasury, and it would help us recapture control of our financial system. As part of the NEED Act, Congress would use its constitutional power to invest in America, creating millions of jobs by putting billions of dollars directly into circulation. And since this money is adding real, tangible value to our national wealth, it will not generate inflation. 

We need a financial system that is of the people and for the people. We need to take it back from the big banks. We need economic and social justice. I will continue to support the Occupy movement. I will continue to fight for legislation, including the NEED Act, that sets America on a path of jobs for all, health care for all, education for all, retirement security for all, and peace. 

Let's keep this movement alive. Let's keep fighting for economic and social justice. Keep occupying Wall Street. And, with your help, I'll keep occupying Congress. 

With respect, 

 
Dennis Kucinich 

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is a jackass!

Courtesy of Sarah Hodgdon  Sierra Club, Conservation Director 

I don't say this lightly: if House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) gets his way this fall by passing his TRAIN Act, there could be up to 657,000 more asthma attacks next year.¹ Majority Leader Cantor and his GOP allies are blinded by corporate polluter funders who have made destroying basic, life-saving protections their number one priority. 

Eric Cantor has raised $214,250 from dirty energy companies in the 2009-2010 fundraising cycle alone -- Dominion, a coal company, and Koch Industries, the oil brothers who have funded the political mess in Wisconsin, were the highest contributers.²

These dirty companies put destroying our clean air at the top of their to-do list -- not the health of our families. Send a message to your representatives letting them know that they represent us, not corporate polluters.

According to a Cantor memo that has recently been revealed, he and his colleagues will target 12 clean air common sense safeguards through the TRAIN Act and other methods.³  

Based on that memo, this what Cantor's plan to assault our air and water might look like in the first month of Congress's fall session :

Step 1: Gut health standards for smog, soot, and toxic air pollution from power plants.

Price Tag: 25,300 lives lost a year. 

Step 2:  Dismantle health standards for mercury and other toxic air pollution from incinerators and industrial boilers

Price Tag: 22,750 more premature deaths a year.

Step 3: Disable health standards for smog, soot, mercury, and toxic air pollution from cement plants

Price Tag: 2,500 premature deaths and 100,000 missed work days.

Cantor is going to be busy -- but we'll be there every step of the way to challenge him!  Let's get started right by sending a clear message to our representatives: When it comes to the health of our families, there can be no compromise!

Our lungs depend on it.

Sarah Hodgdon

Sierra Club, Conservation Director 

[1]"Public Health Protections Save Lives, Create Jobs," http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/09/blocking_safeguards.html Center for American Progress, September 2011.

[2]"Dirty Energy Money," Oil Change International.  http://dirtyenergymoney.com/overview.php?type=politician 

[3] "GOP's Dirty Air Hit List," NRDC, September 2011. http://www.grist.org/clean-air/2011-09-01-gops-dirty-air-hit-list-sacrifices-americans-health

Nobel Laureates ask President Obama to Stop the Pipeline!

Dear President Obama,

We—a group of Nobel Peace Laureates— are writing today to ask you to do the right thing for our environment and reject the proposal to build the Keystone XL, a 1700-mile pipeline that would stretch from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast.

It is your decision to make.

The night you were nominated for president, you told the world that under your leadership—and working together—the rise of the oceans will begin to slow and the planet will begin to heal. You spoke of creating a clean energy economy. This is a critical moment to make good on that pledge, and make a lasting contribution to the health and well being of everyone of this planet.

In asking you to make this decision, we recognize the more than 1200 Americans who risked arrest to protest in front of the White House between August 20th and September 3rd. These brave individuals have spoken movingly about experiencing the power of nonviolence in facing authority. They represent millions of people whose lives and livelihoods will be affected by construction and operation of the pipeline in Alberta, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

All along its prospective route, the pipeline endangers farms, wildlife and precious water aquifers—including the Ogallala Aquifer, the US’ main source of freshwater for America’s heartland. We are aware that Nebraska’s Governor Dave Heineman—as well as two Nebraska Senators—has urged you to reconsider the pathway of the pipeline. In his letter

to you he clearly stated his concern about the threat to this crucial water source for Nebraska’s farmers and ranchers. The aquifer supplies drinking water to two million people in Nebraska and seven other states.

We know that another pipeline that covers some of the same route as the proposed pipeline, and built by the same company proposing to build Keystone XL, already leaked 14 times over its first year of operation.

Like you, we understand that strip-mining and drilling tar sands from under Alberta’s Boreal forests and then transporting thousands of barrels of oil a day from Canada through to Texas will not only hurt people in the US—but will also endanger the entire planet. After the oil fields of Saudi Arabia, the full development of the Alberta tar sands will create the world’s second largest potential source of global warming gases. As NASA climatologist James Hansen has said, this is “essentially game over for the climate.”

There is a better way.

Your rejection of the pipeline provides a tremendous opportunity to begin transition away from our dependence on oil, coal and gas and instead increase investments in renewable energies and energy efficiency.

We urge you to say ‘no’ to the plan proposed by the Canadian-based company TransCanada to build the Keystone XL, and to turn your attention back to supporting renewable sources of energy and clean transportation solutions. This will be your legacy to Americans and the global community: energy that sustains the lives and livelihoods of future generations.

Sincerely,

Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976) – Ireland 

Betty Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate (1976) – Ireland

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Nobel Peace Laureate (1980) – Argentina 

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate (1984) – South Africa

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Laureate (1989)  – Tibet 

Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Nobel Peace Laureate (1992)  – Guatemala 

President José Ramos-Horta, Nobel Peace Laureate (1996) – East Timor 

Jody Williams, Nobel Peace Laureate (1997) – USA 

Shirin Ebadi, Nobel Peace Laureate (2003) – Iran

ADD YOUR VOICE TO THEIRS: 

Tell President Obama to Stop the Pipeline! 

Go to www.StopTar.org