Wondering what Occupy events are going down for the special session in Olympia starting November 28? For a list of events, check out the Facebook page.
The enemy is in your kitchen and it is bagged salad. Ready Pac foods has recalled over 5,000 bags of salad for a possible E. coli contamination. Don’t eat Ready Pac salad with a sell-by date of Nov. 18. Unless you’re into E.coli.
Washington state Representative Doc Hastings (R) is once again pushing Congress to allow oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). I’m sure this has nothing to do with that, but his largest campaign contributors are the oil and gas industry.
“A sense of gloom enveloped the Capitol.” The Supercommittee, the one that supposed to fix our budget problems, is running out of time before the November 23 deadline. The Washington Post has a handy/scary countdown clock, and an explanation of what happens if they can’t make it work.
The Occupy movement is showing an impact on Congress: “Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, today introduced an amendment that would ban corporate money in politics and end corporate personhood once and for all.”
Egyptians have returned to Tahrir square in the largest numbers since they got pushed out Mubarak. Now they’re protesting against another leader:
Both Islamists and secular forces have been alarmed at recent efforts by the Scaf [Supreme Council of the Armed Forces] to impose a set of “supra-constitutional principles” on the process of writing a new constitution next year, a move critics say will entrench military control over civilian politics.
Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, was captured in southern Libya. The first photo of him to surface after his capture was posted on Facebook.
Lastly, if this is the kind of thing you’re into on a Saturday morning, here is a large collection of Republicans in clown makeup.
It’s make or break for Patty Murray, her re-election chances will be a next to nill as co-chair on the supercommittee if she can’t pull together a deal with the Republicans.
FYI – I moved closer to town, from 79th street to the Wallingford neighborhood. Hence, “Phoebe on NE 79th” is now “Phoebe in Wallingford.”
LOL! Well, Republicans have turned government into a three ring circus, so it should be no wonder they all make such naturally good clowns.
@1 Ha! You’re funny, too!
You call Deutch’s bill “showing an impact?” It’s never even going to make it out of committee. By that standard, I’m having an impact on Congress also.
A corporation, and that includes non-profits, is just a group of people. Why shouldn’t those people as a group have the same speech rights as those people acting alone?
Blaming money and corporations just ignores the real problem and that’s lazy uninformed voters.
@5: But if both people and corporations are people, then doesn’t the personhood of corporations give certain people double the voice? If there’s a maximum amount of money I can donate to a candidate, should I be able to form a corporation to exceed that maximum? Why is that better?
@1 – except not really.
@5 – would the amendment ban lobbyists? If not, then they still have a voice.
Anyone buying bagged salad and not realize they can get the ingredients right in the next bin by buying actual lettuce deserves to be sentenced to a few hours on the crapper just for general idiocy.
@ 5: I’m not a lazy or ignorant voter but if I cast my vote towards a candidate that has received a sizable chunk of their campaign funds from a single lobby or corporation how can I reasonably expect that they’re going to be governing in my interest and not simply paying off favors to the people who got them elected? You’re also failing to mention that a few months after anyone gets elected they can’t cast a vote on anything because campaign season starts earlier and earlier every election cycle. The entire system is broken and the quickest, simplest fix is to remove money from the equation.
Other random news…today’s birthdays:
Jodie Foster (49)
Meg Ryan (50)
Calvin Klein (69)
Ted Turner (73)
Dick Cavett (75)
Larry King (78)
Indira Gandhi (94)
Tommy Dorsey (106)
James Garfield (180)
@9 Maybe you should cast your vote for a different candidate?
Money in politics only matters so much because we let it and people allow campaign ads and the like to sway them. Before we go amending the Constitution or restricting people’s freedom to spend their money to support things they like how about we use the power we already have. Don’t like candidates that take corporate money? Then don’t vote for them.
@6 I think you should be able to use whatever resources you want supporting causes or people you support. I consider it part of free speech.
#11 – so which candidate in the upcoming presidential election do you think will be the one that doesn’t take corporate money? How about your local senate race? Governor? Anyone?
@5, 11 – Money in politics only matters so much because we let it … Succinctly argued there, giffy. Actually, corporate money in politics matters because, as it has been shown, politicians don’t listen to moderate income voters, at all. Only to the rich and to corporations. Getting corporate money out of the politocal process might, just might, begin to steer the ship towards actual democracy.
Is that concept really so hard to understand?
@12 I personally don’t have a problem with it so I couldn’t say. If you can’t find one there are ways to get involved to make sure we get one. It’s not as sexy or adventurous as shutting down bridges though.
@13 But yet they need those moderate income voters to win election. The only reason they don’t listen is that we let them get away with it. We have exactly the politicians we deserve.
Someone had a lot of time on their hands to PS those clowns.