Fuck its silent in here.......

[Gilgamesh]

Finally, an Occupy Wall Street scheme that even Gil can get behind...

http://www.suitsforwallstreet.org/

I AIN'T GIVING MY BROOKS BROTHERS SUITS TO THOSE DIRTY HIPPIES!!!!

[Wheezer]

Michael Sneed is really phoning it in.

asdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfdasddfasddf

[MikeC]

Remember our health care debate on Desipio and how some of you swore up and down that it would actually reduce the deficit and was gonna be super awesome?

Republicans on Capitol Hill are having an I-told-you-so moment after the Obama administration admitted late Friday that the CLASS Act, a major component of Obamacare, is unworkable.

CLASS, which stood for Community Living Assistance Services and Supports, was a pet project of the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy.  It was supposed to help Americans pay the cost of long-term care.  During the health care debate in 2009 and 2010, Democrats claimed that the program would not only pay for itself but would actually reduce the federal budget deficit.  At the time Obamacare passed, Democrats claimed the law overall would cut the deficit by $140 billion over the next ten years; about $70 billion of that was supposed to come from the CLASS Act.

But even then, lawmakers of both parties knew that CLASS was unworkable.  Democrats structured the program to collect premiums for years before beginning to pay out benefits -- thus, it appeared to reduce the deficit when it would in fact greatly increase the deficit once it began making payments.  As a voluntary program, it would become acutely unworkable if, as expected, only those in need of long term care signed up for it.  Everyone knew that; during the Obamacare debate, Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad called CLASS "a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of."  Yet Conrad and all his fellow Democrats voted for Obamacare, including CLASS.

Finally, on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted it won't work.  "Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time," Sebelius wrote in a letter to Congress.

So what now?  The Obama administration, which had set up CLASS offices inside the Department of Health and Human Services and devoted great resources to its implementation, would apparently like to just shut it down and pretend CLASS never existed.  But it is in the Obamacare law.  And in light of the administration's admission Friday, Republicans will soon move to repeal CLASS altogether.  "Though it won't be implemented, it would be good to get it off the books," says one well-connected Senate source.  In a statement released late Friday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said, "The Obama administration today acknowledged what they refused to admit when they passed their partisan health bill: the CLASS Act was a budget gimmick that might enhance the numbers on a Washington bureaucrat's spreadsheet but was destined to fail in the real world."

Health care reform is almost officially dead on arrival. Not because of GOP opposition but from Democratic law makers who apparently can't do simple math when creating their bills.

Just group that with the GunWalker scandal/Eric Holder stonewalling and the ever evolving Solyndra scandal. I especially like how he took care of his campaign contributors 1st and told the american tax payer to go fuck himself. Smooth Obama. Now they are stonewalling in releasing documents on it.

Though i will give props for Obama sending troops to Uganda and will be operating in Sudan and Congo as well. Bout time to try and attempt to stop some of the crazy people killing innocents over there. Sudan we should have intervened long ago. But i do not like the pre-determined time schedule of them only being there a couple months. The enemy will wait it out, and the local population will not assist for fear of being targeted after we are gone. Our troops are gonna go for a little bit of time, probably accomplish very little and come on home and for what? A PR stunt? A mini Somali without the Black Hawk Down hopefully. Lets just hope they do some major killing before they are recalled.

[ChuckD]

LESS OF THIS GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION. MORE OF THIS GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION.

TL; DR'D

[R-V]

The conspiracy grows ever deeper...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/a-skeptical-physicist-ends-up-confirming-climate-data/2011/10/20/gIQA6viC1L_blog.html

[J. Walter Weatherman]

http://www.wisconsingazette.com/breaking-news/santorum-says-hed-die-to-prevent-marriage-equality.html

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said he'd die to prevent same-sex couples from getting married.

"I'll die on that hill," GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said when asked about his pledge to fight for a federal ban on same-sex marriage.

OK... So, uh, where might this hill be located?

He said that he felt equally strongly about repealing all federal funding for contraception, calling it "a license to do things in a sexual realm."

We need a sex license now? Big government really has gone too far this time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7WfIZh690#t=17m54s

Rest assured that President Santorum will not relent until each and every one of us has experienced the perfect, special, undiminished sexual union that is our God-given birthright.

As he says, "these are important policy issues."

[CT III]

http://www.wisconsingazette.com/breaking-news/santorum-says-hed-die-to-prevent-marriage-equality.html

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said he'd die to prevent same-sex couples from getting married.

"I'll die on that hill," GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said when asked about his pledge to fight for a federal ban on same-sex marriage.

OK... So, uh, where might this hill be located?

He said that he felt equally strongly about repealing all federal funding for contraception, calling it "a license to do things in a sexual realm."

We need a sex license now? Big government really has gone too far this time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7WfIZh690#t=17m54s

Rest assured that President Santorum will not relent until each and every one of us has experienced the perfect, special, undiminished sexual union that is our God-given birthright.

As he says, "these are important policy issues."

To summarize, Rick Santorum is still a complete asshole and still pretending he could be elected President.

[thehawk]

http://www.wisconsingazette.com/breaking-news/santorum-says-hed-die-to-prevent-marriage-equality.html

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said he'd die to prevent same-sex couples from getting married.

"I'll die on that hill," GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said when asked about his pledge to fight for a federal ban on same-sex marriage.

OK... So, uh, where might this hill be located?

He said that he felt equally strongly about repealing all federal funding for contraception, calling it "a license to do things in a sexual realm."

We need a sex license now? Big government really has gone too far this time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7WfIZh690#t=17m54s

Rest assured that President Santorum will not relent until each and every one of us has experienced the perfect, special, undiminished sexual union that is our God-given birthright.

As he says, "these are important policy issues."

To summarize, Rick Santorum is still a complete asshole the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex, and still pretending he could be elected President.

I expected better, CT

[CT III]

http://www.wisconsingazette.com/breaking-news/santorum-says-hed-die-to-prevent-marriage-equality.html

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said he'd die to prevent same-sex couples from getting married.

"I'll die on that hill," GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said when asked about his pledge to fight for a federal ban on same-sex marriage.

OK... So, uh, where might this hill be located?

He said that he felt equally strongly about repealing all federal funding for contraception, calling it "a license to do things in a sexual realm."

We need a sex license now? Big government really has gone too far this time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KN7WfIZh690#t=17m54s

Rest assured that President Santorum will not relent until each and every one of us has experienced the perfect, special, undiminished sexual union that is our God-given birthright.

As he says, "these are important policy issues."

To summarize, Rick Santorum is still a complete asshole the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex, and still pretending he could be elected President.

I expected better, CT

I have no idea why you would expect better, but how about this?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20123800-503544/obama-announces-end-of-iraq-war-troops-to-return-home-by-year-end/

Just posting it for official entry into the thread.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

I guess someone had a bulge in his back pocket...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-police-involved-shootings-1023-20111022,0,2860489,full.story

In the video, Flint Farmer was lying on the grass between the curb and the sidewalk. It was shortly before 2 a.m. on a June morning in the West Englewood neighborhood, and Farmer had been shot by a Chicago police officer. Then, according to the video, the veteran officer, Gildardo Sierra, stepped onto the parkway and walked a semicircle about the prone Farmer as three bright flashes went off.

The flashes, captured by a police car video camera, were fatal shots fired into Farmer's back, officials say.

That shooting was the third by the officer since January — and the second fatality in those six months, records show.

Sierra fired 16 shots at Farmer, hitting him seven times, autopsy reports show. A Cook County deputy medical examiner, after performing an autopsy and later reviewing the video, said the three shots in the back were the fatal wounds.

Sierra told investigators he feared for his life because he believed Farmer had a gun.

In fact, Farmer was only holding a cellphone.

Despite the video, the Police Department ruled Farmer's June 7 death justified, just as it had Sierra's other two shootings this year. But police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said he considers the Farmer case "a big problem" and told the Tribune that the officer involved should not have been on the street given his history of shootings.

The shooting is under investigation by the FBI, the Tribune has learned.

...

Confronted by the officers about beating his girlfriend and her 3-year-old daughter, Farmer allegedly fled through an empty lot to South Wolcott Avenue, one street over.

He got as far as the parkway when the officer yelled at him.

"Don't do it," a witness heard an officer shout.

The warning was followed by gunfire.

Farmer, 29, an unemployed store clerk with a small child and a prior domestic-violence arrest, fell to the ground, according to police reports. The bullets that pierced his abdomen and thigh had been fired by Sierra, who was standing in the street, records show. Moments later, a squad car responded to the scene, officials say, and captured video of Sierra as he stepped onto the parkway, walked about the unarmed Farmer in a semicircle and fired three more shots.

Farmer was pronounced dead at the scene.

Dr. Mitra Kalelkar, who performed the autopsy on Farmer, said he could have survived the shots in the abdomen and thigh, but the shots in the back killed him. Those shots, which coursed downward, hit Farmer's heart and lung, according to Kalelkar's report.

"All three were definitely fatal wounds," she told the Tribune.

Kalelkar said she viewed the video of the shooting after the lawyer for Farmer's survivors brought it to her. She recalled seeing the bright muzzle flash that accompanied each shot. When she considered the video in context with her autopsy report, she said it was evident that Farmer was on the ground when shot, that he was shot in the back and that those were the fatal shots.

"If I put it together with the video, he was definitely shot while on the ground," she said.

...

This left me curious about whether MEATBALL COP had any thoughts on the incident...

http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2011/10/stop-shooting-criminals.html

An organizer of a downtown protest against police brutality Saturday said Flint Farmer's death in June was "just another case of a young black man shot to death by police for no reason."

Farmer, 29, was fatally shot by police June 7 in the 6200 block of South Wolcott. Police have defended the shooting, saying he "aggressively came at" an officer responding to a domestic battery call.

But protest organizer Grant Neuberger, reading from a letter from Farmer's father, said the younger Farmer carried a cell phone, not a weapon, when he was shot.

Hey Grant? Too fucking bad. Daddy Farmer wasn't there and neither were you. And even if Flint was unarmed, he advances on an armed man and somehow wrestles the gun away? Now we have a big fucking problem. In our book (and fortunately in the laws on the books), the officer is given plenty of leeway to eliminate the threat and protect him/herself from great bodily harm and harm to others.

When it comes down to it, and the choice is between a cop going home in one piece and an ignorant piece of garbage with no impulse control advancing in an attempt to take a cop's gun, we're going to support the cop every time.

[Gilgamesh]

I guess someone had a bulge in his back pocket...

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-police-involved-shootings-1023-20111022,0,2860489,full.story

In the video, Flint Farmer was lying on the grass between the curb and the sidewalk. It was shortly before 2 a.m. on a June morning in the West Englewood neighborhood, and Farmer had been shot by a Chicago police officer. Then, according to the video, the veteran officer, Gildardo Sierra, stepped onto the parkway and walked a semicircle about the prone Farmer as three bright flashes went off.

The flashes, captured by a police car video camera, were fatal shots fired into Farmer's back, officials say.

That shooting was the third by the officer since January — and the second fatality in those six months, records show.

Sierra fired 16 shots at Farmer, hitting him seven times, autopsy reports show. A Cook County deputy medical examiner, after performing an autopsy and later reviewing the video, said the three shots in the back were the fatal wounds.

Sierra told investigators he feared for his life because he believed Farmer had a gun.

In fact, Farmer was only holding a cellphone.

Despite the video, the Police Department ruled Farmer's June 7 death justified, just as it had Sierra's other two shootings this year. But police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said he considers the Farmer case "a big problem" and told the Tribune that the officer involved should not have been on the street given his history of shootings.

The shooting is under investigation by the FBI, the Tribune has learned.

...

Confronted by the officers about beating his girlfriend and her 3-year-old daughter, Farmer allegedly fled through an empty lot to South Wolcott Avenue, one street over.

He got as far as the parkway when the officer yelled at him.

"Don't do it," a witness heard an officer shout.

The warning was followed by gunfire.

Farmer, 29, an unemployed store clerk with a small child and a prior domestic-violence arrest, fell to the ground, according to police reports. The bullets that pierced his abdomen and thigh had been fired by Sierra, who was standing in the street, records show. Moments later, a squad car responded to the scene, officials say, and captured video of Sierra as he stepped onto the parkway, walked about the unarmed Farmer in a semicircle and fired three more shots.

Farmer was pronounced dead at the scene.

Dr. Mitra Kalelkar, who performed the autopsy on Farmer, said he could have survived the shots in the abdomen and thigh, but the shots in the back killed him. Those shots, which coursed downward, hit Farmer's heart and lung, according to Kalelkar's report.

"All three were definitely fatal wounds," she told the Tribune.

Kalelkar said she viewed the video of the shooting after the lawyer for Farmer's survivors brought it to her. She recalled seeing the bright muzzle flash that accompanied each shot. When she considered the video in context with her autopsy report, she said it was evident that Farmer was on the ground when shot, that he was shot in the back and that those were the fatal shots.

"If I put it together with the video, he was definitely shot while on the ground," she said.

The officer in question should not have been back out on the streets after one shooting, much less two. That said, the video doesn't show what the suspect did in the moments before the officer put the last three shots into him. It is unknown whether or not he was lunging for something or if he was going after the officer.  Considering that 007 is the worst district in the city, I don't blame the officer for being on edge to the point where he'd feel his life was in danger.  However, the city and the department are going to be paying this suspect's family some money; it is inexcusable that an officer with a history of two shootings is put back onto the streets in one of the worst neighborhoods.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

The officer in question should not have been back out on the streets after one shooting, much less two. That said, the video doesn't show what the suspect did in the moments before the officer put the last three shots into him. It is unknown whether or not he was lunging for something or if he was going after the officer.

It doesn't show what happened beforehand, but it certainly does seem to show that the suspect was on the ground when those three fatal shots were fired. And, as the autopsy found that the fatal shots were in his back, he was apparently facing down.

I'm not really sure how "lunging for something" or "going after" anyone factors into anything at that point.

This officer killed a man by shooting him in the back while he was face down on the ground. No excuses.

[Gilgamesh]

The officer in question should not have been back out on the streets after one shooting, much less two. That said, the video doesn't show what the suspect did in the moments before the officer put the last three shots into him. It is unknown whether or not he was lunging for something or if he was going after the officer.

It doesn't show what happened beforehand, but it certainly does seem to show that the suspect was on the ground when those three fatal shots were fired. And, as the autopsy found that the fatal shots were in his back, he was apparently facing down.

I'm not really sure how "lunging for something" or "going after" anyone factors into anything at that point.

This officer killed a man by shooting him in the back while he was face down on the ground. No excuses.

There are some people on the Trib site and the SCC message boards asserting that the flashes of light aren't muzzle flashes.  Hmmm.

I'd be curious to see a ballistics report on the victim.

[Gilgamesh]

DPD, it's a good thing we have have these new Voter ID laws to keep the scourge of 91-year old women from voting.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20111021/NEWS02/111021018/1969/NEWS

[J. Walter Weatherman]

I'd be curious to see a ballistics report on the victim.

Chuck doesn't have the data in front of him at the moment.