Recently by Desperado

The headline at National Review Online reads "Federal Workers Overcompensated." It refers to this study just released by the Congressional Budget Office comparing wages and benefits of federal government employees versus their counterparts in the private sector, illustrated by this chart: As you can see, the difference in wages isn't that much. The higher wages-21% more--for those with a high school education or less are almost exactly offset by the lower wages-23% less--for those with...

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Senate Republicans are really pissed at President Obama for making recess appointments when the Senate wasn't in recess. And just as soon as they get back from their...uh, recess... they're going to do something about it: "Top Senate Republicans are weighing whether to file a lawsuit to challenge President Barack Obama's controversial use of recess appointments, but such a suit looks legally shaky and could ultimately backfire with voters. Senators will likely make a decision...

A legal opinion:"What's the point of these phony "pro forma sessions"? They serve but one purpose: to prevent the president from exercising his constitutional authority to make recess appointments. [...]In addition to the power to make appointments with the advice and consent of the Senate, the president has an auxiliary power under the Constitution "to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at...

Hallelujah! At long last, some backbone. Following his recess appointment of Richard Cordray as the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau yesterday, President Obama announced 3 appointments to the National Labor Relations Board: "The move, which is arguably as important as the Cordray appointment, will ratchet up opposition from Republicans and make this an even bigger fight, since they have been attacking the NLRB regularly for its moves to streamline union elections and inform...

Mitt Romney on Tuesday, commenting on the Justice Department blocking a South Carolina law requiring a photo ID in order to vote:"I find it extraordinary that Eric Holder is, one more time, making a very serious error. The idea that people should not be able to be identified as they vote so that we can know that they are not voting multiple times. I mean, that's the purpose here of course. We don't want people...

"[E]very single Butterball turkey sold in the United States of America has been sacrificed to Allah" according to Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. His source is Pamela Geller, so you know it must be true. From Right Wing Watch:<br />You just can't make this stuff up....

The Department of Homeland Security has elevated the threat level for the holiday weekend--from turkey fryers:They even provided a link to this informative video:&amp;amp;amp;lt;br /&amp;amp;amp;gt;Your tax dollars at work. In other news, the weather forecast is.....who cares:                                Happy tryptophan-induced coma, everyone....

Willful ignorance:"The practice or act of intentional and blatant avoidance, disregard or disagreement with facts, empirical evidence and well-founded arguments because they oppose or contradict your own existing personal beliefs." If there's a better description of the American right I haven't found it. This poll from Fairleigh Dickinson University showing that Fox News viewers are uninformed actually misses the point. The word is misinformed, not uninformed. Misinformed and reveling in it. In short, my mind's...

Today's award for Biggest Asshole in a Leading Role goes to the Republican front-runner du jour Newt Gingrich, for his comment at a Thanksgiving Family Forum (which is a joke in itself) that the Occupy Wall Street protesters should "go get a job right after you take a bath." From Think Progress:     You left out 'get a haircut,' dipshit. The award for Biggest Assholes in a supporting role goes to all those who...

In Seattle: In Portland:At UC-Davis:<br />More about UCD:"Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were...

Something to keep in mind while watching those who are exercising their constitutional right to peaceably assemble being handcuffed and taken to jail:"The federal government is on track to file just 1,365 prosecutions for financial institution fraud in fiscal year 2011, according to a new report from a watchdog group. That would be the lowest number of such prosecutions in at least two decades....The falling number of fraud prosecutions is striking given what many claim...

Keith Olbermann's interview with Dorli Rainey, the 84-year-old activist who was pepper-sprayed by police at Occupy Seattle:                                                                                  ...

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg: &lt;br /&gt;Glenn Greenwald agrees: "Could #OWS have scripted a more apt antagonist than this living, breathing personification of oligarchy: a Wall Street billionaire who so brazenly purchased his political office, engineered the overturning of a term-limits referendum and then spent more than $100 million of his personal fortune to stay in power, and now resides well above the law?"Here is part of Bloomberg's statement yesterday:...

Mary Elizabeth Lease-1890."Wall Street owns the country. It is no longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but a government of Wall Street, by Wall Street, and for Wall Street. The great common people of this country are slaves, and monopoly is the master...Money rules...Our laws are the output of a system which clothes rascals in robes and honesty in rags. The [political] parties lie to us and the...

     November 11 is a special day for me, not because I served in the military but because I'm the offspring of two WWII vets. My mom and dad, a man from Texas and a woman from Pennsylvania, met at an Army base in Mississippi in 1942. They were married from 1943 until my dad passed away in 1985. Shortly after D-Day my dad was shipped overseas to join Patton's Third Army in Europe...