The Best of Carl Paladino

I know its been awhile, but another Carl has inspired me to return. It’s highly unlikely that he’ll win. But he sure as hell entertained us during what would be another boring NY State Election year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Carl Paladino Porn Emails

New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino found himself embroiled in controversy once again on Thursday after WNYMedia.net published a series of emails containing pornographic images reportedly forwarded by the Republican hopeful to friends and colleagues within the last several years.

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2. Carl Paladino Doesn’t Seem to Like Gay People

[Being homosexual] is not how god created us, and that’s not the example that we should be showing our children. Children would be much better off and much more successful getting married and raising a family than being gay. And I don’t want them to be brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option. It isn’t.

“….There is nothing to be proud of in being a dysfunctional homosexual.”

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3. Paladino and Post reporter square off

Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino and Post State Editor Fredric U. Dicker last night got into an angry confrontation — during which Paladino threatened, “I’ll take you out.”

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4. Paladino faces backlash over racist emails, anti-abortion remarks

Buffalo millionaire Carl Paladino is facing backlash anew over racist and pornographic emails he’d forwarded back in the spring, before his announcement for candidacy in the gubernatorial race.

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5. Gubernatorial wanna-be Carl Paladino clams up on $4 million tax deals

Republican governor wanna-be Carl Paladino has threatened to imprison Albany lawmakers who refuse to reveal the specifics of their outside income.

He might want to rethink that.

A review of records shows Paladino has failed to disclose that seven of his companies and subsidiaries have gotten $4.2 million in tax breaks on developments in and around Buffalo – and stand to collect even more.

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Wal-Mart Fighting $7,000 Fine in Trampling Case

Steven Greenhouse | The New York Times

Wal-Mart Stores has spent a year and more than a million dollars in legal fees battling a $7,000 fine that federal safety officials assessed after shoppers trampled a Wal-Mart employee to death at a store on Long Island on the day after Thanksgiving in 2008.

The mystery, federal officials say, is why Wal-Mart is fighting so hard against such a modest fine.

It is not as if Wal-Mart has not already taken action to address any missteps and prevent another such accident. Three weeks before the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration ordered the fine, Wal-Mart, seeking to avoid criminal charges, reached a settlement with the Nassau County, N.Y., district attorney that called for the company to adopt new crowd management techniques in all 92 of its stores in New York State. At the time, Wal-Mart also agreed to create a $400,000 fund for customers injured in the stampede and to donate $1.5 million to various community programs in Nassau County.

More recently, the company announced improved crowd-control policies for all its United States stores to try to prevent such an accident from happening again.

But in fighting the federal fine, Wal-Mart is arguing that the government is improperly trying to define “crowd trampling” as an occupational hazard that retailers must take action to prevent.

Wal-Mart’s all-out battle against the relatively minor penalty has mystified and even angered some federal officials. In contesting the penalty, Wal-Mart has filed 20 motions and responses totaling nearly 400 pages and has spent at least $2 million on legal fees, according to OSHA’s calculations.

The dispute has become so heated — and Wal-Mart’s defense so vigorous — that officials at OSHA, an arm of the Labor Department, complain that they have had to devote huge numbers of staff time to the case, including 4,725 hours of work by employees in the legal office.

The company has made so many demands that Labor Department officials said they would not discuss the case except on condition of anonymity because they feared being subpoenaed about their discussions with a reporter.

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From Ku Klux Klan Member to Iraq War Opponent and Obama Supporter, Late Sen. Robert Byrd Remembered for “Principle and Honor”

From Ku Klux Klan Member to Iraq War Opponent and Obama Supporter, Late Sen. Robert Byrd Remembered for “Principle and Honor”.

Remember: In 1930, They Didn’t Know It Was “the Great Depression” Yet

Henry Blodget | Huffington Post

The early 1930 rally came after the market had fallen nearly 50% in the fall of 1929. The spring 1930 rally took the market up nearly 50% again, to a level that was only about 20% below the previous peak.

That rally, of course, was also the biggest sucker’s rally in history. After the market peaked in April 1930, it crashed again, eventually ending up down 89% from the 1929 high and more than 80% from the 1930 high. The market did not reach the 1930 high again for another quarter of a century.

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‘The Ragheads’ : S.C. State Sen. Calls Obama, S.C Gov. Candidate Racial Slur

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A South Carolina lawmaker on Thursday called a Republican gubernatorial candidate of Indian descent a “raghead,” saying we have one in the White House, we don’t need one in the governor’s mansion.

Republican state Sen. Jake Knotts later apologized for the slur, saying the remarks about President Barack Obama and state Rep. Nikki Haley were meant as a joke.

They came on Internet political talk show, Pub Politics. Co-host Phil Bailey said Knotts said, “We’ve already got a raghead in the White House, we don’t need another raghead in the governor’s mansion.”

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M.I.A. Returns!

The New issue of Complex magazine arrived in the mail yesterday and I was so excited to see M.I.A. on the cover. The expected release date of her third album entitled /\/\/\Y/\ (no this isn’t an HTML fail) is June 29. M.I.A. truly defines what this blog is all about – the intersection of pop and social justice. Below is an excerpt from the article and M.I.A.’s new single “XXXO” – the first from the new album.

Also watch M.I.A.’s controversial long form music video for “Born Free” – a promotional single from her new album

And hear what M.I.A. thinks of Lady Gaga. (Hint: “she’s a good mimic”)

Nate Denver | Complex

Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam doesn’t trust Google. Sure, the company’s motto is “Don’t be evil,” but she’s not fooled. He who controls information controls power, and she’s never been one to relinquish control easily. After a childhood spent missing an activist father who was on the lam from the Sri Lankan government, she came to music after touring with a band as a videographer—and then created a global fanbase before she’d ever done a live show. This isn’t some doe-eyed ingenue who caught a producer’s eye; this is the first true success story of Internet DIY music (sorry, Drake).

Even now, on the verge of her third album, the globe-trotting MC/producer/Oscar nominee/tastemaker is as restless as ever. She spoke to us from the U.K., nestled in her mum’s home with her 1-year-old son, Ikhyd. Ikhyd’s grandpa may be a billionaire (Maya’s man Ben Bronfman is the son of Warner Music Group CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr.), but M.I.A. is determined for her child to grow up outside a life of easy comfort. He might not be lacking, but he damn sure won’t be slacking.

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Carlicious Radio Playlist 6/3/2010

Reading her interview in Complex inspired me to make this a M.I.A. day. Here are my favorite M.I.A. songs (in no particular order):

1. “10 Dollar” from Arular

2. “Jimmy” from Kala

3. “XR2” from Kala

4. “U.R.A.Q.T.” from Arular

5. “Sunshowers” from Arular

6. “Bamboo Banga” from Kala

7. “XXXO” from /\/\/\Y/\

Non-Partisan Elections = Dumber Voters?

Aaron Rutkoff | Wall Street Journal

The push for nonpartisan elections is back. But reformers better watch what they wish for: an academic study warns that nonpartisan elections create a less informed electorate, resulting in less competitive local elections.

Voters handily defeated the initiative in 2003, when Mayor Michael Bloomberg put big money behind a push to abolish party primaries in New York City. But the Charter Revision Commission is once again considering placing the proposal before voters this fall and will convene a panel on the subject tonight.

As The Journal’s Michael Howard Saul reports, three possible Democratic contenders for mayor in 2013 — Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, former Comptroller Bill Thompson and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer — are speaking at a rally today in opposition to the nonpartisan proposal. A fourth top Democrat and possible mayoral candidate, Comptroller John Liu, is also part of the effort to defeat the measure.

For these top Democratic office holders, the incentive to keep partisan primaries is clear: the current system has put these politicians near the top of the heap. Bloomberg, as a self-financed political outsider, has an equally clear motivation for seeking to end the current primary system. He became a Republican before his first run for mayor because he had virtually no chance to win a Democratic primary.

But what the rest us non-candidates? What would nonpartisan elections do for us? According to David Schleicher, a law professor and native New Yorker who has studied municipal elections, nonpartisan balloting would make city voters less informed, less likely to vote and would create a less competitive atmosphere in down-ballot races.

Schleicher, who teaches at George Mason University Law School, is no fan of the status quo. “The current system of local elections is a disaster,” he says of New York City. “But nonpartisan elections take a bad situation and make it worse. In general, nonpartisan elections are a terrible idea.”

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Rand Paul Remarks Lead Kentucky Legislature To Adopt Civil Rights Legislation

This dude is friggin’ scary!

The Associated Press

The Kentucky Senate, reacting to a divisive comment by Republican Rand Paul, has adopted a resolution declaring any form of discrimination to be inconsistent with American values. Louisville Democratic Sen. Gerald Neal introduced the resolution Friday during a special session on the state budget. It was adopted without objection in the predominantly Republican chamber. Neal, Kentucky’s only black state senator, said he took personal offense at the comment made last week by Paul, a U.S. Senate candidate, who was criticizing the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Paul said in an MSNBC interview that the federal government shouldn’t have the power to force restaurants to serve minorities if business owners don’t want to. Neal said Paul’s “extreme belief” has made Kentucky “a laughingstock.”

Wall Street Strikes Back

Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

It’s early May in Washington, and something very weird is in the air. As Chris Dodd, Harry Reid and the rest of the compulsive dealmakers in the Senate barrel toward the finish line of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act – the massive, year-in-the-making effort to clean up the Wall Street crime swamp – word starts to spread on Capitol Hill that somebody forgot to kill the important reforms in the bill. As of the first week in May, the legislation still contains aggressive measures that could cost once- indomitable behemoths like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase tens of billions of dollars. Somehow, the bill has escaped the usual Senate-whorehouse orgy of mutual back-scratching, fine-print compromises and freeway-wide loopholes that screw any chance of meaningful change.

The real shocker is a thing known among Senate insiders as “716.” This section of an amendment would force America’s banking giants to either forgo their access to the public teat they receive through the Federal Reserve’s discount window, or give up the insanely risky, casino-style bets they’ve been making on derivatives. That means no more pawning off predatory interest-rate swaps on suckers in Greece, no more gathering balls of subprime shit into incomprehensible debt deals, no more getting idiot bookies like AIG to wrap the crappy mortgages in phony insurance. In short, 716 would take a chain saw to one of Wall Street’s most lucrative profit centers: Five of America’s biggest banks (Goldman, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup) raked in some $30 billion in over-the-counter derivatives last year. By some estimates, more than half of JP Morgan’s trading revenue between 2006 and 2008 came from such derivatives. If 716 goes through, it would be a veritable Hiroshima to the era of greed.

“When I first heard about 716, I thought, ‘This is never gonna fly,'” says Adam White, a derivatives expert who has been among the most vocal advocates for reform. When I speak to him early in May, he sounds slightly befuddled, like he can’t believe his good fortune. “It’s funny,” he says. “We keep waiting for the watering-down to take place – but we keep getting to the next hurdle, and it’s still staying strong.”

In the weeks leading up to the vote on the reform bill, I hear one variation or another on this same theme from Senate insiders: that the usual process of chipping away at key legislation is not taking place with its customary dispatch, despite a full-court press by Wall Street. The financial-services industry has reportedly flooded the Capitol with more than 2,000 paid lobbyists; even veteran members are stunned by the intensity of the blitz. “They’re trying everything,” says Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio. Wall Street’s army is especially imposing given that the main (really, the only) progressive coalition working the other side of the aisle, Americans for Financial Reform, has been in existence less than a year – and has just 60 unpaid “volunteer” lobbyists working the Senate halls.

The companies with the most at stake are particularly well-connected. The lobbying campaign for Goldman Sachs, for instance, is being headed up by a former top staffer for Rep. Barney Frank, Michael Paese, who is coordinating some 14 different lobbying firms to fight on Goldman’s behalf. The bank is also represented by Capitol Hill heavyweights like former House majority leader Dick Gephardt and former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein. All told, there are at least 40 ex-staffers of the Senate Banking Committee – and even one former senator, Trent Lott – lobbying on behalf of Wall Street. Until the final weeks of the reform debate, however, it seemed that all these insiders were facing the prospect of a rare defeat – and they weren’t pleased. One lobbyist even complained to The Washington Post that the bill was being debated out in the open, on the Senate floor, instead of in a smoky backroom. “They’ve got to get this thing off the floor and into a reasonable, behind-the-scenes” discussion, he groused. “Let’s have a few wise fathers sit around the table in some quiet room” to work it out.

As it neared the finish line, the Restoring American Financial Stability Act was almost unprecedentedly broad in scope, in some ways surpassing even the health care bill in size and societal impact. It would rein in $600 trillion in derivatives, create a giant new federal agency to protect financial consumers, open up the books of the Federal Reserve for the first time in history and perhaps even break up the so-called “Too Big to Fail” giants on Wall Street. The recent history of the U.S. Congress suggests that it was almost a given that they would fuck up this one real shot at slaying the dragon of corruption that has been slowly devouring not just our economy but our whole way of life over the past 20 years. Yet with just weeks left in the nearly year-long process at hammering out this huge new law, the bad guys were still on the run. Even the senators themselves seemed surprised at what assholes they weren’t being. This new baby of theirs, finance reform, was going to be that one rare kid who made it out of the filth and the crime of the hood for everybody to be proud of.

Then reality set in.

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