Yesterday I successfully caught up, although it took me over eleven hours work to do it. This morning I got up early to try to get the blog up and links to it posted, before I leave for my volunteer work in prison. It looks like I’ll make it. I’m current with replies. Tomorrow I’ll likely be quite tired, as I’ll return home late tonight, so I may be light on content.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 4:02 (average 5:02). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Politico: The Justice Department is accusing AT&T of improperly billing a federal subsidy fund for calls made by Nigerian scam artists, in a lawsuit announced today.
AT&T allegedly sought reimbursement from the Telecommunications Relay Services Fund for calls it knew were not eligible for the subsidy, particularly from foreign callers who sought to defraud U.S. merchants, according to the Justice Department. The fund is administered by the FCC for “IP Relay” calls, in which hearing-impaired people make telephone calls to hearing people via Internet messages that are facilitated by IP Relay providers.
You can bet that, if we had a Republican administration in the White House, they would be perfectly content to allow AT&T to rip off US taxpayers.
From MoveOn: One Graphic Republicans Hope You Don’t Share With Your Friends
How many of these things are Republicans trying to destroy?
From USA Today: A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday laid out new standards for criminal plea bargains, saying defense lawyers must do a competent job advising and informing their clients of prosecutors’ offers of less prison time for convictions and guilty pleas.
Justice Antonin Scalia, in a rare move, dissented aloud from the bench, calling the decisions "absurd".
Kennedy defected from the SCROTUS fascists on this one. Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas goose stepped against human rights, as always.
Cartoon:
7 Responses to “Open Thread–3/22/2012”
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I know there are a gazillion of them out there, but this one made me chuckle:
Good one!
Good one. Buy .com has them too.
4 minutes even!
Government subsidies for All big businesses should stop. ATT’s bigwigs should be ashamed of themselves!
Love MoveOn’s graphic.
Has Scalia had an attack of conscience all of a sudden?
The only thing the RepublicanTs don’t change their position on is cutting social programs and giving more tax breaks to their buddies and themselves.
Stinker! 😉
Amen.
I agree.
You forgot establishing a permanent regime.
AT&T — Shame! Shame! Double Shame!! I’ve decided to call these corps and ones like them “Hood Robbins” because they are robbin’ the poor and middle class so that they can make their mega billions and pay undeserved bonuses to the executives. Such a flagrant misuse of the programme says to me that it was orchestrated by the executive to cover up their ineptitude. Not only should the taxpayers be reimbursed, but the executives should be criminally charged.
MoveOn — How many of these things are Republicans trying to destroy? Is this a contest? My answer — ALL! Did I win? Good one!
SCOTUS — If the attorneys had done a decent job in the first place, this may not have been such an issue. Perhaps attorneys should stop thinking about possible political careers and start thinking about their clients. We already know that prosecutors are thinking about their political careers.
Cartoon — Mr Flip-Flop gets it again! To be fair in this instance, it was one of his staff that made the gaff, or should I say, former staff! Quite appropriate! And with Etch-a-Sketch, there is never any proof of the flip-flop!
Very good analogy!
Give yourself a prize.
That’s true, but public defenders are notoriously overworked, underpaid and resource-limited.
But to be equally fair, the guy could not have been more accurate.