Smedley Butler for President (in 2016)

From Wikipedia

"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class thug for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
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He became widely-known for his outspoken lectures against war profiteering, U.S. military adventurism and what he viewed as nascent fascism in the United States. In addition to his speeches to pacifist groups, from 1935 to 1937 he served as a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism.[49][50] In 1935 he wrote the exposé War Is a Racket, a trenchant condemnation of the profit motive behind warfare. [ Smedley_Butler]

Cutest Name for a Bail Bondsman

Seen near Broadway and 19th in Oakland.

US Chamber of Commerce makes clear where it stands

The headline yesterday said "Chamber's Donohue Says Obama's Rules Suffocating U.S.".

It's an interesting word choice, since one of the highlighted regulations is a tightening of the ground level ozone standard. High in the stratosphere, ozone is our main natural UV protection. At ground level it causes asthma and other respiratory problems. From the EPA's summary: "The proposal to strengthen the primary standard places more weight on key scientific and technical information, including epidemiological studies, human clinical studies showing effects in healthy adults at 0.060 ppm, and results of EPA’s exposure and risk assessment."

Another highlighted Chamber complaint is about tighter regulation of cement plants. Here's the EPA's news release on the regulation: "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is issuing final rules that will protect Americans’ health by cutting emissions of mercury, particle pollution and other harmful pollutants from Portland cement manufacturing, the third-largest source of mercury air emissions in the United States. The rules are expected to yield $7 to $19 in public health benefits for every dollar in costs. Mercury can damage children’s developing brains, and particle pollution is linked to a wide variety of serious health effects, including aggravated asthma, irregular heartbeat, heart attacks, and premature death in people with heart and lung disease."

So there's your US Chamber of Commerce: fighting the good fight for more asthma, heart attacks and brain damage.

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone

[T]he fact that we're even sitting here two years after Bush talking about a GOP comeback is a profound testament to two things: One, the American voter's unmatched ability to forget what happened to him 10 seconds ago, and two, the Republican Party's incredible recuperative skill... This is a party that in 2008 was not just beaten but obliterated, with nearly every one of its recognizable leaders reduced to historical-footnote status and pinned with blame for some ghastly political catastrophe. There were literally no healthy bodies left on the bench, but the Republicans managed to get back in the game anyway by plucking an assortment of nativist freaks, village idiots and internet Hitlers out of thin air and training them into a giant ball of incoherent resentment just in time for the 2010 midterms.

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