In Search Of A Feudal Society

Well, North Carolina has trumped it’s neighbor to the south in asshattery:

RALEIGH, N.C. With changes to its unemployment law taking effect this weekend, North Carolina not only is cutting benefits for those who file new claims, it will become the first state disqualified from a federal compensation program for the long-term jobless.

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With the changes to North Carolina law, state benefits will last three to five months – at the longer end when unemployment rates are higher. Qualifying for benefits becomes more difficult. Weekly payments for those collecting the current maximum benefit of $535 drop to $350, falling from the highest in the Southeast to comparable with neighboring states.

Surely the debtor’s prisons (privatized, natch!) cannot be far away…and Art Pope chuckles as he drops more money into his (and his buds’) wallets.

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Know Your History, Or Live Your History

In case anyone’s confused about what the GOP really wants, a visual aid:

POTUS at the “Door Of No Return”

President Obama has a sound sense of history:

Obviously, it’s a very powerful moment…to be able to come here and to fully appreciate the magnitude of the slave trade, to get a sense in a very intimate way of the incredible inhumanity and hardship that people faced before they made the Middle Passage and that crossing.

And I think more than anything what it reminds us of is that we have to remain vigilant when it comes to the defense of people’s human rights–because I’m a firm believer that humanity is fundamentally good, but it’s only good when good people stand up for what’s right. And this is a testament to when we’re not vigilant in defense of what’s right, what can happen.

Know your history…or get to live it.

Lying Liar Gets His Due

Protip: If you’re going to scam the government out of disability status, you’d better not wind up in front of a committee with a disabled veteran on it:

Awesome!

On The New Ship Of Fools

This is by far and away the best thing to come out of the whole Snowjob fiasco:

Since Snowden’s purported arrival in Moscow yesterday, scores of journalists have been staking out Sheremetyevo Airport, hoping to catch the 29 30-year-old (happy birthday Ed!) ex-contractor as he left Russia, possibly with an eventual destination in Ecuador, where he’s reportedly seeking asylum. When Russian media reported that he’d booked a ticket on Aeroflot Flight 180 to Havana, Cuba, a number of them did the journalistic thing and booked tickets as well.

Only: Snowden never showed.

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And now, in a national-security version of the Rihanna plane, journalists from AP, AFP, BBC and NBC News, among others, are trapped on a 12-hour flight from Moscow to Cuba. It gets worse:

Starting from Feb 10, 2010, the sale of alcohol is suspended on flights to/from Havana, Bangkok, Shanghai, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Yuzhno-Sahalinsk, and Khabarovsk.

And worse (or, really, better?): Thanks to travel regulations in Cuba, they’ll have to stay there three days before they’ll be allowed to fly back.

What a bunch of clowns.

What Do You Do When You’re Branded

This was all kinds of awesome – Russell Brand vs. the MourningJoe crew (minus the Schmoe himself).

They never had a chance…

(h/t Elizabelle)