Here at B@B as in Pottersville, when the news breaks like a fart, we light it.
What follows is some of more unusual, infuriating and downright
hilarious news items from the last few days gleaned from Twitter and
readers like you.
Next time Mark Zuckerberg tries to charge you a dollar to send off an email on Facebook, think about
this news item. Markie Mark and his
merry band of tax dodgers
are about to get a $429,000,000 tax break from We the People after a
year in which Facebook took in over $1,000,000,000 in pure profit
selling your personal information to corporations, thanks to a loophole
in the stock option laws. Says Citizens for Tax Justice,
Of course, Facebook is not the only corporation that benefits from stock option tax breaks.
Many big corporations give their executives (and sometimes other
employees) options to buy the company’s stock at a favorable price in
the future. When those options are exercised, corporations can take a
tax deduction for the difference between what the employees pay for the
stock and what it’s worth (while employees report this difference as
taxable wages). On page 12 of our 2011 Corporate Taxpayers and Corporate Tax Dodgers report, we discuss how 185 other large, profitable companies have exploited the stock option loophole.
Because the scumbag who stole the Facebook concept from Harvard
University and screwed over his initial partners and made billions in
the process through a crooked IPO that had the greasy fingerprints of
Wall Street's biggest offenders all over it has to eat, too, you know.
Otherwise, he'd have to
charge you up to $4000 to get out one update to all your many followers.
At the same time that came into my inbox, this arrived from the same
source. It defies belief so I'll copy and paste the entire email below
and let you judge for yourself how incredibly absurd this is.
The Guys at the Console: A New Medal for Sitting Around Killing
Someone Thousands of Miles Away
The Pentagon has created a new Distinguished Warfare Medal to be
awarded to drone "pilots" and other cyber warriors
who push a button in a building somewhere to target someone, often
innocent, always unknown, many miles away, thus honoring for the first
time what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
called "the extraordinary actions that make a true
difference in combat operations." In an Orwellian
twist, in military
hierarchy the medal will rate above the Bronze Star, given for
heroic acts performed under fire by those who are, like, actually
there.
Let's get one thing straight: I never, ever liked Leon Pannetta. He was
just the latest in a series of career chair fillers that came in the
toxic wake of Donald Rumsfeld, by far the worst Defense Secretary we've
ever had (and that includes Dick Cheney). But the other seat warmers at
the Pentagon have obviously forgotten what war is. When
real veterans
tell you it's Hell, that it sucks, listen to them. But war nonetheless
occasionally makes heroes and not the ones manufactured as was Jessica
Lynch. We give medals to real heroes who put their lives and bodies on
the line and risk never seeing loved ones again for flag and country.
We're not supposed to give medals to those who cower inside a fucking
climate-controlled trailer in the Nevada desert and casually murder
innocent men, women and children from 7000 miles away without once
risking anything or being allowed to actually witness the consequences
of their actions while playing the deadliest video game on earth.
OK, we all had our fun on Twitter and unread blogs with Marco Rubio's
Watergate moment
during his Hindenburg/Titanic rebuttal to the President's State of the
Union Address a few nights ago. It's a bit discomforting to know that
under the merciless electron microscope of social media, a clumsy moment
on national television and a water bottle could seem to scuttle an
elected official's presidential ambitions. Abe Lincoln suffered from
depression, FDR was disabled, Jack Kennedy had Addison's disease, Reagan
plainly had Alzheimer's at least in his second term. None of us are
perfect.
Rubio's
deer-in-the-headlights moment should've been an unintentionally humorous
one and then we should've moved on. Speaking on national television and
following the biggest act on earth, the President of the United States
of America, speaking to a single camera and under hot, blinding lights,
cannot be easy even to a US Senator who makes speeches for a living.
The real fault lies not with the new shining star of the Republican
Party but with the Republican Party itself for pushing into center stage
a guy who cannot avoid ridicule no matter what comes out of his mouth, a
rube, if you'll pardon the unintentional pun, who plainly isn't fit for
the national stage let alone the White House. Obama proved he was
electable to the highest office in the land while he was also a freshman
senator. Rubio hasn't and likely never will. The GOP deserves to be hit
with the ridicule for pushing out into center stage a self-loathing
buffoon who's dry in the mouth yet still wet behind the ears because
they should've known damned good and well that, after Rubio and the
words "Impeach" and "Repeal", they have absolutely nothing.
From the self-exempting
Rush Limbaugh School of Law Enforcement
comes a law and order Alabama Republican who ran over two years ago on a
law and order platform (while running for... Agriculture Commissioner?)
was
arrested for shoplifting at a Wal-Mart
last October. Apparently, Dale Peterson went to use the bathroom then
tried to walk through the checkout lines without paying for $40 worth of
paper towels and beer. His story was that he forgot to pay (although
it's hard to imagine how anyone could get in the habit of walking
through checkout lines without paying for unbagged and unstamped items)
and he, of course, blamed the same thugs and criminals he used as planks
in his disastrous campaign platform for the news leaking out.
Typical Republican. It may or may not be proven that he actually tried
to shoplift a paltry $40 worth of items but stop blaming the press and
partisan politics every time something of this nature makes the news.
Considering he finished third for a minor state office in a field of
three over two years ago, it's doubtful anyone considers him important
enough for a hit job over an incident that happened nearly six months
ago.
Angry old white men don't just shoot innocent
people as they have this past winter. Sometimes they content themselves
to merely slap black babies while saying to the mother, “
shut that nigger baby up.”
Take the remarkable case of 60 year-old Joe Rickey Hundley, a
high-ranking executive of an Idaho aeronautics company. Hundley, who was
plastered when he first boarded the plane, was complaining that little
Jonah was too big to be a lap baby. The toddler's mother, who was seated
next to Hundley, claimed that her baby's assailant told her to "shut
that nigger baby up" then slapped the child, leaving a cut under one of
his eyes. The FBI arrested him and of course, despite numerous
witnesses, Hundley's pleaded innocent (no doubt another lib'ral
conspiracy dedicated to smearing the reputations of angry, white,
privileged, racist old males).
Oh, and this isn't the first
time he's been charged with assault. He was charged in 2007 for
assaulting his girlfriend with a wine corkscrew.
You probably heard about the still totally relevant Ted Nugent being
invited to the President's State of the Union Address. That would be the
same
pantsloaded,
genetic misfire who'd threatened the life of the President by
screaming, "Suck on my machine gun!" Well, getting invited to the SOTU
takes some pull from someone on the inside and right about now you're
probably wondering, "What walking brain stem thought it would be a good
idea to invite an elderly yahoo of a hasbeen such as Ted Nugent to the
State of the Union Address?" Well, wonder no more because Hunter at DKos
has the inside scoop.
You have
Texas Rep. Steve Stockman
(R-Of Course) to thank for that unimaginable brain fart. Stockman, a
man who's stupid, ignorant and crazy enough to make Michele Bachmann
look like Margaret Meade by conspicuous relief, thought it would be a
corker of an idea to invite to Washington DC and bring literally within
shooting distance of the leader of the free world a draft-dodging
child molester
whose threats aimed at Mr. Obama were virulent enough to get a visit
from the Secret Service. Not only that, Stockman recently called Nugent
"a patriot." Because, you know, there's absolutely no degree of
separation between a guy who shit his pants to get out of Vietnam and a
colonial farmer who defended his newfound country with no military
training at the risk of life and limb.
Thanks to fucking morons like Stockman, who hopefully will once again
get voted out after one term, we're literally one step away from States
of the Union looking like this.