What's the difference between a stupid liberal and smart liberal?

The smart liberal always uses a clean needle.

One reason why Americans have lost their passion and don't seem to care about very much

One reason why Americans have lost their passion and don't seem to care about very much is that they are taking large quantities of psychotropic drugs, many of which level their moods so that they are not too happy and not too sad.

In 2011 the top 25 psychiatric medication prescriptions numbered a staggering 391 million. Most of these prescriptions are for drugs such as SSRIs, SARIs, SNRIs or NDRIs for depression, anxiety and other mental disorders, with just 33 million of the prescriptions intended solely for attention deficit disorder.

Data here.

Yves Smith, Stalinist Heroine Of Naked Capitalism, Comes Out For Michael Mann Never Once Mentioning His Nemesis Mark Steyn And National Review

The opponents of what is "right" do not exist, you see: If they were in the picture they'd remove them, but it is better to never have them in the picture in the first place.

She's got an Occupy Wall Street Movement sash on the right of her page, might as well put up a Joe Stalin sash on the left.

Here.

Jeb Bush doth protest too much.

Jeb Bush appears on five or six shows on Sunday and accuses the media of being obsessed with politics.

Uh huh.

Romney's Arizona Debate Statements on Plan B Drugs Fail Scrutiny

Evidence presented here indicates that Gov. Romney lied twice during the debate:

When Romney was asked in the debate if he had required Catholic hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims and had infringed on Catholics’ rights, he responded, “No, absolutely not. Of course not.” That was untrue.

When Romney said “for the Catholic Church to provide morning-after pills to rape victims…was entirely voluntary on their part”, that was also untrue.

The evidence indicates Romney came under pressure from legal counsel, under which he flip-flopped, but also that he personally embraced the idea of forcing Catholics to act contrary to conscience as the right thing to do.

How this makes him any different from Barack Obama who routinely acts in a capricious, authoritarian manner is beyond reconciliation.

A vote for Romney is a vote for Jello, every night.

Nike Drug Messages Upset Boston Mayor, Vulgarities . . . Not So Much

The story is here:

". . . an accepted expression for performance at the highest level . . ."

-- Nike

Yeah, if you're an elephant maybe.

Bankers Scamming the American People Out of Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Bloomberg.com has an interesting look inside a bank failure, describing the crimes which occur but never get prosecuted, unless you happen to be a small fry criminal:

If you were a banker, which of the following activities would be more likely to land you a quick trip to the federal penitentiary? Is it:

(a) Misrepresenting your dying bank’s financial condition in order to secure almost $300 million in TARP bailout cash and then quickly proceeding to lose it all, or

(b) Embezzling about $235,000 from your employer to support your compulsive-gambling addiction and pay off personal debts?

The correct answer, naturally, is “b.” In this country, when it comes to matters of high-finance crime and punishment, little pigs get slaughtered, while hogs get fat -- convicted Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff being this rule’s most notable exception. ...

The large scale crimes are [m]ainly those related to overvalued loans and understated losses. ... where bank employees lied to ... auditors, intentionally delayed loan writedowns and altered documents to hide credit losses.

That's why we highlight "overvaluations" of reported assets when we report on Bank Failure Fridays, just to try to provide some perspective on the scope of the chicanery going on.

Read the complete story here.