Friday, January 04, 2013

No sense of responsibility: Prisoners sue booze companies because of own crimes

We've entered the age where it is always someone else's fault. And sadly, there is always a lawyer who will play along with this childishness.

From ABC News:
Five Idaho inmates are blaming alcohol for the crimes that put them in prison and are suing some of the nation's top liquor and wine companies for $1 billion.

Keith Allen Brown, Steven Thompson, Woodrow Grant, Cory Baugh and Jeremy Brown all claim that alcohol led them to their crimes and they should have been warned of the beverages' addictive nature.

"If I was not an alcoholic, the shooting would never have happened," Jeremy Brown said in his affidavit. Brown, 34, is serving a 20-to-30-year sentence for a 2001 shooting that seriously injured a man.

The plaintiffs' crimes range from manslaughter to grand theft. They are currently serving time at Idaho's Kuna facility.
The defendants include Anheuser-Busch, Miller Brewing Company, Coors, and American Brands.

Related post:

Top ten most ridiculous lawsuits of 2012

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(Today Show Video) Joe Biden: The next 'Family Feud' host?

The late great Richard Dawson was a dirty old man when he hosted 'Family Feud' back in the 1970s and '80s.

Steve Harvey hosts it now--but if the show needs a new host, they can call on Vice President Joe Biden. He was channeling Dawson as he swore in a new Senate class yesterday.


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CNN: 3 million Americans "hopelessly unemployed"

Lost amid the jobs reports is the plight of the long-term unemployed.

From CNN Money:
Employers may be hiring, but there's another big problem with the job market that isn't being tracked as closely: the hopelessly unemployed.

An often overlooked number calculated by the Labor Department shows millions of Americans want a job but haven't searched for one in at least a year. They've simply given up hope.

They're not counted as part of the labor force, the official unemployment rate, or the category the Labor Department refers to as "discouraged workers" -- those who haven't bothered to look for work in the last four weeks.

These hopelessly unemployed workers have just been jobless so long, they've fallen off the main government measures altogether.
And with big gaps on a résumé or a job application, finding a job is enormously challenging.

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Still no recovery: Jobless rate remains at 7.8 percent

In a jobs report Reuters called "lackluster," the unemployment rate for December remained at 7.8 percent.

Reuters adds "'The U.S. economy is just muddling through,' said Tom di Galoma, managing director at Navigate Advisors in Stamford, Connecticut."

During the Democratic National Convention the word 'stimulus' was not uttered once. And I can't recall when President Obama said it during the campaign.

Full employment by most economic standards is a jobless rate of 5 percent.

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Thursday, January 03, 2013

(Video) Kirk returns to DC and climbs the steps of the Capitol

Nearly a year after suffering from a major stroke, Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) made an emotional return to the Capitol building. Assisted by Democratic Senators Dick Durbin of Illinois and Joe Manchin of West Virginia--along with Chicago native and Senate Sergeant-At-Arms Terry Gainer and Joe Biden, Kirk walked up the 45 stairs of the Capitol--as the other members of the upper chamber cheered.


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Dixon horse lady scandal: Feds collect $3 million on home sales

Dixon Arch
The most prominent corruption story in graft-ridden Illinois was the $53 million embezzlement scandal in Dixon, Illinois involving the northern Illinois town's longtime comptroller, Rita Crundwell. She stole the money to fund a lavish lifestyle centered on her championship quarter horse breeding business. The feds are working toe recoup Dixon's losses.

More from CBS 2 Chicago:
The U.S. Marshals Service sold three of convicted Dixon comptroller Rita Crundwell’s five properties for more than $3 million on Monday.

Three separate people purchased land once belonging to Crundwell, parcels at 1403 Dutch Rd. and 1556 Red Brick Rd., and 81 acres of farmland, all in Lee County, according to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service. A $350,000 offer was also submitted on a fourth property in Lee County.

The U.S. Marshals put the properties up for sale in October and after receiving unsolicited offers of $1.69 million for the three, the statement said. Thirteen counter-offers were received and the properties eventually sold for more than $3 million.

The U.S. Marshals are also looking to sell a fifth property at 1679 U.S. 52 in Dixon, the statement said. Open houses will be held Jan. 11, 12 and 18 between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., and offers will be accepted until 2 p.m. on Jan. 25.
So far just $8 million has come from the sale of these properties, the horses, and luxury cars.

Crundwell pleaded guilty last year to a single count of wire fraud--she faces sentencing on February 14. She still faces state charges.

Dixon posts:
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About that so-called fiscal cliff fix: Taxes are going up

Writing for the Wall Street Journal, David Malpass tells us that the fiscal cliff "fix" means higher taxes for almost all households.
Whatever ultimately emerges from the fiscal-cliff negotiations over the past 48 hours, the country will survive. But the damage can't be undone. Taxes are going up for all working Americans. And so is the size of government.

Businesses have been waiting to see whether a second Obama administration will encourage the economy. During the fiscal-cliff negotiations, however, the president made clear that his goal isn't to get business going again but instead to expand government and redistribute income. He offered no real spending cuts and instead used the year-end deadline to divide America into classes—to the point of campaigning on New Year's Eve against higher earners. Though the president talks about fairness, his policies penalize profit and investment. This hurts aspiring Americans more than it hurts those who have already made it.

The deal that emerged from the Senate early Tuesday morning is being sold as a tax cut for the middle class, but the expiration of the two-percentage-point payroll tax holiday means that working Americans' take-home pay will drop. The bill reduces the value of tax deductions for upper incomes and, with the new open-ended 3.8% Medicare tax that was enacted under ObamaCare, income-tax rates on families and small business owners earning over $450,000 have been pushed above 44%.

The Senate bill makes the tax code more complex, provides for no spending cuts and creates four deadlines—for the debt-limit increase within weeks, the March 1 automatic spending cuts known as the sequester, a second sequester on March 27 (to make up for overspending since the first sequester) and the March 30 expiration of government spending authority. These deadlines will keep Washington negotiations on the front page for months but with little likelihood that government will cut programs, sell assets or downsize the 1,300 federal agencies and commissions.
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