A Gentleman’s view.

Clarence Thomas Faces Ethics Questions

Justice Clarence Thomas’ ethics are under scrutiny. (Getty)

The New York Times is reporting that several projects involving conservative friends of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are under scrutiny. Apparently Thomas introduced Harlan Crow — a wealthy, conservative Dallas real estate mogul — to Algernon Varn, a man who lives in the coastal village near Savannah, Ga., where Thomas was raised, in order to finance a preservation project of the land. Thomas’ friend Mr. Crow financed the multimillion-dollar purchase and restoration of the cannery on the coastal land, featuring a museum about the culture and history of Pin Point. Varn’s project has become a pet project of Thomas’.

According to the article, the project throws a spotlight on an unusual, and ethically sensitive, friendship that appears to be markedly different from those of other justices on the nation’s highest court. The two men met in the mid-1990s, a few years after Thomas joined the court. Since then, Crow has done many favors for the justice and his wife, Virginia, helping finance a Savannah library project dedicated to Thomas, presenting him with a Bible that belonged to Frederick Douglass and reportedly providing $500,000 for Mrs. Thomas to start a Tea Party-related group. They have also spent time together at gatherings of prominent Republicans and businesspeople at Crow’s Adirondacks estate and his camp in East Texas.

These activities are raising questions about Supreme Court ethics. Crow’s financing of the museum, his largest such act of generosity, previously unreported, raises the sharpest questions yet — both about Thomas’ extrajudicial activities and about the extent to which the justices should remain exempt from the code of conduct for federal judges.

We find it interesting that Thomas’ activities are still under scrutiny. Nothing has been done to curb his questionable actions previously, so why think he’s going to stop now? We also wonder if any of the other Supreme Court justices are involved in similar activities with wealthy friends or donors related to pet projects.

We’re not Supreme Court justices or anything, but having that level of involvement in projects that could influence your decision-making process is shady at best. We find it befuddling that federal judges have an ethical code to follow, while Supreme Court justices do not. Scholars can continue to debate the ethics of Thomas’ decisions, but until some actual laws are on the books for the Supreme Court justices’ ethical behavior, it won’t make a difference.

Russell Simmons : Sean Hannity was right!Founder of GlobalGrind.c

Fox News has always been the enemy to many on the left. The place where “fair and balanced news” is often tilted like a broken pinball machine. Where talking point memos are created as marching orders for conservative America. A network that we assume to be evil, yet what is hard to often swallow is they are sometimes right.

This week I ran into two young assistants to Fox News host and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee at a restaurant and got into a very intense conversation about gay marriage. As a strong supporter of marriage equality, I argued my points, but they were having none of it. One of them agreed that gay people should be allowed to wed, just don’t call it marriage… call it something else. The other one was adamantly against the idea all together. These two kids did not get angry, they just disagreed. And not only did they disagree, they went to sleep that night thinking they were right. Just like every night when Sean Hannity or Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly or Mike Huckabee get on the airwaves and think they are right. And you know what? They are right. Just right to them.

A few weeks ago, I phoned Sean Hannity after I called him a gangster in the news and the first thing he asked me was why did I believe he was more gangster than any rapper? Let’s see… you are quicker to go to war when you think you are threatened. You are against gay marriage. You are more homophobic. You are less likely to allow people to have sexual freedom. You believe men have a place in society, that’s separate and somehow better or more powerful than women. You are not really racial integrated in this world. So as far as I am concerned, he is more gangster, more sexist, more homophobic and more racist than the average rapper. (I later took back racist.)

So as we were talking he explained that all of these things are not true. He never dated black women for instance, because he’s married to his high school sweatheart! Never had a girlfriend. When I said that he thinks gay sex or gay relationships are an abomination in the bible, he said that that man has a role to protect women and do certain things and God created a certain order and we must follow it. When I argued about the 300,000 innocent Iraqis or Afghans that have been killed during Operation Freedom, he used that lovely term: “calculated loss.” He is conservative in the true sense of word. He lives by his book and for that I have to respect him… but I don’t believe that everyone else has to be made to live by HIS book. People really believe in a strike-first foreign policy… it protects our country, so they say. They bully us and push us around, so we bomb the shit out of them and wipe their country off the map. They really believe that.

And while they believe all of this, they stomp on us. And while they are stomping, they smile as we just get angrier, with them and with ourselves. So, we turn them off, tune them out and call them evil. That is where they win and we lose. We play on their battlefields, in their costumes and in their language. And we forget that that they may not be good for America, but they are really, really good for TV and that is what the genius and my friend Roger Ailes is selling. TV.

I don’t think that Roger wants to do harm to America, I actually believe he wants to make this country a better place. But if that means that Fox News goes out of business, forget about it. I know that Sean Hannity believes in what he is saying. Instead of being the angry left, maybe if we took a moment and listened to them, there could be some common ground, more compromise, more bi-partisan voting.

As progressives, one of the things it means is that we are open-minded. One of the things we stand for is a lack of rigidness. We have always led with compassion, while conservatives lead with values and safety. But if we don’t listen then we are no better than they are. We will end up walking out of meetings with the vice president just like them. Cause at the end of the day Sean Hannity and his boys think they are right. And we think we are right too. All patriots want this country to be more perfect. We all believe in our hearts that our way is right. I didn’t say turn on Fox News, as you know my politics are to the left of Dennis Kucinich, but when it’s on and you walk by and you hear their rhetoric, don’t assume they’re wrong. A great yogic teacher said, “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason.” You don’t have to agree with them, you just have to listen.

A season without acquittal for LeBron June, 13, 2011 By Brian Windhorst ESPN.com

LeBron James found a change of scenery, but finished the season with the same result.

MIAMI — The screams and laughs wafted into the interview room from the nearby Dallas Mavericks locker room, and LeBron James and Dwyane Wade couldn’t avoid having it wash over them. All around them were the sounds of celebration in their own building, salt in their wounds as similar cheers were raging across the country.

Space, time, irony and remorse; these realities and emotions were crashing down on the Miami Heat. Everyone had a part in it. This defeat had many fathers. But no one felt the weight more than James.

In this same space — a couple feet away in fact — where they were feeling their lowest, Wade, James and Chris Bosh had once boarded a hydraulic lift to announce their arrival in Miami to the world. A world that was so turned off by it that they stayed up late and had parties and jammed Facebook and Twitter with glee at the Mavs’ 105-95 vanquishing of the Heat in Game 6 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night.

“Sometimes you got it, sometimes you don’t,” James told the media. “The Greater Man upstairs know [sic] when it’s my time. Right now isn’t the time,” James told his Twitter followers a few minutes later.

That time. Yes, time is now all James has and it’s going to be hard time, too. With the start of next season in doubt because of labor issues and no free agency to distract the basketball world he lives in from another late-season personal collapse, there’s no redemption on the horizon.

Then there’s the irony. The Heat lost to the Mavs, whose owner Mark Cuban was so enraged that James, then a free agent, wouldn’t even grant his franchise a meeting last summer that he called for an investigation into how James, Wade and Chris Bosh all came to the decision to shift the NBA’s balance of power. Now the same man was carrying the Larry O’Brien Trophy right out of their building.

“I could care less about the Heat, that’s their problem,” Cuban said with the bravado of a man who was tasting revenge and vindication in the same moment. “They did their thing, we did ours.”

On to the remorse. This will be the toughest one because it’s a burden James, and his teammates too, will have to endure alone. The grisly statistics will dog him forever, even if he’s able to enjoy supreme success in the future. The film will chase his legacy too, the unexplainable possessions in which he looked lost and unsure of his talents. The whole quarters when his usually fantastic play was inexplicably missing.

In Game 6, James scored nine points in the first few minutes, looking to all like he was finally showing some mettle before it was too late. Then he went 36 minutes while scoring just five more points, throwing odd passes, deferring and looking passive all over again.

By the fourth quarter it was too late. He’d actually made a few baskets — scoring seven points — which qualified for his best fourth quarter of a series in which he had vanished so glaringly that people were asking about injuries and making up rumors to make their minds fit what their eyes were seeing.

Just like last season in Cleveland where James’ performance in the clutch was the polar opposite of what his talent and history called for. Just like when the top-seeded Cavs got behind the Celtics, as soon as the Mavs turned the tables on the Heat midway through this series James’ swagger and game left him. When the Heat were beating the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls, series they took control of early, James was a brilliant frontrunner. At his best, really, finishing those teams off.

It was now when he was expected to rediscover that dominance with anger and motivation from the Mavs and the masses. Everyone around him thought so, too. They talked to him about it, they encouraged him, they expected it. Even his biggest detractors and critics knew it could happen. They qualified and tempered their lashings over the past two weeks expecting James to answer at some point.

But as he went through another puzzling game Sunday — dishing repeatedly to Juwan Howard at the rim instead of taking the ball to the basket himself, passing up wide-open shots when the ball came his way, standing and watching on defense like it was a summer camp drill at times — it got more and more clear.

James couldn’t do it.

So fitting was the moment in the fourth quarter when the Heat were trying to cobble together a comeback and Mario Chalmers and James found themselves on a break together. James called for the ball. Chalmers saw him but kept it, trying to beat two Mavs players by himself. It was a brash play by a headstrong and fearless player that was wrong, but it was also a glaring indication of where James’ teammates apparently thought he was by then. Chalmers felt like he could do it better by himself.

James finished with 21 points, the most on the Heat, on what looks like a wonderful 9-of-15 shooting performance. It was, in fact, a better game than Wade’s; he shot 6-of-16 and had just 17 points. But Wade’s game had so much more will and passion. He was blazing across the floor trying to carry the Heat through it.

In the coming weeks, Wade’s heartache will be as intense as his teammates’. But while it’ll be fair to cry over his execution, his drive was unquestioned and he goes to sleep every night knowing he’s still a champion. His mistakes, and there were plenty, came from aggression and the desire not to lose.

So were Chalmers’, who had 18 points, seven assists and three steals. And Udonis Haslem’s, who had 11 points and nine rebounds on a foot that still isn’t totally healed. Bosh, too. He didn’t rise to the level of counterpart Dirk Nowitzki, true. No one could. But Bosh acquitted himself better in these playoffs than perhaps anyone on the Heat team. He finished Game 6 with 19 points and eight rebounds.

All of them played like their playoff lives were on the line Sunday night. James, again, played much of it like he was stuck in a bad dream.

After James’ Game 4, when he scored eight points in a game that truly turned the tide in the series after he was unable to impact the outcome when the Heat were just a big play or two away from grabbing a 3-1 series lead, the demand for James to respond was immense. A marginal improvement would not do. He needed to roar back because of his talent and those fresh memories from the past two rounds.

Of course, he did not. More chilling, it looked like he could not.

For those who cursed him when he signed with the Heat last summer — be it fans of the teams he spurned or those turned off by the nature of his announcement — it was like Christmas. Even buried in the bubble of friends and family he’s crafted over the years to protect him, he knew it and heard it as clearly as those Mavs players, coaches and officials cracking open Budweisers down the hall.

Left threadbare, all James could do was deploy his defense mechanisms.

“All the people that were rooting me on to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life they had before,” James said. “They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want with me and my family and be happy with that.”

Yes, James could leave in his Bentley or Rolls Royce or Maybach or whatever vehicle he chose to drive. He could, indeed, go home to his mansion where his personal chef might have a five-star meal waiting. Then off to his plush bed with 1,500-thread-count sheets. In a few days, it’ll be off on a private jet for a needed vacation.

The vast majority of those who toasted his defeat will wake up and go to work on Monday morning.

James is a multimillionaire now and he’ll still be a multimillionaire after the coming lockout ends. As a two-time MVP, he’s earned it. All these things will provide him plenty of comfort while his performance is eviscerated nationally.

“They can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy that not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal,” James said. “But they’ll have to get back to the real world at some point.”

And there’s the rub. So, too, will James. Eight years in, James is walking away from another season with no ring. In the past he could — and did –

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that.
There’s a black granite wall in Washington D.C. that bears 58,260 names on it. All of those whose names are carved on that wall are dead. For what? Freedom? If this country had listened when kids were screaming to stop that slaughter, that wall would have been one hell of a lot shorter. Yet we as a nation still wage wars of choice. War encouraged by pluotcrats. Peace is never discussed. Peace has somehow become a pejorative. Peace is no perjoritive. Peace is essential to the survival of the human race. Those who advocate for war are a dangerous and fearful group who should be marginalized and disavowed. War is always the last choice.

The dirty fucking hippies were right!

Now the oceans have been rising and warming. The polar ice is melting at alarming rates. The climate is changing in irreversible ways. Our survival as a species is on a precipice. The science on this is clear: Humans are now in trouble….. because of our reckless stewardship of what we dominate. We have polluted this fragile jewel that hangs in space. Our only home. The food we buy is contaminated. The toys we give our children as presents for christmas are tainted with poison. The water we drink is rife with carcinogens. The fish in our seas, lakes and rivers are so full of mercury that it is only recommended we eat them once per week. We have now come face to face with our own extinction. I hate to say we told you so, but…

the dirty fucking hippies… were right!

We’ve elected sociopath after sociopath for the last 30 years, to every level of government. Many of them slaves to corporate parasites that gorge themselves at the public trough while the most vulnerable people in our society: the sick, the young, and the elderly go wanting. Billions of dollars in profits are being snitched up at the expense and suffering of our neighbors by the jackals that comprise our pharrmacutical companies and insurance companies.

Both of which pipe their diagnostic wisdom and their faux concern right into our homes via teevee and radio commercials. These legal drug dealers now sell their wares with impunity and the insurance gamblers perform a slick game of 3 card monty right in our living rooms. Most of these drugs have a list of caveats that would make even the most dishonest used car salesman blush. And the insurance hustlers change the rules of the game when it’s time for them to pay up.

Profiting from the suffering and pain of others. Profiting from human frailty. Universal Healthcare? Too expensive, we were told. Gasbag talking heads on teevee and radio have been complicit in this deception while being handsomely compensated for their assistance.

I’ll say it again:
The dirty fucking hippies… were right!

Big Box discount stores descend upon small towns in America like alien ships filled with cheap products, bought at low prices, from countries that pay their workers slave wages. Plutocrats love this business model. Mom and Pop shops can’t compete with the prices set by these huge corporate parasites. and to no one’s surprise many small businesses in these tiny hamlets fail. Leaving small towns filled with empty store fronts and even in some cases forcing these former small business operators to go to work for the very people that ruined their livelyhoods. Small town America is subsequently decimated by this invasion. Often helpless in stopping it.

Wall Street has cannibalized itself. Still hungry, feeling the pangs of their greed, they’ve now come to the government for their daily meal. And still, without a hint of irony, a spokesman for this ravenous tribe, mounts a soapbox and has the temerity to rail against the evils of socialism. Turns out, the socialism is for them, the capitalism is for us. Abbie Hoffman once baited these bansters by throwing cash onto the floor of the NYSE.

To no one’s astonishment, they demonstrated their insatiable greed. The gluttons couldn’t help themselves, they stopped trading and got on their knees to sweep up the free loot. Wall Street should have been reigned in long ago.

The dirty fucking hippies… were right!

The video of this song is on YouTube, I thought the lyrics deserved a look as well.

The world’s wealthy democracies have somewhat different priorities, leading to some very different outcomes for their citizens.
June 15, 2011  |Joshua Holland

An abiding belief in American exceptionalism is more or less ubiquitous across the political spectrum. But in many ways, what makes America different from other advanced democracies are relatively modest differences in priorities. While all wealthy democracies share the same basic model –they derive the bulk of their economic activity from the private sector while offering some form of social safety net for those who fall through the cracks — even slight differences in priorities can have a huge impact on the lives of their people.

Here are 9 countries that do a better job providing for their citizens than we do.

Taking Care of the Ill: France
If you have access to the best health care in the United States, then you have some of the best care in the world. But that comes with an extremely steep price, and not everyone has that kind of access.
In 2008, the U.S. spent 16 percent of its economic output on health-care and covered 85 percent of its citizens. It was the only OECD country other than Mexico and Turkey to cover less than 90 percent of its people. We have the 37th longest average life expectancy, and a recent study found that American “life expectancy has been stagnant for much of the country and is actually decreasing over much of the Southern portion of the United States.”
France, which has a health-care system ranked number one in the world by the WHO, spent 11.2 percent of its economy to cover everyone.
There are a number of drivers of health-care costs, but one statistic stands out: in the European (and European-style) economies, upwards of 70 percent of the total health-care bill is picked up by the government, meaning that people are insured in large pools with lots of bargaining clout to hold down providers’ costs. In the U.S., less than half of our health care is in the public sector, resulting in a patchwork system of private insurers with much higher administrative costs. When you plug what France pays per person for health care into our own government’s fiscal projections, you get balanced budgets by around 2014, which then turn into surpluses after 2040.
Collective Bargaining: France
At around 12 percent (in 2008), the United States doesn’t have the lowest unionization rate among the wealthy countries. That distinction goes to France, where under 8 percent of the workforce belongs to a union.
But union membership isn’t important, collective bargaining is; and around 90 percent of non-managerial French workers – union members or not — are covered under collective bargaining agreements.
Honorable mention goes to the Scandinavian countries – with 53 percent of its workforce in a union, Norway comes in dead last among them; 68 percent of Swedes belong to a union, topping the list.
Inequality: Denmark
A large body of research shows that higher union density correlates with less inequality. The U.S. is the most unequal society among the wealthy countries – in the OECD, only three middle-income countries (Turkey, Mexico and Chile) have a more lopsided distribution of wealth.
Denmark leads the way, with the flattest distribution among the high-income countries in the OECD.
Poverty: Denmark
Inequality is a measure of how much income those at the top of the pile take in compared to what those at the bottom grab. So, in countries with equal wealth, more inequality means more poverty – the piece of the economic pie shared by those at the bottom end of the scale will be smaller by definition.
Not surprisingly, Denmark, at 5.4 percent, has the lowest poverty rate among the European-style countries.
The OECD uses a different standard of poverty than does the U.S. government. It counts anyone making less than half of the median income as living in poverty. By that standard, we are plagued with a poverty rate of over 17 percent, higher than all the OECD countries other than Mexico, Israel and Chile. (The average among OECD countries in general is 11.1 percent.)
Child Poverty: Denmark
One of the most tragic comparisons for America, among the richest countries in the world, is that more than one in five children live in poverty, as measured by the OECD (PDF). The OECD average is under 13 percent, and Denmark again comes in last, with childhood poverty at around 4 percent. (Following it are Finland, Norway, Austria and Sweden.)
Gender Gap: Italy
Because women are disproportionately represented in lower paying jobs, and people at the bottom of the wage ladder get the most benefits of union membership, high unionization rates are also correlated with lower gender pay-gaps – it’s one of several factors, but it’s a key one.
Italy has the second highest union rate outside of Scandinavia, and also boasts the smallest gender gap. A female worker in the middle of the pack makes just 1.3 percent less than her male counterpart in Italy. Compare that with American women, who earn more than 20 percent less than American men. (The OECD average is 16 percent, and we’re not the worst – that distinction goes to Japan among the European-style economies.)
Taking Care of the Young
At 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, the U.S. had the highest infant mortality rate among the high-income nations in 2006. Iceland, with 1.4 deaths/ 1,000 live births, had the lowest.
Among high-income countries, only Canada spent a lower share of its economic output on family benefits, services and tax breaks than the U.S., which devoted about 1.25 percent of GDP. France, which has battled low fertility rates for years, spends almost 4 percent.
The U.S. is the only advanced country that doesn’t offer paid maternity and/or paternity leave.
Sweden offers the longest paid leave – 16 months – at about 80 percent of one’s income. Denmark allows the parents to divide a year off, with full pay.
Early childhood care and preschool programs confer long-lasting benefits on children who participate in them. About a third of American kids aged 3-5 were enrolled in such programs in 2008, compared with about two-thirds of kids in Denmark.
Taking Care of the Old: Luxembourg
Conservatives paint more progressive countries as being mired with chronically high unemployment. But there’s a bit of sleight-of-hand at work: looking only at workers in their prime years, the U.S. has a low employment rate relative to most European countries. Ten of them — as well as Australia, Canada and Japan – had higher employment rates for people in their prime working years.
But we work our elderly a lot harder than they do in other countries. Among those aged 55-64, over 60 percent of Americans work, compared with just 35.3 percent in Belgium.
The Social Security system in the U.S. replaces 42 percent of the median salary – only the UK is stingier among the wealthy countries (but it pays a bigger share of the wages of lower-income workers). Iceland replaces 109 percent of the earnings of someone in the middle of the economic pack; Luxembourg and the Netherlands replace about 90 percent. The OECD average is 60 percent.
Among the wealthy countries, only Norway and Iceland have a higher retirement age (67) than we do in the U.S. (66). People in Luxembourg can retire with full benefits at 57, and the Italians join them just three months later.
Taxing Corporations Versus Individuals: Luxembourg
The U.S. government collects less in taxes than the other rich countries, on average, but that doesn’t tell us who pays what.

It’s worth noting that the U.S. is tied for the OECD country that collects the lowest share of the economy in corporate taxes, at 1.8 percent of GDP (in 2008), or about half the group’s average.
That means that more of the burden falls on individuals and households. Americans fork over more in personal income taxes than the OECD average as a result – we pay 9.9 percent while the OECD as a whole pays 9 percent.
Denmark leads the world in corporate taxes, and the Slovak Republic has the lowest personal income taxes, but the most “balanced” system (an admittedly arbitrary standard) is arguably Luxembourg’s, where corporations were taxed at 5.1 percent and individuals and families at 7.7 percent in 2008.
Aren’t They Taxed to Death in General?
What about the “economy-killing” taxes under which those crazy European socialists suffer? Well, in 2007 we paid 7.5 percent of our economic output less in taxes than the average of OECD countries, but citizens of the other wealthy countries got a lot more for their tax dollars than we did – free or very low-cost health care, college educations, better unemployment benefits, job training and the list goes on.
In the United States, we paid the equivalent of 8.2 percent of our economy more in social spending out of our own pockets than the people in other rich countries did that year. So the savings we enjoyed on our tax bills were more than offset by what we paid for those things our counterparts bought with their taxes. When private and public spending on our social welfare are added together, Americans pay just a little bit more than the other citizens of the world’s leading economic powers.
But What About the Debt?
Perhaps these countries just ran up piles of debt in the course of taking better care of their people?
That’s not the case; among the world’s wealthy democracies only six – Japan, Greece, Ireland, Iceland, Belgium and Italy – had a higher ratio of debt to GDP than the United States last year. Denmark’s debt level was less than half of our own.
Much has also been made of the Europeans’ supposedly slower growth and lower average incomes. It is true that over the last decade, gross domestic product grew by about 1 percentage point more annually in the United States than in the core countries of the EU-15. But when we talk about “growth,” we mean a growing population as well as increasing productivity: more people making stuff means more total stuff.
The differences in population growth between the United States and the EU are stark. Since 1980, the population of the United States has increased by more than a third, compared with 7 percent in the EU (as a whole). Adding people, however, doesn’t necessarily make countries more affluent. A better standard is the growth of GDP per person. As Paul Krugman pointed out, “Since 1980, per capita real G.D.P.—which is what matters for living standards—has risen at about the same rate in America and in the E.U. 15: 1.95 percent a year here; 1.83 percent there.” That’s essentially a rounding error.
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board got terribly excited a few years back when a study by a right-wing think tank in Sweden “found that if Europe were part of the U.S., only tiny Luxembourg could rival the richest of the 50 American states in gross domestic product per capita.” A “rising tide still lifts all boats,” the Journal reminded us, “and U.S. GDP per capita was a whopping 32% higher than the EU average in 2000, and the gap hasn’t closed since.”
As far as the raw data go, that’s true. (But several individual European states have GDP per capita that are either higher than, or comparable to, that enjoyed in the United States.) The thing is, those data tell only part of the story about a country’s economic health. We do have different priorities, and European workers expect six to eight weeks of vacation, paid sick days, and fewer hours of overtime—Europeans simply don’t work themselves to the bone as we do. American men and women worked an average of 41 hours per week in 2005, while European men averaged 38 hours and European women only 30. As the OECD noted, “As for holiday and paid leave entitlements, the striking differences between Europe and the United States (including sickness and maternity) obviously explain some of the transatlantic gap in annual working hours.”
When you factor in the difference in time spent on the job, the income gap essentially disappears. Now, is this simply a matter of Americans’ having a superior work ethic, unblunted by the perfidy of the nanny state? Well, no. Overworked Americans are miserable. According to research cited by Boston College’s Sloan Work and Family Research Network, four in 10 workers who work a lot of extra hours say they “feel very angry toward their employers,” versus 1 percent who work only a few extra hours. Just 3 percent of two-income couples who work long hours said they were content with the effort, and nine out of 10 U.S. workers said either, “My job requires that I work very hard,” or “I never seem to have enough time to get everything done on my job.”
So, again, what we see is merely a difference in priorities.

Note: Unless linked above, all data are from the OECD’s downloadable Excel files found here. A correction was made to this article after publication.

Rick Perry’s Top Controversies
— By Josh Harkinson| Mon Jun. 20, 2011 1:42 PM PDT
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R). Chris Kosho/Flickr

By all appearances, Texas Governor Rick Perry is edging closer to a presidential run. His wife wants him to jump into the race and so do the big money guys in New York. Also enthused by the idea were attendees of last weekend’s Republican Leadership Conference, where the crowd chanted, “Run, Rick, Run!” But despite everything that Perry’s got going for him—a strong state economy, great hair, bible-thumping bona fides, and more than a decade as a sitting governor—he also has a lengthy track record of gaffes, controversial remarks, and dubious dealings.

Here are some of the most notable:

Shady home sale: With the help of well-placed friends, Perry earned nearly $500,000 in questionable profits from a waterfront home in Horseshoe Bay, Texas, the Dallas Morning News revealed last year. Doug Jaffe, a prominent political powerbroker, sold the house in 2001 to a Perry friend and political ally who passed it on to the Governor for $300,000, two-thirds of its true market value. Six years later, Perry sold it to a friend and business associate of Jaffe for $350,000 above its market value—a cool $1.3 million.

A builder’s best friend: In June, 2003, Perry helped push through a bill creating the Texas Residential Construction Commission, a new government agency that was supposed to protect homebuyers from unethical builders. In reality, the bill was written by the housing industry with the help of John Krugh, a lobbyist for the homebuilder and GOP money man Bob Perry (no relation). That September, after getting a $100,000 check from Perry, the Governor appointed Krugh to the TRCC. Consumer groups fought back and got the agency abolished in 2009.

A road to nowhere: In 2003, Perry proposed the Trans-Texas Corridor, a 4,000-mile mega-highway that would have destroyed 500,000 acres of farmland while enriching a handful of politically-connected toll road operators. After the state spent nearly $60 million on the plan, overwhelming public opposition killed it.

Hands off: In 2004, whistleblowers repeatedly informed Perry’s office that the Governor’s Texas Youth Commission hires and protects “known child abusers.”  His office ignored the warnings. Three years later, the story broke that top officials with the TYC had learned of and done nothing to stop widespread child molestation at a juvenile detention facility in West Texas.

Texas justice?: In February, 2004, Perry refused to stay the execution of Cameron Todd Willingham, a death-row inmate who was almost certainly innocent. Perry later refused to release documents related to his decision and abruptly replaced three members of a commission that was investigating the case.

Nader raider?: Perry’s political associates, including top adviser Dave Carney, have been repeatedly accused of helping the Green Party qualify for the ballot in order to siphon votes away from Democratic candidates.

A shot in the arm: In 2007, Perry bypassed the state legislature and signed an executive order making Texas the only state in the nation to require 6th grade girls to receive a vaccination against a sexually-transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. At the time, Perry’s former chief of staff, Mike Toomey, was a lobbyist for Merck, the manufacturer of the vaccine. When conservative Christians protested, the legislature repealed his order.

The stimulus two-step: In March, 2009, Perry refused $555 million in stimulus money that would have funded unemployment benefits. The move backfired four months later when Perry asked the federal government for a $170 million loan to cover his state’s dwindling unemployment funds.

If at first you don’t secede: At a tea party rally in April, 2009, Perry said: “We’ve got a great Union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that?”

Blame God, not BP: Last year, Perry called the BP oil spill an “act of God.”

Crony capitalism: Perry has used the state’s Emerging Technologies Fund to benefit political allies. According to the Dallas Morning News, $16 million from the fund, or nearly 10 percent, has been awarded to companies with investors or officers that are large campaign donors to Perry.

Black Ops: Perry keeps a daily “political schedule” that he argues is separate from the “official schedule” that must be disclosed under Texas open records laws. His official schedule for the first six months of 2010 showed an average of 7 hours of work per week; he has admitted that he simply doesn’t record much of his official business. His office destroys its emails weekly.

Getting Wasted: Perry has accepted $1.2 million from Texas billionaire Harold Simmons, who is building a nuclear waste dump in West Texas over the objections of some of the state’s own environmental regulators. In January, Texas’ Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission opened the door to allowing the dump to accept nuclear waste from around the country. Six of of the commission’s seven members were appointed by Perry.

Juarez, Texas?: Earlier this year, Perry told reporters that “Juarez is reported to be the most dangerous city in America.”

So, you’re a Republican that hates taxes? Well, since you do not like taxes or government, please kindly do the following:

1. Do not use Medicare.
2. Do not use Social Security.
3. Do not become a member of the US military, who are paid with tax dollars.
4. Do not ask the National Guard to help you after a disaster.
5. Do not call 911 when you get hurt.
6. Do not call the police to stop intruders in your home.
7. Do not summon the fire department to save your burning home.
8. Do not drive on any paved road, highway, and interstate or drive on any bridge.
9. Do not use public restrooms.
10. Do not send your kids to public schools.
11. Do not put your trash out for city garbage collectors.
12. Do not live in areas with clean air.
13. Do not drink clean water.
14. Do not visit National Parks.
15. Do not visit public museums, zoos, and monuments.
16. Do not eat or use FDA inspected food and medicines.
17. Do not bring your kids to public playgrounds.
18. Do not walk or run on sidewalks.
19. Do not use public recreational facilities such as basketball and tennis courts.
20. Do not seek shelter facilities or food in soup kitchens when you are homeless and hungry.
21. Do not apply for educational or job training assistance when you lose your job.
22. Do not apply for food stamps when you can’t feed your children.
23. Do not use the judiciary system for any reason.
24. Do not ask for an attorney when you are arrested and do not ask for one to be assigned to you by the court.
25. Do not apply for any Pell Grants.
26. Do not use cures that were discovered by labs using federal dollars.
27. Do not fly on federally regulated airplanes.
28. Do not use any product that can trace its development back to NASA.
29. Do not watch the weather provided by the National Weather Service.
30. Do not listen to severe weather warnings from the National Weather Service.
31. Do not listen to tsunami, hurricane, or earthquake alert systems.
32. Do not apply for federal housing.
33. Do not use the internet, which was developed by the military.
34. Do not swim in clean rivers.
35. Do not allow your child to eat school lunches or breakfasts.
36. Do not ask for FEMA assistance when everything you own gets wiped out by disaster.
37. Do not ask the military to defend your life and home in the event of a foreign invasion.
38. Do not use your cell phone or home telephone.
39. Do not buy firearms that wouldn’t have been developed without the support of the US Government and military. That includes most of them.
40. Do not eat USDA inspected produce and meat.
41. Do not apply for government grants to start your own business.
42. Do not apply to win a government contract.
43. Do not buy any vehicle that has been inspected by government safety agencies.
44. Do not buy any product that is protected from poisons, toxins, etc…by the Consumer Protection Agency.
45. Do not save your money in a bank that is FDIC insured.
46. Do not use Veterans benefits or military health care.
47. Do not use the G.I. Bill to go to college.
48. Do not apply for unemployment benefits.
49. Do not use any electricity from companies regulated by the Department of Energy.
50. Do not live in homes that are built to code.
51. Do not run for public office. Politicians are paid with taxpayer dollars.
52. Do not ask for help from the FBI, S.W.A.T, the bomb squad, Homeland Security, State troopers, etc…
53. Do not apply for any government job whatsoever as all state and federal employees are paid with tax dollars.
54. Do not use public libraries.
55. Do not use the US Postal Service.
56. Do not visit the National Archives.
57. Do not visit Presidential Libraries.
58. Do not use airports that are secured by the federal government.
59. Do not apply for loans from any bank that is FDIC insured.
60. Do not ask the government to help you clean up after a tornado.
61. Do not ask the Department of Agriculture to provide a subsidy to help you run your farm.
62. Do not take walks in National Forests.
63. Do not ask for taxpayer dollars for your oil company.
64. Do not ask the federal government to bail your company out during recessions.
65. Do not seek medical care from places that use federal dollars.
66. Do not use Medicaid.
67. Do not use WIC.
68. Do not use electricity generated by Hoover Dam.
69. Do not use electricity or any service provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
70. Do not ask the Army Corps of Engineers to rebuild levees when they break.
71. Do not let the Coast Guard save you from drowning when your boat capsizes at sea.
72. Do not ask the government to help evacuate you when all hell breaks loose in the country you are in.
73. Do not visit historic landmarks.
74. Do not visit fisheries.
75. Do not expect to see animals that are federally protected because of the Endangered Species List.
76. Do not expect plows to clear roads of snow and ice so your kids can go to school and so you can get to work.
77. Do not hunt or camp on federal land.
78. Do not work anywhere that has a safe workplace because of government regulations.
79. Do not use public transportation.
80. Do not drink water from public water fountains.
81. Do not whine when someone copies your work and sells it as their own. Government enforces copyright laws.
82. Do not expect to own your home, car, or boat. Government organizes and keeps all titles.
83. Do not expect convicted felons to remain off the streets.
84. Do not eat in restaurants that are regulated by food quality and safety standards.
85. Do not seek help from the US Embassy if you need assistance in a foreign nation.
86. Do not apply for a passport to travel outside of the United States.
87. Do not apply for a patent when you invent something.
88. Do not adopt a child through your local, state, or federal governments.
89.Do not use elevators that have been inspected by federal or state safety regulators.
90. Do not use any resource that was discovered by the USGS.
91. Do not ask for energy assistance from the government.
92. Do not move to any other developed nation, because the taxes are much higher.
93. Do not go to a beach that is kept clean by the state.
94. Do not use money printed by the US Treasury.
95. Do not complain when millions more illegal immigrants cross the border because there are no more border patrol agents.
96. Do not attend a state university.
97. Do not see any doctor that is licensed through the state.
98. Do not use any water from municipal water systems.
99. Do not complain when diseases and viruses, that were once fought around the globe by the US government and CDC, reach your house.
100. Do not work for any company that is required to pay its workers a livable wage, provide them sick days, vacation days, and benefits.
101. Do not expect to be able to vote on election days. Government provides voting booths, election day officials, and voting machines which are paid for with taxes.
102. Do not ride trains. The railroad was built with government financial assistance.

The fact is, we pay for the lifestyle we expect. Without taxes, our lifestyles would be totally different and much harder. America would be a third world country. The less we pay, the less we get in return. Americans pay less taxes today since 1958 and is ranked 32nd out of 34 of the top tax paying countries. Chile and Mexico are 33rd and 34th. The Republicans are lying when they say that we pay the highest taxes in the world and are only attacking taxes to reward corporations and the wealthy and to weaken our infrastructure and way of life. So next time you object to paying taxes or fight to abolish taxes for corporations and the wealthy, keep this quote in mind…

“I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” ~Oliver Wendell Holmes