One final word of advice for the week: Remember, things could be worse. Much worse. Alien-invasion, Nazi-Zombie-fighting, Rick Santorum-Presidency worse. So, you know, buck up.

The Satirical Political Report: Rick Santorum's very own Iran-Contraception scandal.

True Activist: Hungary takes on Monsanto in a big way.

Feminism in a Bra: Liz Taylor was a true feminist.

The Smirking Chimp: Which side are you on in the class war?

Round-up by William K. Wolfrum; send tips to mbru [at] crooksandliars [dot] com.

Jonathan Coulton - Re: Your Brains

All we want to do is eat your brains
We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes
All we want to do is eat your brains
We're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise:
If you open up the doors
We'll all come inside and eat your brains

Maybe I've watched too much "Walking Dead" but I'm beginning to have my suspicions about the Villagers that populate our Sunday shows. That's right. I think we're looking at a zombie problem, people. Think about it. It's the same people over and over (my god, ABC...John McCain, again???) and it's all the same conversations. If that's not an attempt to eat our brains, I don't know what is. And as the song says, the idea of compromise in Washington is "why don't you agree to let me do what I'm going to do anyway?". Zombies, I tell you.

ABC's "This Week" - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Robert Gibbs, adviser to President Barack Obama's re-election campaign. Roundtable: George Will, Jonathan Karl, Lou Dobbs, Dee Dee Myers and Clarence Page.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Reps. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. Roundtable: Ed Gillespie, Al Hunt, Helene Cooper and Andrea Mitchell.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: John Heilemann, Kathleen Parker, Clarence Page, Gloria Borger. Topics: GOP Panic: One Guy Who Cannot Connect, and the Only Alternative, a Guy With Views on Social Issues to Send Women Packing. 50 Years Since John Glenn Became a National Hero. Who Could Do That Today? Meter Questions: If Rick Santorum won the Michigan primary, would Republican leaders try a significant Stop Santorum effort? YES: 6 NO: 6; Will Romney still how low turnout in November? YES: 8 No: 4 .

MSNBC's "Up with Chris Hayes" - Wallace Shawn. Panel: Heather McGhee, Jeff Greenfield, Chrystia Freeland and Sam Seder. Topics: Michigan matchup - Romney vs. Santorum, comparing and contrasting George and Mitt Romney, Occupy the SEC and a discussion on Wallace Shawn's book, "Why I Call Myself A Socialist"

MSNBC's "Melissa Harris-Perry" - Panel: Anthea Butler, Kenji Yoshino, Katon Dawson. Topics: Rush for a GOP nominee; payroll tax; poverty in America; marriage equality.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum. Roundtable: Norah O'Donnell, John Dickerson, Karen Tumulty and Todd Spangler. The Real Romney author Michael Kranish

CNN's "State of the Union" - GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul; Gov. Mitch Daniels, R-Ind.; Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey. Topics: Syria, Iran, China, budget cuts

CNN's "Reliable Sources with Howard Kurtz" - Frank Bruni of The New York Times, Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post and Scott Conroy on the GOP race; New York Times’ David Carr on Twitter; The Daily Caller's Vince Coglianese on Media Matters and their attack on Fox News for right-wing bias.

"Fox News Sunday" - GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich; Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va. Panel: Kimberley Strassel, Joe Trippi, Karl Rove, Kirsten Powers.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

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Happy Saturday night, folks! It's Blue Gal from The Professional Left Podcast, bringing you this week's podcast round up. Be aware that these podcasts may not be safe for work.

The David Pakman Show (video) Mitt Romney also has a Google problem

Citizen Radio: Virginia's State-Sanctioned Rape

The Final Edition: satire in the tradition of National Lampoon, Spinal Tap, Spy Magazine and South Park: Satire With Teeth.

Majority Report with Sam Seder (video): Pat Buchanan's Blacklisted Swan Song

From the soundtrack of the same name, a movie starring Jayne Mansfield, song by the amazing Bobby Troup.

And our sister site Newstalgia has some gorgeous blues from Big Maybelle. Enjoy.

Whatcha listening to on this Saturday night?

The Girl Can't Help It (Soundtrack Version)
	Price: $0.99 (As of 02/19/12 05:18 am details)

Want to see who's using their wealth to exploit the 99%? This series of 1-minute videos reveals the methods of the worst of the 1%.

In 2007, according to the labor economist Sylvia Allegretto, the six Walton family members on the Forbes 400 had a net worth equal to the bottom 30 percent of all Americans.The Waltons are now collectively worth about $93 billion, according to Forbes.

From Brave New Foundation and Occupy the Boardroom

Mitt Romney is struggling mightily in the primary fight in Michigan, which all the pundits assume would be a cakewalk for him. Being both a native son and the actual son of a popular governor, the conventional wisdom was that he'd lock up the win fairly easily.

But that's before Mitt Romney opened his mouth.

In a state where unemployment rates have run consistently higher than the national average over the last ten years, suffering from outsourcing in the automotive industry and the economy commensurately imploding, there is no geographic or genetic claim that could immunize Romney from such anti-populist rhetoric as

"Corporations are people, my friends"
"Let Detroit go bankrupt"
“I’ve taken on union bosses before, and I’m happy to take them on again. I sure won’t give into the UAW.”

In the premiere episode of her eponymous show, Melissa Harris-Perry shows some hard facts to dispute: when union workers do well, all workers do better.

Welcome, Melissa, to my weekend viewing fold. But I don't know that the native son of Michigan can look past his own privileged upbringing to see that what he advocates is bringing all Americans down.

[Occupy Oakland shuts down the ports on Dec. 12, 2011]

The following press release announces the settlement between ILWU Local 21 and the Export Grain Terminal (EGT).This announcement marks a significant victory for the labor movement in the US.

Via:

Longview, WA – On Friday, members of the ILWU and the labor community named the Occupy Movement as key to the settlement reached Thursday between ILWU Local 21 and the Export Grain Terminal (EGT). The contract finally provides for the use of ILWU labor in the grain terminal at the Port of Longview. After staging the December 12 port shutdowns in solidarity with Local 21, the West Coast Occupy Movement planned coordinated action together with labor allies for a land and water blockade of the EGT ship in Longview, should it attempt to use scab labor to load. Occupys in states where EGT’s parent company, Bunge, has its growth and operations were also planning actions against the company on the day of the arrival of the ship.

“This is a victory for Occupy in their involvement in forcing negotiations. Make no mistake – the solidarity and organization between the Occupy Movement and the Longshoremen won this contract,” said Jack Mulcahy, ILWU officer with Local 8. “The mobilization of the Occupy Movement across the country, particularly in Oakland, Portland, Seattle, and Longview were a critical element in bringing EGT to the bargaining table and forcing a settlement with ILWU local 21.”

“West Coast Occupys had already demonstrated their ability to stage such a blockade by shutting down ports along the West Coast on December 12th, as well as the Port of Oakland on November 2nd,” said Anthony Leviege, ILWU Local 10 in Oakland. The Occupy Movement shut down ports in order to express solidarity with port truckers and Local 21, as well as responding to a nationally-coordinated eviction campaign against Occupy.

Mayor Jean Quan said on Dec.11th that the unions weren't backing this effort, and even if that were true at the time, the unions are certainly full of praise for Occupy Oakland now.

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Credit: The Daily Scoop

It's one thing to read that foreclosures are "riddled with fraud." It's another to hear numbers like 84 percent. These are some seriously shocking numbers. Via Working America:

San Francisco recently carried out an audit on a number of foreclosures. Their findings were released in a report this week that shows just how rampant mortgage fraud has been. From Reuters:

The audit of almost 400 foreclosures in San Francisco found that 84 percent of them appeared to be illegal, according to the study released by the California city on Wednesday.

Similar studies around the country show comparable results. These numbers are astounding. And worse, they’ve essentially gotten away with it.

In many cases during the housing bubble that burst in 2008, original mortgages were repackaged and sold to so many investors that it is now unclear who actually holds the loans. O’Brien could only find the current owners of the mortgages he studied in 287 out of 473 cases.

In the San Francisco study, which studied properties subject to foreclosure sales between January 2009 to November 2011, 45 per cent were sold to entities improperly claiming to be the owner of the loan.

“It is not impossible that there are homeowners who are alleged to have defaulted on loans to which they never fully agreed to and, further, are being foreclosed upon by lenders that might not even own such loans,” the report stated.

This should be unimaginable. Instead it is chilling – the story of a largely unregulated financial industry gone amuck. The consequences to homeowners and their families is devastating. Of course the most chilling aspect of the whole mess is that the banks have never admitted to any wrongdoing. There have been no prosecutions. No banksters are wearing orange prison jumpsuits as a result of their role in defrauding millions of US homeowners.

But wait, wait! I'm sure you'll be reassured to know that Nancy Pelosi wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, asking him to look into possible violations of federal law.

I'm sure he'll jump right on it. Just as soon as he gets done busting people for medical marijuana...

Thanks to the hard work done by Elizabeth Warren against strong opposition and overwhelming odds, and with the support of the Obama administration, consumers should soon have someone on their side when they're fighting consumer finance abuses:

Debt collectors and credit reporting companies are bracing for intense scrutiny after the government’s consumer finance watchdog unveiled a broad plan to regulate financial firms that have largely evaded federal oversight.

On Thursday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed regulations that would allow the agency to supervise those two controversial corners of the finance industry, which have drawn complaints of aggressive tactics and unfair practices.

The draft rule is the most significant proposal yet to emerge from the consumer agency — a symbol of the government’s new regulatory powers and a favorite target of Congressional Republicans — and the first of several efforts to police financial companies that are not banks.

“Debt collectors and credit reporting agencies have gone unsupervised by the federal government for too long,” Richard Cordray, the bureau’s director, told reporters on Thursday. “It is time to provide the kind of oversight of these markets that will help ensure that federal laws protecting consumers in these financial markets are being followed.”

The proposal now enters a 60-day comment period. The bureau expects to complete the rule by July, the two-year anniversary of its creation. The rule, like many of the bureau’s actions, could become bogged down in a larger political battle that has bedeviled many regulators in the Obama administration. Republicans have threatened to rein in the consumer agency’s budget and authority.

The bureau, a product of the Dodd-Frank regulatory overhaul, has a broad mandate to police Wall Street banks as well as the more shadowy corners of the financial industry. Such firms are unmarked territory for the federal government. Until now, state authorities largely have licensed and supervised these companies.

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I'm still just flabbergasted that the Republicans are doubling down on the idea that running on an anti-contraception platform and basically calling women who want to use birth control sluts, as Santorum Super PAC funder Foster Friess more or less did this Thursday during his interview with Andrea Mitchell, and that somehow is a good idea for them to make some electoral gains in the upcoming election.

Chris Matthews has been pretty terrible with a lot of his coverage on the issue and carrying a lot of water for the Catholic bishops, between his interview with Melinda Henneberger, or having the gay Tory Andrew Sullivan on as some expert on women's reproductive issues later in the week.

He made up for it a bit today with the inclusion of Rep. Jackie Speier and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton on his panel to discuss Darrell Issa and his Congressional hearing on "the intrusion of government into religion" and got some of their feedback on how women are being used as a political punching bag by the right.

All I can say is that when someone has finally over reached to the point where you've even lost Chis Matthews on the issue of abortion and contraceptive rights for women in America, you've lost that battle.

Matthews warned that candidate Rick Santorum had better do something quick to fix the mess that his funder Friess made on Mitchell's show, or he's going to lose every woman voter out there. I would apply that same logic to anyone who wants to vote for any Republican period that supports taking us back to the 1950's with these battles that should have long been over with women having a right to use contraception, or to anyone that actually ever considered voting for Rick Santorum before this dust up.

Jackie Speier made a really good point that is not included in the video above, and that was asking if the Catholic church has any objection to vasectomies for men being covered in health care plans, since that's a form of contraception as well. I'm guessing the answer is no, since they only seem to be concerned about the right for someone to control their own reproduction and bodies if it means keeping those uppity women in line who haven't learned their place yet.

Lawrence O'Donnell had on Santorum's Super PAC funder Friess that same night and I don't think he really did his candidate a whole lot of favors here. His response to O'Donnell asking what he meant with his statement to Mitchell was basically, it was a joke and Rick Santorum really does believe in providing contraception to women, even though he couldn't explain his statements contrary to that.

Video below the fold from O'Donnell's show.

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