Here's how Florida's prisons were nearly privatized without anyone knowing about it. In a rather arrogant and high-handed move, Republican lawmakers tucked a secret provision into the budget right at the end of the frenzied 2011 legislative session requiring private companies to take over 29 prisons by January 1st. Of course, it was all intended to union-bust and replace nearly 3800 union employees with minimum-wage private company replacements.

Tallahassee.com:

Turner and Johnson said Sen. JD Alexander, a Lake Wales Republican and budget chairman, placed the privatization language in the budget after the prisons portion had cleared earlier committees that would have opposed the move.

Assistant Attorney General Jon Glogau argued that legislators have wide authority to tell departments how to use appropriated funds. He said the Legislature didn't have to pass a stand-alone statute to privatize prisons because the state has had a law for 20 years allowing the DOC to outsource some prison operations.

How many, and where those prisons will be, is up to the Legislature, Glogau said. He said every budget item embodies some form of policy choice and that House and Senate appropriations committees and subcommittees held many public hearings on all phases of the budget, including the final product.

"Slippery-slope arguments are hyperbole, at best," Glogau said. He said agencies have executive authority to organize, operate and staff their offices most efficiently.

"Privatization of prisons is a unilateral right of the employer," said Glogau. "I don't want to make light of the fact that people are losing their jobs but, under the facts and the case law, it is the unilateral right of the public employer to do this."

That sneaky Senator. After the prison portions cleared committees who might have noticed, much less have agreed to it, he slipped it in there. Despite all the false bravado, there seems to be at least a small concern that it might not be one hundred percent on the level, since the good Governor Scott pressured former Florida Corrections overseer Ed Buss not to testify or give a deposition before the case was heard. Fortunately the unions were paying attention, and took it to court. Last Friday, Judge Jackie Fulford ruled the scheme unconstitutional.

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Rep. Louis Slaughter (D-NY) told Current TV's Keith Olbermann Tuesday that a "retroactive recusal" of Justice Clarence Thomas could result in overturning the Citizens United case.

Earlier this year, the liberal group Common Cause argued that both Justices Thomas and Antonin Scalia should have recused themselves from the Citizens United case because they attended events organized billionaire Charles Koch.

In addition, Thomas' wife, Virginia Thomas, may have received financial benefit from the Citizens United ruling, something that was never disclosed by the justice.

Twenty House Democrats Thursday called on the U.S. Judicial Conference to formally request that the U.S. Department of Justice investigate Justice Clarence Thomas's non-compliance with the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

Justice Thomas indicated on his annual financial disclosure forms that his wife had received no income since he joined the bench in 1991, despite the fact that his wife had in fact earned nearly $700,000 from the Heritage Foundation from 2003 to 2007.

"What I'm very interested here is the votes that he has cast that may be in conflict," Slaughter explained to Olbermann. "Of course, his wife can work. But the fact is there are only nine justice on that Supreme Court and it certainly should be a given that a family member of any of those people lucky enough to be a Supreme Court justice should not in any way involve themselves in matters that will go before that court. Now, we all know that she worked very hard for the Citizens United case, which I think is one of the most egregious things that have ever happened in the United States Supreme Court."

She added: "There is such a thing as a retroactive recusal. We're looking into that. That case, if you remember, was decided 5-4. If we could take away his vote, we could wipe that out. It would lose. How 'bout that?"

"That's only the future of the democracy there, isn't it?" Olbermann asked.

"Yes, indeed. And we are -- you know, the judiciary is the last place for all of us to go. We're only as good -- all of us -- as the courts are, only as safe as the courts are good. Their interpretations are really what give us the freedoms when you come down to it. They have enormous power."

Rep. Steve King at times is the king of wingnutopia. They'd like to erase the last 250 years. Aren't tea party politicians supposed to be constitutionalists?

Political Correction:

In a Judiciary Committee hearing on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) used his allotted time to daydream out loud about an era of American history when only male property owners were allowed to vote. King pondered whether we should go back to a similar system of allowing only people with "skin in the game" (i.e. people with jobs) to have that right.

Halfway through his remarks, King made the disclaimer that he was only making "a historical observation" about the era of property-owner-only voting, but the rest of his dialogue made it seem as though he thought the Founding Fathers might have been on to something.

KING: As I roll this thing back and I think of American history, there was a time in American history when you had to be a male property owner in order to vote. The reason for that was, because they wanted the people who voted — that set the public policy, that decided on the taxes and the spending — to have some skin in the game.

Now we have data out there that shows that 47 percent of American households don't pay taxes, 51 percent of American wage-earners don't have an income tax liability. And it's pretty clear that there are a lot of people who are not in the workforce at all. In fact, of our unemployment numbers — that run in the 13 or 14 million category — when you go to the Department of Labor Statistics and you look at that data, you can add up those that are simply not in the workforce of different age groups, but of working age, add that number to the number of those who are on unemployment and you come up with a number that was just a few months ago 80 million Americans. Just over a month ago that number went over 100 million Americans that aren't working.

Now I don't think they're paying taxes. But many of them are voting. And when they vote, they vote for more government benefits.

Back at home he probably takes out his snuff box and dreams about the time when plantations littered the south and women were chained to the kitchen. Um, Steve, the House of Representatives is supposed to represent the "people." It was called The People's House. Not the "Landowners House." That's one of the reasons we have the Senate.

Thanks so much for all your help. Please keep it coming. The retweets have helped big time too. We're receiving more emails from those we're helping to feed along with some cool pictures. Jackie of Blue America has taken over as our purchasing manager on this fundraiser so we can make sure the pizzas and whatever else is needed gets shipped or delivered in a timely manner since it's become a pretty intense job right now. We've so far bought dinner for Seattle, Boston, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Let us know where you guys are and what you're doing. We'll bring the pies!

If you'd like to buy the occupiers some nosh, here's the account we've set up:

All amounts accepted and they all help tremendously!

Here's a few emails I've received:

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I was the approximate age demographic when Sesame Street debuted in 1969. But I wasn't the target audience. Sesame Street was created to assist children--particularly from low-income families--with basic letter recognition and other cognitive skills before they entered kindergarten. Over the intervening 40 plus years, Sesame Street has modified its initial mission statement to introduce the concepts of tolerance, social diversity, conflict resolution and handled some really big picture ideas like the death of a loved one, coming back after natural disasters, marriages, births, adoptions and even September 11th.

This year, the good people of the Sesame Workshop have decided that they need to address another issue affecting Americans: food insecurity.

The iconic kids show is set to unveil a new impoverished puppet named Lily, whose family faces an ongoing struggle with hunger issues. Lily will be revealed in a one-hour Sesame Street primetime special, Growing Hope Against Hunger, which is being sponsored by Walmart. The special will star country singer Brad Paisley and his wife Kimberly Williams Paisley, as well as the Sesame Street Muppets.

“Food insecurity is a growing and difficult issue for adults to discuss, much less children,” said the Paisleys in a statement. “We are honored that Sesame Street, with its long history of tackling difficult issues with sensitivity, caring and warmth asked us to be a part of this important project.” The special will share the stories of real-life families to raise awareness of hunger issues in the United States, as well as strategies that have helped these families find food. The United States Department of Agriculture estimates that 17 million American children — nearly 1 in 4 — have limited or uncertain access to affordable and nutritious food.

Let me repeat this: ONE IN FOUR CHILDREN are hungry. This is not some third-world, banana republic nation. This is not some resource- and agriculturally-poor country dependent upon foreign aid. This is the wealthiest nation in the world. This is unacceptable.

Poor nutrition has been linked to a vast array of health and cognitive issues, which can then be linked to a host of societal ills, the circle of poverty, neglect, crime and punishment continuing generation after generation.

The wealthiest country in the world.

Unacceptable.

If you want to help, FeedingAmerica.org has ideas on what you can do.

Labor negotiations between National Basketball Association owners and players broke down Tuesday, leading to the cancellation of the entire NBA preseason. The owners have locked out the players since July 1 as the two sides were unable to reach a new collective bargaining agreement and owners are demanding a decrease in the percentage of revenue that goes to player salaries. Players are currently guaranteed 57 percent of revenue and the owners have demanded that percentage fall to 46 or 47 percent. David Stern and other league negotiators offered a 50-50 split that was rejected by the players, who have offered to decrease their percentage to 53 percent.

Some may wonder why anyone should care about what percentage of league revenues go to the players and ask why we should care about one group of millionaires arguing over money with another group of millionaires. There are several reasons. First is that the money in question rightfully belongs to the players. The players do all the work and fans universally come to see the players. The whole league is based on the interest of fans in the efforts of the players. What do the owners add to the situation? Virtually nothing and they already get 43 percent of the revenue for that. Now they demand the majority of the money despite adding little to nothing to the product.

More importantly, in the bigger picture, is that the labor battles in professional sports are the highest profile labor battles in the country and they are an introduction for most Americans to the concept of unions and workers rights. Positive coverage of players unions can translate to positive feelings towards other unions and vice versa. Accurately showing the public the greed of team owners and how they exploit the labor of the players can help people understand that the same types of situations exist where workers don't make millions of dollars.

And there is the fact that these same owners, as pointed out by SB Nation's Tom Ziller, take public money to build arenas and then pocket all the profits without giving anything back to the government that financed them in the first place.

Owners complain about their teams losing money, but the reality is that they aren't losing money because of player salaries as much as they are losing it because of their own bad business decisions. As Ziller points out:

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ThinkProgress points out how little the Koch-manufactured tea party has in common with the real thing, and how the Occupy Wall Street movement embodies the real spirit:

1.) The Original Boston Tea Party Was A Civil Disobedience Action Against A Private Corporation. In 1773, agitators blocked the importation of tea by East India Trading Company ships across the country. In Boston harbor, a band of protesters led by Samuel Adams boarded the corporation’s ships and dumped the tea into the harbor. No East India Trading Company employees were harmed, but the destruction of the company’s tea is estimated to be worth up to $2 million in today’s money. The Occupy Wall Street protests have targetedbig banks like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, as well as multinational corporations like GE with sit-ins and peaceful rallies.

2.) The Original Boston Tea Party Feared That Corporate Greed Would Destroy America. As Professor Benjamin Carp has argued, colonists perceived the East India Trading Company as a “fearsome monopolistic company that was going to rob them blind and pave the way maybe for their enslavement.” A popular pamphlet called The Alarm agitated for a revolt against the East India Trading Company by warning that the British corporation would devastate America just as it had devastated South Asian colonies: “Their Conduct in Asia, for some Years past, has given simple Proof, how little they regard the Laws of Nations, the Rights, Liberties, or Lives of Men. [...] And these not being sufficient to glut their Avarice, they have, by the most unparalleled Barbarities, Extortions, and Monopolies, stripped the miserable Inhabitants of their Property, and reduced whole Provinces to Indigence and Ruin.”

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Wait a minute, Chris Christie didn't swear on the lives of his children that he wouldn't run. Call Chuck Todd. We may have a story.

Mock, Paper, Scissors: Tengrain gives an update of the great 2012 Goat Race.

The Race to the Bottom: Don't go saying that everyone is getting away with financial crimes. Just most everyone.

The Rutherford Lawson Blog: How to produce your opponent’s campaign ad.

KQED News: Clean-Tech has an unlikely ally in the Pentagon.

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

Geek alert: The Star Wars AT-AT pancake requires thirteen individual pancake pieces on the griddle, which are then glued together with more pancake batter and heated through to cook the "glue."

More at Jim's Pancakes. Worth the click.

Open thread below....

LA's Foster The People have unleashed an inescapeable tune that's ready-made for commercials and movie scenes. It's certainly catchy as hell and I'll admit that it's kind of grown on me. What current music are y'all listening to?