2Truthy's Happy Friday Hour LIVE Bridge Benefit Concert with Buffalo Springfield, Pearl Jam, Lucinda Williams and More: TURN UP THE VOLUME!

Buffalo Springfield Headlines Historic 24^th Bridge Benefit Concert 2010

Stop, children, what's that sound...Click RIGHT HERE and turn up the volume for the complete live Buffalo Springfield reunion set after 43 years, and well worth the wait.

Last Saturday, yours truly and friends took a trip down to the dump for Neil & Pegi Young's annual 24th Bridge School Benefit Concert for a one-time-in-a-million amazing live acoustic set headlining Buffalo Springfield's first time playing together in 43 years. Awesome, amazing and timeless are mere mortal words that can not come close to describing the sheer magic of being transported there to enjoy the sight and sounds of this historic concert.

It didn't hurt that we had SECTION ONE CENTER ROW stone's throw away from the stage seats, either.

The best part was that Buffalo Springfield played and sounded just like Buffalo Springfield – no strains of Crazy Horse or CS&N or solo Neil Daddy, just straight up Richie Furay (do I have to come right out and say it that Richie looks and sounds so fine as ever?) Stephen Stills and Mr. Weird playing and harmonizing tight and true to the original music.

Rolling Stone called the reunion triumphant:

“It has been public knowledge for weeks that the surviving members of Buffalo Springfield were going to reunite at Saturday’s Bridge School Benefit in Mountain View, California — but somehow it didn’t seem real until Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay walked onstage and played the opening chords of “On the Way Home.” The three men hadn’t shared a stage together since the final Buffalo Springfield concert in 1968.”

Of their flawless set, I don't think there was a dry eye in the house when Neil Young, before singing my favorite “I am a Child” turned around to the kids on stage and said “This one's for you, kids” and sweetly sang the hell out of it. Oh, to live on planet Neil Young...

As if Buffalo Springfield were not enough, don't even get me started on Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam who brought new meaning to “let's bring this mother fu^king house down” as they preceded Buffalo Springfield with an entirely acoustic set.

MEMO TO PEARL JAM: More acoustic sets!

Keep up with the vocal coach, Eddie! Yours truly has never been a big fan of Pearl Jam, but that all changed last Saturday night when they moved out of their electric zone and played acoustic – a style that really, really compliments Eddie Vedder's natural baritone voice that has evolved from the early days of his trademark grunt that used to make Kurt Cobain sound like Harry Belafonte.

Click on the above video (second one down) to listen to Vedder croon Patti Smith's I'm Dancing Barefoot and get blown away by Pearl Jam's acoustic sound and Eddie's great voice.

“Uncle Neil” is having a strong and powerful influence on Vedder, as you can see watching them perform Walk with Me together. White. Hot. (Click on above video.)

And before Buffalo Springfield and Pearl Jam, there were my heroes, soulful Lucinda Williams and the all-time songbird Emmylou Harris. What can I say?

You should have been there.

And God bless Neil Young and Pegi for doing all they do every year to help the Bridge School help these kids.

Happy Friday, Loserettes!

-2Truthy

YES MEN Unhinge the Chamber of Commerce

 "Business as usual; Chamber is its own parody"

-TYM

Breaking News below from their website:


WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a dramatic announcement at the National Press Club today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reversed its position on climate change policy, and promised to immediately cease lobbying against the Kerry-Boxer bill.
Not.

Within minutes of the Chamber's dramatic announcement, it was revealed that the "Chamber spokesperson" was an impostor, and the press conference an elaborate hoax designed by activists to draw attention to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "troglodytic" fight against climate change legislation. At the close of the news conference, a visibly rattled Chamber of Commerce spokesperson (Eric Wohlschlegel) barged into the room and declared the event a fraud. (Video here.)

-2Truthy

Juan Williams Canned By NPR (National Paranoid Radio)

FROM THE DESK OF QUINCY

Hello Everybody, it's me,

QUINCY,

Today, I found out that the distinguished black radio news analyst from NPR, Juan Williams got fired! And do you know what for? Because he said he gets a little “nervous” when he sees men dressed in “Muslim garb” on planes because he remembers 9/11 (you remember that bad day, right?) Big Journalism explains:

“The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”

Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.

He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.””

This is almost as bad as Vince Vaughn getting banned by Ellen for saying electric cars look gay.

I mean, look, everybody, I'm no bigot but I get a little nervous when I see Pigs identifying themselves first and foremost as chefs at Sum-Ting-Wong's kitchen in white chef garb wielding cleavers and standing around the grease vats. I can't help it. I get worried. Why? Because I remember exactly where that Pigsnout with truffle sauce that Obama ate at that fancy Philly deli came from and will never forget the pork plight of my brethren down on the North Carolina Pig farm during the days of my youth.

Is that so wrong?

And even if I did say Pigs dressed in white chef hats at Chinese greasy spoons make me a little nervous, should I get fired for speaking my mind just like Juan Williams did? Think about it.

Just like Juan Williams who didn't call anybody names or use any slurs, he said what a lot other Muslims or Kaballists or Atheists or Mormons or Scientologists must feel, too, when they board a plane and see men dressed in Muslim garb. It's just that way. Anyway, all this censorship and banning and firing is insanity.

Speaking of insanity, I hope that Mr. “Tolerance” Stephen Colbert will hold a special vigil for Juan at the Restore Sanity March at the DC Mall to restore sanity to the airwaves and restore Juan's job! After all, it's OK for Colbert and Stewart to make Pope bashing comments because the Pope is, of course, not a Muslim.

Hmph. Like a wise old sow once said:

"When fascism comes, it will be dressed in a clown suit carrying Soros' water."

NPR is ALSO the same station that is banning its employees from attending the Restore Sanity rally. Hmph. No wonder they fired Juan. The paranoid old windbags at National Propaganda Radio must only want insane people working for them.

Anyway, I have to go now and get to work on my Halloween costume. This year, I'm going to glue some garbage all over an old green track suit and go as an eco-friendly dump and make a high-pressure deodorant spray gun out of my super soaker. It's going to be the best Halloween ever!

In Uncensorship We Trust,

QUINCY

2Truthy's Lunch Break with Lucinda Williams: Turn Up the Volume!

(Very Special Thanks to Lucinda Williams)


-Wrap Your Head Around That-

-2Truthy

Bill Clinton Blames Unemployed Americans for "Skills Mismatch"

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“Of course it is absurd to claim America has a skills shortage. We have sky high unemployment rates, across the board, relative to their past rates, with highly skilled and educated people.”

-Robert Oak, The Economic Populist

Blame Employers for the Jobs Crisis, and Blame their Public-Private Political Enablers, Too

Neo-Feudal Valley, USA – While there are not enough jobs for  educated Americans and the Republican controlled Chamber of Commerce is taking it in the shorts for outsourcing American jobs, click on the above video link and watch good old Democratic Bill Clinton hammer the rickety old saw that educated American citizens are unemployed because they have a “skills mismatch” with corporations! Yes, the same corporations who are of course, even trained to deliberately NOT hire Americans in favor of cheap imported labor from India and China.  Simon Lomax and Miles Weiss report here that while “Clinton’s campaign against poverty in poor countries is making room this year for programs to aid unemployed Americans”, the former president makes the bogus following claim:

“The “biggest problem” that stands in the way of boosting employment is a “skills mismatch” in the U.S. economy. This means the jobs that are being opened don’t have qualified people applying for them. If job-specific training were provided to 5 million unemployed workers, the jobless rate would fall to around 7 percent.”

As Bill's Indian lobby buds and he himself know full well, the biggest problem that stands in the way of boosting American employment is a “moral character mismatch” between millions of educated Americans of good character and horribly sociopathic pigs who choose to feast at the trough on cheap imported labor. Skills mismatch, MY ASS! Beating the drum about some mythical “skills mismatch” is neo-feudal state speak for greasing the skids for more age and local discrimination, slave wages, labor arbitrage and more immigration at a time when there are not enough jobs for our own citizens.

Our friend Rob Oak at the Economic Populist takes us for a comprehensive stroll through the land mines of this war on America's educated middle class with his mother of all “skilled labor shortage myth” posts entitled Blame Employers for the Jobs Crisis. 

Oak provides detailed articles, charts, graphs and links that debunk the lies and propaganda from the perpetrators waging genocide on America's educated citizenry. In particular, he includes the above must-watch video clip with Bill Clinton on Dylan Ratigan's show where Clinton makes the shocking claim that while 5 million job openings exist, millions of educated American citizens who need them are NOT educated or skilled enough to be hired by most U.S. corporations and are in need of “training.” Indeed, the long-arm of Clinton's good intentions seems to stretch globally, just not locally.

What WOULD possibly possess former president Bill Clinton to claim that while 5 million job openings exist, millions of educated American citizens who need them are NOT skilled enough to hire? Since when is it suddenly academia's responsibility to train the already educated American unemployed workforce for corporations at the very expense of unemployed educated Americans? Could there be some underlying profit motive there? Not only do corporations not want to hire Americans or pay them decent salaries and healthcare, they are hellbent with replacing them with cheap foreign imported workers. Could The Cash Cow of Indian Outsourcing and Clinton family ties to the India lobby (h/t Rob Sanchez) who have made Billary very wealthy Connecticut “farmers” and the cheap labor itch have something at all to do with the LIE that there is an American skilled labor shortage?

Included in his post is a new website and database from the AFL-CIO which allows you to see who is exporting jobs by zip code. How are your friendly local companies holding up? In addition to many technology companies (ahem, including the nation's supreme sociopathy pit, Hewlett-Packard) I even found a bread company in my zone that apparently can't find qualified Americans to work for them. A bread company! With so many people locally out of work, local companies continue to discriminate.  Oak writes:

“Those of us in STEM know what skills shortage really means. It means enabling more outsourcing, more foreign guest workers and more immigration. There is no skills shortage, there never was a skill shortage. There is a shortage of good employers who do not discriminate, age discriminate, ship jobs to India, China, Brazil and treat their workers like cannon fodder. There also is a shortage of jobs, pure and simple. Put U.S. workers first. Demand these employers quit their inane, harsh, wage repressing, discriminatory labor practices.”

Where exactly is Clinton's explanation of what these mysteriously missing skills are that Americans are supposed to be lacking? Anyone who starts a job in a company is trained, period. Never mind this horseshit excuse of educated Americans not being qualified and that somehow only an inexperienced, dubiously and unverifiable, cheap foreign worker magically shows up with all the right “trainability” because they overwhelmingly always don't.

Rob Oak is right. Corporations are to blame for not hiring educated Americans. And if corporations stopped discriminating against educated American citizens of all ages and started hiring them instead of importing cheap foreign workers, politicians and former presidents would be relieved of making excuses for them. But they would also be relieved of a few zillion ruppees, too, that keep them all fat and happy down on the farm.

Rob Oak doesn't hesitate to call it like it is when it comes to this ruse from Clinton about educated Americans needing “training” as he offers this excellent comment below:

“As a techie, I can tell you a main STEM skill is the never ending ability to learn and self-teach. You'd be dead in the water without that ability for technology changes every 6 months. That said, acting like people cannot learn new skills on the job, when the entire United States learned skills on the job to become the biggest military machine in history and win the war...

just infuriates me. I mean come on, the entire planet is currently addicted to iphones and facebook. All of that requires learning new skills...i.e. the younger crowd is all thumbs, literally. Think they cannot learn some skilled manufacturing trade if they can figure out how to text at 80wpm with just their thumbs? What is wrong with these corporations and politicians?”

After reaping so much wealth, it is a shame that the Clintons would still choose not to stop this war on America's educated middle class, many of whom supported them. As yours truly has previously reported, Follow the Drinking Gourd.

Party on, plebes!

-2Truthy

2Truthy's Happy Friday Hour with Duane Allman: Turn Up the Volume!

(Very Special Thanks to the Immortal Duane Allman) 

"A 10 minute + song that starts slow and builds momentum like a freight train. If this song doesn't get you tapping your toe or playing air guitar then your probably dead." -Youtube Commenter

Loan Me a Dime

What are your local Congress critters doing to stop importing cheap labor to take your jobs? How about your local Chamber of Commerce selling out your jobs to foreign BFFs who grease their palms?

High Profits, High Unemployment?

"Perplexing statistics have been surfacing concerning the economy. While corporate profits are returning to pre “crisis” levels, unemployment seems to remain stuck around ten percent. Worsening the scenario is the fact that this doesn’t capture the entire employment picture, as some believe at least another ten percent have given up on finding a job or have been forced into early retirement."

 20.5 Million Americans have a Bachelors Degree in Science & Engineering but our "best and brightest" thought leaders lie and tell us we have a skilled labor shortage and that we need MORE imported cheap workers to take jobs educated Americans need?

"A new question in the 2009 American Community Survey asked respondents with bachelor's degrees about their undergraduate major: The estimated number of people in the United States 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher was 56.3 million. Of this group, 20.5 million, or 36.4 percent, held at least one science and engineering degree." 

Jobs for U.S. citizens are not commodities like GMO crops under some skewed NAFTA agreement. But for many years of job outsourcing,  to  caste-minded neo-frat boy bean counters running U.S. corporations,  a slave is a slave is a slave. 

Happy Friday, Loserettes!

-2Truthy   

Get Behind Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel: The Gay Rahmi Times Chicago Exclusive

(Click on image to enlarge)

“If the teacher is corrupt, the city will be, too!”

-The Gay Swami

Ex-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to Run for Mayor of Chicago!

The Gay Rahmi Kicks Off Chicago Tell It Like It Fu*king Is Tour

Get Behind Rahm!

Welcome back to The Gay Swami Times. Click here for previous issues.

Today we celebrate celestial news that dreamy Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel (click here for his blog) has officially declared his Chicago run for Mayor! The Gay Rahmi's "Tell It Like It Is" listening tour of Chicago is leading him to all kinds of exotic locales to progressively bridge the “enthusiasm gap” by listening to people in places like the N. Kimaball Home Depot, the Diversey River Bowl and train stations, too:

"As I prepare to run for mayor, I'm going to spend the next few weeks visiting our neighborhoods -- at grocery stores, L stops, bowling alleys and hot dog stands," Emanuel said. "I want to hear from you -- in blunt Chicago terms -- what you think about our city, and how the next mayor and you can make it better."

One minor fly in the ointment involves a residency evil dispute that some malicious experts say may disqualify him from running, but this is Chicago, right? It's NOT like it's Delhi or New Jersey or anything. This is the Second City known for its glorious, worldclass corruption standards where constant friction between moral pantywaists and lying, corrupt politicians create a melting pot for grand scale thievery unlike anyplace known to the galaxy! No suspicious legal maneuvering should prevent enlightened Rahm from winning his rightful seat. Om.

The Gay Swami predicts that Rahm will elude these bed bugs who would present such odious and trivial roadblocks to his inevitable SUCCESS, because a person can always make spiritual progress under the guidance of a corrupt master! “The Gay Rahmi shall triumph over his fluffy opponents to win the hearts and souls (the dead voters have a ballot, too!) and wallets of the people of Chicago!”

“A desire arises in the mind. It is satisfied immediately after a higher power comes to rectify the residency requirement.”

-His Holiness, the Swami Salami

-THE GAY SWAMI

Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel Kicks Off Tell It Like It Is Public Transportation and Hot Dog Tour

Rahm's Tell It Like It Fuc*ing Is Tour

Dear Chicago land BFFs and Voters Everywhere, (You too, Blago),

As you know, I have announced my decision to run for Mayor of Chicago.

In an attempt to clean up my image as a backroom dealing, profane piledriver, my staffers have suggested I instead STFU and stuff my filthy mouth with hotdogs as a first baby step in my rehabilitation.

I'm serious, bitches.

In case you haven't heard, my new scene will involve trolling Chicago's hot dog stands and L stops for ordinary citizens to give me ideas on how I could make the City of Chicago a better place for them in the “New Economy”.(As if.)

My campaign tour is called "Tell it like it is" and believe me, I'll tell YOU like it is: I'll be looking for donations from every one of you motherf*ckers because this democracy business is a TWO way street. And after a hard day hitting the slums and listening, listening to ALL KINDS of WHINEY SH*T – maybe I can listen to some aspiring U of C interns at Cedar's over shish-kebobs and Rahm-itinis for dinner, too.

I'm excited to be your mayor in waiting, so help me help you make a difference in my slam-dunk campaign.

Onward!

Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel