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Inuit organize widespread protest over hunger, food cost
IQALUIT, Nunavut — A head of cabbage for $20. Fifteen bucks for a small bag of apples.
A case of ginger ale: $82.
Fed up and frustrated by sky-high food prices and concerned over widespread hunger in their communities, thousands of Inuit have spent weeks posting pictures and price tags from their local grocery stores to a Facebook site called Feed My Family.
That site is now the nucleus of an unprecedented protest across Nunavut organized for Saturday to draw attention to food prices that would shock southerners.
“This is traditionally not the Inuit way, I understand that,” said Leesee Papatsie, the 44-year-old Iqaluit mother of four who’s organizing the event. “But we’re trying to get Nunavummiut to step forward and say ‘Hey, food is too expensive.”‘
Papatsie wants Inuit in every community in Nunavut to stand together outside their local grocery store Saturday afternoon. A similar event is being organized in Ottawa.
Weeks after the federal government dismissed concerns from a United Nations representative about food insecurity in Canada’s North, turnout at the protest could be impressive. More than 10,000 people have joined the Feed My Family site — over a third of Nunavut’s entire population.
Feed My Family Facebook site.
Read more HERE.
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WFB:
Ultra-wealthy Obama supporter Whitney Tilson had a rough month. His T2 Partners hedge fund, which manages more than $260 million, posted a 13.6 percent loss in May, underperforming the major indexes.
“Our fund fell 13.6% in May vs. -6.0% for the S&P 500, -5.9% for the Dow and -7.1% for the Nasdaq,” Tilson wrote a letter to investors. “It was an ugly month — our second-worst ever.”
One of the few “winners” in Tilson’s portfolio was his short position in First Solar, a company on the brink of collapse despite receiving more than $3 billion in federal loan guarantees from the Obama administration.
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(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — Throughout this year’s three-day Netroots Nations conference — as progressive activists have cheered on Elizabeth Warren, held Occupy-style general assemblies and attended seminars on topics ranging from voter ID laws to “Love, Compassion and Outrageous Forms of Activism” — present just below the surface of the discussion has been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with President Obama.
On Saturday night, that discontent came to the fore.
A series of liberal favorites, culminating with former Obama environmental adviser Van Jones, took to the stage at the Rhode Island Convention Center to rally the Democratic base — and also to make clear that nearly four years after his election, Obama has not lived up to their expectations.
“He stands up for Trayvon; he stands up for gay marriage; we like him,” Jones said of Obama in the keynote speech of the evening. “But we’re not in love with him.”
“We went from having a crush to feeling crushed,” he added, as the convention hall — which at about 1,500 activists was about half-full compared with where it stood during Warren’s address on Friday — responded with cheers and applause. . . .
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Greenpeace protesting the Sierra Club would make more sense then occupy protesting the hand that feeds them.
(PROVIDENCE, R.I.) — Dozens of members of Occupy Providence demonstrated Saturday afternoon outside the Rhode Island Convention Center, site of Netroots Nation, a three-day gathering of progressive activists, bloggers and politicians that has drawn more than 1,000 from around the country.
Occupy Providence, which began last fall as part of a national movement, focused its attention on former baseball star Curt Schilling’s failed 38 Studios game company, which filed for bankruptcy on Thursday. Rhode Island taxpayers stand to lose more than $100 million.
“No 38 Studios Bailout,” read one of the banners the Occupy demonstrators carried. Among the other slogans: “Tax the Rich!” and “Solidarity, not Austerity!”
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President versus senator: Obama’s role reversal on leak investigations
President Obama is experiencing a severe role reversal as Republicans in Congress are calling for the White House to appoint a special counsel to investigate a series of classified intelligence leaks.
It’s a shift from Obama’s days as a senator, when he was part of Democratic calls for a special counsel and an independent congressional review of two of the Bush administration’s biggest scandals.
Obama signed onto a 2006 letter with 36 Democratic senators led by then Minority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.) calling for the Bush Justice Department to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Jack Abramoff corruption scandal.
“A special counsel will ensure the public’s confidence in the investigation and prosecution and help to restore its faith in our government,” the senators wrote.
A year prior, Obama was also part of a call for congressional investigations into the Bush administration’s biggest leak — the revealing of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity.
Read more HERE.
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Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal speaks to guests at the Conservative Political Action Conference on June 8, 2012 in Rosemont, Illinois.
(Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Jindal: Obama “most liberal, most incompetent” president since Carter
(CBS News) ROSEMONT, Ill. – Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, whose star as a potential running mate for Mitt Romney has been rising in recent weeks, delivered a scathing critique of President Obama at the Chicago Conservative Political Action Conference here Friday, saying the private sector is like a foreign country to Obama.
“I suspect that many in the Obama administration really don’t believe in private enterprise. At best they see business as something to be endured so that that it can provide tax money for government programs,” said Jindal.
Responding to Obama’s statement that the private sector was doing fine, he added: “Mr. President, I’ve got a message for you: The private sector is not doing well when 23 million Americans are unemployed and underemployed in this great country. This president, the private sector is so foreign to him he might need a passport to actually go visit and he might need a translator to help him talk to folks in the private sector.”
Jindal, who has not yet campaigned with Romney, grabbed his chance Friday to try on the attack-dog role traditionally given to running mates. He called Obama “themost liberal, most incompetent president in the White House since Jimmy Carter,” and accused him of staying out of the Wisconsin recall election this week out of cowardice.
“Did he not go to Wisconsin because he was afraid of hurting himself by backing a loser?” Jindal wondered. “He shrunk from this challenge. He elected to stay away from Wisconsin for fear of losing. That’s not what leaders do.”
Read more HERE.
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Bonnie and Clyde
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