The facts are that Democratic Mayor of Newark Cory Booker, former Democratic Representative Harold Ford of Tennessee, and former Obama business advisor Steven Rattner criticized Barack Obama for his advertisement, calling it inappropriate to shame capital investment firms. But these are not all the facts, as only one out of three news outlets reveals.

In its coverage of this kerfuffle, ABC News refers simply to a “divide among Democrats over the portrayal of Romney’s Bain days.” Veering more firmly into blatant inaccuracy, FOX News refers to Obama’s detractors as “rank and file.” But Brayden Simms of Metro News nails the pattern down tight when he considers why some prominent Democrats so harshly criticized Barack Obama recently. Simms writes:

Ford is currently a managing director for Morgan Stanley. Rattner co-founded a private equity firm and worked for Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and others. Booker is a sitting politician whose job is directly linked to the financial sector: Bain and other similar firms contributed hundreds of thousands to his last election.

Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Bain Capital — all firms to which Cory Booker, Harold Ford and Steven Rattner are in thrall — have the common feature of gutting American industries, kicking Americans out of work and subjecting American workers’ hard-earned pensions to jeopardy. Booker, Ford and Rattner are springing to their corporate masters’ defense. Big Finance Democrats like Booker, Rattner and Ford are more than willing to throw Barack Obama under the bus because their allegiance to money is stronger than their allegiance to a candidate.

In explaining why he thought finance capitalism should be above criticism by mere plebes, Rattner revealed his value system:

Bain Capital’s responsibility was not to create 100,000 jobs or some other number. It was to create profits for its investors. It did it superbly well.

Rattner got this one thing right: megafinance corporations are not “job creators” after all. They’re wealth extractors and concentrators on behalf of their already wealthy investors. If you think that kind of behavior should be above question and purged from discussion, then by all means stand with Mitt Romney on the Republican side and with his allies in the “centrist” faction of the Democratic Party. Otherwise, isn’t it time to walk away?

PUBLIC REPUTATION

You acknowledge and agree that you will not use any product ordered from the Site in a way that would be damaging to Skreened’s public reputation or that of its employees, board members, shareholders, licensors, or solution partners. Additionally, you acknowledge that if you choose to display any product ordered from Skreened, in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Skreened, Skreened’s board members, employees, shareholders or partners, Skreened reserves the right to demand immediate return of the product, to furthermore pursue all recourses and remedies available under the law.

This means that if you get a defective shirt from Skreened, you can’t show the botched print online. It means that you can’t do anything ironic regarding the shirt that someone might take the wrong way. It means you can’t make fun of the Skreened company — or its “employees, board members, shareholders, licensors, or solution partners” while wearing one of their shirts. It means you can’t make a public fool of yourself or be offensive while wearing a Skreened shirt, because it might hurt Skreened’s reputation. This has got to be one of the lamest Terms of Service I’ve read in quite some time.

Don’t like the user agreement? Didn’t even read it before you got your shirt? Well, Skreened would like to let you know you can sit and spin, because “your use of this site shall be deemed to be your agreement to abide by each of the terms set forth below.”

Oh, dear. Did talking about this idiotic, dehumanizing, utterly corporate, completely not-of-the-street at all User Agreement just harm’s Skreened’s public reputation? Well, tough cookies, Skreened, ’cause right now I’m not wearing one of your shirts.

Update, 8:45… oh lookie. Zazzle, another shirt producer that isn’t quite as ethical as Skreened in choosing its shirt sources, has almost exactly the same idiotic disparagement clause in its User Agreement:

Public Reputation

You acknowledge and agree that you will not use any Product ordered from the Site in a way that would be damaging to Zazzle’s public reputation or that of its employees, board members, shareholders, licensors, or solution partners. Additionally, you acknowledge that if you choose to display any product including custom postage ordered from Zazzle, in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Zazzle, Zazzle’s board members, employees, shareholders or partners, or the United States Postal Service, Zazzle reserves the right to demand immediate return of the product, to furthermore pursue all recourses and remedies available under the law, and, in the case of Zazzle Custom Stamps, to invalidate your Zazzle Custom Stamps via cancellation of the bar code.

Also check out the two companies’ Intellectual Property clauses:

Hilarious. Somewhere, the original author is crying for lack of full citation. Oh, sob. Oh, weep.

I know there are bigger problems in the world, but sometimes it’s the tiny loads of bullcrap that push me over the edge. Oh, sob. Oh, weep.

Update Numero Dos, 9:00 AM: T-shirt vendor Thompson Punke (lift that pinky when you mousse your mohawk, it ends with an e) has a similar disparagement policy

You acknowledge and agree that you will not use any product ordered from the Site in a way that would be damaging to Thompson Punke’s public reputation or that of its employees, board members, shareholders, licensors, or solution partners. Additionally, you acknowledge that if you choose to display any product from Thompson Punke, in a public setting, including on the Internet, in a way which disparages Thompson Punke, Thompson Punke’s board members, employees or shareholders or partners, Thompson Punke reserves the right to demand immediate return of the product, to furthermore pursue all recourses and remedies available under the law.

This coming from a company that sells a shirt with a massive extended middle finger on the front of it.

How edgy, hip and … wait, no, how completely corporate, uptight and utterly bland of you, Thompson Punke with an e. These uptight legalesers say they’re “badass players” building a brand that’s a “little bit rude and a little bit crude.” But don’t make their shirts look bad or they’ll make you return the product — in a badass way, I’m sure. Shizzle and all that. With an e.

I don’t get it. What’s the big scandal?

Yes, exchanging money for sex is always risky, sometimes abusive, and is illegal. But, to reach the level of scandal, rather than anecdotal wrongdoing, there’s got to be some connection to high political policy, either in the nature of the crime or in the extremely high position of the person who does the wrongdoing.

If it was Barack Obama who hired a prostitute in Colombia, I could understand calling that a scandal, though it wouldn’t really be very political. If the Secret Service agents and American soldiers had passed classified secrets on to the prostitutes, I could understand calling that a scandal.

As I understand it, though, there was no political aspect to the sex, and the Secret Service agents and soldiers are mid-level at best.

So, I ask, is there something I’m not understanding? What makes this story such a big deal, rather than a page 19 one-paragraph article?

As Noreen Malone of New York Magazine reports, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg had this explanation for his opposition to a living wage for the people of New York City:

“The last time we really had a big managed economy was the USSR and that didn’t work out so well.”

Is equating a livable wage with Soviet dictatorship reasonable? Sensible? Typical?

It’s not typical. The majority of the people of New York City support a hike in the minimum wage there. Judging by numbers alone, Michael Bloomberg isn’t in the center when it comes to a livable wage. Bloomberg’s on the fringe.

Is Bloomberg being sensible and reasonable? To be sensible is to open your eyes and observe the world around you. To be reasonable is to process your observations on the way to making conclusions. By neither count does Bloomberg’s claim pass the test. It’s simply not true that “The last time we really had a big managed economy was the USSR and that didn’t work out so well.” There are a number of “big managed economies,” if by that we mean places where the minimum wage is higher than the United States — and that’s what Michael Bloomberg means. The United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg have higher minimum wages than in the United States. How are they doing?

Using minimum wage data from Eurostat and latest-available female life expectancy data from Eurostat and the CDC (male trend is the same), let’s see “how well that turned out”:

The countries with the lowest minimum wages have the lowest life expectancies. To quote Michael Bloomberg, “that didn’t work out so well.” The countries with the highest minimum wages have the highest life expectancies. And every country with a higher minimum wage than the United States has a higher life expectancy. That worked out pretty well for United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Luxembourg — at least if you’re concerned with the quality of life of the people who live within those nations.

Sensible, rational and typical aren’t what garners Michael Bloomberg the label of “centrist.” What does? The billionaire mogul mayor continues:

“It would be great if all jobs in the city paid a lot of money and had great benefits — for the workers. Not good for the employers.”

Well, that explains it. Bloomberg isn’t interested in the quality of life of the people living in a place. Bloomberg sides with the employers. And that’s what “centrism” really means.

1. To pay for the hosting and logistical costs associated with keeping Irregular Times up and running.
2. To help spread messages that we believe in.
3. To help change the world just a little bit.

#3 may seem odd to you; how does selling a shirt change the world, even just a little bit? Beyond the messages we place on the shirts themselves, we’re trying to help in a couple of ways. We’re trying to support an alternative to third-world sweatshop-based shirt production. How do you think those t-shirts made in Cambodia and sent all the way across the Pacific Ocean to your mall can be sold for just $12.99, when comparable shirts made in the United States cost $18.99? The answer is that the shirt producers in Cambodia are dancing to the tune set by their unethical American investors, paying workers meager wages in unsafe factories that are environmentally unregulated. Apparel production in the United States is regulated, audited, pays better wages and treats its workers better.

In the midst of the suffering, pollution and debt slavery that sweatshop production engenders, it accomplishes one thing: diverting money to impoverished nations. Of course, most of that money goes to enrich corrupt factory owners, but that’s better than nothing, right? What a weak argument that is. There must be a way to reward more humane apparel production while supporting third world development. Irregular Times’ approach to this is to continue to working with sweat-free American producers but to take a dollar out of the profits of every shirt we sell and send it to an overseas development charity that benefits the poor and downtrodden, not exploitative cronies.

As we continue to sell liberal t-shirts, the time’s come around again to make that donation for overseas development. We’re avoiding Kiva, which charges usurious rates in ultimately destructive microloans. Instead, we’ve sent a donation to Village Enterprise, a non-profit organization working in East Africa. Village Enterprise finds people who are severely impoverished, who are struggling to feed themselves and their children, and gives them money outright — not willy-nilly, but to get them on their feet and start a sustainable local business. Along with the grant comes the training needed to run a business well and manage money. Thanks to Village Enterprise’s approach, 75% of the startup businesses are still in operation after 4 years and 93% of those businesses actually have accumulated savings. More importantly, 90% of the new business owners have been able to send their children to school, and 75% of their families have increased food security.

Just as we write to spread political information and ideas, we want the money we bring in from selling t-shirts to make a difference politically — so we have committed to donating another for every shirt we sell to an American political group doing work that we believe in. This past month, when Rush Limbaugh calls a woman a “slut” and a “prostitute” for testifying on Capitol Hill regarding contraceptive health care policy, we wanted to do more that offer this set of Sluts Vote t-shirts as a counterpoint. This month’s donation goes to Planned Parenthood, an organization that not only provides low-cost access to contraception, S.T.D. treatment and abortions for women, but also advocates for a vision of America in which it’s not a crime to exercise these options.

So what exactly would happen if the country spent that $1.5 billion on something other than a distant dream?

For starters, it could cure the everyday worries of hundreds of thousands of American families hit by the Great Recession. It costs an average of $6,129 to feed the typical family for a year — meaning the cash spent on tickets could fill up the plates of 238,000 households.

As gas prices climb faster than stations can change the numbers on the signs, the money spent on tickets could fill the tanks of 685,000 households annually.

Rush Limbaugh is a savvy media figure. He says what he says after consulting the looking glass of American popular culture. If Rush Limbaugh is ugly, he’s an ugly reflection of us.

A contrary footnote: in San Diego on April 10, a This Slut Votes meetup is being held to kick-start some form of a social movement. It will be interesting to see what happens there.

Number of these tweets uttering the anti-Limbaugh protest meme “This Slut Votes“: 2

Number of these tweets declaring some particular woman or another to be “This Slut”: 354

Was Rush Limbaugh really an aberration? Can someone remind me what year are we living in? Is it 2012 or 1972?

I mean, isn’t this a color-blind society? Isn’t all that discrimination business a 20th Century thing, all over and done with? Aren’t black people in America just whining while they take all the good jobs away from equally qualified whites?

No.

These are the results of Devah Pager’s audits — tests — in which pairs of auditors are sent out into the job market with fake resumes, backgrounds, references, and even strategies for presentation of self. The pairs of testers are made to be equally qualified in all ways. Only two characteristics differ: skin color and a line on the resume indicating a criminal record.

Figure 6 shows that in these audits, white applicants reporting a criminal record get a better response than black applicants without a criminal record — and remember, they’re made to be equally qualified for the job. People are getting upset about discrimination on the basis of race in America because it clearly still exists.

Pager’s research wasn’t done in the 1930s. It’s contemporary research carried out in our times. This is our problem.

What’s the point of freedom, if you don’t want to do anything with it?