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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUzylT5vlBU

The road to power and wealth upon the backs of unsuspecting plebs is a masterful game of chess, hot potato, or musical chairs…

(via Reuters) 

Starbucks Corp (SBUX.O) plans to begin selling beer, wine and more upscale food in a small number of cafes in Atlanta and Southern California by the end of this year as it explores an expansion beyond morning coffee and afternoon pick-me-ups.

Starbucks is planning to add beer, wine and food such as savory snacks and hot flatbreads to the menus in four to six outlets in both Atlanta and Southern California.

The world’s biggest coffee chain started selling those items at a Seattle cafe in October 2010. Five stores in the Seattle area and one in Portland, Oregon, now offer the extended menu.

Late last year, Starbucks announced similar plans for five to seven Chicago-area cafes by the end of 2012.

(via ABC NEWS) 

Sen. Rand Paul told his communications director this morning he was being detained by TSA at the Nashville airport.

The Twitter account associated with Paul staffer Moira Bagley, @moirabagley, tweeted around 10 a.m., ET, “Just got a call from @senrandpaul. He’s currently being detained by TSA in Nashville.”

A TSA spokesman said the agency was looking into the matter but could not immediately comment.

Paul apparently set off  an airport security full-body scanner “on a glitch,” a spokesman in Paul’s office told ABC News.

The Paul staffer said TSA agents would not let Paul walk back through the body scanner and were demanding a full body pat-down.

The Paul spokesman said his office called TSA administrator John Pistole about the incident this morning.

The Senate is back in session today at 2 p.m., with votes scheduled at 4:30 p.m.

The issue of pat-downs has been an important one to Paul, the son of libertarian-leaning Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul. Sen.  Paul brought this issue up at a hearing earlier this year.

(via NY POST)

JCPenney’s new CEO has come out swinging in 2012 — the ax, that is.

Former Apple exec Ron Johnson — who on Wednesday is slated to unveil a top-secret strategy for a dramatic overhaul of the aging department store — has begun the new year by slashing thousands of jobs nationwide, The Post has learned.

As 52-year-old Johnson replaces Penney’s decades-old use of traditional sales and clearance events with a new “everyday pricing” strategy, sources said he’s firing workers who had long been responsible for re-tagging merchandise and plastering stores with temporary signs and displays.

GETTY IMAGES

Ron Johnson, JCPenney’s new CEO, formerly worked as an executive for Apple.

The fresh bloodbath, announced internally this month and effective today, will affect employees at nearly all of Penney’s 1,200 stores nationwide — in many instances, hitting dozens of workers at a single location, according to insiders.

“As planned, we held over some seasonal holiday hires to help us with the re-ticketing of merchandise,” a JCPenney spokeswoman said.

“As this project comes to a close over the next several weeks, the temporary employment of these seasonal hires will come to an end.”

The firm declined to comment further, but sources said cutbacks are affecting entire teams of permanent staff.

“Many employees were given an option . . . to either leave the company or be moved to a different shift,” according to a source briefed on Penney’s plans. However, some were forced to quit because they couldn’t work the oddball shifts they were offered, the source added.

Insiders said fears of further firings are rippling through the ranks — from store associates to execs at the retailer’s headquarters in Plano, Texas — as Johnson beats the drum about transforming Penney’s sleepy corporate culture.

“They’ve got a lot of industry veterans there, and they’re all worried they’re going to lose their job because they’re over 40,” according to an executive at one Penney supplier.

As previously reported by The Post, Johnson last month announced a 10-year deal with Martha Stewart without bothering to tell Chris Madden, Penney’s own celebrity home-furnishings designer for the past eight years.

Sources said Johnson is being prodded to trim the fat by Penney’s two biggest shareholders — hedge-fund tycoon Bill Ackman and property magnate Steve Roth, who heads real-estate giant Vornado.

Since the duo disclosed big Penney positions more than a year ago, the retailer has shuttered laggard warehouses, outlets and call centers, as well as its catalog business.

Ackman and Roth “are licking their chops to cut costs, and this is an example of what they see as ‘low-hanging fruit,’” a source said of the layoffs slated for today.

Indeed, some investors speculate that Penney will announce across-the-board cuts this week, paring advertising spending and slimming company divisions that design private-label clothing. Last week, the retail chain eliminated weekly circulars for the first time in a year, according to Deutsche Bank analyst Charles Grom, who notes that two years ago Penney spent more than twice the competition on marketing. Penney has cut orders for new inventory by as much as 10 percent, according to several manufacturers.
Read more: http://trade.cc/abpy

Apache will gain more exposure in Colorado

Will $RIMM run on the news ? I think so….

STORY HERE

(via)

Full text of statement by the Paterno family on the death of Joe Paterno:

It is with great sadness that we announce that Joe Paterno passed away earlier today. His loss leaves a void in our lives that will never be filled.

He died as he lived. He fought hard until the end, stayed positive, thought only of others and constantly reminded everyone of how blessed his life had been. His ambitions were far reaching, but he never believed he had to leave this Happy Valley to achieve them. He was a man devoted to his family, his university, his players and his community.

He has been many things in his life — a soldier, scholar, mentor, coach, friend and father. To my mother he was and is her soul mate, and the last several weeks have shown the strength of their love. To his children and grandchildren he is a shining example of how to live a good, decent and honest life, a standard to which we aspire.

When he decided to forego a career in law and make coaching his vocation, his father Angelo had but one command: Make an impact.

As the last 61 years have shown, Joe made an incredible impact. That impact has been felt and appreciated by our family in the form of thousands of letters and well wishes along with countless acts of kindness from people whose lives he touched. It is evident also in the thousands of successful student athletes who have gone on to multiply that impact as they spread out across the country.

And so he leaves us with a peaceful mind, comforted by his “living legacy” of five kids, 17 grandchildren, and hundreds of young men whose lives he changed in more ways than can begin to be counted.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family requests that donations be made to the Special Olympics of Pennsylvania or the Penn State-THON, The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon.

CBS SAID HE DIED; NOW NBC SAYS STILL ALIVE

DEVELOPING…

(via)

Joe Paterno, the man who for decades was synonymous with Penn State football and was known by the college football world as just “JoePa”, has died. Paterno, 85, had been receiving chemotherapy as part of his treatment for lung cancer, and complications from that treatment claimed the longtime Penn State coach’s life on Saturday.

Paterno was the head coach of Penn State for 46 seasons before being fired in November as his role in the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal came under greater scrutiny. Combined with the time he spent as an assistant, Paterno spent a total of 61 years on the Penn State sidelines. He left behind a legacy that, on the field of play, was unparalleled in Division I football. Paterno holds the all-time Division I record for football coaching wins with a 409-136-3 record, and he won two national championships while going undefeated in five different seasons.

[STATS: JoePa’s lifetime coaching record]

Under Paterno, Penn State was a perennial powerhouse, known for decades as “Linebacker U” for its propensity to develop All-American linebackers. Paterno coached such great linebackers as Dennis Onkotz, Jack Ham, Shane Conlan, LaVar Arrington, Paul Posluszny, Dan Connor, and Sean Lee, along with many others.

Additionally, running back John Cappalletti won the Heisman Trophy in 1973 under Paterno, and Cappalletti was one of seven Penn State players to win the Maxwell Award for most outstanding college football player. All in all, 68 players were named first-team All-American by at least one of the major news services under Paterno; 13 of those players were two-year winners.

Paterno’s longtime defensive coordinator and the architect of the defensive schemes that came to typify Penn State football was Jerry Sandusky, who’s now more well-known for the allegations of underaged sexual abuse against him made by men who were involved in Sandusky’s charity, The Second Mile, as boys. Sandusky is still awaiting trial for those allegations, and he pled not guilty to the charges in December 2011.

In an interview with the Washington Post released just a week before Paterno’s death, he expressed remorse for not having done more to stop Sandusky’s alleged crimes, and he also said he was “just sick about” the situation. Investigators did not bring charges against Paterno, and instead mentioned that he had fulfilled his legal obligations by notifying his superiors about an alleged assault when he was first notified in 2002.

After Paterno was fired in 2011, Penn State named Tom Bradley — who, coincidentally, was Sandusky’s replacement at defensive coordinator — interim head coach. Bradley went 1-3, including a loss to Houston in the TicketCity Bowl, and was not retained as a coach when Penn State hired Bill O’Brien in January.

Paterno was well known for encouraging his players to excel in the classroom and earn their undergraduate degrees at Penn State, and his name will live on at Penn State after his firing and death. Paterno and his wife Suewere major financial supporters of Penn State University, as they donated millions of dollars for the Paterno Library on campus, and Paterno helped establish the Paterno Liberal Arts Undergraduate Fellows Program.

(via TMZ)

Joe Paterno, the legendary former coach at Penn State University, is on his death bed … this according to several reports.

A spokesman for the family says doctors have “characterized his status as serious.”

Onward State, a student-run newspaper on campus, reported Saturday he had been taken off his respirator. The Citizens Voice, a newspaper in nearby Wilkes-Barre, PA, reported Paterno’s wife Sue summoned close friends and longtime staff members toState College hospital.

TMZ reached out to Paterno’s lawyer, who would only say rumors of JoePa’s death were “not accurate.”

Paterno was the coach at Penn State for 46 years, until he was famously fired by the school last November following the sexual abuse allegations against his former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky.

(Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington’s biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.

Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn’t brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.

The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks’ offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.

In recent weeks the Justice Department has come under renewed pressure from members of Congress, state and local officials and homeowners’ lawyers to open a wide-ranging criminal investigation of mortgage servicers, the biggest of which have been Covington clients. So far Justice officials haven’t responded publicly to any of the requests.

While Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm’s clients included the four largest U.S. banks – Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co – as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.

Read the rest here.

(via TMZ)

It was merely a case of bad luck that led to Jay-Z‘s 40/40 Club racking up a slew of health code violations … a rep for the club tells TMZ.

As we previously reported, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene cited the club big time Thursday night for a litany of violations … which included several different instances of food being stored at improper temperatures.

But Ron Berkowitz, a rep for the club, tells TMZ the motor in one of the refrigeratorsblew just moments before the health inspector arrived … causing the temperature in the fridge to rise. Berkowtiz says the staff identified the problem immediately and had no intention of serving the food from that fridge.

Berkowitz says the fridge was fixed by noon the next day and the club was permitted to re-open.

He adds … the club lost no business as a result of the issue and their health code grade is currently pending review.

(via CNN)

PETA wants O.J. Simpson’s house.

Why?

To set up a “Meat Is Murder” museum, of course.

In a letter addressed to Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked if the bank would either donate or sell the house to the animal rights group for a “nominal sum” once the bank completes the foreclosure it’s pursuing on Simpson’s home.

Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president, assured Dimon in the letter that if the organization is able to acquire the five-bedroom Kendall, Fla. home, it would put it to good use by turning it into a “Meat Is Murder” museum that would teach visitors that “nonviolence begins on our plates.”

A Chase (JPM, Fortune 500) spoksesman said the bank would not comment on the matter.

PETA said it chose Simpson’s home because the former football star actively endorsed the consumption of meat. Simpson, they said, was a spokesman for a chicken restaurant chain, owned two restaurants himself and held an ownership stake in several HoneyBaked Ham stores.

The organization said it was serious about its request.

O.J. Simpson faces foreclosure in Florida

“Hope springs eternal.” said Newkirk. “We said we wanted a building in Los Angeles a couple years ago and Bob Barker came up with $4 million to buy it.”

In addition to educating visitors about the treatment of animals used for meat, the museum would offer free samples of foods made from healthy, plant-based proteins, including veggie burgers and faux chicken.

“If they say yes, we’ll be working on the menu,” said Newkirk.

Simpson is currently serving a prison sentence of up to 33 years for a 2007 armed robbery and kidnapping in Nevada. According to a source familiar with the matter, he stopped making payments on his Florida home in 2010.

In November, his attorney filed a motion to dismiss the foreclosure proceedings. But the bank is moving forward with the action, the source said.