Unlike the Hair Clown with the purdy lips, I'm more oblique, therefore, the *...*
But really? Trump said he had a "very high" selective service number, and that kept him out of Viet Nam?
No. Not quite true. When you make a statement to the media that is not true, that's called lying. And that's what Trump was engaging in when he said what he did.
From "The Smoking Gun:"
"Deferments Helped Trump Dodge Vietnam
How the presidential aspirant avoided fighting for his country
APRIL 28--Despite Donald Trump’s claim this week that he avoided serving in the Vietnam War solely due to a high draft number, Selective Service records show that the purported presidential aspirant actually received a series of student deferments while in college and then topped those off with a medical deferment after graduation that helped spare him from fighting for his country, The Smoking Gun has learned.
During a TV interview Tuesday morning, Trump--who spent his high school years enrolled at the New York Military Academy--said, “I actually got lucky because I had a very high draft number. I’ll never forget, that was an amazing period of time in my life.”
He went on to recall, “I was going to the Wharton School of Finance, and I was watching as they did the draft numbers and I got a very, very high number and those numbers never got up to.” The word “deferment” was not mentioned by Trump during his chat with the morning show hosts on WNYW, the Fox affiliate in New York City.
However, Selective Service records reveal that Trump, the fortunate son of a multimillionaire real estate baron, took repeated steps to avoid serving in Vietnam.
By the time his number (356) was drawn during the December 1, 1969 draft lottery, Trump had already received four student deferments and a medical deferment, according to military records on file with the National Archives and Records Administration. An extract of Trump’s Selective Classification record, seen here, was provided in response to a TSG records request."
Meanwhile, Mr. Comb Over, what exactly were those unbelievable things you said your investigators were finding--you know, the ones you sent to Hawaii to look for Mr. Obama's birth certificate?
Could those unbelievable things be that they found out you are a grandstanding, race-baiting, cockerel whose narcissistic strutting and bragging make you look like the The Clown of the Planet?
Yes, I guess this charlatan should be very proud of himself for being the biggest blundering asshat in the country.
This is the guy that the GOPers have winning the nomination for their party right now. He leads all the rest of the pack in the polls.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
"HE'S SMARTER, RICHER, LUCKIER, AND BETTER LOOKING THAN YOU"
Writes Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the Washington Post, Eugene Robinson:
"To those deniers who can’t come to terms with the fact of the Obama presidency, I have nothing to offer but this: Yes, he’s smarter, richer, luckier and better looking than you, and he’s your president. Yours, mine and ours. And he’s black. Get over it."
"So the leader of the free world summons the media for an important announcement — but not about war, peace or the economy. It’s about his birth certificate
This just in: President Obama has proved, yet again, that he is a natural-born citizen of the United States. Which we already knew — “we” meaning those of us who believe there is such a thing as objective reality.
I include in this reality-based group at least some of the “carnival barkers,” as Obama called them, who have led the gullible and the paranoid down the rabbit hole of “birther” conspiracy theory. Did Donald Trump ever really believe there was a question about Obama’s birthplace? Of course not; look how quickly he moved on to the next bogus “mystery,” which apparently involves Obama’s stellar academic record — a little too stellar, perhaps? A bit too perfect?
Two ugly forces had to combine to produce the birth certificate sideshow, which can only be described as a national disgrace. One is a calculated attempt by Obama’s political opponents to de-legitimize his presidency.
It seems obvious to me that this campaign to paint the president as some sort of usurper — this insistence that despite winning the popular vote by a healthy margin and the electoral vote by a landslide, he wasn’t really elected — has everything to do with race.
Does anyone disagree? Well, just imagine what the birthers would be saying if Obama — like his Republican opponent in 2008, John McCain — had been born in the Panama Canal Zone. Or think of the uproar if Obama — like George W. Bush in 2000 — had lost the popular vote but won the electoral college."
AND FINALLY THIS:
"The birther lunacy is an extreme case. The short-form birth certificate that Obama released in June 2008 was the official document, according to Hawaii officials. They should know, right? Wrong, said the deniers, we need the long-form certificate, even though it’s not considered official. Obama produced it Wednesday, and that settles the question, right? No sooner had the president finished speaking than a birther e-mail landed in my inbox, headlined 'Case closed? Not so fast.' ”
The Birther Controversy has always been about Mr. Obama's race. To deny this ugly fact is to deny this ugly reality. The birthers need to face up to what they are: racists. Once they do so, they will be able to get help for their psychological problem.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
REPUBLICANS SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THE "BIRTHER" CAMPAIGN
Republican pundit and former Bush speech writer, David Frum speaks out on the birthers and calls this slander what it really is RACISM:
"Even for the small band that sustained the phony controversy until now, the birth certificate so-called issue ends today.
Any last lingering doubts that maybe, perhaps, a pregnant Stanley Anne Dunham in the summer of 1961 boarded a propeller plane from Honolulu to Los Angeles, then from Los Angeles to New York City, then from New York City to Gander, then from Gander to London, then from London to Nairobi – and then repeated the trip backward a few weeks later – all so that her baby could acquire Kenyan nationality – those doubts are definitively squelched, as they should have been three years ago.
Now the more haunting question: How did this poisonous and not very subtly racist allegation get such a grip on our conservative movement and our Republican party?
I know there will be Republican writers and conservative publicists who will now deny that birtherism ever did get a grip. Sorry, that’s just wrong. Not only did Donald Trump surge ahead in Republican polls by flaming racial fires – not only did conservative media outlets from Fox to Drudge to the Breitbart sites indulge the birthers – but so also did every Republican candidate who said, “I take the president at his word.” Birthers did not doubt the president’s “word.” They were doubting the official records of the state of Hawaii. It’s like answering a 9/11 conspiracist by saying, “I take the 9/11 families at their word that they lost their loved ones.”
Yet even now, the racialist aspect of the anti-Obama movement has not subsided. Trump has moved from the birth certificate to questioning the president’s academic qualifications for the Harvard Law School. Trump himself was a troubled student (at one point he attended a military school) who nonetheless gained admission to Wharton. His father’s wealth and business success cannot have hurt with that application. Yet he feels himself qualified to pronounce on who is and who is not smart enough to attend Harvard Law. Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude. (And to anticipate a new line of attack – yes, Harvard Law School exams were blind-graded.) He was elected editor of the law review. And his classmates, left and right, universally admired his abilities.
I wish it were otherwise, but it does seem that these racialized attacks on Obama have exacted a toll on him. But they also have exacted a toll on the opposition to Obama. The too-faint repudiation of birtherism by regular Republicans has shaped not only the Obama brand, but also the Republican brand. It was not only white people who heard the implied message about who counts and who does not count as a “real American.”
I write as an opponent of virtually every major and minor action of this administration. Republicans should be fighting this president on policy, not winking at those who use race as a weapon. It’s worth recalling the generous words of John McCain on election night 2008:
[T]hough we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound. A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.
And those who imagine that they somehow enhance the value of that citizenship by belittling the American-ness of their president – they not only disgrace the politics they uphold, but they do damage that will not soon be forgotten by the voters a revived Republicanism must win.
National Post
"Even for the small band that sustained the phony controversy until now, the birth certificate so-called issue ends today.
Any last lingering doubts that maybe, perhaps, a pregnant Stanley Anne Dunham in the summer of 1961 boarded a propeller plane from Honolulu to Los Angeles, then from Los Angeles to New York City, then from New York City to Gander, then from Gander to London, then from London to Nairobi – and then repeated the trip backward a few weeks later – all so that her baby could acquire Kenyan nationality – those doubts are definitively squelched, as they should have been three years ago.
Now the more haunting question: How did this poisonous and not very subtly racist allegation get such a grip on our conservative movement and our Republican party?
I know there will be Republican writers and conservative publicists who will now deny that birtherism ever did get a grip. Sorry, that’s just wrong. Not only did Donald Trump surge ahead in Republican polls by flaming racial fires – not only did conservative media outlets from Fox to Drudge to the Breitbart sites indulge the birthers – but so also did every Republican candidate who said, “I take the president at his word.” Birthers did not doubt the president’s “word.” They were doubting the official records of the state of Hawaii. It’s like answering a 9/11 conspiracist by saying, “I take the 9/11 families at their word that they lost their loved ones.”
Yet even now, the racialist aspect of the anti-Obama movement has not subsided. Trump has moved from the birth certificate to questioning the president’s academic qualifications for the Harvard Law School. Trump himself was a troubled student (at one point he attended a military school) who nonetheless gained admission to Wharton. His father’s wealth and business success cannot have hurt with that application. Yet he feels himself qualified to pronounce on who is and who is not smart enough to attend Harvard Law. Barack Obama graduated magna cum laude. (And to anticipate a new line of attack – yes, Harvard Law School exams were blind-graded.) He was elected editor of the law review. And his classmates, left and right, universally admired his abilities.
I wish it were otherwise, but it does seem that these racialized attacks on Obama have exacted a toll on him. But they also have exacted a toll on the opposition to Obama. The too-faint repudiation of birtherism by regular Republicans has shaped not only the Obama brand, but also the Republican brand. It was not only white people who heard the implied message about who counts and who does not count as a “real American.”
I write as an opponent of virtually every major and minor action of this administration. Republicans should be fighting this president on policy, not winking at those who use race as a weapon. It’s worth recalling the generous words of John McCain on election night 2008:
[T]hough we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound. A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.
And those who imagine that they somehow enhance the value of that citizenship by belittling the American-ness of their president – they not only disgrace the politics they uphold, but they do damage that will not soon be forgotten by the voters a revived Republicanism must win.
National Post
DONALD TRUMP, THE NARCISSISTIC CLOWN
If there's a bigger fobbing pumpion in this world, I haven't seen him--with perhaps the exception of Italy's Silvio Berlusconi. Trump's self-aggrandizing cockwalk over President Obama's release [again] of his birth certificate is only more evidence of the man's insatiable need to hog the headlines like the beslubbering fustilarian that he is.
We must remember that this mal de perruque announced only weeks ago that his team of "investigators" were finding amazing things in their search for Mr. Obama's birth certificate. What this colossal blowhard fails to acknowledge is that he went on a fool's errand, and it is Mr. Obama, not Trump, who comes out of this farrago of nonsense looking like the rational, reasoned, cool-headed, classy guy that he is.
What Trump's "investigators" found was NOTHING.
Trump is a first class chump. And his hair is ugly, too. Now he's attacking Mr. Obama's academic achievements and questioning how he got accepted into one of America's most prestigious institutions of learning. In the racist world Mr. Trump inhabits, only the sons of wealthy white men can achieve what Mr. Obama did, and that makes Trump suspicious of any African-American's achievements.
But wait, why didn't the talking head who interviewed Trump on this issue ask him if he questioned the academic credentials of Clarance Thomas, Condoleeza Rice, Michael Steele, Colin Powell. Afterall, these--to use Trumps word--"blacks" attained academic excellence in prestigious American universities as did Mr. Obama. Are we to understand that Trump only questions African-American Democrats' achievements in academia?
Trump, a kidney-faced coward, would never be able to answer that because it would reveal him to be a publicity-seeking worm who would encourage suspicion and doubt to be cast upon his own mother in order to keep his name in the public's view and the ratings of his inane reality teevee show up.
The good news is that as a presidential candidate he will fade and deflate like a left-over balloon from a children's party. All eyes are on this fool right now, but he'll be another Giuliani very soon.
It is astonishing--NOT--how certain members of the GOP attach themselves to and encourage clay-brained people like Trump [and Palin and Bachmann and Beck, etc.] a their leaders. Trump is just the newest shiney object that has blinded them into believing that the rest of America joins them in their skewed and delusional thinking.
IMHO, this entire non-controversy is racially motivated. No other president has ever been subjected to this constant hammering to delegitimize him through casting aspersions on his birth, on his religion, and now on his academic achievements. And no other president has been bi-racial with an Arab name.
It's the RACE issue, stoooopid! And certain elements in the GOP will not give it up.
Photo of Mr. Obama's birth certificate here.
"Dave Weigel explains its importance and predicts the future:
Does this end "birtherism?" I don't think it will. Surely more forgery gurus will tumble out of the woodwork and quibble with the kerning. This document includes the name of Obama's hospital and attending physician, but it doesn't include a footprint, and even though no Hawaii birth certificates like this included that, it'll be a reed for birthers to hang on to.
Does it end the "questions" about Obama? No. I'd expect the focus to shift now to Obama's college records and writings -- as Donald Trump has already been shifting them, by asserting that Obama must have gotten into Columbia via affirmative action to make up for what, he speculates, were bad grades."
"And in related news George W Bush released his military records proving he did not commit a felony by going AWOL and therefore eligible to serve as President during his two terms.*Posted by Alverant at Pharyngula.
*Not intended to be a factual statement.
In Obama's defense, this issue was going to dog him throughout his re-election campaign. Now that there's evidence, people who continue to doubt where he was born will continue to look like dolts. This also means he's shown he is willing to get down to business by removing distractions like conservative slander."
Monday, April 25, 2011
RIGHTWING NEWSMAX COLUMN SUGGESTS TREASONOUS MILITARY COUP AGAINST THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
Many conservatives receive their news from this website; it is their #1 source for information. In 2009, John L. Perry wrote a column advocating treason against the United States, suggesting that the military take out the president. Seriously. How many wingnuts copied and pasted this insane column?
Newsmax has since taken it down. Perhaps because even their cement heads realized that what was contained in this outrageous article is treason against the United States. It is one thing to have policy disagreements with the POTUS, and quite another thing to suggest his violent overthrow. The moron who wrote this claimed our coup d'etat would not be a violent one. Right. Our duly elected president--the man who was legally voted into office by a healthy majority of Americans would just simply step aside as the treasonous military forces tried to take control of the government--like a banana republic uprising?
It isn't enough for these traitors to deligitimize this president by claiming he is not a US citizen; it isn't enough for these lunatics to dehumanize this president with their racist emails; it isn't enough for these bottom-feeders to advocate violence with their "Second Amendment" rhetoric--no, now that none of their foolish threats have given them what they want, they now resort to suggesting that the military overthrow the US government.
And Newsmax actually published this traitorous swill.
From Talking Points Memo:
Full Text Of Newsmax Column Suggesting Military Coup Against Obama
Here is the full text of John L. Perry's column on Newsmax which suggests that a military coup to "resolve the Obama problem" is becoming more possible and is not 'unrealistic.' Perry also writes that a coup, while not 'ideal,' may be preferable to 'Obama's radical ideal' -- and would 'restore and defend the Constitution. Newsmax has since removed the column from its website."
I'm publishing the end of it. You can read the entire piece by clicking on the link provided above.
Astoundingly, this piece of treason was written only 9 months into Mr. Obama's presidency. Clearly Mr.Perry is insane, and Newsmax more insane for having published it. But we all understand what sort of lunatics populate the fringes of the GOP.
Newsmax has since taken it down. Perhaps because even their cement heads realized that what was contained in this outrageous article is treason against the United States. It is one thing to have policy disagreements with the POTUS, and quite another thing to suggest his violent overthrow. The moron who wrote this claimed our coup d'etat would not be a violent one. Right. Our duly elected president--the man who was legally voted into office by a healthy majority of Americans would just simply step aside as the treasonous military forces tried to take control of the government--like a banana republic uprising?
It isn't enough for these traitors to deligitimize this president by claiming he is not a US citizen; it isn't enough for these lunatics to dehumanize this president with their racist emails; it isn't enough for these bottom-feeders to advocate violence with their "Second Amendment" rhetoric--no, now that none of their foolish threats have given them what they want, they now resort to suggesting that the military overthrow the US government.
And Newsmax actually published this traitorous swill.
From Talking Points Memo:
Full Text Of Newsmax Column Suggesting Military Coup Against Obama
Here is the full text of John L. Perry's column on Newsmax which suggests that a military coup to "resolve the Obama problem" is becoming more possible and is not 'unrealistic.' Perry also writes that a coup, while not 'ideal,' may be preferable to 'Obama's radical ideal' -- and would 'restore and defend the Constitution. Newsmax has since removed the column from its website."
I'm publishing the end of it. You can read the entire piece by clicking on the link provided above.
"What happens if the generals Obama sent to win the Afghan war are told by this president (who now says, "I'm not interested in victory") that they will be denied troops they must have to win? Do they follow orders they cannot carry out, consistent with their oath of duty? Do they resign en masse?
Or do they soldier on, hoping the 2010 congressional elections will reverse the situation? Do they dare gamble the national survival on such political whims?
Anyone who imagines that those thoughts are not weighing heavily on the intellect and conscience of America's military leadership is lost in a fool's fog.
Will the day come when patriotic general and flag officers sit down with the president, or with those who control him, and work out the national equivalent of a "family intervention," with some form of limited, shared responsibility?
Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars. Having bonded with his twin teleprompters, the president would be detailed for ceremonial speech-making.
Military intervention is what Obama's exponentially accelerating agenda for "fundamental change" toward a Marxist state is inviting upon America. A coup is not an ideal option, but Obama's radical ideal is not acceptable or reversible.
Unthinkable? Then think up an alternative, non-violent solution to the Obama problem. Just don't shrug and say, 'We can always worry about that later.'
In the 2008 election, that was the wistful, self-indulgent, indifferent reliance on abnegation of personal responsibility that has sunk the nation into this morass."
Astoundingly, this piece of treason was written only 9 months into Mr. Obama's presidency. Clearly Mr.Perry is insane, and Newsmax more insane for having published it. But we all understand what sort of lunatics populate the fringes of the GOP.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
NOT SO FAST, DONALD!
You announced to America that you had your people working on finding the truth about President Obama's birth certificate. And now today we read that you "...have spoken [your] piece on this issue."
Really? NOT SO FAST, MR. COMB-OVER. What were the findings from the investigators you sent to Hawaii on this issue?
Could you have been playing the media and your gullible supporters for fools by stating you had investigators looking into the "birth certificate controversy," and now have decided to drop the whole issue? Because you've found NOTHING? And you haven't the cajones to come clean about your whole birth certificate hoax?
What's the matter Donald? Don't have the courage to face the fact that you're a opportunistic weasel who needed attention from the idiots in the GOP and media who continue to play up this phony birth certificate nonsense?
Here's what you claimed just a week or so ago:
DONALD TRUMP:
I am saying I want to see the birth certificate. It’s very simple. I want to see the birth certificate. How come his own family doesn’t know which hospital he was born in? How come-- forget about birth certificates. Let’s say there’s no birth certificate. How come in the hospital itself, okay? This is one of the…in the hospital itself, there’s no records of his birth. In other words, it doesn’t say how much they paid, where is the doctor, here’s your room bill. You know, all the
MEREDITH VIEIRA:
You’ve been privy to all of this to know this?
DONALD TRUMP:
Well, I have people that actually have been studying it and they cannot believe what they’re finding.
MEREDITH VIEIRA:
You have people now out there searching-- I mean, in Hawaii?
DONALD TRUMP:
Absolutely. And they cannot believe what they’re finding. And I’m serious--
SOURCE
This is what Donald is saying today:
" 'I have spoken my piece on this issue,' Trump wrote, reminding readers that 'many people have the same doubts as I have.'
Trump says he's ready to shift the conversation about his maybe-candidacy to something more substantive."
Then like all cowards, Donald blames the media for talking up the issue--the issue that he himself brought up and used to gain publicity for his presidential run. He had nothing else to attract media attention. He's a reality-teevee personality who's been married three times and who was in bankruptcy three times. No one takes him seriously, except the crowd who believes Sarah Palin is intelligent and Michele Bachmann is sane.
But even as Mr. Comb-Over says he's done with the birther issue, he contradicts himself in the same interview saying: "...at a certain point in time I'll be revealing some interesting things" about Obama's birth, while also claiming that he's winning in the polls "is because I'll protect this country from China and OPEC and all the others that are ripping us off."
Donald has other problems. Like being for a woman's right to choose before he was against it. He doesn't understand the implicit right to privacy in the Constitution or what that has to do with Roe v. Wade.
"In an interview with MSNBC's Savannah Guthrie, Trump was asked if he believes there's a right to privacy in the Constitution.
Trump apparently thinks he can split the difference, and appeared to have no understanding of the connection between the view of a right to privacy and the abortion debate.
'I guess there is, I guess there is,' Trump said when Guthrie asked if there's a Constitutional right to privacy. 'And why, just out of curiosity, why do you ask that question?'
Guthrie informed him of the connection to abortion, but Trump seemed surprised that the two went together:
'Well, that's a pretty strange way of getting to pro-life. I mean, it's a very unique way of asking about pro-life. What does that have to do with privacy? How are you equating pro-life with privacy?' "
There you have it. Another cabbage head hoping to win the GOP nomination in 2012. They apparently have an endless supply of them.
THE GOP'S GROWING BIRTHER PROBLEM:
"There is no policy idea or politician they can shine up that would appeal to me at this point, because they have taken their party right into the dirt with this birther business. Those who didn't participate also didn't make efforts to put a stop to it. Those would divest themselves of responsibility now are the worst culprits of all. If you dabble with racism - then you are a racist.
And last time I checked? You don't win elections without Independents. This Independent is done with them. You might as well ask me to vote for the Klan."
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
THE REVIEWS ARE IN: ATLAS SHRUGGED IS REALLY, REALLY AWFUL!
Yes, the Latest Right-Wing Paean to Sociopath Ayn Rand Is Really, Really Awful
By Brad Reed, via AlterNet
Take Lisa Simpson and combine her with Gordon Gekko and the obnoxious child-android from “Small Wonder,” and you get the perfect Rand hero.
Indeed, the film’s major problem is that it adheres too tightly to its source material, making it impossible to create compelling characters. This is because all of Rand’s heroes and heroines are soulless greedbots whose only goals in life are to make great innovations and then profit like crazy off them. In and of itself this isn’t a bad thing since a lot of people like creating things and being rewarded for them. But in the case of Rand’s characters, their desire for money and achievement supersedes all empathy, family relationships and basic human decency. Take Lisa Simpson and combine her with Gordon Gekko and the obnoxious child-android from “Small Wonder,” and you get the perfect Rand hero.
The New Yorker:
Atlas Shrugged: Part I
by Richard Brody.
"This comically tasteless and flavorless adaptation of Ayn Rand’s bombastic magnum opus delivers her simplistic nostrums with smug self-satisfaction. The story is set in 2016 in a dystopian America beset by economic depression and a new oil crisis, which is the pretext for rendering rail travel—the core of the novel’s plot—newly central. The railway heiress Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) seeks to revitalize the family’s business—and the nation’s economy—by laying rails made of an untested new alloy developed by the metallurgical baron Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler), while both titans are tied down and pecked at by parasites from the government, organized labor, the media, and even the scientific establishment. Meanwhile, a prophetic masked avenger packs many of the country’s great industrialists off to his compound in the hope of fuelling a “second Renaissance.” The preening resentment of the smart social misfit finds its fantasy fulfillment, as Rand’s flamboyant potboiler intensity (and her fascination with the authority of the great loner) gives rise to a tittering knowingness: the words “union” and “guild” are the pretexts for sneers and smears, and an unintentional howler of a business plan may give rise to a new, Tarzan-style pickup line: 'My metal, your railway.' ” Directed by Paul Johansson.
No, Seriously... Atlas Shrugged: Part One Is Hardly Worth Defending
When a film is this bad, any message becomes meaningless.
By William Bibbiani
Apr 19th, 2011
"Yesterday I published Crave Online’s review of Atlas Shrugged: Part One. I was disappointed to discover that it was a very bad movie: poorly acted, under-dramatized and often unintentionally silly. The film has its fans, and some of them have responded negatively to my review as well as the reviews of the many other critics who despised it (Atlas Shrugged currently ‘boasts’ a mere 8% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes; by way of comparison, Ishtar has a fairly celebratory 19%). Like the films of Michael Moore or Sergei Eisenstein, Atlas Shrugged has a direct social agenda, and those who subscribe to this agenda have responded favorably to the film. Unlike the films of Michael Moore or Sergei Eisenstein, Atlas Shrugged: Part One (that is to say, the movie as opposed to the book) does not boast the quality of narrative necessary to convince the uninitiated that its arguments have a modicum of significance.
In what I then considered a somewhat reasonable attempt to avoid delving into political controversy I chose to focus my review on the film’s overall cinematic ineptitude, touching upon Ayn Rand’s philosophies primarily when they contributed to the uninvolving plot or protagonists’ lack of charisma. (The Bioshock comment was, admittedly, largely snark.) Like the protagonists of the film I am unfazed by most of the criticisms lobbied in my direction, such as those indicating that the review lacks validity because I have not read the book. Any adaptation of any kind of source material needs to stand on its own merits, and Atlas Shrugged: Part One simply does not. I remained unconvinced of its arguments due to the lack of compelling storytelling or characterization in the film. One could argue, I suppose, that the movie is essentially an overlong advertisement for the Ayn Rand’s novel. If this is the case, consider my review not an assessment of an artwork’s craftsmanship and value but rather an unimpressed observation of an inept marketing campaign. I have less interest in reading Atlas Shrugged now than I ever have before, and to be perfectly honest reading the novel used to be on my ‘To Do’ list."
From Libertarian-leaning PJ Rourke:
Are there libertarian-agnostic non-Rand-fans who've liked the movie? I haven't found any yet, though Preview Week is still young. There were some notable savagings by Varietyand the Hollywood Reporter, though. Plus this newspapereditorial from the apparently existing Harrisonburg (Va.)Daily News Record, headlined "Objectively Evil: The Truth About 'Atlas Shrugged.'" Sample from that:
Years ago I plowed through half of "Atlas Shrugged" and stopped torturing myself. It was awful to read--turgid prose at its worst--and I imagined the movie version would be awful as well. And, according to these reviews, so it is.
Go see the new "Jane Eyre" film.
By Brad Reed, via AlterNet
Take Lisa Simpson and combine her with Gordon Gekko and the obnoxious child-android from “Small Wonder,” and you get the perfect Rand hero.
Indeed, the film’s major problem is that it adheres too tightly to its source material, making it impossible to create compelling characters. This is because all of Rand’s heroes and heroines are soulless greedbots whose only goals in life are to make great innovations and then profit like crazy off them. In and of itself this isn’t a bad thing since a lot of people like creating things and being rewarded for them. But in the case of Rand’s characters, their desire for money and achievement supersedes all empathy, family relationships and basic human decency. Take Lisa Simpson and combine her with Gordon Gekko and the obnoxious child-android from “Small Wonder,” and you get the perfect Rand hero.
The New Yorker:
Atlas Shrugged: Part I
by Richard Brody.
"This comically tasteless and flavorless adaptation of Ayn Rand’s bombastic magnum opus delivers her simplistic nostrums with smug self-satisfaction. The story is set in 2016 in a dystopian America beset by economic depression and a new oil crisis, which is the pretext for rendering rail travel—the core of the novel’s plot—newly central. The railway heiress Dagny Taggart (Taylor Schilling) seeks to revitalize the family’s business—and the nation’s economy—by laying rails made of an untested new alloy developed by the metallurgical baron Hank Rearden (Grant Bowler), while both titans are tied down and pecked at by parasites from the government, organized labor, the media, and even the scientific establishment. Meanwhile, a prophetic masked avenger packs many of the country’s great industrialists off to his compound in the hope of fuelling a “second Renaissance.” The preening resentment of the smart social misfit finds its fantasy fulfillment, as Rand’s flamboyant potboiler intensity (and her fascination with the authority of the great loner) gives rise to a tittering knowingness: the words “union” and “guild” are the pretexts for sneers and smears, and an unintentional howler of a business plan may give rise to a new, Tarzan-style pickup line: 'My metal, your railway.' ” Directed by Paul Johansson.
No, Seriously... Atlas Shrugged: Part One Is Hardly Worth Defending
When a film is this bad, any message becomes meaningless.
By William Bibbiani
Apr 19th, 2011
"Yesterday I published Crave Online’s review of Atlas Shrugged: Part One. I was disappointed to discover that it was a very bad movie: poorly acted, under-dramatized and often unintentionally silly. The film has its fans, and some of them have responded negatively to my review as well as the reviews of the many other critics who despised it (Atlas Shrugged currently ‘boasts’ a mere 8% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes; by way of comparison, Ishtar has a fairly celebratory 19%). Like the films of Michael Moore or Sergei Eisenstein, Atlas Shrugged has a direct social agenda, and those who subscribe to this agenda have responded favorably to the film. Unlike the films of Michael Moore or Sergei Eisenstein, Atlas Shrugged: Part One (that is to say, the movie as opposed to the book) does not boast the quality of narrative necessary to convince the uninitiated that its arguments have a modicum of significance.
In what I then considered a somewhat reasonable attempt to avoid delving into political controversy I chose to focus my review on the film’s overall cinematic ineptitude, touching upon Ayn Rand’s philosophies primarily when they contributed to the uninvolving plot or protagonists’ lack of charisma. (The Bioshock comment was, admittedly, largely snark.) Like the protagonists of the film I am unfazed by most of the criticisms lobbied in my direction, such as those indicating that the review lacks validity because I have not read the book. Any adaptation of any kind of source material needs to stand on its own merits, and Atlas Shrugged: Part One simply does not. I remained unconvinced of its arguments due to the lack of compelling storytelling or characterization in the film. One could argue, I suppose, that the movie is essentially an overlong advertisement for the Ayn Rand’s novel. If this is the case, consider my review not an assessment of an artwork’s craftsmanship and value but rather an unimpressed observation of an inept marketing campaign. I have less interest in reading Atlas Shrugged now than I ever have before, and to be perfectly honest reading the novel used to be on my ‘To Do’ list."
From Libertarian-leaning PJ Rourke:
Are there libertarian-agnostic non-Rand-fans who've liked the movie? I haven't found any yet, though Preview Week is still young. There were some notable savagings by Varietyand the Hollywood Reporter, though. Plus this newspapereditorial from the apparently existing Harrisonburg (Va.)Daily News Record, headlined "Objectively Evil: The Truth About 'Atlas Shrugged.'" Sample from that:
"A staple of modern libertarian thinking in some ways codified into the law, Objectivism is radically anti-Christian, denies the natural and moral law and assumes that man exists solely as an individual whose highest goal is satisfying his cupidity and concupiscence. It suggests that mankind is a collection of aimless atoms that bounce off of each other occasionally, but otherwise bear no selfless reciprocal duties or imperatives. Indeed, Rand thought selfishness was a virtue."
Years ago I plowed through half of "Atlas Shrugged" and stopped torturing myself. It was awful to read--turgid prose at its worst--and I imagined the movie version would be awful as well. And, according to these reviews, so it is.
Go see the new "Jane Eyre" film.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sunday, April 17, 2011
TEA PARTYING WITH RACISM
Tea Party member and virulent birther, Marilyn Davenport of Orange County, California, had no idea that emailing a photo shopped picture depicting President Obama as an ape to her fellow Tea Partiers was racist. Noooooooo. The thought never crossed what passes as her mind. This woman is apparently so bereft of any common sense that she is clueless about the insulting dehumanization that African Americans have endured throughout our sorry racial history, and that one of the ways to humiliate this group was to compare them to subhumans.
Pointing out that George W. Bush was referred to as "Chimpy" isn't in any way, shape or form an equivalency. George W. Bush's race was never demonized and dehumanized to the point where people felt torturning and lynching a white citizen was justified because he dared speak to or look at a black woman. Members of George Bush's race never were told to sit at the back of the bus, or drink from separate fountains, nor were white children of tax-paying parents denied entrance into a tax supported state college because their skin was lily white. Referring to Dubya as Chimpy had nothing to do with his race, and everything to do with his incompetence. If Tea Party members don't understand the difference, then they need to read up on the history of racism in this country, pull their heads out of their collective anuses, and face their bigotry head on.
But back to this Orange County woman who defended her stupid email:
"This afternoon, Marilyn Davenport sent an email to fellow Orange County Republican elected officials, apologizing if anyone was offended by her depicting President Barack Obama as an ape--while also blasting the "liberal media" for reporting the story."
Notice that this contemptible woman didn't really apologize. Nowhere does she say she's sorry for acting like a foul hearted asshat. No. she apologizes IF anyone was offended by her depiction of President Obama as an ape--an image that white racists have used to demean and demoralize African Americans through our history. She's too lamebrained to understand this simple fact. And then, like all cowards, she blames the messenger for her atrocious idiocy.
"I simply found it amusing regarding the character of Obama and all the questions surrounding his origin of birth," Davenport wrote. "In no way did I even consider the fact he's half black when I sent out the email. In fact, the thought never entered my mind until one or two other people [Scott Baugh, Orange County GOP boss, and this writer] tried to make this about race. . . . I received plenty of emails about George Bush that I didn't particularly like yet there was no 'cry' in the media about them."
So she never considered the fact that President Obama is an African American when she sent out her humiliating email. This is because she is a stupid woman, too ignorant of this country's history to know when she is committing an egregious insult to a group of people who have had to endure the likes of her for centuries.
I'm sick of it all, but most assuredly sick of the jackasses--people like Davenport--who populate the Tea Party. I'm sick of them denying that this racism is a part of who they are and what they believe. It's part of what the Tea Party is, and it's blatant.
Finally, I'm sick of those who become indignant when they are confronted with the reality that the Tea Party has a HUGE streak of racism running down its spine.
It's wide, it's yellow, and it stinks.
Pointing out that George W. Bush was referred to as "Chimpy" isn't in any way, shape or form an equivalency. George W. Bush's race was never demonized and dehumanized to the point where people felt torturning and lynching a white citizen was justified because he dared speak to or look at a black woman. Members of George Bush's race never were told to sit at the back of the bus, or drink from separate fountains, nor were white children of tax-paying parents denied entrance into a tax supported state college because their skin was lily white. Referring to Dubya as Chimpy had nothing to do with his race, and everything to do with his incompetence. If Tea Party members don't understand the difference, then they need to read up on the history of racism in this country, pull their heads out of their collective anuses, and face their bigotry head on.
But back to this Orange County woman who defended her stupid email:
"This afternoon, Marilyn Davenport sent an email to fellow Orange County Republican elected officials, apologizing if anyone was offended by her depicting President Barack Obama as an ape--while also blasting the "liberal media" for reporting the story."
Notice that this contemptible woman didn't really apologize. Nowhere does she say she's sorry for acting like a foul hearted asshat. No. she apologizes IF anyone was offended by her depiction of President Obama as an ape--an image that white racists have used to demean and demoralize African Americans through our history. She's too lamebrained to understand this simple fact. And then, like all cowards, she blames the messenger for her atrocious idiocy.
"I simply found it amusing regarding the character of Obama and all the questions surrounding his origin of birth," Davenport wrote. "In no way did I even consider the fact he's half black when I sent out the email. In fact, the thought never entered my mind until one or two other people [Scott Baugh, Orange County GOP boss, and this writer] tried to make this about race. . . . I received plenty of emails about George Bush that I didn't particularly like yet there was no 'cry' in the media about them."
So she never considered the fact that President Obama is an African American when she sent out her humiliating email. This is because she is a stupid woman, too ignorant of this country's history to know when she is committing an egregious insult to a group of people who have had to endure the likes of her for centuries.
I'm sick of it all, but most assuredly sick of the jackasses--people like Davenport--who populate the Tea Party. I'm sick of them denying that this racism is a part of who they are and what they believe. It's part of what the Tea Party is, and it's blatant.
Finally, I'm sick of those who become indignant when they are confronted with the reality that the Tea Party has a HUGE streak of racism running down its spine.
It's wide, it's yellow, and it stinks.
TRUMP IS A JOKE
The thrice married and thrice bankrupted multi-millionaire, who inherited his wealth, is a repulsive person who will never, never be president. And did I mention that he's a liar? And too easily influenced by conspiracy-nuts who don't believe President Obama was born in this country and, this is even crazier, that Mr. Obama didn't write his books?
A weak-minded liar is not presidential material, therefore, I repeat, TRUMP will never be president, thank goodness. All he's accomplishing at this point is giving us on the left oodles of material to laugh at. And I'm not including his ridiculous comb-over.
Here's just one of his lies that have been refuted. Poor TRUMP. He's wasting his time, but enforcing the opinion held by a majority of thinking people [this, of course, excludes the gullible far righties who believe this thrice married, thrice bankrupted man could govern] that he is a mediocre teevee personality, and a stupid presidential candidate:
"Trump v. Obama: Flirting with a potential run for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump has lately appeared to come out as a "birther," questioning whether President Obama was born in the United States. "The reason I have a little doubt, just a little, is because he grew up and nobody knew him," the New York developer and reality TV star said recently in an interview. "Nobody knows who he is until later in his life."
Really? Hawaii's governor, Neil Abercrombie, was a friend of Obama's parents, and says he remembers when Obama was born. Obama left Hawaii for several years when he was six, but two of his kindergarten teachers in Honolulu remember him, with one describing him as a "cute, likable, heavy-build child." As for later, here's a picture--one of many--of Obama with his high-school basketball team, released by the high school.
So this claim, too--that "nobody knew" Obama when he was growing up--gets the lowest rank on our gauge: "bogus."
Great picture. It illustrates how worried President Obama is over TRUMP's foolish statements.
FactCheck.org demolishes Trump's idiotic falsehoods about President Obama's birth certificate. Why would any rational person support someone as misguided and dumb as Trump? He's made a gigantic fool of himself on the birther issue and deserves to be mocked and ignorned as a serious presidential candidate.
However, the Tea Party loves this clown..
A weak-minded liar is not presidential material, therefore, I repeat, TRUMP will never be president, thank goodness. All he's accomplishing at this point is giving us on the left oodles of material to laugh at. And I'm not including his ridiculous comb-over.
Here's just one of his lies that have been refuted. Poor TRUMP. He's wasting his time, but enforcing the opinion held by a majority of thinking people [this, of course, excludes the gullible far righties who believe this thrice married, thrice bankrupted man could govern] that he is a mediocre teevee personality, and a stupid presidential candidate:
"Trump v. Obama: Flirting with a potential run for the Republican presidential nomination, Donald Trump has lately appeared to come out as a "birther," questioning whether President Obama was born in the United States. "The reason I have a little doubt, just a little, is because he grew up and nobody knew him," the New York developer and reality TV star said recently in an interview. "Nobody knows who he is until later in his life."
Really? Hawaii's governor, Neil Abercrombie, was a friend of Obama's parents, and says he remembers when Obama was born. Obama left Hawaii for several years when he was six, but two of his kindergarten teachers in Honolulu remember him, with one describing him as a "cute, likable, heavy-build child." As for later, here's a picture--one of many--of Obama with his high-school basketball team, released by the high school.
So this claim, too--that "nobody knew" Obama when he was growing up--gets the lowest rank on our gauge: "bogus."
Great picture. It illustrates how worried President Obama is over TRUMP's foolish statements.
FactCheck.org demolishes Trump's idiotic falsehoods about President Obama's birth certificate. Why would any rational person support someone as misguided and dumb as Trump? He's made a gigantic fool of himself on the birther issue and deserves to be mocked and ignorned as a serious presidential candidate.
However, the Tea Party loves this clown..
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Conservative Pundit, David Frum, on President Obama's Speech on the Budget: WHAM!
How Ryan set up Obama's comeback
"The Republican plan to cut taxes and slash government health care spending gives the president prime opportunities for political victory:
“Whatever you do, don’t serve to his backhand.”
“Don’t be nervous. I have the new Ryan serve. It’s bold!”
“Trust me on this. Don’t serve to his backhand.”
Thomp. Wham.
Here’s a basic fact of American politics. The American people like Medicare. They are not so enthusiastic about tax cuts for the rich.
Those of us on the political right have different preferences. We believe that low rates for high earners accelerate economic growth. We believe that the cost of Medicare must be restrained. And I think we have a lot of good arguments on our side.
But we must never deceive ourselves: We are arguing for policies with a lot of political negatives attached to them. Which means we have to take some basic political precautions.
In the current Republican mood, however, precautions are for girlie-men. Republicans have succumbed to a strange mood of simultaneous euphoria and paranoia. Republicans have convinced themselves both that: (1) American freedom stands in imminent danger of disappearing into totalitarian night; and (2) that the vast majority of the great and good American people are yearning for a mighty rollback of big government, even at considerable personal sacrifice.
And so Republicans have united around Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal that for the first time in modern conservative history explicitly joins a big tax cut for the rich to big cuts in health care spending for virtually everybody else. If this were a tennis game, the Republicans would be placing the ball in exactly the spot on the court where it must never, ever go."
Why the GOP is insisting on giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while putting more of a burden on middle and lower income Americans is a mystery. In a recent survey an overwhelming majority of Americans favor raising taxes as a tool to bring the deficit under control. And the American people DO NOT want any changes to Medicare. As Frum wrote: "Medicare remains hugely popular. By 2-to-1 margins, Americans reject changes to Medicare. Even among self-identified Republicans, one-third reject changes to Medicare."
Mr. Obama's speech energized his base, and it signaled that the president may very well fight for what the American people really want, not what the corporatists and the GOP, who are NOT listening to the people, want.
Frum concludes with this observation on how the GOP mishandled this debate and how the president framed it:
"The Republican insistence on joining two negatives in hopes of producing one positive opened the way to President Obama’s speech Wednesday.
That speech was not so especially eloquent. It was, however, very effective. It frames the debate in a way that is maximally useful for Democrats. This framing was made possible by the efforts of Republicans themselves, blinded by their own hopes, misdirected by their own messaging.
It’s exactly like what happened on health care reform, where Republicans persuaded themselves they had Obama on the ropes even as he succeeded in enacting the most important new entitlement since 1965. We went for all the marbles, and ended with none. Now I fear we are doing it again."
THE LAST DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT TO BALANCE THE BUDGET WAS BILL CLINTON. THE LAST REPUBLICAN TO BALANCE THE BUDGET? DWIGHT EISENHOWER!
DON'T LET THE GOP FOOL YOU INTO BELIEVING THEY ARE THE FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE PARTY.
THEY ARE NOT:
"The Republican plan to cut taxes and slash government health care spending gives the president prime opportunities for political victory:
“Whatever you do, don’t serve to his backhand.”
“Don’t be nervous. I have the new Ryan serve. It’s bold!”
“Trust me on this. Don’t serve to his backhand.”
Thomp. Wham.
Here’s a basic fact of American politics. The American people like Medicare. They are not so enthusiastic about tax cuts for the rich.
Those of us on the political right have different preferences. We believe that low rates for high earners accelerate economic growth. We believe that the cost of Medicare must be restrained. And I think we have a lot of good arguments on our side.
But we must never deceive ourselves: We are arguing for policies with a lot of political negatives attached to them. Which means we have to take some basic political precautions.
In the current Republican mood, however, precautions are for girlie-men. Republicans have succumbed to a strange mood of simultaneous euphoria and paranoia. Republicans have convinced themselves both that: (1) American freedom stands in imminent danger of disappearing into totalitarian night; and (2) that the vast majority of the great and good American people are yearning for a mighty rollback of big government, even at considerable personal sacrifice.
And so Republicans have united around Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal that for the first time in modern conservative history explicitly joins a big tax cut for the rich to big cuts in health care spending for virtually everybody else. If this were a tennis game, the Republicans would be placing the ball in exactly the spot on the court where it must never, ever go."
Why the GOP is insisting on giving more tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans while putting more of a burden on middle and lower income Americans is a mystery. In a recent survey an overwhelming majority of Americans favor raising taxes as a tool to bring the deficit under control. And the American people DO NOT want any changes to Medicare. As Frum wrote: "Medicare remains hugely popular. By 2-to-1 margins, Americans reject changes to Medicare. Even among self-identified Republicans, one-third reject changes to Medicare."
Mr. Obama's speech energized his base, and it signaled that the president may very well fight for what the American people really want, not what the corporatists and the GOP, who are NOT listening to the people, want.
Frum concludes with this observation on how the GOP mishandled this debate and how the president framed it:
"The Republican insistence on joining two negatives in hopes of producing one positive opened the way to President Obama’s speech Wednesday.
That speech was not so especially eloquent. It was, however, very effective. It frames the debate in a way that is maximally useful for Democrats. This framing was made possible by the efforts of Republicans themselves, blinded by their own hopes, misdirected by their own messaging.
It’s exactly like what happened on health care reform, where Republicans persuaded themselves they had Obama on the ropes even as he succeeded in enacting the most important new entitlement since 1965. We went for all the marbles, and ended with none. Now I fear we are doing it again."
THE LAST DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENT TO BALANCE THE BUDGET WAS BILL CLINTON. THE LAST REPUBLICAN TO BALANCE THE BUDGET? DWIGHT EISENHOWER!
DON'T LET THE GOP FOOL YOU INTO BELIEVING THEY ARE THE FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE PARTY.
THEY ARE NOT:
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
PAUL RYAN A FISCAL CONSERVATIVE? NOT WHAT THE RECORD SHOWS.
Every policy change of the last decade that increased the deficit—the Bush tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—Ryan voted for.
Jonathan Chait writing for The Daily Beast analyzes Ryan's proposed budget:
THE REST IS HERE.
Jonathan Chait writing for The Daily Beast analyzes Ryan's proposed budget:
"When Ryan warns of the specter of collapse, he is not merely referring to the alarming gap between government outlays and receipts, as his admirers in the media assume. (Every policy change of the last decade that increased the deficit—the Bush tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq—Ryan voted for.) He is also invoking Rand’s almost theological certainty that when a government punishes the strong to reward the weak, it must invariably collapse. That is the crisis his Path to Prosperity seeks to avert.
Viewed as an effort to reduce the debt, Ryan’s plan makes little sense. Many of its proposals either have nothing to do with reducing deficits (repealing the financial-reform bill loathed by Wall Street) or actually increase deficits (making the Bush tax cuts permanent). It relies heavily on distant, phantasmal cuts. During the debate over health-care reform, Ryan insisted that Medicare cuts used to finance universal coverage might add up on paper but they’d never stick—they were too far down the road, and Congress would just walk them back when people complained.
But Ryan proposes identical cuts in his own plan. What’s more, he saves trillions of dollars from Medicare by imposing huge cuts on anybody who retires starting in 2022. So not only has he adopted the cuts he claimed would never come to pass because they’re too harsh and too distant, he imposes far harsher and more distant cuts of his own. Indeed, Alice Rivlin, the fiscally conservative Democratic economist who endorsed an earlier version of his Medicare plan, called his new plan unrealistic. (Ryan nonetheless continues to imply that she supports it.)"
THE REST IS HERE.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
FAUX NOOZ CLAIMS WOMEN GET PAP SMEARS AND BREAST EXAMS AT WALGREENS
Here's another hilarious take on the utter insanity that passes as political discussions and news on FAUX NOOZ.
Seriously.
While reviewing what Planned Parenthood provides to poor women, the idiots on this panel claimed that pap smears and breast exams are available at Walgreens! I may switch from The Comedy Channel to FAUX NOOZ, since they are definitely crazy funnier than Stewart and Colbert combined.
But the best part of this video is where Colbert mocks Senator Kyl (Liar-AZ) who stated that 90% of Planned Parenthood's services is for abortions, a blatant lie. When later questioned on this falsehood, Kyl's office, speaking for the senator, said Kyl's claims were never ment to be factual.
Watch it:
FAUX NOOZ and GOP senator creating their own realities!
Seriously.
While reviewing what Planned Parenthood provides to poor women, the idiots on this panel claimed that pap smears and breast exams are available at Walgreens! I may switch from The Comedy Channel to FAUX NOOZ, since they are definitely crazy funnier than Stewart and Colbert combined.
But the best part of this video is where Colbert mocks Senator Kyl (Liar-AZ) who stated that 90% of Planned Parenthood's services is for abortions, a blatant lie. When later questioned on this falsehood, Kyl's office, speaking for the senator, said Kyl's claims were never ment to be factual.
Watch it:
FAUX NOOZ and GOP senator creating their own realities!
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
DEMOCRATIC WOMEN IN CONGRESS SPEAK OUT AGAINST GOP ANTI-WOMEN LEGISLATION
Good for them.
The GOP held the budget process hostage to an add-on that would have deprived poor and middle class women from medical screening for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and other medical issues.
Planned Parenthood DOES NOT RECEIVE US GOVERNMENT DOLLERS for abortions.
The GOP lies. And American women would have been the victims of their unconscionable deceptions.
How can any woman associate herself with these men in suits who wish to attack poor women and their health?
The GOP held the budget process hostage to an add-on that would have deprived poor and middle class women from medical screening for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and other medical issues.
Planned Parenthood DOES NOT RECEIVE US GOVERNMENT DOLLERS for abortions.
The GOP lies. And American women would have been the victims of their unconscionable deceptions.
How can any woman associate herself with these men in suits who wish to attack poor women and their health?
Thursday, April 7, 2011
PAUL RYAN WILL REDUCE DEFICITS BY TAXING MIDDLE AND LOW INCOME AMERICANS AND GIVING MORE TAX BREAKS TO THE VERY RICHEST AMERICANS
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has this to say about Rep. Ryan's proposed "Roadmap:"
"The Ryan Budget's Radical Priorities
Provides Largest Tax Cuts in History for Wealthy, Raises Middle Class Taxes, Ends Guaranteed Medicare, Privatizes Social Security, Erodes Health Care"
CONTINUE READING HERE.
David Frum isn't a fan of Paul Ryan's budget:
"The real message of the Ryan plan is: Upper-income tax cuts now; spending cuts for the poor now; more deficits now; spending cuts for middle-income people much later; spending cuts for today’s elderly, never.
Jobs first, deficit later is actually the right timing of priorities. But the upper-income tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 markedly failed to translate into higher incomes for ordinary Americans. The Ryan plan offers no reason to hope that another round of the same medicine will deliver better results."
Others who have looked at Ryan's plan say this:
"Look, I am all for reducing the deficit, massively reducing the deficit. But when these Republicans come up with cut, cut, cut, cut yet not only no tax increases but tax cuts, I find them wanting. It seems their goal is to shrink the deficits with spending cuts, blow it back up with tax cuts, rinse, repeat. When Paul Ryan proposes a plan that matches his spending cuts dollar for dollar with tax increases, then I will call him courageous. Until then, sorry, I just cannot take him seriously.
It would also be possible to come up with a plan that has $2 of cuts for every $1 of tax hikes - which is not far off what the Coalition government in Britain has done.
The reason I am glad that Ryan has put out his report is that it honestly reveals the sheer scale of the problem, and cannot hide the fact that it will hurt seniors, the poor, and the middle class. For so long now, no Republican has fessed up to the pain involved in balancing the budget. Whatever its flaws, the Ryan plan shifts the debate to more realistic grounds, which is a success in and of itself. Another writes:
Like you, I had an initially positive reaction to the Ryan plan, but as I read more and more, the only positive I take away is that someone had the courage to propose a plan that is easy to 'death panel'. So kudos for showing the courage, but I think his plan falls apart in the details and the assumptions."
"The Ryan Budget's Radical Priorities
Provides Largest Tax Cuts in History for Wealthy, Raises Middle Class Taxes, Ends Guaranteed Medicare, Privatizes Social Security, Erodes Health Care"
"[Paul Ryan's]...'Roadmap' would give the most affluent households a new round of very large, costly tax cuts by reducing income tax rates on high-income households; eliminating income taxes on capital gains, dividends, and interest; and abolishing the corporate income tax, the estate tax, and the alternative minimum tax. At the same time, the Ryan plan would raise taxes for most middle-income families, privatize a substantial portion of Social Security, eliminate the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance, end traditional Medicare and most of Medicaid, and terminate the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The plan would replace these health programs with a system of vouchers whose value would erode over time and thus would purchase health insurance that would cover fewer health care services as the years went by.
The tax cuts for those at the very top would be of historic proportions. A new analysis by the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center (TPC) finds:
■The Ryan plan would cut in half the taxes of the richest 1 percent of Americans — those with incomes exceeding $633,000 (in 2009 dollars) in 2014.
■The higher one goes up the income scale, the more massive the tax cuts would be. Households with incomes of more than $1 million would receive an average annual tax cut of $502,000.
■The richest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans — those whose incomes exceed $2.9 million a year — would receive an average tax cut of $1.7 million a year. These tax cuts would be on top of those that high-income households would get from making the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of 2010, permanent.
To offset some of the cost of these massive tax cuts, the Ryan plan would place a new consumption tax on most goods and services, a measure that would increase taxes on most low- and middle-income families. TPC finds that:
■About three-quarters of Americans — those with incomes between $20,000 and $200,000 — would face tax increases. For example, households with incomes between $50,000 and $75,000 would face an average tax increase of $900. (These estimated changes in taxes are relative to the taxes that would be paid under a continuation of current policy — i.e., what tax liabilities would be if the President and Congress make permanent the expiring 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and relief from the alternative minimum tax.)
■The plan would shift tax burdens so substantially from the wealthy to the middle class that people with incomes over $1 million would face much lower effective tax rates than middle-income families would. That is, they would pay much smaller percentages of their income in federal taxes.
Because of the Ryan plan’s enormous tax cuts for the affluent, even the very large benefit cuts that the plan would make in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security — and the plan’s middle-class tax increases — would not put the federal budget on a sustainable course for decades. The federal debt would soar to about 175 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) by 2050. In contrast, most fiscal policy analysts recommend that the debt-to-GDP ratio be stabilized within the next ten years, and at a far lower level.
Reports of Plan’s Fiscal Soundness Rest on Misunderstanding of CBO Analysis
Assertions that the Ryan plan is fiscally responsible rest on a serious misunderstanding of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the plan. CBO only partially analyzed the Ryan plan. Contrary to some media reports, CBO has not prepared an actual cost estimate of it. [2] CBO generally does not produce estimates of the effects of proposed changes in tax policies; that is the responsibility of the Joint Committee on Taxation. In its analysis of the Ryan plan, CBO did not attempt to measure the revenue losses that Rep. Ryan’s proposals would generate.
Instead, as its report states, CBO simply used an assumption specified by Rep. Ryan’s staff that the overall level of revenues would remain unchanged from what the federal government would collect through 2030 under current policies, and would equal 19 percent of GDP in later years. CBO did not find that the Ryan plan actually would achieve these assumed revenue levels."
CONTINUE READING HERE.
David Frum isn't a fan of Paul Ryan's budget:
"The real message of the Ryan plan is: Upper-income tax cuts now; spending cuts for the poor now; more deficits now; spending cuts for middle-income people much later; spending cuts for today’s elderly, never.
Jobs first, deficit later is actually the right timing of priorities. But the upper-income tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 markedly failed to translate into higher incomes for ordinary Americans. The Ryan plan offers no reason to hope that another round of the same medicine will deliver better results."
Others who have looked at Ryan's plan say this:
"Look, I am all for reducing the deficit, massively reducing the deficit. But when these Republicans come up with cut, cut, cut, cut yet not only no tax increases but tax cuts, I find them wanting. It seems their goal is to shrink the deficits with spending cuts, blow it back up with tax cuts, rinse, repeat. When Paul Ryan proposes a plan that matches his spending cuts dollar for dollar with tax increases, then I will call him courageous. Until then, sorry, I just cannot take him seriously.
It would also be possible to come up with a plan that has $2 of cuts for every $1 of tax hikes - which is not far off what the Coalition government in Britain has done.
The reason I am glad that Ryan has put out his report is that it honestly reveals the sheer scale of the problem, and cannot hide the fact that it will hurt seniors, the poor, and the middle class. For so long now, no Republican has fessed up to the pain involved in balancing the budget. Whatever its flaws, the Ryan plan shifts the debate to more realistic grounds, which is a success in and of itself. Another writes:
Like you, I had an initially positive reaction to the Ryan plan, but as I read more and more, the only positive I take away is that someone had the courage to propose a plan that is easy to 'death panel'. So kudos for showing the courage, but I think his plan falls apart in the details and the assumptions."
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
GOP TALKS GOVERNMENT SHUT-DOWN TO SHOCK AMERICAN PEOPLE, THEN WILL BLAME OBAMA FOR SHUT-DOWN
Reposted from The Swash Zone. h/t Nameless Cynic.
Listen to the GOPers lie about NOT wanting a government shut-down, then in the second part of the video, listen to them say how good a tactic this will be for America.
Don't these people know that everything they say is on video, and that what they say can actually be verified to see if they're telling, y'know, THE TRUTH?
Listen to the GOPers lie about NOT wanting a government shut-down, then in the second part of the video, listen to them say how good a tactic this will be for America.
Don't these people know that everything they say is on video, and that what they say can actually be verified to see if they're telling, y'know, THE TRUTH?
Sunday, April 3, 2011
IT'S REALLY, REALLY, HARD TO KEEP UP...
WITH ALL THE ABOMINATIONS THAT ASSOCIATE THEMSELVES WITH THE GOP:
Nameless Cynic over at The Swash Zone has more on GOP absurdities and idiocies.
THIS IS A TEA PARTIER. AND HE'S PISSED OVER DUI LAWS. NO. REALLY.
ON THE ISSUE OF RAPE, THE GOP AND GADHAFI HAVE A LOT IN COMMON. LINK HERE.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE GOP INANITY AND ASTONISHING IDIOCY! THESE PEOPLE WANT TO RUN THE US GOVERNMENT! THINK OF THAT FRIGHTENING PROSPECT, FRIENDS, WHEN YOU READ THIS:
From Wonkette:
MN State Senator: Integration ‘Ruined’ Minneapolis But He Still Likes Blacks
Nameless Cynic over at The Swash Zone has more on GOP absurdities and idiocies.
THIS IS A TEA PARTIER. AND HE'S PISSED OVER DUI LAWS. NO. REALLY.
"Montana is a big state. Lots of small towns. Lots of isolated bars. People have to drive quite a ways sometimes to get a drink. And the west is famous, of course, for its “belly up to the bar” attitude.
So perhaps it comes as no surprise that when somebody says tougher DUI laws are bad for businesses, it’s a Republican from Montana. And that he is a Tea Party-supported Republican. One of that crazy freshmen crop we haven’t quite gotten used to yet.
A Tea Partier and a bar owner, no less.
Alan Hale, a GOP lawmaker who owns a bar in Basin, MT complained about the effects of tougher DUI laws:
“These DUI laws are not doing our small businesses in our state any good at all. They are destroying them. They are destroying a way of life that has been in Montana for years and years.”
Hale’s assault on clear thinking is so outrageous that ConsumerReports.org was prompted to question whether or not the video was an April Fool’s Joke. No, it’s no joke: It’s a Tea Partier."
ON THE ISSUE OF RAPE, THE GOP AND GADHAFI HAVE A LOT IN COMMON. LINK HERE.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE GOP INANITY AND ASTONISHING IDIOCY! THESE PEOPLE WANT TO RUN THE US GOVERNMENT! THINK OF THAT FRIGHTENING PROSPECT, FRIENDS, WHEN YOU READ THIS:
From Wonkette:
MN State Senator: Integration ‘Ruined’ Minneapolis But He Still Likes Blacks
"...Burnsville Republican Sen. Dan Hall on school integration. “I watched Minneapolis get destroyed, so I not only didn’t want my kids in the school system,” he said. “I took them out of Minneapolis because they ruined our neighborhoods with integration and [de]segregation.” Hall made his remarks during debate about a move by Minnesota Republicans to repeal school integration laws, specifically a decades-long program that aims to diversify schools in the Twin Cities metro area and Duluth."WISCONSIN GOVERNOR WALKER BELIEVES IN PAYING OFF HIS CONTRIBUTORS BY PUTTING THEIR UNDEREDUCATED, DRUNK-DRIVING CONVICTED SONS IN STATE JOBS:
"No degree, little experience pay off bigSOURCE
Just in his mid-20s, Brian Deschane has no college degree, very little management experience and two drunken-driving convictions.
Yet he has landed an $81,500-per-year job in Gov. Scott Walker's administration overseeing environmental and regulatory matters and dozens of employees at the Department of Commerce. Even though Walker says the state is broke and public employees are overpaid, Deschane already has earned a promotion and a 26% pay raise in just two months with the state.
How did Deschane score his plum assignment with the Walker team?
It's all in the family.
His father is Jerry Deschane, executive vice president and longtime lobbyist for the Madison-based Wisconsin Builders Association, which bet big on Walker during last year's governor's race.
The group's political action committee gave $29,000 to Walker and his running mate, Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, last year, making it one of the top five PAC donors to the governor's successful campaign. Even more impressive, members of the trade group funneled more than $92,000 through its conduit to Walker's campaign over the past two years.
Total donations: $121,652.
That's big-time backing from the homebuilders.
The younger Deschane didn't respond to questions about his job.
But his father said he doesn't think his group's financial support of the first-term Republican helped his son in his job search.
"He got the position himself," said Jerry Deschane, who returned to the trade group in September after a hiatus during which he worked as an independent lobbyist for many groups, including the builders association. "I didn't get it for him."
One Walker critic isn't buying it.
State Rep. Brett Hulsey called Deschane's appointment another case of the new administration using state jobs to repay various industries.
Hulsey said he was unimpressed with the younger Deschane's résumé, including his lack of environmental or management experience.
"It doesn't look like he's ever had a real job," the Madison Democrat said."
Friday, April 1, 2011
APRIL'S FOOLS
Speaking with the Scranton Times-Tribune on Tuesday, freshman lawmaker Rep. Tom Marino (R-PA) expressed mixed opinions about the Obama administration’s actions in Libya. He told the paper that he “supports” the intervention, but wishes that the administration had consulted with Congress first.
Marino, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House subcommittee on issues related to African foreign policy, then posed an odd question:
“Where does it stop?” he said. “Do we go into Africa next? I don’t want to sound callous or cold, but this could go on indefinitely around the world.”
***********************************
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) will announce deep cuts to programs that help the developmentally disabled in his state. Scott will invoke his “emergency powers” to impose a 15 percent cut to the rates charged by group home workers and case workers that help the 30,000 Floridians with cerebral palsy, autism, and Down Syndrome.
Those who provide services to the developmentally disabled are already decrying the cuts. “This would be a catastrophe,” one advocate told the Miami Herald. “The system can’t take this. Eventually, we will have to cut jobs and reduce services.”
Scott says the cuts are necessary to address a $170 million deficit in the Agency for Persons with Disabilities — but at the same time, he is also proposing $1.5 billion in corporate tax cuts and $1.4 billion more in property tax cuts.
Even more galling, today — the same day his cuts are announced — Scott is scheduled to appear at a Special Olympics Torch Run with his wife and other state officials.
h/t ThinkProgress
*******************************************
TEA PARTY BIRTHERS:
NEWT GINGRICH:
"[Gingrich]...was asked by Greta Van Susteren of Fox News what he would do about Muammar Qaddafi attacking his opponents in Libya.
“Exercise a no-fly zone this evening,” he replied. “All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we're intervening…. All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.”
"... he told Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show: “I would not have intervened…. I would not have used American and European forces, bombing Arabs and that country."
SARAH PALIN:
"Fresh from her two-day "trip of a lifetime" to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palin told Van Susteren that America needs to "be even stronger in our commitment to help secure Israel."
Palin wants the U.S. to stop intervening in the Palestine-Israel conflict, saying that it should stay out of zoning issues.
"We need to stay out of skirmishes like that and look at the big picture and remind them of our support," said Palin.
When asked what she would do, Palin said she would take the "harder line" and push Palestinians to back off.
"Why aren't we putting our foot down with the other side and telling the Palestinians, 'If you're serious about peace, quit the shellacking and the shelling. Quit the bombing of innocent Israelis,'" said Palin."
And finally, Sarah Jones of Politicususa writes about how FAUX NOOZ continues to promote these fools and why we continue to laugh at them:
"The real question here is why does Fox keep pushing clowns and getting mad at everyone else when we laugh? Here’s a hint, boys. Try running someone who knows some American history, believes in science, knows what the Bush doctrine is, and doesn’t get an A for “can I call ya’ Joe” in her VP debate. Is it asking too much of you people for you to join us on the playing field instead of demanding handicaps because your game sucks?"
Marino, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the House subcommittee on issues related to African foreign policy, then posed an odd question:
“Where does it stop?” he said. “Do we go into Africa next? I don’t want to sound callous or cold, but this could go on indefinitely around the world.”
***********************************
Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) will announce deep cuts to programs that help the developmentally disabled in his state. Scott will invoke his “emergency powers” to impose a 15 percent cut to the rates charged by group home workers and case workers that help the 30,000 Floridians with cerebral palsy, autism, and Down Syndrome.
Those who provide services to the developmentally disabled are already decrying the cuts. “This would be a catastrophe,” one advocate told the Miami Herald. “The system can’t take this. Eventually, we will have to cut jobs and reduce services.”
Scott says the cuts are necessary to address a $170 million deficit in the Agency for Persons with Disabilities — but at the same time, he is also proposing $1.5 billion in corporate tax cuts and $1.4 billion more in property tax cuts.
Even more galling, today — the same day his cuts are announced — Scott is scheduled to appear at a Special Olympics Torch Run with his wife and other state officials.
h/t ThinkProgress
*******************************************
TEA PARTY BIRTHERS:
NEWT GINGRICH:
"[Gingrich]...was asked by Greta Van Susteren of Fox News what he would do about Muammar Qaddafi attacking his opponents in Libya.
“Exercise a no-fly zone this evening,” he replied. “All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we're intervening…. All we have to do is suppress his air force, which we could do in minutes.”
"... he told Matt Lauer on NBC’s Today show: “I would not have intervened…. I would not have used American and European forces, bombing Arabs and that country."
SARAH PALIN:
"Fresh from her two-day "trip of a lifetime" to Israel to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palin told Van Susteren that America needs to "be even stronger in our commitment to help secure Israel."
Palin wants the U.S. to stop intervening in the Palestine-Israel conflict, saying that it should stay out of zoning issues.
"We need to stay out of skirmishes like that and look at the big picture and remind them of our support," said Palin.
When asked what she would do, Palin said she would take the "harder line" and push Palestinians to back off.
"Why aren't we putting our foot down with the other side and telling the Palestinians, 'If you're serious about peace, quit the shellacking and the shelling. Quit the bombing of innocent Israelis,'" said Palin."
And finally, Sarah Jones of Politicususa writes about how FAUX NOOZ continues to promote these fools and why we continue to laugh at them:
"The real question here is why does Fox keep pushing clowns and getting mad at everyone else when we laugh? Here’s a hint, boys. Try running someone who knows some American history, believes in science, knows what the Bush doctrine is, and doesn’t get an A for “can I call ya’ Joe” in her VP debate. Is it asking too much of you people for you to join us on the playing field instead of demanding handicaps because your game sucks?"
