Progressive Eruptions

SEEN ON THE INTERTUBES*

2012-01-28T09:04:00.000-05:00

"We will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, to other presidents, and other generations." ---George W. Bush, State of the Union address, Jan. 28, 2003

Numbers for Mitt Romney among Independents:

November:

Romney viewed somewhat or very negatively by 22% of independents
Romney led Obama by 13 points—47% to 34%.

Today:

Romney viewed somewhat or very negatively by 42% of independents
Romney trails Obama by 8 points—36% to 44%

h/t dailykos

"Arizona Police Officer Posts Bullet-Riddled Pic of President Obama

New York Times: "The Secret Service said Thursday that it was looking into a photograph posted on the Internet that showed a group of young Arizona men posing in the desert with guns while holding up what appeared to be a bullet-riddled image of President Obama’s face."

An Oklahoma state senator, Ralph Shortey, has filed a bill to make it illegal to sell food or products that contain aborted fetuses.

“I don’t know if it is happening in Oklahoma, it may be, it may not be. What I am saying is that if it does happen then we are not going to allow it to manufacture here,” says Shortey

Was Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer, drunk again when she wagged her finger in President Obama's face? Her nickname around the state capitol is Otis, referring to the town drunk in Mayberry RFD.

Lawmaker calls for public hangings

A Republican state senator, Larry Pittman, wants to bring back public hangings in North Carolina as a deterrent to crime, and he says doctors who perform abortions should be in the line to the gallows.

“ 'I’m just saying, they all have stinky feet,' former Congressman J. C. Watts, a Baptist preacher, said while he was campaigning for Newt in South Carolina.

Although actually, when you’re talking about 1) Committing adultery, 2) Divorcing your wife while she’s sick to marry your mistress, 3) Committing adultery, 4) Allegedly asking your wife to let you keep the mistress on the side and 5) Divorcing your wife while she’s sick to marry your mistress ... it’s pretty clear everybody doesn’t do it." --Gail Collins, NYTimes

*Intertubes

English EtymologyPortmanteau created from merging internet + tubes

From the famous "Series of tubes" analogy used on June 28, 2006 by then United States Senator Ted Stevens to describe the Internet.

"Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools." --Albert Einstein

2012-01-25T20:29:00.002-05:00

The graceless, foolish governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer:

And she's a shameless liar.

The Field Negro also addresses this embarrassment that is the governor of Arizona.

THE BEST OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S SOTU SPEECH

2012-01-25T09:37:00.002-05:00

“Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense. We don’t begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it’s not because they envy the rich. It’s because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don’t need and the country can’t afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference – like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That’s not right. Americans know it’s not right. They know that this generation’s success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country’s future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That’s how we’ll reduce our deficit. That’s an America built to last. “

[SKIP]

"One of my proudest possessions is the flag that the SEAL Team took with them on the mission to get bin Laden. On it are each of their names. Some may be Democrats. Some may be Republicans. But that doesn’t matter. Just like it didn’t matter that day in the Situation Room, when I sat next to Bob Gates – a man who was George Bush’s defense secretary; and Hillary Clinton, a woman who ran against me for president.

All that mattered that day was the mission. No one thought about politics. No one thought about themselves. One of the young men involved in the raid later told me that he didn’t deserve credit for the mission. It only succeeded, he said, because every single member of that unit did their job – the pilot who landed the helicopter that spun out of control; the translator who kept others from entering the compound; the troops who separated the women and children from the fight; the SEALs who charged up the stairs. More than that, the mission only succeeded because every member of that unit trusted each other – because you can’t charge up those stairs, into darkness and danger, unless you know that there’s someone behind you, watching your back.

So it is with America. Each time I look at that flag, I’m reminded that our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own. This Nation is great because we built it together. This Nation is great because we worked as a team. This Nation is great because we get each other’s backs. And if we hold fast to that truth, in this moment of trial, there is no challenge too great; no mission too hard. As long as we’re joined in common purpose, as long as we maintain our common resolve, our journey moves forward, our future is hopeful, and the state of our Union will always be strong. "

This is how a real leader connects with his people.

The GOP's response was whining negativity with an idea or two that actually matched Mr. Obama's.

There is no one running for the GOP nomination who could have done anything as good as what President Obama did last night.

UPDATE (via dailykos):

National Journal:

Today's United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll showed Democrats with an 11-point lead over Republicans in a generic ballot question asked to registered voters. When asked if they would "rather see the Republicans keep control" of the House or see "the Democrats win enough seats to take over control of the House," 48 percent chose the Democrats, and 37 percent chose the GOP.

UPDATE II:

"91 percent of those who watched the speech approved of the proposals Mr. Obama put forth during his remarks. Only nine percent disapproved. Last year, 83 percent of viewers approved of Mr. Obama's State of the Union remarks.This year, 82 percent of those who watched the speech said they approve of the president's plans for the economy, up from 53 percent who approved before the speech. Eighty percent said they approved of Mr. Obama's plans for the deficit -- in contrast to 45 percent before the speech. Eighty-three percent approved of Mr. Obama's proposals regarding Afghanistan, which received only a 57 percent approval rating beforehand. "

(h/t Andrew Sullivan's blog)

GINGRICH AND THE LIE ABOUT "THE FOOD STAMP PRESIDENT"

2012-01-24T21:48:00.001-05:00

In his extraordinarily gaseous bloviating, Former disgraced Speaker of the House and sexytime aficianado, Newton Leroy Gingrich, claims that Mr. Obama is "The Food Stamp President."

FactCheck.org explains how and why this is a lie:

Newt’s Faulty Food-Stamp Claim

Posted on January 18, 2012

Newt Gingrich claims that “more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history.” He’s wrong. More were added under Bush than under Obama, according to the most recent figures.

The former speaker made that claim Jan. 16 in a Republican debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and his campaign organization quickly inserted the snippet in a new 30-second TV ad that began running Jan. 18 in South Carolina.

Gingrich would have been correct to say the number now on food aid is historically high. The number stood at 46,224,722 persons as of October, the most recent month on record. And it’s also true that the number has risen sharply since Obama took office.

But Gingrich goes too far to say Obama has put more on the rolls than other presidents. We asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition service for month-by-month figures going back to January 2001. And they show that under President George W. Bush the number of recipients rose by nearly 14.7 million. Nothing before comes close to that.

And under Obama, the increase so far has been 14.2 million. To be exact, the program has so far grown by 444,574 fewer recipients during Obama’s time in office than during Bush’s.

It’s possible that when the figures for January 2012 are available they will show that the gain under Obama has matched or exceeded the gain under Bush. But not if the short-term trend continues. The number getting food stamps declined by 43,528 in October. And the economy has improved since then.

Obama’s Responsibility

Gingrich often cites the number of persons on food stamps to support his view that the U.S. is becoming an “entitlement society,” increasingly dependent on government aid. And he has a point. One out of seven Americans is currently getting food stamps.

But Gingrich strains the facts when he accuses Obama of being responsible. The rise started long before Obama took office, and accelerated as the nation was plunging into the worst economic recession since the Great Depression.

The economic downturn began in December 2007. In the 12 months before Obama was sworn in, 4.4 million were added to the rolls, triple the 1.4 million added in 2007.

LIBERAL PRIDE

2012-01-23T21:53:00.002-05:00

Newspaper Publisher Suggests Assassination of President Obama

2012-01-21T10:08:00.004-05:00

Words fail me on this one.

Atlanta Jewish Times owner apologizes for Obama assassination scenario

January 20, 2012

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The owner of the Atlanta Jewish Times apologized for an opinion column in which he counted President Obama's assassination as among Israel's options in heading off a nuclear Iran.

"I very much regret it, I wish I hadn't made reference to it at all," Andrew Adler told JTA on Friday.

He said he would publish an apology in his next edition, and that reaction from readers had been overwhelmingly negative.

Fox News reported late Friday on its website that the Secret Service was investigating the column. In his interview with JTA, Adler said he had not been approached by the Secret Service.

In a Jan. 13 column, Adler, who is also the paper's publisher, outlined what he said were three possible responses by Israel to Iran's acquiring a nuclear weapon: A preemptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist groups that he said would be emboldened by a nuclear Iran; a direct strike on Iran; and "three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies."

He continued: "Yes, you read 'three' correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles?"

Gawker, the gossip and media news website, first reported on the column Friday.

Ophir Aviran, the Israeli consul-general in Atlanta, condemned the column "in the strongest possible terms."

In response to a JTA request for comment, Aviran said in an email that he was "appalled at this deranged and morally repugnant assertion."

The Anti-Defamation League condemned Adler's column as "outrageous."

"An apology cannot possibly repair the damage," said the ADL's national director, Abraham Foxman, in a statement.

Foxman added: "Mr. Adler’s lack of judgment as a publisher, editor and columnist raises serious questions as to whether he’s fit to run a newspaper."

Jewish publisher is an idiot - but his hatred is shared by many

[Yes, we know. Just take a look at many rightwing bloggers to confirm this.]

From Haaretz:

Andrew Adler’s suggestion in the Atlanta Jewish Times that Israel assassinate President Obama is a blot both on Israel and on American Jews.

"Like most of you, I have never met Andrew B. Adler, owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times, but I think we can all agree that the man is spectacularly stupid. In his contorted apologies he has described himself, after all, as “an idiot.”

The three or four infantile paragraphs of vile text that Adler published in his obscure Atlanta newspaper last week, in which he suggested that Israel consider assassinating President Obama, almost slipped under the radar, but was picked up yesterday by Gawker.com, and is now going viral. “A fool may throw a stone into a well which even a hundred wise men cannot pull out”, the saying goes, and it will indeed take a long time and a great effort to undo the damage that Adler has wrought, in one fell swoop, in defaming Israel by implying that it might, in anyone’s wildest dreams, consider such a kooky conspiracy; in staining American Jews by appearing to supposedly represent their twisted way of thinking; and even by undermining the institution of Jewish journalism by exposing that it harbors such birdbrained bozos in its midst.

It is ironic that Adler’s despicable diatribe comes against the backdrop of a fierce blogosphere debate that flared up yesterday about the term “Israel-firsters” and whether it is a legitimate critique or an anti-Semitic slur. Adler, for his part, has provided an example of a sub-specie of “Israel-firsters” that have not only lost track of where their loyalties lie, they have gone off the tracks altogether. He has pleased anti-Zionists and delighted anti-Semites by giving them the kind of “proof” they relish for accusing American supporters of Israel not of “double loyalty” but of one-sided treachery, plain and simple. "

[skip]

"There is something eerily familiar in all this, of course, for anyone who was present 16 years ago at Tel Aviv’s Kikar Malchei Yisrael, as it was then known, on the night that Yitzhak Rabin was murdered. One can already envisage how Adler will be disowned, described as a “wild weed,” depicted as a lone wolf who does not represent anyone in his or in anyone else’s community and used as a springboard for a righteously indignant, preemptive counteroffensive that will show how his solitary case is being exploited to score points against anyone who legitimately criticizes Obama.

And while we might all stipulate that there is no Jew anywhere in the world who is currently contemplating any act of violence against President Obama, I know, and most of you know, that Adler’s crazy and criminal suggestions are not the ranting of some loony-tune individual and were not taken out of thin air - but are the inevitable result of the inordinate volume of repugnant venom that some of Obama’s political rivals, Jews and non-Jews included, have been spewing for the last three years.

Anyone who has spent any time talking to some of the more vociferous detractors of Obama, Jewish or otherwise, has inevitably encountered those nasty nutters, and they are many, who still believe he is a Muslim, who are utterly convinced that he wants to destroy Israel, and who seriously debate whether he is more like Ahmadinejad than Arafat or – and I heard this one with my own ears – more like Hitler than Haman.

Anyone who reads some of the opinion articles and blogs posted on the Internet by the more extreme Obama-hating writers and pundits – again, many of them Jews - cannot deny the wanton and inflammatory nature of much of their anti-Obama invective."

[skip]

"One wonders how many of today’s anti-Obama politicians and opinion-makers, the latter-day elders of yore, will be able to read Adler’s crazed counsel to Benjamin Netanyahu, and, may that day never come, take a good look in the mirror, wash their hands of the whole affair and declare with a clear conscience that their otherwise sharp and probing eyes didn’t see a thing."

Media Bite Gingrich in His Prodigiously Hypocritical Arse

2012-01-20T10:03:00.004-05:00

Newt "I Wed Three Wives" Gingrich got on his high hobby horse last night during the So. Carolina debate and lashed out at the media for doing their job; for doing what he did when Bill Clinton was a sexually frisky president. Only this time it was Newt's sexual excapades that were being examined. He didn't like that at all. And when he showed his indignation, his family values audience whopped it up in all its hypocritical and sleazy glory, siding with the guy who wouldn't know a family value if it sat on his face.

Good going, So. Carolina Teapublicans, for supporting this hypocrite. Good going for trashing a real family values guy, Barack Hussein Obama, for the last 4 years, and cheering on a guy you wouldn't want near your daughters or granddaughters.

Of course we believe in redemption, it is YOU who don't.

It is the Teapartiers who never forgave a stupid stunt by very young Jane Fonda, or the terrible tragedy that involved Ted Kennedy. It is the family values crowd who continue to this day hammering President Obama for belonging to Rev. Wright's congregation, even when he left it and cut all ties with Wright. It is the Teapublicans who carry resentment and contempt in their hearts toward anyone who they believe has erred from the righteous and true path, and it is they who never accept people who change their hearts and learn from their mistakes.

EXCEPT, EXCEPT, EXCEPT for when it happens to one of theirs, then they go all Jesus-like and embrace the sinner, while rejecting the sin. How holier than thou of them. How utterly sanctimoniously one-sided in their forgiveness toward people they see as sinners.

Like the bully that he is, Gingrich, with faux indignation and belicose ranting, closed down a legitimate discussion about his asking his wife for an open marriage so that he could guiltlessly carry on with his mistress. It worked for the audience in So. Carolina, which apparently defends family values only when they are being trashed by Democrats. Then do the Teapublicans fall all over themselves to show America how Christian and caring for the family they are. Hypocritical weasels. All of them.

Here are a few other statements by pundits who watched the whole stomach-turning Gringrich debacle last night:

via Andrew Sullivan's blog The Daily Dish:

Will Wilkinson counters:

Newt's desperate opening attack on the media for daring to listen to what his ex-wife has to say about him was enthusiastically received by the crowd, but I thought made him look like a snarling, cornered dog.

Andrew Sprung:

Newt's little show of high moral dudgeon when asked at the opening gun about his ex-wife's allegations of cruel, self-serving betrayal is getting rave reviews as performance art. And it was an astounding display of the Audacity of Hubris. In the space of a minute or two, Gingrich managed to blame or condemn questioner John King, the news media, his ex-wife and Barack Obama for his being forced to address the consequences of his serial adultery.

PM Carpenter:

Gingrich's opening Joe McCarthy offensive -- he reveled in assaulting Bill Clinton's personal transgressions, but his are unfairly targeted by the vindictive media -- was perhaps the most despicable display of grotesque demagoguery I have ever witnessed.

And then there's this:
A reader writes:

Sorry Andrew, but I can not agree with your thoughts about Newt's private sex life. IF it had been a one time thing, maybe, but he cheated on TWO wives, and I don't think it a "bitter" thing for his second wife to come out on the campaign trail and tell the world the facts. The man is a lying, cheating hypocrite and certainly gets no sympathy from me. He sure showed no sympathy, charity or forgiveness to Clinton. I am a practicing Buddhist and it is what we call karma.

Another writes:

I know you don't consider ABC's piece a scoop because it was covered a while back by Esquire, and you are technically correct. That said, most people don't read Esquire and have no idea Gingrich had been so cheeky as to ask for an open marriage. And nobody has actually seen Newt's ex-wife tell all, an act that will have a very different emotional impact than reading an article in a magazine.

Another:

I am so angry with you right now*. Did you really (really?) use the words "bitter" and "hell hath no fury..." to describe the ex-Mrs. Gingrich's motives? You rightly decry when Newt uses dog-whistle signals about race, but then you fall prey to the same tactics in relation to gender? COME ON!

I would ask you: if you had been married to someone whose truest colors (the hypocrisy) hadn't really been dissected, and years and years later your ex-husband was somewhat this close to becoming leader of the free world, would you stand by idly? Would you not feel a responsibility to shed some light on his...awfulness? I suspect you would. But because she's a woman she's bitter and furious? So very unfair, and surprising, from you. Stop it.

*My real life boyfriend (I'm female) calls you my "Internet boyfriend" because I am always pointing out to him how right you are about most issues. So I guess this is our first fight. He's very happy right now.

Another:

If Marianne is "bitter", which I doubt from my reading of the Esquire interview, then we need more of her type of patriotic bitterness. Her interview went far beyond the hypocritical adultery. She disclosed symptoms which look like sociopathy or mental health issues. She doesn't believe Newt is fit for the presidency and I'm grateful she has the courage to come forward. Hopefully, ABC’s interview takes the right tone and puts the emphasis in the right place. Hopefully, the inevitable attacks against Marianne, the messenger, won't dissuade the media from aggressively pursuing the very real possibility of Newt's incompetence.

Good stuff. More HERE.

Why Are Most GOPers Wrong on So Many Issues?

2012-01-19T13:01:00.001-05:00

Because they get their information solely from FAUX NOOZ, an organization that has been proven to keep its followers uninformed.

In fact, in the last survey of FAUX NOOZ followers, it turned out that people who watch NO news are better informed than those who watch FAUX NOOZ.

Also, FAUX NOOZ trails the fake news comedy, The Daily Show, in viewership. More people watch Jon Stewart than those who watch FAUX NOOZ. FAUX is losing its viewers as people begin to understand that watching a cable news station that is unfair and imbalanced only contributes to further stupidity, not enlightenment.

The recent example of newz-barbie-bobblehead, Megyn Kelly, going after Andrew Sullivan's Newsweek article on President Obama, further proves how ineffective and shallow their reporters and reporting are. Kelly discounted Sullivan's article wIth lies and disinformation. Sullivan challenged her to have him on her show to debate the article, to which she and FAUX NOOZ answered in cowardly silence.

Craven lily-livered weasels.

Sullivan proves again that FAUX NOOZ withers and folds under a real challenge, just like so many bullies do.

A new PPP poll confirms what many have long suspected — that many Americans get their news from sources that hew to their pre-existing beliefs.

But this phenomenon was not balanced on both sides of the ideological spectrum. While Democrats trust most news outlets, to varying degrees, Republicans trust only a single one — Fox News. While a massive 73 percent of Republicans trust Fox, the next highest rating among any major TV news outlet is PBS, which just 30 percent of GOPers trust, according to the PPP poll.

The numbers show just how powerful Fox can be in setting the agenda and influencing the world view of conservatives, with virtually no competition or accountability from the outside world. This monopoly on news penetration for an entire half of the electorate would be bad no matter the network, but it’s especially troubling considering Fox’s shoddy, and often agenda-driven “reporting.” And unlike an openly-ideological news outlet like ThinkProgress or the National Review, which freely advertise their perspectives, Fox insists it’s a traditional “fair and balanced” news outlet.

SOURCE

And this from Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"In the latest Pew poll, FNC is both the most trusted and the least trusted of media outlets. It's most trusted because Republicans trust it; it's the least trusted because Democrats don't trust it at all. But here's what's interesting. Republicans won't touch any other outlet at all apart from their propaganda channel. 73 percent of Republicans trust Fox, with only 17 percent not, which gives FNC a positive rating +54. The next most trusted outlet for Republicans, PBS, comes in at - 30. And that helps explain the complete disconnect between the GOP and, er, reality.

But the real danger for the GOP's propaganda channel is that Independents, the fastest growing political identity, side with Democrats more than Republicans on Fox. 73 percent of Republicans trust it, while only 36 percent of Independents do - closer to the Democratic number of 25 percent.
No other media outlet has this kind of distrust from non-Republicans. And no other media outlet has this kind of trust from Republicans. The more paranoid they get, the more closed their media cocoon."

Tweet of the day (h/t Andrew Sullivan):

"Why Are Obama's Critics So Dumb?"

2012-01-17T10:23:00.000-05:00

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I frequently use Andrew Sullivan's "The Daily Dish" as a resource, and often link to articles by him.

This week he has the lead story in Newsweek about President Obama, and here are some of the highlights to that piece:

"The right’s core case is that Obama has governed as a radical leftist attempting a “fundamental transformation” of the American way of life. Mitt Romney accuses the president of making the recession worse, of wanting to turn America into a European welfare state, of not believing in opportunity or free enterprise, of having no understanding of the real economy, and of apologizing for America and appeasing our enemies. According to Romney, Obama is a mortal threat to “the soul” of America and an empty suit who couldn’t run a business, let alone a country.

Leave aside the internal incoherence—how could such an incompetent be a threat to anyone? None of this is even faintly connected to reality—and the record proves it. On the economy, the facts are these. When Obama took office, the United States was losing around 750,000 jobs a month. The last quarter of 2008 saw an annualized drop in growth approaching 9 percent. This was the most serious downturn since the 1930s, there was a real chance of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system, and unemployment and debt—lagging indicators—were about to soar even further. No fair person can blame Obama for the wreckage of the next 12 months, as the financial crisis cut a swath through employment. Economies take time to shift course.

But Obama did several things at once: he continued the bank bailout begun by George W. Bush, he initiated a bailout of the auto industry, and he worked to pass a huge stimulus package of $787 billion.

All these decisions deserve scrutiny. And in retrospect, they were far more successful than anyone has yet fully given Obama the credit for. The job collapse bottomed out at the beginning of 2010, as the stimulus took effect. Since then, the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs. That’s not enough, but it’s far better than what Romney would have you believe, and more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration. In 2011 alone, 1.9 million private-sector jobs were created, while a net 280,000 government jobs were lost. Overall government employment has declined 2.6 percent over the past 3 years. (That compares with a drop of 2.2 percent during the early years of the Reagan administration.) To listen to current Republican rhetoric about Obama’s big-government socialist ways, you would imagine that the reverse was true. It isn’t.

The right claims the stimulus failed because it didn’t bring unemployment down to 8 percent in its first year, as predicted by Obama’s transition economic team. Instead, it peaked at 10.2 percent. But the 8 percent prediction was made before Obama took office and was wrong solely because it relied on statistics that guessed the economy was only shrinking by around 4 percent, not 9. Remove that statistical miscalculation (made by government and private-sector economists alike) and the stimulus did exactly what it was supposed to do. It put a bottom under the free fall. It is not an exaggeration to say it prevented a spiral downward that could have led to the Second Great Depression.

You’d think, listening to the Republican debates, that Obama has raised taxes. Again, this is not true. Not only did he agree not to sunset the Bush tax cuts for his entire first term, he has aggressively lowered taxes on most Americans. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts, affecting 95 percent of taxpayers; he has cut the payroll tax, and recently had to fight to keep it cut against Republican opposition. His spending record is also far better than his predecessor’s. Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion. Under Obama’s budgets both past and projected, he will have added $1.4 trillion in two terms. Under Bush and the GOP, nondefense discretionary spending grew by twice as much as under Obama. Again: imagine Bush had been a Democrat and Obama a Republican. You could easily make the case that Obama has been far more fiscally conservative than his predecessor—except, of course, that Obama has had to govern under the worst recession since the 1930s, and Bush, after the 2001 downturn, governed in a period of moderate growth. It takes work to increase the debt in times of growth, as Bush did. It takes much more work to constrain the debt in the deep recession Bush bequeathed Obama."

More HERE.

MITT THE RIPPER

2012-01-15T13:38:00.001-05:00

LOL! Stephen Colbert's does it again with his "Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow":

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

One Percenters Enjoying Themselves in Quiet Rooms

2012-01-13T21:18:00.005-05:00

"...when Matt Lauer was chatting with him about the way Willard had made an additional fortune at the corporate chop-shop known as Bain Capital. Willard's initial response to criticism on this score was to paint everyone criticizing him as being jealous of Willard's fabulous life. Lauer asked him:

"Are there no fair questions about the distribution of wealth without it being seen as envy, though?"
Willard thereupon dropped a bomb on himself.

"You know I think it's fine to talk about those things in quiet rooms.... But the president has made this part of his campaign rally. Everywhere he goes we hear him talking about millionaires and billionaires and executives and Wall Street. It's a very envy-oriented, attack-oriented approach."

Infidel753 has a terrific blogpost on this HERE.

"Don't Just Take Our Word For It"

2012-01-12T15:33:00.006-05:00

Says the new DNC video below.

Democrats have been critical of what Bain Capital, Rmoney's venture capital company, has done to individuals and communities when it took over companies, fired people, and destroyed a way of life for many working-class Americans.

But the criticism of this heartless practice isn't limited to Democrats alone. Listen to Willard's fellow Republicans tell us how Bain Capital and its "vulture capitalism" made people's lives miserable, while making Rmoney and his buddies rich as potentates.

Andrew Sullivan has more on how Rmoney's association with Bain Capital can do damage to his campaign for the presidency. HERE.

"Romney's private equity firm, Bain Capital, bought companies and often increased short-term earnings so those businesses could then borrow enormous amounts of money. That borrowed money was used to pay Bain dividends. Then those businesses needed to maintain that high level of earnings to pay their debts...

* Bain in 1988 put $5 million down to buy Stage Stores, and in the mid-'90s took it public, collecting $100 million from stock offerings. Stage filed for bankruptcy in 2000.

* Bain in 1992 bought American Pad & Paper (AMPAD), investing $5 million, and collected $100 million from dividends. The business filed for bankruptcy in 2000.

* Bain in 1993 invested $60 million when buying GS Industries, and received $65 million from dividends. GS filed for bankruptcy in 2001.

* Bain in 1997 invested $46 million when buying Details, and made $93 million from stock offerings.

The company filed for bankruptcy in 2003.

Romney's Bain invested 22 percent of the money it raised from 1987-95 in these five businesses, making a $578 million profit."

MITTENS THE ONE!

2012-01-11T09:23:00.005-05:00

Romney Wins New Hampshire Primary: (Romney 36%,Paul 23%, Huntsman 18%, Santorum 10%)

(photo via Democratic Underground)

But...but...

58% of Republican voters dissatisfied with candidates

CBS News: Republicans have yet to enthusiastically embrace a potential nominee for president - and despite the late date, most would like to see other candidates enter the race, according to a new CBS News poll.

The survey finds that 58 percent of Republican primary voters want more presidential choices, while just 37 percent say they are satisfied with the current field. The percentage of Republican primary voters that wants more choices has increased 12 percentage points since October." --Democratic Underground

On to South Carolina where Willard will talk about how he pulled himself up, by his golden bootstraps, from a life of inherited wealth and privilege to a life of being able to knock down multi-million dollar homes in order to build more multi-multi million dollar homes. He'll have the people in S. Carolina weeping over the hardship he suffered as he and

Bain Capital raided companies, fired people, and made oceans of money for them to shower upon themselves and their progeny. "Please, sir, I want some more."

Get out your handkerchiefs South Carolina peeps; the Willard Wanker Show is coming to town.

GEORGIA AND ALABAMA COMPETE FOR "WACKIEST STATE IN AMERICA" MEDAL

2012-01-09T20:30:00.001-05:00

Obama Derangement Syndrome has hit critical mass in the Ole South, and two states that are trying to outdo each other in jaw-dropping idiocy appear to be in a dead heat over winning top honors.

Y'all ain't seen wacky 'til you've seen Alabama wacky! Unless, of course, you've seen some Georgia wacky.

I do declare, there must be some powerful mustard in the pie for all the wart talking going on down there:

"President Obama is using a forged birth certificate. President Obama is using a fake Social Security number. President Obama is not a natural-born citizen.

President Obama is a cyborg who has been sent from the future to kill the boy who will one day head the resistance movement that will challenge the coming New Robot Order.

Every one of those charges -- OK, except for the last one -- is contained in an Alabama lawsuit that seeks to keep the incumbent Democratic president off the ballot in the state's March 13 primary.

The suit was filed by some guy from Birmingham named Albert E. Hendershot, who has claimed to possess a 'staggering' amount of evidence about the whole affair.

This morning, Hendershot will have his day in court: According to the Birmingham News, attorneys for the chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party are asking Jefferson County Circuit Judge Helen Shores Lee to throw out the suit on grounds that the whole Obama-is-not-who-he-says-he-is meme is oh-so-2008. The judge was scheduled to consider the matter at a hearing Monday.

When the president posted his so-called long-form Hawaii birth certificate on the White House website last spring, some predicted that conspiracies questioning the legitimacy of Obama's presidency would die off.

But the Alabama lawsuit is not an isolated case. In Georgia, according to Atlanta's WXIA-TV, Republican State Rep. Mark Hatfield, an attorney, is representing voters challenging Obama's right to be on the primary ballot there, on the grounds that Obama can be disqualified because his father was foreign-born.

Another Georgia group is challenging Obama's birth certificate. Its case will be considered Jan. 26 before Georgia Administrative Law Judge Michael Malihi.

The latter group is represented by well-known birth-certificate conspiracy theorist Orly Taitz. WXIA notes that Taitz faces a $20,000 fine after a Georgia judge found one of her citizenship challenges to be 'frivolous.' "

And let's not leave out our "special" neighbors in southern New Hampshire.

GOP ASKS JESUS TO PEE IN A CUP

2012-01-07T12:09:00.004-05:00

Matthew 25: 31-46

‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ --Jesus, Son of God

There they go again and again and again.

It's always the poor and the powerless who get the GOP's attention when they need to pander for votes. Florida's much disliked governor, Rick Scott, tried this in his state--forcing people who receive state assistance to pee in a cup to prove they aren't on drugs. Luckily sanity prevailed, and a federal judge ruled that piece of mean-spirited theater was unConstitutional.

But that didn't stop others in the GOP trying to pile onto the least of their brethern. (Do these people actually read the book they say is the inerrant Word of God?)

What is it about "...whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" don't they get?

Curiously, the GOPer are not asking any other entities that receive government subsidies/assistance/perks (oil companies, farmers, corporate CEOs who take all sorts of US government deductions to fatten their bottom line, and the most flagrant--US Congresswomen and Congressmen, whose US government perks would make a sultan blush) to prove they aren't on drugs.

You can go HERE to see which states in the good ole USof A are falling in love with harassing the poor and the powerless.

RECESS APPOINTMENTS BY U.S. PRESIDENTS

2012-01-05T10:52:00.002-05:00

Okay. We've heard Little Ricky pop off at the mouth about President Obama's recent recess appointment of Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Cue the know-nothing GOPers who clutch their pearls and take to their fainting couches--hello Mitch McConnell--over a procedure that Republican presidents have used many, many, many more times than has President Obama.

Little Ricky, who proves his incompetence every time he opens his mouth, called what Presidents Reagan, G.H.W.Bush, Clinton, and G.W.Bush routinely practiced something worthy of a Banana Republic.

Perhaps he and Willard believe their followers, like them, are too incompetent to research this very common procedure and see that President Reagan used it more than any of the U.S. presidents that came after him.

That's quite a precedent, Mr. Reagan!

.

According to reports from the Congressional Research Service, during their time in office:

President Ronald Reagan made 240 recess appointments,

President George H. W. Bush made 77 recess appointments,

President Bill Clinton made 140 recess appointments,

George W. Bush made 171.

Obama's first term has seen a paltry 28.

From The National Review: "Two high-ranking Justice department officials from the (George W.) Bush administration support the position Obama has taken on the grounds that the executive branch has always maintained a "common-sense view" that the Senate is not in session when nobody's there and it isn't doing anything."

From the New York Times, 1/5/2012:

"Consumer advocacy organizations hailed Mr. Cordray’s appointment. 'The C.F.P.B. will no longer have to fight mounting consumer financial abuses with one arm tied behind its back,' said Travis B. Plunkett, legislative director for the Consumer Federation of America.

But some banking and business organizations objected. The American Banking Association, which represents banks of all sizes but generally is considered the voice of the largest institutions, said the appointment 'puts the bureau’s future actions in constitutional jeopardy, threatening its work, complicating compliance efforts of banks and further undermining the entity’s authority and credibility.'

Many community banks and credit unions have been eager to see the agency up and running because they often compete against nonbank mortgage lenders and other loan companies.

Thomas J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said its members 'strongly believe it’s important to protect consumers from predatory lending, financial scams and fraud in the marketplace.' But he cited the agency’s structure and lack of oversight as its main problems."

Talking Points Memo explains how and why President Obama made this particular recess appointment.

Meh

2012-01-04T08:56:00.003-05:00

Willard wins by 8 votes over Little Ricky, and Ron Paul comes in third.

Gingrich angrily gets fourth place; Perry's and Bachmann's campaigns are over.

UPDATE: Rick Perry says he's still in the race, so I guess he just wants to prolong the agony. He couldn't do better than 5th place in a state where his brand of conservatism should have won over Willard's.

Meh.

From the Washington Post:

"[Romney's] Iowa showing — finishing just eight votes ahead of former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) — highlighted the big problems that still dog Romney: suspicions about his avowed conservatism, struggles to connect with voters and an inability to rally more Republicans around his candidacy."

"Suspicions about his avowed conservatism?" How does a mature, grown man change his core values in less than 10 years and not create suspicion in hard core rightwingers? Romney is on video telling the voters in Massachusetts that he will always protect a woman's right to abortion. Romney was pleased to work with the late Senator Ted Kennedy and deliver universal health care for Massachusetts citizens, a health care program that was the basis of the ACA, and which Romney now runs away from. And those are just two of his monumental flip-flops on core issues that keep the base of the GOP from falling in love with this moderate, progressive Republican.

And that explains the Santorum surge late in the process. The extreme right in the GOP does not like Williard. He's not one of them. But Rick Santorum will never get the nomination either. Santorum is a covert Dominionist, seeking to impose religion-based doctrines on our secular country. He's a war mongerer and the newest shiney object for the extreme religious rightwing of the GOP. He'll never be president.

And who's surprised by Perry's and Bachmann's weak showing? Their candidacies were a disgrace to any American with a working intellect. Perry can go back to Texas and let its citizens deal with the embarrassment known as their governor, and Bachmann can go back to the House and pretend she knows anything about our American heritage. Good riddance to both of these inept and ill-prepared charlatans.

The Iowa caucuses are a reflection of who a small group of people in the midwest believe should be the challenger to President Obama. The results don't tell us anything about what will happen in November of 2012.

Willard can't be truthful even on his own predictions:

Mitt Flip-flops again:

Romney: When I Said I Was Going To Win Iowa, I didn't Mean I Was Actually Going To Win Iowa

"Mitt Romney told the 'Today' show Tuesday that he’s not predicting a victory in Iowa, after telling a crowd of supporters last night he was 'going to win this thing.' ”

Lastly, this from Andy Borowitz:

Romney Jubilant After Finishing in Dead Heat with Walking Joke in Sweater Vest

Mitt: ‘The Eight People Have Spoken’

Meh.

Rep. Ron Paul Will Not Be President

2012-01-02T10:10:00.009-05:00

I still don't understand the admiration people feel for Rep. Ron Paul.

I have heard from people, who are otherwise sensible and rational, that Paul is the only sane choice for Republicans and unhappy Democrats to make in the upcoming Iowa caucases and, ultimately, for America to make for the presidency.

Do people really listen to what Paul's actual words are? Or do they willfully ignore his extremism, unable to face the fact that he is out of the mainstream and dwelling in Crazy Town?

Here's an example of Paul's extremism:

Ron Paul: Civil Rights Act of 1964 'Destroyed' Privacy

Huffington Post - "Despite recent accusations of racism and homophobia, Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) stuck to his libertarian principles on Sunday, criticizing the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 because it 'undermined the concept of liberty' and 'destroyed the principle of private property and private choices.' "

I've heard many people say they admire Paul for his consistency in his libertarian principles. But where are these people's heads? Do they actually believe this country would have been better served had the individual states allowed businesses to continue to discriminate against people with different skin color, religious preferences, or sexual orientation? Do these libertarians truly believe that racial descrimination, or any descrimination, would have ended voluntarily? That people would willingly give up their anti-American biases given enough time? And how long would this country have been willing to endure the shame of illegal racial descrimination that was practiced in many regions of this country? Should American citizens have looked to "the free market" to deliver justice and equality under the law that is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution?

Do libertarians really believe that the free market place should be the ultimate arbitrator of all illegal actions that are contra the Constitution? Ron Paul's belief that ending illegal racial descrimination intruded on people's privacy and concept of liberty is outrageous and worthy of ridicule.

Rep. Ron Paul is fiercely against anything that intrudes on a citizen's privacy, but he is against a woman's right to an abortion--one of the most private decisions a woman makes. He's inconsistent here, IMO, and an extremist in his position, since he stated that abortion is "the most important issue of our age."

He would make a terrible president, not only for his extremist views on personal liberties, but also for his anti-science views.

His anti-science view on Evolution gives us a great insight into Paul's intellect. He values a religious belief, based on no evidence, over a scientific fact, based on mountains of evidence. This is something people should think about when chosing a president. Will a person who choses dogma over facts make rational decisions in other areas that affect citizens' lives? My opinion is that he or she should not be trusted to see issues clearly when a dogmatic religion informs his or her thinking. A president's decisions must be based on facts, not faith.

More on Rep. Ron Paul's extremism here.

From Politicususa:

"I have praised Ron Paul in the Republican debates for his consistency, but we should not mistake consistency for a rigid ideological inflexibility that promotes a decision making process where details and circumstances don’t matter. In the mind of Ron Paul, the ideology must be adhered to at all times."

To the winner of the Iowa caucases:

Best wishes to all my blogging friends for a healthy and happy 2012.

2011-12-31T14:18:00.001-05:00

Snow Brook, oil on canvas, 9 x 12

by Charles Gray

Gallup Poll: Barack and Hillary, Most Admired Man and Woman

2011-12-29T09:53:00.000-05:00

December 27, 2011

Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton Again Top Most Admired List

Clinton Most Admired Woman a record 16th time

by Jeffrey M. Jones

PRINCETON, NJ -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama continue to be named by Americans as the Most Admired Woman and Most Admired Man living today in any part of the world. Clinton has been the Most Admired Woman each of the last 10 years, and Obama has been the Most Admired Man four years in a row. Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, Sarah Palin, and Condoleezza Rice round out the top five Most Admired women, while the top five Most Admired men also include George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Billy Graham, and Warren Buffett.

These results are based on a Dec. 15-18 USA Today/Gallup poll. In 1946, Gallup first asked Americans to name, without prompting, the person they most admire living in any part of the world. Since 1948, Gallup has asked Americans to name separately the Most Admired Man and Most Admired Woman, and has done so each year except in 1967 (when only Most Admired Man was asked) and 1976.

The Most Admired typically hail from the worlds of government, religion, business, entertainment, or humanitarian causes.

Barack Obama's first-place finish is his fourth. Dwight Eisenhower holds the record for first-place finishers among men, with 12, followed by Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton with 8 each.

WISHING YOU PEACE THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

2011-12-23T10:55:00.000-05:00

The Snow Man
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

HOUSE REPUBLICANS VOTE TO INCREASE TAXES ON 160 MILLION AMERICANS

2011-12-21T08:30:00.003-05:00

UPDATE:

House G.O.P. Leaders Agree to Extension of Payroll Tax Cut

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER and JACKIE CALMES

NYTimes

Republican leaders bowed to intense pressure from members of their party to end a politically damaging impasse, agreeing to accept a two-month extension of a payroll tax holiday.

How curious is this? The party of NO TAXES! refused the payroll tax cut extension compromise, which means taxes will go up for Americans.

Read that again: The GOP is for raising your taxes!

The GOP, in their maniacal hatred of President Obama, will actually act contrary to all they believe in order to prevent a compromise with the Kenyan Marxist Socialist Commie. You gotta admire, in a sick way, the depth of their derangement here and their willingness to abandon all they stand for in service to that hatred.

Speaker Boehner has lost control of the House to the Tea Party freshmen, who know nothing about governing and who took over in November of 2010; and Boehner, along with them, is taking his party off a cliff to certain disaster.

Even the Wall Street Journal, no cheerleader for Mr. Obama, has this to say about the lastest political insanity from the House Republicans:

The GOP's Payroll Tax Fiasco:

How did Republicans manage to lose the tax issue to Obama?
...
After a year of the tea party House, Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats have had to make no major policy concessions beyond extending the Bush tax rates for two years. Mr. Obama is in a stronger re-election position today than he was a year ago, and the chances of Mr. McConnell becoming Majority Leader in 2013 are declining.

From the Associated Press:

"John Boehner vowed early on that as speaker, he would let the House “work its will.” At the end of his first year in charge of the fractious Republican-controlled chamber, it’s clear he has little choice.

An uncompromising band of conservatives, led by GOP freshmen to whom Boehner owes his speakership, has repeatedly forced him to back away from deals with President Barack Obama, Democrats and, this week, even one struck by Senate Republicans. Gridlock, again and again, has defined Congress in the Boehner era even as Americans fume and the economy continues to wobble."

From Reuters:

"In Congress' tense drama over how to extend payroll tax cuts for 160 million Americans, it may be the most intriguing subplot: whether Republican House Speaker John Boehner is losing his grip on members of his own party."

Jay Carney, WH Press Secretary:

White House: President Obama Not A "Marriage Counselor"

"TPM - In his daily briefing to reporters, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said there's no good reason for House Republicans not to support the Senate's compromise legislation on extending a payroll tax cut. Carney said the Senate compromise was "a result that was deemed by the Speaker of the House as a good deal." "The president is not, and should not be a marriage counselor" between House and Senate Republicans, Carney said, when asked whether the president would work to bridge the divide between the two chambers."

Smartypants:

"Many on the left credit President Obama's rise in the latest polls to the idea that he's adopted a "more populist" message lately. But those of us who have watched him closely these past few years know two things: First of all, we paid attention to the populism in his message all along. And secondly, we also recognized the long game he was playing of continuing to be "the only adult in the room" focused on real solutions. As I've said before, with Republicans adopting a policy of total obstruction, that forced them into an ever smaller corner of extremism, which is causing the divide today.

That, my friends, is the definition of conciliatory rhetoric as ruthless strategy. And as far as I can see...its working."

Photo via Democratic Underground

NOOT! Bad Lip Reading...

2011-12-17T09:54:00.000-05:00

in which he makes perfect sense LOL!:

"NEWT GINGRICH" — a Bad Lip Reading Soundbite - watch more funny videos

"Mean resentments and implanted fears"

2011-12-16T09:59:00.001-05:00

Photo via Hysterical Raisins

We've seen so many in this weak group of contenders rise and fall--hello Michele, hello Donald, hello, Governor Good Hair, hello Mr. Cain!--once their frightening weaknesses and lack of basic knowledge have been painfully exposed. We've seen the base say "thanks but no thanks" to Willard as each new date is asked to the nomination prom and then, like capricious pubescents, rejects them as soon as a new hottie gives them a hopeful tweet.

But their newbie idol, Newt, has me wondering how low can the GOP sink to scrounge up a nominee that keeps their grinchy hearts throbbing in anticipation of the victory they so desperately want in 2012 over the dreaded Kenyan Marxist Socialist Commie.

Newt Gingrich? Thrice married serial adulterer? The disgraced former Speaker of the House? The epitome of the Washington insider? A flip-flopper who would make Willard envy his acrobatics in pandering? The guy who took almost $2 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for his "historical" influence peddling? IOW, this guy is everything the evangelical base detests in a candidate, and yet there he is--for now--their newtest American golden idol!

How can this be?

James Wolcott, writing in Vanity Fair, describes his assessment of Newt Gingrich in the GOP's race to the bottom for the least likely politician to be its presidential nominee for 2012.

"One reason I’m such a wayward prognosticator of rightwing trends is that I’m incapable of blacking out enough neural sectors to see the world through reptilian-brained eyes, a prerequisite for any true channeling of the mean resentments and implanted fears that drive hardcore conservatives. I also make the mistake of believing that they believe what they profess to believe, which they clearly don’t, otherwise they wouldn’t be inclining to crown Newt king of the marsh. That a thrice-married Catholic convert with a history of marital infidelity would win the flinty hearts of Tea Partiers while true evangelicals such as Michele Bachmann or Rick Perry would find themselves standing on the platform as the train whooshes by, abandoned and bewildered--well, go figure. That a third-rate futurist spieler who rides every wave of pop guru bullshit and management theory would appeal to those who pride themselves on their unyielding, unchanging bedrock values also falls into the “does not compute” category. To most of us, Newt Gingrich has the mothball mustiness of a has-been who peaked [when] the 'Contract with America,' fell from grace with the House Republicans he led, and has fed his ego and bank balance ever since.

[skip]

Newt’s shoestring Lazarus resurrection in the polls is a testament to perseverance and ingenuity--to the Power of Gall--but it’s also an indictment of the wet-cardboard strength of the rest of the Republican field. Here they have a clean shot to take the White House in 2012 and they troop out this Gong Show cast of contestants, most of whom couldn’t find their ass on a map and speak entirely in re-masticated phrases and sentiments tossed into their mouths by Rush Limbaugh, Grover Norquist, and Frank Luntz for years. The Republican field reflects the weak-minded, strong-willed prejudices of its base, hooked up to Fox News as if it were an IV drip. So when rightwing bloggers complain about the candidates, they need someone to skywrite for them, 'If they suck, it’s because YOU suck. You’re the guys who believed once upon a fairy tale that Fred Thompson was a political steamroller and that Herman Cain was a fresh breeze.' I guess that’s a bit wordy for skywriting, but you get my meaning, sis."

A Happy Memory of Her

2011-12-14T14:18:00.000-05:00

Our family is in the process of getting on with life.

Everyone who has lost loved ones knows how slow and difficult that is, expecially at this time of year.

I love this picture of my sister. She was a beautiful, talented, intelligent woman.

Thank you, everyone, again for your kinds words of sympathy.

I'll be back to blogging in a day or so.

(O)CT(O)PUS, you're a star--not a sea star--the kind that shines when everything else is dark. Thank you!

PEACE

2011-12-12T19:14:00.002-05:00

THANK YOU

2011-12-11T09:50:00.000-05:00

Thank you to all my blogging friends for your kind expressions of support and comfort.

My sister will be buried tomorrow, and this is a poem I will read at that time.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by W. B. Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

How Shaw Became My Aunt

2011-12-08T09:40:00.004-05:00

Recently, Malcolm asked me if Shaw is really my aunt. So if any of you are wondering why I call her “Auntie Shaw,” here is the background:

Putting Myself Up for Adoption

The way natural birth or adoption works, children have no rights in choosing their own family. Since adults are the ones who make the decisions (or have an “oops”), you get what you get - for better or worse.

However, suppose it worked in reverse? Suppose children had the right to choose their parents, their family, their siblings? Trade in a doofus brother, for instance, for a more companionable roommate? One who shares your penchant for drawing murals on living room walls with crayons and magic markers? Or adopt a spirited sister who can dump a full box of laundry detergent into the washing machine and turn the house into a sudsy romper room? A sibling who conspires to leave on a faucet in the upstairs bath long enough to transform the staircase into a water slide?

Here is my problem. I am an only child and have never experienced the joys of growing up with a sibling. My mother was an only child too; hence I had no first cousins with freckles and pigtails. Better late than never, I say.

I have decided to take matters in hand and adopt a sister. I asked Sheria to be my sister, and she has agreed. So I am pleased to announce that henceforth and forevermore, Sheria is now my adopted sibling (and don't mess with my sister!).

When I posted this announcement, Shaw volunteered to be my aunt and make me worm sandwiches. So that is how Shaw became my aunt.

Recently, marine biologists were researching intelligence in cephalopods and placed a jar containing a crab into the octopus aquarium to see what would happen. Sure enough, the octopus untwisted the lid off the jar and devoured the crab. Don’t believe me? Here is the YouTube video. Afterwards, the octopus twisted the lid back on the jar and winked at the researcher.

LIFE INTERRUPTS BLOGGING

2011-12-05T20:12:00.000-05:00

A message to my blogging friends:

Thank you, everyone, for your fine contributions to this comment forum.

Unfortunately, a catastrophic event has just engulfed my family, and I'll probably not be blogging for a while.

(O)CT(O)PUS take the reins!

My older sister suffered a stroke that will probably end her life. In the early summer of 2009, I lost another sister. I understand that life brings these awful events to us all, and that we have to find the strength to get through the pain and suffering as our loved ones slip away from us. That's what I'll be dealing with over the next few days.

(O)CT(O), you have the keys to the blog. Use them as you wish.

Please keep me and my family in your thoughts. I'm not a religious person, but I do need the comfort and the support of my blogging friends just now.

Thank you.

Peace.

Shaw/Joanne

Good Stuff

2011-12-03T15:59:00.005-05:00

Herman Cain's candidacy is over.

********

With one month remaining this year, the U.S. private sector has now added 1.67 million jobs in 2011, well ahead of last year’s private-sector total of 1.2 million, and the best year for businesses since 2006.

********

Unemployment rate drops to 8.6%, lowest in 2 1/2 years.

Reuters) - The U.S. unemployment rate tumbled to a 2-1/2 year low in November, even though the pace of hiring remained too slow to suggest a significant acceleration in the labor market recovery.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 120,000 jobs, the Labor Department said on Friday, and the jobless rate dropped to 8.6 percent, the lowest since March 2009, from 9 percent in October.

It was the biggest monthly decline since January. While part of the decrease was due to people leaving the labor force, the household survey from which the department calculates the unemployment rate also showed solid gains in employment.

"The economy is continuing to head in the right direction," said Millan Mulraine, senior macro strategist at TD Securities in New York. "However, the ultimate test of the sustainability of the recovery is for the economy to create a sufficient number of jobs to sustain a consumer-led rebound in activity."

********

A Conservative pundit, George Will, commenting on Newt Gingrich: "Now you can associate many things with Mr. Gingrich, but wisdom isn’t one of them."

********

The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today [12/02/2011]-Hallelujah!

********

Andrew Sullivan commenting on the Rabid Right's overestimating Mr. Gingrich and underestimating President Obama:

"Of course, when you actually imagine a Gingrich-Obama debate, and you are not living in a cocoon that insists that Obama is both dumb and a commie, you see how fatal a trap this could be for the GOP.

It's not just that Obama is a smart person whereas Gingrich is simply a dumb person's idea of a smart person. It's that Obama has always excelled up against a volatile, angry opponent. He is a master of allowing them to self-destruct. He got that Houdini-like master of political survival, Bill Clinton, to blow up in the primaries. In a matter of days, he got McCain to destroy his bid with his frantic response to the Lehman collapse.

I mean: who's gonna seem like the angry guy in a Newt-Barack match? Who's gonna seem like the old, rather than mature, one? Even when Gingrich was Speaker, he couldn't muster any grace or authority or calm: things we like in a crisis and a president.

I can't believe the GOP is going to fall for this yet another time. But their loathing of Obama seems to trump all reason, prudence, or guile. Once again, the jujitsu Obama model of politics emerges as his strongest weapon. Given the economy, it may not be enough. But man, does Obama get lucky sometimes in his opponents."

********

And kudos to Minnesota and its Democratic governor, Mark Dayton, for plodding along in this difficult economic time and getting things done.

Christmas has come early in Minnesota.

After an intense battle over government spending shut down its government for 20 days this summer, the state now is forecasting an $876 million surplus over the next two years. That’s a huge surprise compared to the $5 billion projected deficit that Minnesota expected in July, setting off a national, highly-partisan battle over the best way to close that gap.

What changed? State officials chalk a lot of the good news up to factors specific to Minnesota. The state has seen its revenue increase as its unemployment rate is lower than the national average. The state has, for example, regained about a third of the jobs lost since the recession began. Nationally, that number stands at 22 percent.

Minnesota has also cut its spending, particularly on health care, in unique ways. It’s one of just four states, for example, to expand its Medicaid program in advance of the health reform law’s required expansion. For doing so, it’s received a higher Medicaid matching rate for some patients from the federal government.

h/t Smartypants

MICHELE BACHMANN: DUMBEST PERSON IN THE USA.

2011-11-30T20:49:00.008-05:00

UPDATE BELOW

Among the many things I was grateful for this past Thanksgiving was the fact that this deeply ignorant woman will never, never, never be president. Her candidacy is an anomaly [wait...Cain? Perry?...maybe not], and perhaps after the 2012 elections, this country will sober up from the drunken binge of teh stupid it has recklessly wallowed in these past months and which has embarrassed every sober-thinking American.

Her latest pronouncement has her wondering why American public schools don't teach Biblical dogma to students; and in addition to that idiocy, she repeats the imbecility that Evolution is "only a theory" and should be taught as an equal science with Intelligent Design and Creationism.

Once upon a time this country respected and admired scholarship, erudition, and those who strove to better themselves through higher education.

For some reason, the current GOP has decided that pandering to those with the least amount of education is the best way to win votes. How else to explain their absurd claim that Evolution is just a theory or that climate change is a hoax, or that cutting taxes for billionaires will create revenue and jobs, and worse, that vaccinating children against disease causes mental retardation?

The lastest twaddle from Rep. Bachmann, who will never be president, is this:

"Asked by a Catholic student why it’s not a violation of the separation of church and state for a public school to teach the religiously-tinged theories, Bachmann said evolution is just a 'theory' that even 'evolutionists' are not sure of:

BACHMANN: I think what you’re advocating for is censorship on the part of government. So the government would prohibit intelligent design from even the possibility of being taught in questioning the issueof evolution. And if you look at scientists there is not a unanimity of agreement on the origins of life. … Why would we forstall any particular theory? Becuase I don’t think that even evolutionists, by and large, would say that this is proven fact. They say that this is a theory, as well as intelligent design. So I think the best thing to do is to let all scientific facts on the table, and let students decide."

Michele Bachmann is an embarrassment to anyone who values education and enlightenment.

And this statement alone should disqualify Bachmann from representing anyone who has a functioning intellect:

"Because I don’t think that even evolutionists, by and large, would say that this is proven fact. They say that this is a theory, as well as intelligent design. So I think the best thing to do is to let all scientific facts on the table, and let students decide."

Creationism and Intelligent Design are not scientific facts. And I don't know of any "evolutionist" [whatever that is] who denies that evolution is a fact. Bachmann shouldn't talk about things she knows nothing about.

Conservatives become indignant and complain that liberals and others make fun of them; call them dumb. Here's a way to put an end to that teasing: Stop allowing stupid people to represent you.

"Speaking to supporters in Iowa Wednesday, Bachmann talked about the recent conflict in the Iranian capital of Tehran between protesters and the British embassy, which has led to the closure of the facility and the evacuation of diplomats.

"That's exactly what I would do [if I were president]," Bachmann said. "We wouldn't have an embassy in Iran. I wouldn't allow that to be there."

This is another example of Bachmann's ignorance. The above isn't a "gaffe." It is an example of Bachmann's profound stupidity and ignorance of basic foreign policy information.

The US has not had an embassy in Iran since 1980.

Bachmann is a member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Shame on the people in her district in Minnesota for allowing someone as stupid as Bachmann to represent this country in any capacity.

UPDATE:

Republican John Danforth, who served as a senator from Missouri for nearly 20 years and later as George W. Bush’s ambassador the United Nations, is not happy with the slate of Republican presidential candidates. “I’ve been watching some of these Republican debates and they’re just terrible. Terrible,” he told KTRS in St. Louis yesterday. “It’s embarrassing for me as a Republican to watch this stuff,” he added, calling out audiences for applauding the candidates’ morbid boastings. Via Fired Up Missouri:

DANFORTH: What have been the big applause lines in these debates? Well, a statement that the governor of Texas is responsible for killing 234 people on death row. Or that we favor torture. Or that we’re creating a fence on the Mexican border that electrocutes people when they try to cross it. Or when people show up at the emergency room at hospitals and they’re not insured don’t treat them. And that, I mean these are the big applause lines, people just hoop and holler when they hear all that. [...]
It doesn’t have anything to do with the republican party that I was a part of. This is just totally different. And all of these people who are saying this, y’know, and claiming that, y’know, they’re for all this stuff, they also sort of ostentatiously say, “Oh, we’re very religious people. We really, we’re just very pious, Christian people.” They were for torture, and electrocution of the people on along the border and all of that. That doesn’t have anything to do with, is contrary to the Christianity that I understand.

David Frum Asks: "When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?"

2011-11-28T14:12:00.001-05:00

Former George W. Bush speech writer and conservative pundit, David Frum, asks an important question.

When Did the GOP Lose Touch With Reality?

All we have to do is look at the recent GOP "debates" to understand that the top contenders for the GOP presidential nomination are not serious politicians with serious ideas. And, at this moment, the leading GOP contender is a guy who left the House speakership in disgrace and who took almost $2 million from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a lobbyist while saying that Rep. Barney Frank should be thrown in jail for his Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ties. The other top contender, Mitt Romney, is a politician who has changed his position on every single major issue in order to ingratiate himself with the extremists in the GOP base. The rest of them: Perry, Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, and Paul, have no chance at all of winning a national election.

Frum explains:

"But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and supported by think tanks that increasingly function as public-relations agencies, conservatives have built a whole alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics. Outside this alternative reality, the United States is a country dominated by a strong Christian religiosity. Within it, Christians are a persecuted minority. Outside the system, President Obama—whatever his policy errors—is a figure of imposing intellect and dignity. Within the system, he’s a pitiful nothing, unable to speak without a teleprompter, an affirmative-action phony doomed to inevitable defeat. Outside the system, social scientists worry that the U.S. is hardening into one of the most rigid class societies in the Western world, in which the children of the poor have less chance of escape than in France, Germany, or even England. Inside the system, the U.S. remains (to borrow the words of Senator Marco Rubio) “the only place in the world where it doesn’t matter who your parents were or where you came from.”...

Some call this the closing of the conservative mind. Alas, the conservative mind has proved itself only too open, these past years, to all manner of intellectual pollen. Call it instead the drying up of conservative creativity...

I refuse to believe that I am the only Republican who feels this way. If CNN’s most recent polling is correct, only half of us sympathize with the tea party. However, moderate-minded people dislike conflict—and thus tend to lose to people who relish conflict. The most extreme voices in the GOP now denounce everybody else as Republicans in Name Only. But who elected them as the GOP’s membership committee? What have they done to deserve such an inheritance?...

This is, unfortunately, not merely a concern for Republican voters. The conservative shift to ever more extreme, ever more fantasy-based ideology has ominous real-world consequences for American society."

GOPers Outraged That The Reverend Barack Hussein Obama Didn't Thank God and Lead The Nation In Thanks To The Christian God During The Rev. Obama's Radio Address

2011-11-26T22:11:00.006-05:00

ZOMG!

The Horror!

President and Priest/Minister/Mullah-in Chief Barack Obama didn't invoke God's/Allah's/Yaweh's/Xenu's,/Vishnu's name when he gave his radio address for Thanksgiving 2011!

That unGod president blasphemer needs to be hounded and stoned (hmmmm) out of office for not carrying out his Constitutional duty by thanking the Christianists' god and blessing us all like little Tiny Tim did in "A Christmas Carol" [remember that? Heart-warming, huh?], and making the sign of the Padre, Figlio, Spiritus Sanctus, Flying Spaghetti Monster all over One Nation, Sotto Dio, Indivisible and Invisible and Keeping US Safe from every DFH and godless Commie Atheist. Awmayn.

The Atheists Are Coming! And it's the unGod Obama's fault. Floods and pestilence, ice capades all over the land. Tornedos, hurricanes, Black Friday, frogs, locusts, and Teh Gaii! teaching our kids how to make tofurkey in our schools!

I DON'T WANT TO LIVE ON THIS PLANET ANYMORE!

All because unGod Obama didn't thank God and ask her to keep us in the name of the Something, Something, and the Something, and every other Everything that the god- afraiding religionists want Obama to do in the name of the Constitution and where it says--COMMANDS--Mr. unGod Obama to lead us in prayer always, always he...yes and... thought well...as well him as another and then [we ]asked him with our eyes to ask again yes...and then he asked us would [we]...yes to say yes...yes...and yes [we] said yes [we] will Yes...We...Can...Yes" Ohmayn.

Here is an exerpt of Mr. Obama's OFFICIAL Thanksgiving Day Proclamation for 2011:

"In times of adversity and times of plenty, we have lifted our hearts by giving humble thanks for the blessings we have received and for those who bring meaning to our lives. Today, let us offer gratitude to our men and women in uniform for their many sacrifices, and keep in our thoughts the families who save an empty seat at the table for a loved one stationed in harm’s way. And as members of our American family make do with less, let us rededicate ourselves to our friends and fellow citizens in need of a helping hand.

As we gather in our communities and in our homes, around the table or near the hearth, we give thanks to each other and to God for the many kindnesses and comforts that grace our lives. Let us pause to recount the simple gifts that sustain us, and resolve to pay them forward in the year to come.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 24, 2011, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage the people of the United States to come together — whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place of fellowship for friends and neighbors — to give thanks for all we have received in the past year, to express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and to share our bounty with others.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth.

Who Are These 47% of Americans Who Don 't Pay Taxes and Where Do They Live?

2011-11-25T11:37:00.001-05:00

The GOP candidates have been eager to talk about and bash the 47% of Americans who don't pay federal taxes, but what you won't hear Bachmann, Cain, Gingrich, Perry, Rand, Romney, or Santorum tell you is that the majority of these "nontaxpayers" are from red states.

The conservative candidates won't talk about that fact because it's too embarrassing for them to acknowledge that most of the people too poor to qualify for paying federal taxes are from states with GOP governors and that traditionally vote Republican.

This is just another example of the dishonesty rampant in the GOP campaign for the presidential nomination. We've already seen Romney's blatantly dishonest video where he attributes John McCain's words to President Obama; we've heard Michele Bachmann falsely claim she's made no gaffes during her quest for the nomination; and Newt Gingrich wants people to believe that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac gave him almost $2 million to advise them as an historian.

From Andrew Sullivan's blog:

"Ramesh Ponnuru chides the GOP for indulging in reverse class warfare, pitting the 53 percent against the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes. He debunks the "freeloader myth":

"That 47 percent of all tax filers have no income-tax liability is now one of the most widely known statistics on the right. (Actually, according to the Tax Policy Center, the figure was 47 percent in 2009 and will be 46 percent for this tax year, but 47 is the number that has lingered in the public debate.) Economist Michael Boskin, a veteran of Republican administrations, fretted in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed that tax policy “can create a majority paying nothing and voting more spending at the expense of a taxpaying minority.” When he announced his presidential campaign, Texas governor Rick Perry said, “We’re dismayed at the injustice that nearly half of all Americans don’t even pay any income tax.” Michele Bachmann, also running for the Republican nomination, says she will reform taxes so that everyone pays some amount in income taxes.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin echoes this concern. “We’re coming close to a tipping point in America where we might have a net majority of takers versus makers in society and that could become very dangerous if it sets in as a permanent condition,” he said in a recent speech to the Heritage Foundation.

[skip]

The ten states with the highest number of non-payers are a strongly Republican bunch: Eight of them went for John McCain in 2008, and nine of them have Republican governors. Keith Hennessey, an economic adviser in George W. Bush’s administration, notes that the historical data suggest that the child credit was the main reason for the increase in the number of non-payers between 1995 and 2007."

The next time you hear conservatives whining about Americans who don't pay any federal income taxes, tell them to take their complaints to the GOP governors of the GOP states. That's where you'll find the Americans who are causing them this fake conservative angst.

Poem for Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T01:49:00.000-05:00

Around Us
by Marvin Bell

We need some pines to assuage the darkness when it blankets the mind, we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind, and a blur or two of a wild thing that sees and is not seen. We need these things between appointments, after work, and, if we keep them, then someone someday, lying down after a walk and supper, with the fire hole wet down, the whole night sky set at a particular time, without numbers or hours, will cause a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap-- to close round the moment and the thought of whatever good we did.

These Are The Folks Who Booed Mrs. Obama and Dr. Biden

2011-11-22T12:51:00.005-05:00

NASCAR attendees booed Michelle Obama and Jill Biden:

Michelle Obama and Jill Biden

And Rush Limbaugh says these folks don't like Mrs. Obama because they think she's "uppity."

Rush Limbaugh insulting the FLOTUS again? And water is wet.

Rush Limbaugh is a talk radio hate jockey, and Michelle Obama is the First Lady of the United States of America. She lives in the White House.

Rush Limbaugh was involved in an illegal drug scandal where he had his cleaning lady score drugs for him since he didn’t have large enough testicles to do it himself.

Rush Limbaugh humiliated a 12-year old girl on his national teevee show when he compared Chelsea Clinton to a dog.

Michelle Obama has degrees from Princeton and Harvard Law School.

Limbaugh dropped out of college, and his own mother said he even failed ballroom dancing.

Rush Limbaugh lost his job with ESPN because of his racist remarks about a football player. Rush Limbaugh ALWAYS brings Mr. Obama’s race into discussions about the president.

Michelle Obama has never said an unkind word about the disgusting sack of fetid fumes that goes by the name of Rush Limbaugh.

Should we get angry over Limbaugh’s description of Mrs. Obama as “uppity?” Or should we just ignore the swine?

I say we go for the latter rather than the former.

Personally, I just can’t get angry over what a talking pig says.

Gingrich Blames Child Labor Laws for America's Economic Woes

2011-11-20T12:08:00.002-05:00

There seems to be no end to the stupidity coming out of the conservative candidates' mouths.

Here's what a guy who wants to be president said recently:

"This is something that no liberal wants to deal with,” Gingrich said. “Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.” [...]

“Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”

Let that sink in for a moment.

Child labor laws are truly stupid.

Let's go back to the good old days of allowing corporations to exploit children and work them to death.

CHILD LABOR IN U.S. HISTORY

Forms of child labor, including indentured servitude and child slavery, have existed throughout American history. As industrialization moved workers from farms and home workshops into urban areas and factory work, children were often preferred, because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likely to strike. Growing opposition to child labor in the North caused many factories to move to the South. By 1900, states varied considerably in whether they had child labor standards and in their content and degree of enforcement. By then, American children worked in large numbers in mines, glass factories, textiles, agriculture, canneries, home industries, and as newsboys, messengers, bootblacks, and peddlers.

In the early decades of the twentieth century, the numbers of child laborers in the U.S. peaked. Child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor standards in general began improving, increasing the political power of working people and other social reformers to demand legislation regulating child labor. Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined, and common initiatives were conducted by organizations led by working women and middle class consumers, such as state Consumers’ Leagues and Working Women’s Societies. These organizations generated the National Consumers’ League in 1899 and the National Child Labor Committee in 1904, which shared goals of challenging child labor, including through anti-sweatshop campaigns and labeling programs. The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set federal standards for child labor.
U.S. Federal Child Labor Laws. Link here.

Child labor involves at least one of the following characteristics:

Violates a nation’s minimum age laws
Threatens children’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being
Involves intolerable abuse, such as child slavery, child trafficking, debt bondage, forced labor, or illicit activities
Prevents children from going to school
Uses children to undermine labor standards

Where does most child labor occur?

Of an estimated 215 million child laborers around the globe: approximately 114 million (53%) are in Asia and the Pacific; 14 million (7%) live in Latin America; and 65 million (30%) live in sub-Saharan Africa.

And Gingrich would like to add American children to those statistics.

More here.

There's nothing wrong with teens having part time jobs. The problem with Gingrich's "unconventional" suggestion to get rid of child labor laws that protect those teens who work is that that idea opens the door for corporations to abuse children who need to earn money.

Gingrich trusts corporations to do the right thing while wanting the bottom line to grow?

This miserable idea combined with Michele Bachmann's
proposition to get rid of the minimum wage would make way for a conservative paradise: Poor children working for corporations for little money, so that those corporations will continue to fill the pockets of politicians like Newt Gingrich who would work tirelessly to represent the interests of the very wealthiest in America.

Source: Raw Story
By David Edwards
"New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says that Newt Gingrich is just the latest of the 'fools and clowns' in the Republican presidential race to become a frontrunner.

'I have a structural hypothesis here,' Krugman told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour Sunday. 'You have a Republican ideology, which Mitt Romney obviously doesn’t believe in. He just oozes insincerity, that’s just so obvious. But all of the others are fools and clowns. And there is a question here, my hypothesis is that maybe this is an ideology that only fools and clowns can believe in. And that’s the Republican problem.'

Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan spoke up in Gingrich’s defense.

'We need a little on the pro-Newt side balance,' she remarked. 'The base of the Republican Party knows that the establishment of the Republican Party doesn’t like Newt. That’s a big plus.' "

"Newt Gingrich Is 'The Classic Rental Politician,' "--George Will

Newt Gingrich: "A stupid man's idea of what a smart person sounds like." --P.Krugman

"You don't own me. I pay your salary. I work for the private sector and you work for the taxpayer."

2011-11-19T02:13:00.002-05:00

Wouldn't you love to have been in that chair and the one to pwn the arrogant ass, Alaska GOP Representative Don Young?

Good one, Professor Brinkley!

"Ever wanted to tell a congressman in person that they work for you, the taxpayer?

Well, Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University professor, certainly did, although perhaps the middle of a House hearing wasn't the best time and place.

At a Natural Resources Committee hearing Friday on oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) mistakenly addressed the professor as 'Dr. Rice' while calling his testimony 'garbage.'

Brinkley interrupted, saying: 'It's Dr. Brinkley, Rice is a university,' and 'I know you went to Yuba [Community College in California] and couldn't graduate — '

Then it was Young's turn to interrupt. 'I'll call you anything I want to call you when you sit in that chair,' he told the witness. 'You just be quiet.'

Brinkley countered: 'You don't own me. I pay your salary. I work for the private sector and you work for the taxpayer.'

DECLARATION OF THE OCCUPATION OF WASHINGTON, DC

2011-11-18T13:02:00.001-05:00

The Declaration of the Occupation of Washington, D.C.
Consented to in committee November 15th, 2011

We have been captives of corrupt economic and political systems for far too long. The concentration of wealth and the purchase of political power stifle the voices of the increasingly disenfranchised 99%.

Corporate dominance subverts democracy, intentionally sows division, destroys the environment, obstructs the just and equitable pursuit of happiness, and violates the rights and dignity of all life.

Occupy D.C. is an open community of diverse individuals, founded on equality for the common good. We are peaceably assembled at McPherson Square, practicing direct democracy on the doorstep of K Street, the center of destructive corporate and governmental relationships. We insist that our political and economic systems serve the people’s interests. Now is the time to advance and complete the struggles of those who came before us.

We are assembled because...

It is absurd that The 1% has taken 40% of the nation’s wealth through exploiting labor, outsourcing jobs, and manipulating the tax code to their benefit through special capital tax rates and loopholes. The system is rigged in their favor, yet they cry foul when anyone even dares to question their relentless class warfare.

Candidates in our electoral system require huge sums of money to be competitive. These contributions from multi-national corporations and wealthy individuals destroy responsive representative governance. A system of backroom deals, kickbacks, bribes, and dirty politics overrides the will of the people. The rotation of decision-makers between the public and private sectors cultivates a network of public officials, lobbyists, and executives whose aligned interests do not serve the American people.

The entrenched 2-party system overlooks public interests by pursuing narrow political goals. This climate encourages candidates to polarize voters for individual power and personal gain. Citizens’ meaningful input has been compromised by gerrymandering, voter disenfranchisement, and unresponsive politicians. Residents of Washington DC continue to lack autonomy and legislative representation.

Those with power have divided us from working in solidarity by perpetuating historical prejudices and discrimination based on color of skin, perceived race, immigrant or indigenous status, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability, among other things.

Corporations broke the financial system by gambling with our savings, property, and economy. They needed the public to bail them out of their failures yet deny any responsibility and continue to fight oversight. They loot from those whose labor creates society’s prosperity, while the government allows them to privatize profits and socialize risk.

Corporate interests threaten life on Earth by extracting and burning fossil fuels and resisting the necessary transition to renewable energy. Their drilling, mining, clear-cutting, overfishing, and factory farming destroys the land, jeopardizes our food and water, and poisons the soil with near impunity. They privilege polluters over people by subsidizing fossil fuels, blocking investments in clean energy and efficient transportation, and hiding environmental destruction from public oversight.

Private corporations, with the government’s support, use common resources and infrastructure for short-term personal profit, while stifling efforts to invest in public goods.

The U.S. government engages in drawn-out, costly conflicts abroad. These operations are often pursued to control resources, needlessly overthrow foreign governments, and install friendly regimes. These wars destroy the lives of American soldiers and innocent civilians and are a blank check to divert money from domestic priorities.

Government authorities cultivate a culture of fear to invade our privacy, limit assembly, restrict speech, and deny due process. They have failed in their duty to protect our rights. Exacerbated by profiteering interests, the criminal justice system has unfairly targeted underprivileged communities and outspoken groups for prosecution rather than protection.

Corporatized culture warps our perception of reality. It cheapens and mocks the beauty of human thought and experience, while promoting excessive materialism as the path to happiness. The corporate news media furthers the interests of the very wealthy, distorts and disregards the truth, and confines our imagination of what is possible for ourselves and society.

Leaders are trading our access to basic needs in exchange for handouts to the ultra-wealthy. Our rights to healthcare, education, food, water, and housing are sacrificed to profit-driven market forces. They are attacking unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, creating an uncertain future for us all.*

A better world is possible. To all people,

We, the Washington D.C. General Assembly occupying K Street in McPherson Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble and reclaim the commons. Re-conceive ways to build a democratic, just, and sustainable world.

To all who value democracy, we encourage you to collaborate, and share available resources. We stand with you in solidarity.

*These grievances are not all inclusive.

I invite conservatives and liberals to express and discuss any disagreement they may have with the above declaration.

h/t Crooks & Liars

"WE NEED A LEADER, NOT A READER."

2011-11-17T20:31:00.000-05:00

Oh Herman, you're so droll!

Yeah! Who wants a president who reads and stays informed so he or she can lead?

Not your followers!

Herman Cain: The unReader!!

Now we know where Herman gets his ideas. From video games [SimCity 9-9-9, and The Simpsons]. LOL!

h/t HuffPost

The GOP: Keeping Millions of Americans Out of Jobs So They Can Get One Man To Lose His

2011-11-16T17:08:00.000-05:00

via Angry Black Lady Chronicles:

Interviewer: Harry Reid said yesterday, and frankly we’ve heard this from a lot of Democrats, the Republicans oppose the jobs bill for political reasons, that it helps them if the economy stays in bad shape. But, is that fair?

Sanchez: Well, it certainly is fair. I mean, I’ve heard my own colleagues on the Republican side say, “We just want to make Obama look so bad. We don’t care how bad the economy gets. We can win this election, we want our president –”

Interviewer: You’ve heard them say that?

Sanchez: Yes. They have said that. They’ve said that! They’ve said that behind closed doors to me! They said, “Nothing is moving.” They said, “We want to make him look bad. We want to get rid of him. We want to get rid of the health care reform bill.” They only way they believe they can get rid of health care reform is to get rid of President Obama.

Interviewer: Who is saying that, Congresswoman?

Sanchez: Well, I’m not gonna … these are actual friends on the other side who have said, “This is what is happening in our conference”, in their groupings when they’re meeting.

Representative Sanchez, you should have named names. Those GOPers are NOT your friends, they are fiends.

And we, of course, have known this ever since Senator McConnell admitted it a long time ago.

Imagine putting a party back in charge of government whose single most important goal is to unseat a sitting president. I wouldn't trust them with changing my pet gerbil's wood shavings.

Perhaps that's why so many conservatives support the incompetents leading the GOP presidential nomination race. They want to prove that government is incapable of doing anything right; and if one of their bumbling contenders makes it into the WH, they could watch their belief come true.

THIS IS WHY HERMAN CAIN WILL NOT BE PRESIDENT

2011-11-15T11:49:00.004-05:00

We'll hear from the rightwingers that the "lamestream media" destroyed Herman Cain, but this video, in addition to many others that demonstrate Cain's incompetence and appalling lack of understanding on foreign and domestic policy issues, clearly shows Cain's profound indequacies. And that observation doesn't include his awful handling of his sexual harassment accusations.

Cain is unfit to be president.

In this video, you will see him evade, squirm, and then finally blather on about nothing, constructing a non-answer to the question put to him.

Over the past few weeks we saw and heard Rick Perry stumble again and forget the name of a federal agency he wants to eliminate; we saw and heard Michele Bachmann come out in favor of socialist/communist China, while bashing an American president; and we heard Cain, Bachmann and Perry say that they approve of a criminal act, torture, and would use "enhanced interrogation" [that's waterboarding] to retrieve information from America's enemies. [Mitt Romney was too much of a coward to give us his opinion on this subject.]

Here's how someone with courage talks about torture:

"Waterboarding is torture. It’s contrary to America’s traditions. It’s contrary to our ideals. That’s not who we are. That’s not how we operate. We don’t need it in order to prosecute the war on terrorism. And we did the right thing by ending that practice. If we want to lead around the world, part of our leadership is setting a good example. And anybody who has actually read about and understands the practice of waterboarding would say that that is torture. And that's not something we do -- period,"- Barack Obama,

Here's Herman Cain, showing us how unprepared he is to be president:

The "lamestream media" are not to blame for Cain's drop in the polls, Cain and only Cain is responsible. Just like Palin and only Palin was responsible for her massive failure to be taken seriously as a vice presidential and presidential candidate, just as Bachmann is too silly a candidate to be taken seriously, and the guy from Texas who can't remember an agency he dislikes enough to eliminate.

Next in line for an invitation to the GOP nomination prom?

Newt Gingrich:

"Gingrich is the only Speaker of the House to have been disciplined for ethics violations.

During his term as Speaker, eighty-four ethics charges were filed against him; eighty-three of them were dropped. The remaining charge concerned a 20-hour college course called "Renewing American Civilization" that Gingrich had taught through a tax-deductible foundation, Kennesaw State College Foundation. Allegations of tax improprieties led to two counts "of failure to seek legal advice" and one count of "providing the committee with information which he knew or should have known was inaccurate" concerning the use of a tax exempt college course for political purposes. To avoid a full hearing, Gingrich and the House Ethics Subcommittee negotiated a sanctions agreement. Democrats accused Gingrich of violating the agreement, but it was forwarded to the House for approval. On January 21, 1997, the House voted 395 to 28 to reprimand Gingrich, including a $300,000 "cost assessment" to recoup money spent on the investigation."--Wikipedia

MICHELE BACHMANN PRAISES SOCIALISM

2011-11-14T14:17:00.001-05:00

Does this woman ever think about what she says? She and her party have repeated hundreds of times that Mr. Obama's policies are socialist policies. How many Tea Party signs have we read that have labeled this president a socialist? How many malcontented bloggers have used that adjective to describe Mr. Obama?

Incredibly, during Saturday's GOP "debate," Michele Bachmann uttered this:

"If you look at China, they don’t have food stamps. If you look at China, they’re in a very different situation. They save for their own retirement security…They don’t have the modern welfare state and China’s growing. And so what I would do is look at the programs that LBJ gave us with the Great Society and they’d be gone."

This is how Wikipedia describes China:

The People's Republic of China's government has been variously described as communist and socialist, but also as authoritarian, with heavy restrictions remaining in many areas, most notably on the Internet, the press, freedom of assembly, reproductive rights, and freedom of religion.^[109] Its current political/economic system has been termed by its leaders as "Communism with Chinese characteristics".

A Republican/Tea Party United States Representative, who hopes to be president, was on national teevee praising the Communist policies of China and threatening to dismantle the safety nets that a democratically elected US president and Congress passed.

Please go back and read that paragraph.

I'm wondering if the bloggers on the Right picked up on her little love note to Socialist/Communist China while bashing America. Michele Bachmann praised socialism.

I don't understand these people.

But I do understand that Michele Bachmann is an embarrassment to this country, but most of all, to herself. How low we have fallen when someone of her tiny intellect could appear on the national stage, say something as deeply unAmerican as she did, and not get booed into oblivion.

In the GOP, only US soldiers who are gay get booed, not a woman who is pro-torture [a crime], praises a Communist nation over her own country, and then hopes the American people will elect her to lead it.

Hello God? It's me, Herman. And Rick. And Rick. And Michele.

2011-11-13T16:01:00.001-05:00

And we're all so happy we had this nice little talk, Y'know, the one where You told each one of us that we should run for president?

But we just had a thought. Didn't you once say "Many are called, but few are chosen?"

So...

Who will it be?

And we're kinda, like...excuse me? But did You have to talk to those others and tell them to run too? Wasn't one of us enough to earn Your Very Omnipotent, Very Celestial Endorsement? Did You really have to tell all four of us we should run?

It's all so confusing for us, since we thought that sharing this Divine Revelation with our supporters and the "lamestream media" would surely give us the Godmentum we need to pull past that other guy, (y'know, the one with the wrong religion.)

Speaking of which, who was it who said that when popes and bishops hear You "speaking" to them, that's Divine Revelation, but when "just folks" hear Your voice, that's schizophrenia?

Could You get back to us on this? We desperately want to know which of us You will anoint as "The One," and we're running out of End Times.

Thanks.

Later,

Rick Santorum

Michele Bachmann

Rick Perry

Herman Cain

THE PENN STATE SEXUAL CRIMES SCANDAL

2011-11-11T15:59:00.003-05:00

I've had a while to think about this terrible news. I've read a lot of people's opinions, and I think there's a simple way to deal with this sort of crime: If someone tells you that a child is being sexually molested, you report it to the police. Child fondling, molestation, and rape is a felony. A terrible, terrible crime. Period.

For everyone who thinks Joe Paterno has been dealt too harsh a punishment, here's what I'd ask her or him:

If a colleague came to you and told you he saw someone you've know for 20 years "being inappropriate" with or "fondling" one of your children or grandchildren, what would you do?

The damage this sort of crime does to a child is horrendous. Some children recover, some don't. Those who don't, carry feelings of betrayal and worthlessness inside themselves forever. Some are never able to form healthy relationships, some never trust again. And some destroy themselves.

No institution, religious or otherwise, and no one who enabled such criminal acts against children should escape the full punishment of the law for one of humanity's ugliest and most evil crimes.

There is more disgustingly sordid information coming out about the monster that was Paterno's assistant coach. For all the good things Paterno may have instilled in his players, it appears he failed in the worst possible way when it came to protecting innocent children.

Penn State and Coach Paterno didn't do what they should have done: Protect children.

Andrew Sullivan gives us his view on the issue in a response to one of his reader's comments:

"...Sandusky was an assistant coach and once likely [a] successor to Paterno. I don't think it changes the point. Sandusky was in in the inner sanctum. He was one of them. Because he was one of them, his grotesque abuses did not seem to grotesque. Loyalty, friendship, the bonds of sports ... all probably contributed to the decision to fire him (traumatic enough) but not to send him to the cops. You and Megan are missing the psychological impact of being worshipped and immune in a community, and all the corruption that comes from that.It was surely, rationally, in the Catholic Church's interests to report all these things immediately. Look what damage it has subsequently done. But authoritarian insitutions, based on religion and cults, are not guided by reason, but by emotion.

Knowing, as they did, that he had created access to countless other troubled kids makes it all the more wicked. To my mind, Paterno needs to be prosecuted just as Ratzinger needed to be prosecuted back when he did the same thing in Munich. They are accessories to child rape. The only reason they weren't prosecuted was their status."

JOE POSNANSKI, the author who is writing a biography of Joe Paterno wrote this on his blog:

1. Joe Paterno is responsible for what happens on his watch. Period.

2. People are making assumptions about what Joe did or didn’t know, what Joe did or didn’t do, and I can’t tell you that those assumptions are wrong. But I can tell you that they are assumptions based on one side of the story.

3. We are in a top-you world where everyone is not only trying to report something faster but is also trying to report something ANGRIER. One guy wants Joe Paterno to resign, the next wants him to be fired, the next wants him to be fired this minute, the next wants him to be fired and arrested, the next wants him to be fired, arrested and jailed, on and on, until we’ve lost sight of who actually committed the crimes here.

4. I think the University could not possibly have handled this worse. It was disgusting and disgraceful, the method in which they fired Joe Paterno after 60 years of service, and yes, I do think Paterno was a scapegoat. Of course he was. I’ve already said that he had to be let go. But to let him dangle out there, take up all the headlines, face the bulk of the media pressure, absolutely, that’s the very definition of scapegoat. Three people were indicted and arrested. A fourth, I hear, will be indicted soon. Joe Paterno is not one of the four.

5. It is still unclear what Paterno did in this case. It will remain unclear for a while. You might be one of the hundreds and hundreds of people I’ve heard from who know EXACTLY what Paterno did. He HAD to know this. He DEFINITELY knew that. He COULD have done something. I respect that. Joe Paterno’s a public figure. You have every right to believe what you want to believe and be absolutely certain about it.

This is what Joe Paterno told the Grand Jury:

1. His assistant told him fondling and something of a sexual nature occurred between Sandusky and a 10 year old boy.

2. He found his assistant's report to him to be credible.

I disagree with Posnanski's assessment of Paterno's involvement in this, and dislike his attempts to make Paterno look like a victim. I agree with this commenter:

Chris Clarke17 minutes ago

"It was disgusting and disgraceful, the method in which they fired Joe Paterno after 60 years of service,"

That THAT's what strikes you as disgusting and disgraceful speaks volumes. You say this:

"I think Joe Paterno had the responsibility as a leader and a man to stop the horrific rapes allegedly committed by Jerry Sandusky"

and then you follow it up with this:

"Joe Paterno has lived a profoundly decent life."

I think of the people I know who I would consider as having led profoundly decent lives, and I search my memories for the times when they failed to react when informed that children were being brutalized by their subordinates, and I come up empty-handed. As someone who has risked his job in the past to report on allegations of sexual harassment, I have no sympathy for Paterno.

But you, Mr. Posnaski: you are willing to give Paterno the benefit of the doubt for allegedly not speaking up, reporting Sandusky to the authorities, or taking any of the dozen other no-brainer steps to keep more children from being brutalized, but you call it "shameful" that people haven't stepped forward to defend Paterno? You can't have it both ways... unless your point is that the career of an "important" man is more important than the stolen well-being of innocent kids.

And I find that profoundly disgusting. Shame on you.

RICK PERRY: TOAST OF THE GOP DEBATE, 11/9/11

2011-11-10T10:18:00.003-05:00

After last night's debate, is there any doubt about what Rick Perry is:

Why are certain elements of the GOP so attracted to empty-headed clowns? Rick Perry should go back to Texas. Apparently, that state can function with a disconnected, confused amateur. Incredibly this guy has won every election he's been in.

Can someone explain this?

From Andrew Sullivan's blog:

Quote For The Night

"I learned three things in Zurich during the war. I wrote them down. Firstly, you're either a revolutionary or you're not, and if you're not you might as well be an artist as anything else. Secondly, if you can't be an artist, you might as well be a revolutionary. . . . I forget the third thing," - Henry Carr, in Tom Stoppard's play, so appropriately called "Travesties."

Rich Lowry:

That might be the most uncomfortable moment I’ve ever witnessed in presidential politics.

Larry Sabato:

To my memory, Perry's forgetfulness is the most devastating moment of any modern primary debate.

Allahpundit:

[Perry is] down to 4.9 percent now on InTrade; before the debate he was at 9.3 percent. Remember two months ago when he was going to be the guy who saved us from Romney?

Adam Sorensen:

Watching Rick Perry fail to recall the third part of his own answer in tonight’s debate was like watching a thoroughbred get euthanized on the track. It was shocking, grisly and impossible to look away.

Alex Massie:

You can stick a fork in [Perry], he's done.

Joe Gandelman:

I wonder: Will Rick Perry remember which office he’s running for? Impressions: I can’t see Cain losing any ground with this debate (even if it increasingly seems like a fitting campaign slogan for Cain would be “The White House or bust.”) Romney holding firm. Gingrich waiting in wings as Anti-Perry understudy for Cain.

And on and on and on...

HERMAN CAIN'S CAMPAIGN CHIEF TELLS A BIG FAT LIE ON FOX NEWS

2011-11-09T11:23:00.001-05:00

Okay, that's like saying the sun is hot.

Mark Block, the smokin' dude in Herman Cain's ridiculous political YouTube ad, appeared on FAUX NOOZ and lied about Karen Kraushaar's son, [Karen Kraushaar, 55, is a registered Republican who works at the Treasury Department. Through her attorney, she has described the alleged harassment as "a series of inappropriate behaviors and unwanted advances from the CEO," NPR reported. She reportedly received a payout in 1999.] claiming Josh Kraushaar worked for Politico, the blog that broke the Herman Cain sexual harassment story.

Here is what Block claimed on FAUX NOOZ:

"Mark Block, Cain's chief-of-staff, spoke to Sean Hannity on Fox News Tuesday, and wrongly claimed that the son of a woman who accused Cain of sexual harassment in the 1990s works at POLITICO.

'At the press conference it was brought up that Karen Kraushaar had come out as one of the women, so we've come to find out that her son works at POLITICO, the organization that originally put this story out,' Block said."

When Hannity asked if the information about Kraushaar's "son" was confirmed, Block said: "We've confirmed that he does indeed work at POLITICO and that's his mother, yes."

Except Block, Cain's chief of staff, was either lying or incompetent because he named the wrong guy.

This is what Josh Kraushaar, the guy Block accused, had to say:

"Kraushaar acknowledged working at POLITICO from 2007 to 2010, but said he had been at the National Journal for over a year. His Twitter bio lists his current job title as the executive editor of the publication's blog The Hotline. He's also not related to Cain's accuser.

'For a presidential spokesman to go on TV and make up blatant falsehoods doesn't speak well for his boss, either,' Kraushaar wrote.

Kraushaar did manage to keep his sense of humor about the whole situation. 'The only positive benefit about being smeared by Mark Block on Hannity is I'm getting 100 new Twitter followers a minute.' "

So there we have it. More incompetence from the man who wants to be president. Is this another joke, Mr. Cain? Or is it a continuing side-show where, it appears, your campaign for the GOP presidential nomination is nothing more than street theater and not a serious effort to win the nomination.

But wait, Cain is leading the GOP polls. Imagine that. A pizza marketer who tells us that his policies are jokes, whose chief of staff names the wrong guy on a national cabal teevee station as one of his accuser's sons, and who now has, how many now? 4? 5? women accusing him of improper sexual advances.

Sounds like the perfect candidate to lead the GOP into next year's presidential election.

SUNDAY NIGHT FUNNIES

2011-11-06T19:11:00.000-05:00

Found via Infidel753

HOW TO SPEAK REPUBLICAN

America (United States of): A country located in the N. Western Hemisphere that is #1.

Bible: A sacred text that provides incontestable answers when thumped.

Birth Certificate: An official birth record required of all US Presidents, regardless of race, since 2008.

Capitalism: A system of economic organization that has never been attempted.

Christmas: A holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ, now rarely celebrated due to persecution by atheists.

Compromise: (uncommon) A form of political suicide.

Coast (East): A very bad coast of the continental United States.

Coast (West): Another really inexcusable coast.

Communism: The belief that the government should ever do anything.

Condescending: Accurately informed.

Constitution (U.S.): The hallowed founding document of the United States, the text of which must be interpreted strictly and amended immediately.

Corporations: Large people who are overtaxed.

Deficits: 1) Fiscal shortfalls incurred by Democrats that threaten to bankrupt the country. 2) Fiscal shortfalls incurred by Republicans that don't matter.

Democrat: A political party.

Election: A method of selecting representatives, the fraudulence of which may be determined by the outcome.

Elitist: Qualified.

Endangered Species: Animals that have it coming.

Evolution: A theory of human origins that is out there.

Extremist (Liberal): Espousing or adhering to political beliefs that are held by only a majority of Americans.

Fact: Information that has been verifiably posted to a RedState comment board.

Forest (National): Trees that have it coming.

Gut: Region of the body from which decisions should be made.

Homosexuality: A membership-only lifestyle organization that perpetuates itself through youth recruitment.

Hitler: A man to whom it would be inappropriate to compare President Obama in spite of the many uncanny similarities.

Jesus: Charismatic religious leader and son of God; born in Bethlehem in the year 0; beliefs include love, charity, enhanced interrogation, privatized healthcare, elimination of the estate tax, and the right to carry concealed semiautomatic weapons.

League (Ivy): an association of eight Eastern universities and colleges, the lack of a fancy education from which qualifies a candidate for political office.

Liberal: A person who should be rounded up and shot but not really.

Marxism: A political and economic philosophy developed by Karl Marx and promulgated by Paul Krugman.

Media (Mainstream): Where you won't hear things.

Medicare: A fraudulent, socialistic boondoggle that is sacrosanct.

Mexicans: Brown people who have it coming.

Mountaintops: Ancient rock formations that have it coming.

Muslims: Brown people who have it coming.

News: Fox News

Obamacare: A Federally-mandated policy to address the national oversupply of grandparents through euthanasia.

Organic: Eaten by lesbians.

Party (Tea): A grass-roots movement of patriotic Americans fighting for the principle of "No Taxation With Representation."

Poll: A survey used to determine, to within a margin of error, what percentage of Americans are right.

Poverty: The condition of having inadequate financial or material resources due to not trying hard enough.

Propaganda: The politically motivated dissemination of biased information, opinion, or data through its publication in the New York Times.

Punishment (Capital): The legally authorized killing by the State of someone who is definitely guilty.

Racism: A form of discrimination that typically happens in reverse.

Regulation: Rules issued by a government agency for no reason.

Ronald Reagan: A fictional character based loosely on President Ronald Reagan.

Scientist: A person who employs a rigorous system of observation, experiment, measurement, and verification to perpetuate his Godless left-wing agenda.

Social Security: A redistributionist Ponzi scheme that is sacrosanct.

Socialism: An economic system invented by FDR.

Taxes: Levies imposed by the government that raise more revenue the lower they are.

Torture: A method of interrogation that does not rise to the level of torture.

Terrorist: A person to whom a person who threatens to destroy the U.S. economy unless his demands are met should not be compared.

Unbiased: Giving equal weight to both sides of the looking glass.

Wealthy (the): People who earned every penny.

Up: A direction which, depending on circumstances, is down.

Warming (Global): An anomalous, anthropogenic increase in the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures that isn't happening.

Welfare: A government program to distribute Cadillacs to unwed mothers.

Yes: (no translation available)

Ann Coulter: "OUR BLACKS are better than their blacks." Yes, she really said that.

2011-11-04T12:08:00.001-04:00

"OUR blacks?"

In this Daily Show segment, Jon Stewart comically destroys Donald "I've Always Had A Great Relationship With The Blacks" Trump and, then he and his fellow comics go on to annihilate the consistently horrid Ann Coulter, who disgraces herself with her sickening "Our blacks are better than their blacks," comment and her stupifying boast that "Herman Cain is a blacker black than Obama."

If there is a more devasting example of Coulter's and the Right's patronizing treatment of an entire group of Americans, I have yet to see it. Watching Coulter's stunningly insensitive description of African-Americans leaves absolutely no doubt in any thinking person's mind as to the true nature of the Republican Party--condescending arrogance.

HERMAN CAIN AND THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT CHARGES

2011-11-03T11:04:00.005-04:00

Reporting news about a candidate who is running for his party's presidential nomination is not a "high-tech lynching," as certain bloggers and pundits on the right have characterized the mess Herman Cain is in.

Cain is responsible for these revelations, and he alone is responsible for the clumsy handling of it. Each day a new piece of the story comes out showing the public that Mr. Cain was well aware of the sexual harassment charges, the women who made them, and the payouts given to those women to be quiet. It would have been better had Mr. Cain come clean about the charges instead of allowing the story to become the focus of his campaign. Bad move on Cain and his advisers part and a disturbing example of Cain's ineptitude.

Here are some assessments of Cain and his handling of this story:

The New York Times

"Mr. Cain knew the harassment charges would become public 10 days ahead of time, but still he stumbled for three days. First he said he knew of no settlement between his accusers and the National Restaurant Association — rather implausible, considering he was its chief executive. Then he said he was aware of it but didn’t know the details. Then he put out the details. [...]

None of this should be surprising. From the start, Mr. Cain has made outrageous statements, then taken them back, then modified them. He said he would not appoint a Muslim to his cabinet, then apologized, then railed about Shariah law creeping into the courts. He said he wanted a border fence that would electrocute illegal crossers, then said it was a joke, then he still wanted one.

Mr. Cain’s core supporters don’t seem to care about such minor details any more than he does. But, eventually, a campaign run solely on charm and hokum tends to wind up in a ditch. The question now is how much of the Republican Party will follow him there."

This is truly disturbing:

Dana Milbank gives us a revealing anecdote about Cain under pressure:

"At his next stop, a Hilton hotel in Alexandria, the amiable candidate finally blew his stack – and the scene quickly escalated into violence. It began when a reporter asked Cain if he would release his accusers from their confidentiality agreements.

“I’m not going to talk about it,” Cain snapped, “so don’t even bother asking me all of these other questions that y’all are curious about. Okay? Don’t even bother.”
“It’s a good question,” the reporter pointed out. “Are you concerned?” asked another. Evidently, Cain was. “What did I say?” he hissed at the reporters, then attempted to break through the pack, shouting: “Excuse me. Excuse me! EXCUSE ME!” At that, his bodyguards began throwing elbows and shoving the reporters and photographers. “Stand back! . . . Do not push me! . . . Pushing is against the law!. . . Watch out!. . . Get a grip on yourself!” In the melee, a young boy and his father were shoved up against a wall.

His campaign’s fisticuffs with Washington journalists probably won’t do Cain any harm among his supporters in Iowa; in fact, it will probably help. But Cain’s loss of control is a reminder of why he’s never going to be president, no matter how high he rises in GOP primary polls."

Jonathan Capehart:

"On my first day at an all-white school in North Plainfield, N.J., and then again in Hazlet, N.J. and then again before I took off for college in Northfield, Minn., my mother delivered a lecture not unfamiliar to other kids of color (and women, for that matter). You have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to not be seen as inferior, deficient and not as up to the task (whatever the task might be) as your white classmates. It ain’t right. It ain’t fair. But that’s the way it is.

On a near-daily basis, Herman Cain, the front runner for the Republican nomination for president of the United States, denigrates the high level of expectation and preparation demanded by my mother and mothers everywhere. [...] Sarah Palin was rightly eviscerated for her lack of knowledge on just about everything when she was the GOP’s 2008 vice presidential nominee. She didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was. Even though she’s pro-life, she told Katie Couric that she believed there was a right to privacy in the Constitution, which is a cornerstone of Roe. v. Wade. And she tried to claim foreign policy experience because “as Putin rears his head and comes into the air space of the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska. It’s right over the border.”

That Cain can’t even rise above this decidedly low bar set by Palin is an insult to my mother, who demands excellence of “us,” and to every American who believes his or her nation deserves better from those who would lead it."

h/t dailykos

And finally, from Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish:

What Does Herman Cain Say About Us?

"Nothing good, according to Dreher:

Expertise does not guarantee wisdom. But that doesn’t mean the amateurism puts us on the side of the angels, either. You wouldn’t trust an amateur to spay your cat or to give you sound investment advice for your 401(K) — yet there are millions of Republians who think an avuncular amateur like Herman Cain would do a great job as president of the United States, or at least a better job than Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, or anybody else on offer who has actually worked in politics. I’m not thrilled with these choices either, but come on, what is wrong with us?"

And:

"When Herman Cain sang at the National Press Club the other day, I thought it was absurd. There he goes again, the clown. Looking at the performance in greater context, I found it easier to smile at, and not in a hostile way. Still, if you think about it, it says something bad about America that here we are, facing the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, and looking at a future of crippling indebtedness unless our leaders take drastic action … and the top candidate for the Republican nomination a year from election day is a charming businessman with no political experience, who knows nothing about the world (and makes jokes about his own ignorance), and who is given over to camping it up on the campaign trail. If times were great, there would be serious reason to doubt whether America could afford a man like Herman Cain in the Oval Office. But times are terrible, and could easily get far worse. It’s really quite an indictment on the unseriousness of our country, or at least the conservative electorate, that Cain is at the top of the polls now. The media play their own role in perpetuating this circus."

**********

Herman Cain will never be POTUS. He is unable to control himself and his message. Plus he's ignorant about the most basic foreign policy issues. Let him go back to hawking his books and singing to his adoring crowds.

This is the caliber of candidate that gets the base of the GOP excited: A preening, loud-mouthed bully who's ignorant [Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan?] on many important issues and proud of it.

GOP Committee Sent Image of Mr. Obama with Bullet Hole in His Head as a Halloween "Joke."

2011-11-01T12:55:00.001-04:00

The Republican Committee of Loudoun County, Virginia, labeled a picture of President Obama with a bullet through his head as "light-hearted" fun, that injected "satire humor into the Halloween holiday."

I've posted it here because I want to continue to document the many, many racist images and emails of President and Mrs. Obama that various local Republican committees around the country have generated since Mr. Obama became president.

When the GOP whines about people calling them racist when they criticize the president's policies, they obscure the fact that people label the GOP racist because of these kinds of sordid and vicious images of the president that they giddily pass around to their fellow racists.

Most decent people have condemned the image, but the fact remains that this is still a part of what the GOP is and whom they tolerate in their party.

"A Halloween-themed email from the Loudoun County, Va., Republican Committee was swiftly condemned by conservative and liberal groups today for featuring an image of a ghoulish-looking President Obama with a bullet hole through his head.

The message, with the subject line “Halloween 2011,” invites supporters to a community parade where “we are going to vanquish the zombies with clear thinking conservative principles and a truckload of Republican candy.” It also features a caricature of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a jack-o-lantern, and cartoons of zombies.

The email was first reported by the blog Too Conservative, which said the group had gone “way too far” and should be reported to the U.S. Secret Service.

Mark Sell, chairman of the Loudoun County Republican Committee, explained that the email was a “light-hearted attempt to inject satire humor into the Halloween holiday.”

Caption This

2011-11-01T02:09:00.000-04:00

No pumpkins, no goblins, no ghouls. Not Rick Perry, nor Mittens, nor Munchkin … and definitely not your typical Halloween post. Nevertheless I thought everyone would have fun thinking up captions for this photo.

Auntie Shaw will be blogging intermittently for the next few weeks and has asked me to fill in and feed the fish.

Aaaaah Ooooooooo!

2011-10-31T16:23:00.000-04:00

The New Feudalism (According to the Latest CBO Report)

2011-10-27T03:07:00.001-04:00

By Octopus

The Director’s Blog of the Congressional Budget Office released this report earlier today. It confirms everything we know about income inequality, and everything the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have been saying from the start:

[Income] for households at the higher end of the income scale rose much more rapidly than income for households in the middle and at the lower end of the income scale.

If the language of the CBO summary is understated, the accompanying graph screams louder than words:

Growth in Real After-Tax Income from 1979 to 2007

275 percent growth for the highest income earners (top 1%),
65 percent for the 5th Quintile (less the 1% top earners),
40 percent for Quintiles 2 through 4,
18 percent for the bottom Quintile.

Devils in the detail: Between 1979 and 2007, the top 1 percent of the population benefited from a more than twofold increase in household income, whereas the middle quintiles – representing 60 percent of the national population – saw their income share decline by 3 percent. Income for the lowest quintile fell by more than 7 percent. Thus, the rich got richer while the living standards of most Americans dropped significantly.

Bottom line: The so-called American Dream has vanished with no upward mobility for the middle class - especially for the younger generation with few career prospects to pay back their college loans.

Of course, the GOP always sees things differently. Under their PR lens, they have demonized everyone on unemployment as indolent loafers and suspected drug users. They have blamed public sector deficits on overpaid and over privileged public sector workers. They no longer consider Social Security and Medicare as ‘earned benefits’ but as burdensome ‘entitlements.’ Big Brother, they insist, has no business looking after little brother. And all Occupy Wall Street protesters shall be demonized as unwashed, unemployed, drug-addled, sex-crazed socialist hippies hell bent on income redistribution. Any heretic who challenges the gospel of ‘privatize profits and socialize risks' shall be pilloried and scorned. Thus spoke House Speaker John Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. Thus spoke Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. And thus spoke their media prophet, descending and condescending from Mount Rush.

Under the Republican PR lens, a humble breadcrumb shall turn into a mighty bread loaf. Modest morsels shall once again grace every table under the aegis of supply-side orthodoxy - more tax cuts for the rich and less benefits for the middle class. America's hallowed corporations will move your job to a third world country unless you agree to turn America into a third world country. Austerity and ritual sacrifice shall renew the land, and mandatory voter photo IDs will herald in a new Golden Age of Perpetual Feudalism.

If readers think I am overstating the case, here again is former Republican staffer Mike Lofgren in Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult:

The GOP cares solely and exclusively about its rich contributors. The party has built a whole catechism on the protection and further enrichment of America's plutocracy. Their caterwauling about deficit and debt is so much eyewash to con the public.

(…)

Republicans have attempted to camouflage their amorous solicitude for billionaires with a fog of misleading rhetoric ... Another chestnut is that millionaires and billionaires are "job creators." US corporations have just had their most profitable quarters in history; Apple, for one, is sitting on $76 billion in cash, more than the GDP of most countries. So, where are the jobs?

Another smokescreen is the "small business" meme, since standing up for Mom's and Pop's corner store is politically more attractive than to be seen shilling for a megacorporation. Raising taxes on the wealthy will kill small business' ability to hire; that is the GOP dirge every time Bernie Sanders or some Democrat offers an amendment to increase taxes on incomes above $1 million.

(…)

Likewise, Republicans have assiduously spread the myth that Americans are conspicuously overtaxed. But compared to other OECD countries, the effective rates of US taxation are among the lowest. In particular, they point to the top corporate income rate of 35 percent as being confiscatory Bolshevism. But again, the effective rate is much lower. Did GE pay 35 percent on 2010 profits of $14 billion? No, it paid zero.

When pressed, Republicans make up misleading statistics to "prove" that the America's fiscal burden is being borne by the rich and the rest of us are just freeloaders who don't appreciate that fact.

(…)

All of these half truths and outright lies have seeped into popular culture via the corporate-owned business press … More important politically, Republicans' myths about taxation have been internalized by millions of economically downscale "values voters," who may have been attracted to the GOP for other reasons ... but who now accept this misinformation as dogma.

My closing question for today: When will middle-class Republicans finally see the light and leave the cult before it’s too late.

THE DUMBEST POLITICAL VIDEO IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, BROUGHT TO YOU BY HERMAN CAIN.

2011-10-25T15:42:00.002-04:00

The guy in the video says America has never seen a candidate like Herman Cain and America has never seen a campaign like Herman Cain's campaign.

And he's right.

We've never seen anything as stupid and amateur as this "smokin'-bad" video. It says absolutely NOTHING about Cain's plans to put Americans back to work, or anything about what he'd do if we were crazy enough to vote him into the presidency. The campaign video ends with this guy taking a drag from a cigarette and exhaling.

Because nothing says "Good for America" like an object that will give you lung cancer.

What the hell is Cain thinking? Oh, wait...Cain just makes it up as he goes along, and is obviously being advised by the dumbest people who ever worked a presidential campaign.

Fortunately, Cain will not get the nomination nor move into the White House. And we can thank the nutjob who produced and starred in this disaster of a video for that.

Cain Gets a Bump from a Hit: [Let the parodies begin!]:

They jus' keep on comin'!

A Short But Pithy Illustration of the GOP's Failure to Deliver on Its Promise of JOBS! JOBS! JOBS!

2011-10-23T13:09:00.002-04:00

UPDATE BELOW

Because working with President Obama to put Americans back to work would be positive for the president. Clearly, the GOP is more interested in defeating Mr. Obama than in helping the American people, and this chart proves it:

Good friend and fellow blogger, Leslie Parsley of Parsley's Pics, alerted me to this PolitiFact post on the above post, which I found on facebook and posted here.

I use PolitiFact as a reference on determining if something is true or false. According to PolitiFact, the above poster is "Pants On Fire" false, and I'm posting this to alert my readers to that. I usually fact check before I publish a blog posts. I didn't do that in this case. Here is what PolitiFact wrote about the above graphic:

"Job creation" means different things to different parties.

Most conservatives today are dead-set against traditional forms of government-based economic stimulus known as Keynesian economics, primarily spending initiatives. So if "job creation" is defined to primarily include Keynesian initiatives, then Republicans aren’t going to be sponsoring any "job creation" bills. Instead, Republicans argue that tax cuts and budget cutting will help the economy prosper.

Our ruling

While congressional Republicans have certainly introduced dozens of bills on social issues and other topics, the claim that the GOP has focused on issues other than job creation just isn't supported. The numbers cited in the post include Democratic bills, and the definition of what constitutes a "job creation" bill is open to significant debate.

But the post’s most important flaw is the contention that Republicans have offered "zero" bills on job creation. This number stems from a methodology that also excludes Obama’s American Jobs Act from the category of "job creation" bills. If you look at alternative job-related subject headings, the number of bills offered by lawmakers from both parties actually exceeds most of the social-issues listed in the blog post. We rate this claim Pants on Fire."

According to PolitiFact, Congressional Republicans HAVE sponsored "job creation" bills, as defined by the GOP.

As far as I can determine, NO JOB CREATION BILLS HAVE BECOME LAW that have put thousands of people back to work since the GOP took over the House one year ago.

GOP PRESIDENTIAL CONTENDERS ON LIBYA: WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

2011-10-21T10:08:00.005-04:00

The presidential hopefuls of the GOP and the malcontented rightwing bloggers are wrong again.

They continue to misjudge Mr. Obama's foreign policies; and when those policies succeed, they tie themselves into pretzels to avoid giving President Obama the credit he so richly deserves.

In 2+ years, Mr. Obama has shown himself to be better at ridding America of its dangerous enemies than the Bush administration did in its 8 years.

Not one American lost his/her life in the capture and death of 2 of the world's most vicious murderers.

And yet those on the right haven't the decency to admit they were wrong in their attacks on Mr. Obama's handling of his Libyan policy to oust the dictator, Qaddafi.

Here are examples of their wrong-headed and politically motivated criticisms:

MITT ROMNEY:

“It is apparent that our military is engaged in much more than enforcing a no-fly zone. What we are watching in real time is another example of mission creep and mission muddle. In an op-ed in today’s Boston Herald, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton rightly notes that Obama has set himself up for 'massive strategic failure' by demanding Qaddafi’s ouster 'while restricting military force to the limited objective of protecting civilians.' Military action cannot be under-deliberated and ad hoc. The president owes it to the American people and Congress to immediately explain his new Libya mission and its strategic rationale.”

MICHELE BACHMANN:

“President Obama’s policy of leading from behind is an outrage and people should be outraged at the foolishness of the President’s decision” and asking “what in the world are we doing in Libya if we don’t know what our military goal is?”

HERMAN CAIN:

“I’ve said many times before that US intervention in Libya is inappropriate and wrong. The US does not belong in this war…Pres. Obama did not make it clear what our mission was in Libya, what the American interests were or what victory looks like. We cannot risk our treasury or national treasures (brave men & women in uniform) without knowing those answers.”

RICK SANTORUM:

”Ridding the world of the likes of Gadhafi is a good thing, but this indecisive President had little to do with this triumph,”

NEWT GINGRICH:

"I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi. I think there are a lot of other allies in the region we could have worked with. I would not have used American and European forces."

Do we really want any of these wrong-headed and muddled-thinking people leading our country?

h/t Politicususa

JON STEWART: "What the f**k is wrong with you people?!"

He goes after three ungracious and obviously stupid GOP pols who couldn't find the decency to credit their OWN COUNTRY, THE USA, for taking part and succeeding in this effort because it would have reflected well on the president of their country. The GOP and their followers are so eaten up by their rancid partisanship, they couldn't do the honorable thing, and they, therefore, brought dishonor on themselves and their party.

THANK YOU, PRESIDENT OBAMA AND SECRETARY CLINTON FOR YOUR LEADERSHIP AND MAKING THE USA PART OF A GREAT VICTORY!

Americans Overwhelmingly Support President Obama's American Jobs Act

2011-10-19T11:52:00.008-04:00

Yes, that's correct. An overwhelming majority of the American people are behind Mr. Obama on his AJA.

And where are the Republicans? They are solidly against the American people.

Here are the results of the poll, via Smartypants.

The GOP is solidly against helping Americans:

The GOP thumbs its nose at Americans who are hurting, at Americans who want Congress to pass the AJA, and at Americans who need relief NOW, not after the 2012 elections.

The GOP is no longer a political party, but a gang of economic vandals whose only goal is to keep Americans out of work and impoverished so that their party can defeat President Obama in 2012.

From a NYTimes editorial:

"There are 14 million people out of work, wages are falling, poverty is rising, and a second recession may be blowing in, but not a single Republican would even allow debate on a sound plan to cut middle-class taxes and increase public-works spending.

The bill the Republicans shot down is not a panacea, but independent economists say it would have a significant and swift effect on the current stagnation. Macroeconomic Advisers, whose forecasts are often used by the Federal Reserve, said it could raise economic growth by 1.25 percentage points and create 1.3 million jobs in 2012. Moody’s Analytics estimated new growth at 2 percentage points and 1.9 million jobs. Those economists say that Republican ideas for increasing growth would have no measurable effects in the next year."

It is excruciatingly clear why the GOP continues to obstruct anything this president offers to improve unemployment and get Americans back to work.

********************

On another subject, during the debate in Nevada last night, the GOPers did themselves proud again. If you remember the other debates, we witnessed:

1)     The GOP audience cheer lustily over Rick Perry's boast about how many people he's put to death, guilty or not, in Texas;

2)     We heard the GOP audience whoop it up over Ron Paul's suggestion that an uninsured young person should die because he could not afford insurance coverage;

3)     We heard GOP audience members BOO! a gay combat soldier currently serving in Iraq; and now,

4)     Continuing in their tradition of being heartless troglodytes, the GOP audience in Nevada loudly approved of Herman Cain's blaming unemployed Americans for not having jobs. [see video below]

Because the insensitive creeps actually believe Americans choose to be out of work and hurting.

Just imagine if the GOP achieves their goal of defeating Mr. Obama and they still control the House and take over the Senate, just imagine what their legislative program would be:

More tax cuts for the rich

More union busting

More cuts in social welfare programs, i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid

More voter suppression directed toward minorities

Enhancement of the powers for special interests and their lobbyists

More attacks on women's rights, making it more difficult to receive a legal medical procedure

Repeal of DADT

Repeal of ACA

Repeal of the EPA

Repeal of financial regulations, i.e., Dodd-Frank, making it easier for Wall Street to engage in more risky derivatives.

Gawker has this incredible story on a TPer actually vowing not to hire anyone and urging other GOP-TPers to do the same, so that Mr. Obama will be defeated.

THIS IS WHO THEY ARE:

THE ONE PERCENTERS

2011-10-18T12:25:00.000-04:00

The New Yorker magazine's cover perfectly illustrates who they are:

The curious thing is that if you check out a number of rightwing blogs, you'll read how they are defending the 21st century robber barons, the Wall Street financial rapists, the banksters, and the corporatists who happily ship their American jobs overseas, thereby fattening their bottom lines and guaranteeing the 99 percenters more hardship and the inability to flourish in this country.

It's a mystery to me why so many conservatives continue to serve their wealthy masters while, at the same time, experience their failing economic health, and why they continue to vote against their own self-interests.

The OWS movement is marching and demonstrating for them, for their children and grandchildren, but they don't get it. So long as they listen to idiots like Glenn Beck, Eric Cantor, and the people running for the GOP presidential nomination--y'know, the conservatives standing up for and defending the one percenters--these misguided Americans never will.

Meanwhile, to understand how the top one percenters are growing wealthier and the middle and lower classes are shrinking and losing financially, look at the charts from this Mother Jones article.

"It's The Inequality, Stupid!"

DEAR MR. CAIN, YOU'RE THE JOKE.

2011-10-16T21:56:00.002-04:00

UPDATE BELOW

The latest GOP honeyscoop, who calls himself an ice cream flavor--black walnut--has taken to walking back his embarrassing, amateur goofs by calling them "jokes."

On Sunday's Meet the Press, Cain claimed he was only joking when he proposed, if elected president, his solutions to immigration issues would be electrified fences, digging a moat at the border and filling it with alligators, and using live ammunition at the border.

Mr. Cain also walked back his promise that no bill he signed would be more than three pages. That's a joke, too, according to the pizza guy.

And we don't know yet if his admission of ignorance about what a neoconservative is was a joke as well.

Mr. Cain said America needs to get a sense of humor.

But how can we laugh when the newest GOP date to the nomination prom is a guy who wants to be president, a deadly serious job, but keeps telling us his ideas are all jokes?

Maybe Mr. Cain should drop out of the presidential race and run for Comedian in Chief.

He appears to be the most qualified of the bunch.

Capt. Fogg over at The Swash Zone explains why Herman Cain's "9-9-9" tax solution is the biggest joke of all.

UPDATE:

Joe Klein shares his opinion of The Hermanator:

"I know what I’m about to say is impolite, but Herman Cain strikes me as something of a jerk and an ignoramus. He has made absolutely outrageous statements about Muslims, immigrants and homosexuals; he takes the most extreme position imaginable on abortion. Indeed, I have never, ever seen him acknowledge the idea that complexity exists in the world…or that an ability to weed through complex issues might be a qualification for the presidency.

No, the guy is a marketer. He had other people handle administration and finance at Godfather’s; he was all about the pies. Hence, we have his 9-9-9 plan, a truly rancid scheme to benefit the rich at the expense of the rest of the country, a scheme that would tax a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread.

Would it be too much for the Weekly Standard–a journal of strong, and occasionally intemperate, opinions–to acknowledge that this guy is a snake oil salesman? That he’s an embarrassment to the Republican Party? That his momentary strength is a four-alarm cry of Republican desperation?"

GUIDE TO THE 2012 GOP PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS

2011-10-15T17:15:00.003-04:00

NOTE: The discussion continues in the post below this one. Please read the thoughtful comments. Thanks.

This is just too funny to just link to.

So here it is from Funny or Die, by Dan Abramson and Nate Maggio:

ENJOY:

NOTE: We totally forgot about Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. But don't worry, in two weeks you will, too.

OWS Goes Global on Saturday

2011-10-14T08:37:00.005-04:00

Occupy LA in front of Bank of America, October 13.

Get out there and support the 99 percenters on Saturday.

"It's time for us to unite; it's time for them to listen; people of the world, rise up!" proclaims the Web site United for #GlobalChange.

"We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers who do not represent us ... We will peacefully demonstrate, talk and organize until we make it happen."

"ENOUGH IS ENOUGH"

"We have people from all walks of life joining us every day," said Spyro, one of those behind a Facebook page in London which has grown to have some 12,000 followers in a few weeks, enthused by Occupy Wall Street. Some 5,000 have posted that they will turn out, though even some activists expect fewer will.

Spyro, a 28-year-old graduate who has a well-paid job and did not want his family name published, summed up the main target of the global protests as "the financial system."

Angry at taxpayer bailouts of banks since crisis hit in 2008 and at big bonuses still paid to some who work in them while unemployment blights the lives of many young Britons, he said: "People all over the world, we are saying 'Enough is enough'."

Go here to understand why the 99 percenters are marching.

Occupy Boston stands in solidarity with our sisters and brothers in New York during their time of need, as they did in ours. We are the 99%, and we stand united.

MAYOR MENINO...

What in hell were you thinking when you said this:

" 'Civil disobedience doesn’t work for Boston; it doesn’t work for anyone.'

Yep. It sure didn't work for the Boston Tea Party rebels. It didn't work for the U.S. labor movement. It didn't work for Gandhi.

And it certainly never worked for Rosa Parks, did it?"

h/t dailykos

From the Oh!pinion blog:

"Conservative Republican Herman Cain, a successful businessman, looks at the Occupy Wall Street protesters and sees only envious slackers who don’t have a job because they won’t go out and get one.

Cain, who’s running for president, freely admits he has no facts to back up his arrogant, blame-the-victims statements. That’s typical of conservative Republicans, except that most don’t so openly admit they’re just bloviating."

OUR STUNNINGLY BEAUTIFUL AND BRAINY FIRST LADY

2011-10-13T22:41:00.000-04:00

This is for all those mean-spirited morons on the right who make fun of Michelle Obama. Take a close look at this picture and then eat your small-minded cramped little hearts out.

THE SEVEN BIGGEST ECONOMIC LIES

2011-10-13T08:36:00.002-04:00

Robert Reich exposes, in less than 3 minutes, the disinformation you've been hearing about the economy :

h/t DemocraticUnderground

The Manchester Union Leader catches Rep. Michele Bachmann lying. What a shock!

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) caught plagiarizing.

Herman Cain's 999 plan would raise taxes on Americans AND explode the deficit.

Rick Perry places the American Revolution in the 1500s.

Mitt Romney lies about regulations costing jobs.

"THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE"

2011-10-10T18:19:00.001-04:00

That was the chant heard most often in today's "Occupy Boston" demonstration.

I met up with the marchers in Boston's Dewey Square and joined them with my own sign which I wrote with my 4 French friends in mind, [and who will be here in Boston visiting me at the end of the month.] Afterall, it is the French who proclaimed Liberté, égalité, fraternité during their revolution against the filthy rich oligarchy.

The demonstators were a mixed group of college students, middle-aged and older Americans from all sorts of backgrounds: African American, Latino, Muslim, Indian, Asian, and the rest of us. The weather cooperated by being an unseasonably warm and glorious almost mid-October Columbus Day, reaching the low 80s. People were handing out free water for the marchers whose voices were getting hoarser by the minute. Drum beaters, bongo players, and a band were there to add to the festive, but serious nature of the demonstration. I'm the one with the sign in French with the translation.

My voice is hoarse, and my feet are sore, but I'm glad I participated.

BTW. Every sign I saw was spelled correctly.

A 99 PERCENTER

2011-10-09T12:33:00.001-04:00

Occupy Wall Street is gathering more strength as the weeks go by. These are Americans who are fed up with what the multi-nationals, the banksters, and the financial rapists on Wall Street have done to our country. If the TPers had any sense, they would join with the OWS movement because these average Americans are angry over the same issues the honest TPers (and there are a few) are frustrated by.

This man sums up the frustration quite well.

I'm off this afternoon to Dewey Square Boston, where the OWS is demonstrating.

FOR ALL THE SARAH PALIN SUCKERS: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Explain How "The Quitter" Took Your Money and Ran...AWAY!

2011-10-08T11:30:00.005-04:00

Jon Stewart uncovers Palin's money grabbing con--she knew she wasn't running a long, long time ago, but that didn't stop her from scamming her gullible supporters:

And Stephen Colbert takes the lipstick off this phoney pitbull for everyone to see:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Sarah Palin: The biggest scammer in American political history!

NEWSWEEK today highlights this paragraph from [Joe McGinniss's] Daily Beast article, entitled, “Arrivederci, Sarah!”

“In our 235 years as a nation, [Sarah Palin] might have been—other than the Civil War—the gravest threat our republic has ever faced. Not only was she the most unqualified candidate in our history, she might have been the most mentally fragile, and she was certainly the only one ever who flirted openly with the notion of ending the separation of church and state.”

And for all those Palin apologists who never bothered to look behind the curtain to see the con artist working the emotional levers that kept her supporters blind to the con game she was playing, take a look how phenomenally well Joe McGinniss's book "The Rogue" is doing:

« THE ROGUE debuts as #10 on NYTimes BestSeller list! #7 on e-book list. And it’s an “Editor’s Choice!”

Congratulations, Joe, well done!

HANK WILLIAMS, JR., AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

2011-10-07T09:24:00.002-04:00

The chronically uninformed on the right are spittle-flecking all over their keyboards because Hank Williams, Jr., was fired from ESPN for comparing President Obama to Adolf Hitler. The usual low-informationists are calling it a violation of Williams' free speech, which is guaranteed by the First Amendment.

So for the bazillionth time we'll explain very, very, s l o w l y to these ignoramuses that the First Amendment prohibits the US Government from interferring with an American citizen's free speech. But even then, there are exceptions to that freedom--for example, you cannot yell FIRE! in a crowded theater when there is no fire, or joke about explosive devices while on an airplane, or threaten the life of the president or a member of Congress. Other than that, if I choose to, I could write on my blog, as do certain troglodytic and spelling-challenged rightwing bloggers, that the president of the United States is a Commie, Marxist, Socialist, Fascist, Kenyan anti-Christ who feeds honey-dipped puppies to Chris Christie, while shopping at Target, swinging a golf club, and smoking weed. But I don't. I leave that sort of overwrought tripe to those in the rightwing blogsphere, who continue to reinforce our suspicion that they've never actually read the Constitution, since they habitually get the First Amendment wrong. All the time.

ESPN is a private corporation that made a business decision when it chose to not air Williams' drunken claptrap about Mr. Obama. ESPN understands that its viewers are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents, as well as Americans of all colors, and it does not wish to insult any demographic--it's bad for business. That's why when drunken idiots like Hank Williams, Jr., or pill-besotted racists like Rush Limbaugh, make slanderous remarks about presidents and football players, they get sacked. Pissing viewers off is bad for business. So, ESPN gets rid of inarticulate and hog-mouthed boobs who can't control their flapping mutton-lips and who demonstrate to the world what embarrassing blockheads they truly are.

Don't like ESPN's decision to can the jackass, Williams? Don't watch it. Simple.

No government agent will come knocking on your door to take away your right to be outraged over a well-deserved firing.

Now excuse me while I go watch reruns on ESPN of last night's game when the fabulous Tigers beat the (insert epithet of choice) Yankees.

GOP-TPers REJECT THEIR BIGGEST HERO, RONALD REAGAN...

2011-10-05T08:44:00.002-04:00

and call President Obama's plan to boost taxes on the wealthiest citizens "class warefare." But listen to what President Ronald Reagan said about this very same subject.

The biggest hero of the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan, proposed EXACTLY what President Obama is proposing.

So the question is why do GOP-TPers call what President Obama is proposing "class warfare," and not condemn President Reagan as well on the exact same issue?

Could it be that the GOP-TPers don't know what their own hero stood for? Could it be that they are so deranged in their hatred of this particular president that they are blind to their massive hypocrisy?

Could it be that the GOP-TPers are more intererested in preventing President Obama from having a second term than in helping the American people?

Is that why the GOP-TPers claimed JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! were the most important issue during last fall's campaign, and then when they got control of the House, they went after Planned Parenthood and NPR?

The GOP-TPers are NOT interested in governing or in the welfare of the American people. They prove it every time more of their rank hypocrisy is uncovered. And this video is a stark example of their rankest of rank hypocrisy.

The GOP-TPers never fail to bring Ronald Reagan's name into political discourse as an example of when America was great--"Morning in America."

But it turns out that if Mr. Reagan were alive today, he would be supporting President Obama's tax proposal and would turn away from the Crowd of Crazies that the present-day GOP-TPers have become.

h/t WaPo

h/t to my friend, Ben Verheiden, in LA.

NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE: The Far Right Will Hate Him, Too.

2011-10-02T09:52:00.003-04:00

UPDATE II:

Christie Won’t Run for President, Associates Say

By DAVID M. HALBFINGER AND MICHAEL D. SHEAR

11:36 a.m. | Updated Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has decided not to seek the presidency, according to two associates.

Mr. Christie is scheduled to announce his decision at a news conference in the state capital at 1 p.m. But one adviser to the governor and another person who spoke to him directly said Tuesday morning that the governor would not pursue the Republican nomination.

The decision ends a late flurry of indecision on the part of Mr. Christie, who had been encouraged by a growing number of Republican donors and activists who had hoped he would add his name to the field of candidates vying to challenge President Obama.

UPDATE I: TPM uncovers more troubling facts about Gov. Chris Christie.

The GOP is looking for another heart throb to take them to electoral victory prom--they've changed their minds on political sweethearts more often than a pre-teen at a Justin Beiber concert.

Their newest honey love is Chris Christie, the formidable governor of New Jersey. So I did some research on his positions on key issues, and found that if he does enter the GOP popularity contest, as did Bachmann and Perry, Christies is sure to be left holding a bag of empty fries in a fast-food parking lot, just like the others were.

Governor Christie is a centrist--NOT a far right politician.

Chris Christie on Gun Control:

Christie supports strict and aggressive enforcement of the state’s current gun laws. He strongly supported the assault weapons ban enacted during the Clinton administration. In a campaign flyer circulated during his 1995 campaign, he attacked his opponents support for repealing the ban.

Chris Christie supports the assault weapons ban and all current gun laws. He opposes attempts to permit conceal and carry laws in New Jersey – hardly the NRA position.

Chris Christie on Illegal Immigration:

“Being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime,” Christie told more than 60 residents and town officials. “The whole phrase of ‘illegal immigrant’ connotes that the person, by just being here, is committing a crime.”

“Don’t let people make you believe that that’s a crime that the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be doing something about,” he added of entering the country illegally. “It is not.”

Gov. Christie's position on abortion:

Q: Would you sign the abortion pledge going around the Republican field?

A: I haven't seen the abortion pledge, I don't know what it says.

Q: Only pro-life people working for you; a promise to back anything that coincides with the life agenda; defunding public payments for abortion across the board.

A: Here's my position on it. My name's the name on the ballot. I am pro-life, I believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. That's my position, take it or leave it. --Source: Interview on NBC "Meet the Press" , Jun 26, 2011

Civil Unions for same-sex couples

Homosexuals are born that way; they're not sinners

Q: Is homosexuality a sin?

A: Well, my religion says it's a sin. But for me, I've always believed that people are born with the predisposition to be homosexual. And so I think if someone is born that way it's very difficult to say then that's a sin. But I understand that my Church says that but for me personally I don't look at someone who is homosexual as a sinner.

Q: You support civil unions. You don't support gay marriage. Can you see a situation where you would change your mind about that?

A: I don't think so. I believe marriage is an institution between one man and one woman. I think it's special and unique in society and I think we can have civil unions that help to give the same type of legal rights to same-sex couples that marriage gives them but I just think marriage is a special connotation. I couldn't change my mind on that but I am in favor of making sure that homosexual couples have the same type of legal rights that heterosexual couples have. --Source: Interview on CNN "Piers Morgan Tonight" , Jun 15, 2011

Jersey shore for tourism instead of offshore drilling

Governor Christie has expressed his strong opposition to off-shore drilling in New Jersey, as well as drilling off the coast of other nearby states that could negatively impact the state's 130 miles of coastline and multi-billion dollar tourism industry. He has also opposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities off of the New Jersey coast and has also restored beach replenishment funding to its full level. --Source: Governor's press release, "Shore Protection Initiatives" , Aug 11, 2011

We ARE the leader in Libya; we MUST be the world's police

Q: Does American have to be the world's policemen? Would you like to see a spreading of that load going forward where America's not the go-to country? For military support, for helping out with despotic regimes and so on?

A: Well, America's always got to be the leader in that regard.

Q: Does it have to be?

A: I think it does.

A: I mean, look at Libya and the way Pres. Obama dealt with that. You know, he quite deliberately decided America wasn't going to be the leader.

A: But we really are. Let's face it, we are. He's calling the shots. and we all know that. And so let's not be kidding because they call it something different. America's taken the responsibility. Now, do I think there has to be shared sacrifice among other nations in the world who want a stable and secure world? Absolutely, there has to be. But I don't think that America can ever abdicate its leadership role in the world because of who we are & where we've come from. We are the symbol for the world for freedom & liberty.

--Source: Interview on CNN "Piers Morgan Tonight" , Jun 15, 2011

And finally, Gov. Christie's big problem--his weight. The rightwing blogsphere has been relentless about Mrs. Obama's derrier--ignoring the fact that there isn't an ounce of blubbering fat on her body. Just look at her arms and legs and chin--then look at Christie's chin--all six of them. Christie has a huge weight problem and that matters when people are looking at him as a presidential candidate. Eugene Robinson explains why:

"Chris Christie needs to find some way to lose weight. Like everyone else, elected officials perform best when they are in optimal health. Christie obviously is not.
You could argue that this is none of my business, but I disagree. Christie’s problem with weight ceased being a private matter when he stepped into the public arena — and it’s not something you can fail to notice. Obesity is a national epidemic whose costs are measured not just in dollars and cents but also in lives. Christie’s weight is as legitimate an issue as the smoking habit that President Obama says he has finally kicked.

On rare occasions, Christie speaks candidly about his weight. “I’m really struggling, been struggling for a long time with it,” he told CNN’s Piers Morgan in June. “And I know that it would be better for my kids if I got it more under control, and so I do feel a sense of guilt at times about that.”

Six weeks later, the New Jersey governor was briefly hospitalized for asthma — a condition that he has had for most of his life. Researchers say that many respiratory problems, including asthma, are worsened by obesity.

[skip]

The NIH estimates that nearly 34 percent of U.S. adults can be classified as “obese,” meaning they have a body mass index of more than 30. By this standard, a man who stands 5-foot-11 — Christie’s reported height — would be obese if his weight reached 215 pounds. While Christie does not disclose his weight, it appears to exceed the 286 pounds that would place him among the 5.7 percent of American adults whom NIH classifies as “extremely obese.”

DRIVING WINGNUT DROOLERS CRAZY!

2011-10-01T19:52:00.000-04:00

You go, girl! The morons in wingnuttia can't stand the fact that a highly educated First Lady is doing so well, and that she's light years smarter than they could ever hope to be. Therefore, they're apoplectic about anything this brainy, beautiful woman does.

Psst! Mrs. Obama! They couldn't spell your name correctly if their stupid, small, cramped, and inconsequential lives depended on it.

Remember: They're ranting on blogs, and you live in the White House. LOL!

President Obama's Support Still Excellent With Jewish Voters

2011-09-29T21:14:00.000-04:00

According to a report published in Talking Points Memo, Mr. Obama is doing just fine with Jewish voters. Despite the lies and disinformation found on rightwing blogs that falsely claim that the Jewish community is falling away from him, the truth is that Mr. Obama's support is solid and way ahead of anything the GOP candidates enjoy.

"It looks like a sweet start to the Jewish New Year for President Obama. According to a new poll by Democratic PPP, the recent panic over Obama’s standing with Jewish voters is little cause for concern in Florida, which has one of the largest Jewish populations in the nation.

Obama leads Rick Perry with Jewish voters 82-2 in a general election matchup and Romney 78-11, huge margins in line with Democrats’ traditional edge with one of their core demographics.

PPP notes that it’s a relatively small sample size, but all indications are still positive:

Obama’s approval rating among Jewish voters is 76/20 and 61/31 on his handling of Israel."