If you want evidence of how the media has become the enemy of good, look no further than the "Dean of the Washington Press Corps" and his recommendations for what Obama should do:
With strong Republican support in Congress for challenging Iran's ambition to become a nuclear power, he can spend much of 2011 and 2012 orchestrating a showdown with the mullahs. This will help him politically because the opposition party will be urging him on. And as tensions rise and we accelerate preparations for war, the economy will improve.
Oh and he'll tell you, he's not saying Obama should go to war, he's just sayin'...
It's a disease and it's hard to see how we are not fucking doomed sometimes.
An estimated 215,000 people attended a rally organized by Comedy Central talk show hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News.
The company AirPhotosLive.com based the attendance at the "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which took place on the Mall in Washington. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent.
CBS News also commissioned AirPhotosLive.com to do a crowd estimate of Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally in August. That rally was estimated to have attracted 87,000 people. Amid criticism from conservatives that the estimate was low, CBS News detailed the methodology behind it here.
Here he goes out of his way to Dayton to support a putsch and the slap him cross his leathery face, and then Minnesota's State Moron says she may not support him for Speaker either.
That a "Rally for Sanity" is called a "liberal" plot.
See that the 'Rally' has just started, there are at the very beginning more African-Americans on stage than I believe in the crowd at the Beck Rally. And more tuba players too, the latter being the most suprising.
And looking at the crowd just more people in general, far more. But what do I know, I'm just a reality-based blogboy?
Yeah, Charlie Sheen, now determined to totally outdo Michael Richards.
Maybe he can be confined to secluded house arrest with Andrew Breitbart...in Anchorage, along with the Palin family, Carrot Top and the guy who invented Auto-Tune for the crime of being annoying against humanity?
Would that be fair, maybe not (it wouldn't necessarily be unfair though), would it make everyone's life marginally better you bet.
...not all of the Chamber’s members are happy about its opaque political activities. Last week, a coalition of 275 institutional shareholders with $100 billion in assets under management from the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) sent a letter to company directors who are members of the Chamber to express deep concern over the Chamber’s “extremely antagonistic position” on the Affordable Care Act. Concerned that the Chamber’s pursuit of an anti-health care agenda — especially with the possible use of “foreign monies” — may damage their reputation, these investors are demanding the Chamber reveal whether company dues are being used in this “ill-conceived strategy,”
Yeah, all this non-disclosure undermines democracy and helps reinforce an oligarchy, but at least health care ads keep them from spending even more money to deny global warming.
In any case, they'll still be enough money for the wealthy to get their escape pods when the time comes.
Sarah Palin made talked like a dolphin, only in a less decipherable language, in sticking with her fellow Alaskan grifter.
Palin, who gave Miller a peck on the cheek after introducing him, was lending her star-power to a candidate who's seeking to overcome a series of campaign bumps. In recent weeks, Miller has acknowledged his family received some of the types of government payments he now questions as a limited-government candidate. This week, records released under court order, after news organizations filed suit, showed Miller had admitted to lying about improperly using government computers for political purposes while a borough attorney in 2008.
Miller is apparently about to finish third, like Palin his popularity is dropping like a stone in their home states.
Apparently far less than 400 people attended this rally...although it could be that there aren't that many people in Alaska that can hear pitches higher than 90 decibels.
How many disasters can Halliburton be involved in before they actually start to lose business? I know, I'm a hopeless romantic that way:
Halliburton officials knew weeks before the fatal explosion of the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico that the cement mixture they planned to use to seal the bottom of the well was unstable but still went ahead with the job...
...Halliburton had conducted three laboratory tests that indicated that the cement mixture did not meet industry standards.
The result of at least one of those tests was given on March 8 to BP, which failed to act upon it
Rudy Giuliani just told me at City Hall at his portrait unveiling that "the door's not closed" on the possibility of him running for president again in 2012.
He said he won't think about anything until after the November midterm elections, and that he gets encouraged by people as he travels.
Except he was right about ONE BIG THING, but Churchill was otherwise wrong and very very modern Republican Party in so many respects, just cut and paste and you'll have a John Bolton/Bill Kristol address.
The young Churchill charged through imperial atrocities, defending each in turn. When concentration camps were built in South Africa, for white Boers, he said they produced "the minimum of suffering". The death toll was almost 28,000, and when at least 115,000 black Africans were likewise swept into British camps, where 14,000 died, he wrote only of his "irritation that Kaffirs should be allowed to fire on white men". Later, he boasted of his experiences there: "That was before war degenerated. It was great fun galloping about."
Then as an MP he demanded a rolling programme of more conquests, based on his belief that "the Aryan stock is bound to triumph". There seems to have been an odd cognitive dissonance in his view of the "natives". In some of his private correspondence, he appears to really believe they are helpless children who will "willingly, naturally, gratefully include themselves within the golden circle of an ancient crown".
But when they defied this script, Churchill demanded they be crushed with extreme force. As Colonial Secretary in the 1920s, he unleashed the notorious Black and Tan thugs on Ireland's Catholic civilians, and when the Kurds rebelled against British rule, he said: "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes...[It] would spread a lively terror."
Of course, it's easy to dismiss any criticism of these actions as anachronistic. Didn't everybody think that way then? One of the most striking findings of Toye's research is that they really didn't: even at the time, Churchill was seen as at the most brutal and brutish end of the British imperialist spectrum. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was warned by Cabinet colleagues not to appoint him because his views were so antedeluvian. Even his startled doctor, Lord Moran, said of other races: "Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin."
Many of his colleagues thought Churchill was driven by a deep loathing of democracy for anyone other than the British and a tiny clique of supposedly superior races. This was clearest in his attitude to India. When Mahatma Gandhi launched his campaign of peaceful resistance, Churchill raged that he "ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back." As the resistance swelled, he announced: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." This hatred killed. To give just one, major, example, in 1943 a famine broke out in Bengal, caused – as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has proved – by the imperial policies of the British. Up to 3 million people starved to death while British officials begged Churchill to direct food supplies to the region. He bluntly refused. He raged that it was their own fault for "breeding like rabbits". At other times, he said the plague was "merrily" culling the population.
When we last left Rich Iott, Republican candidate for Ohio's 9th District, he was trying to capture the district from Polish-American Marcy Kaptur on the weekdays and occupy Poland on the weekends.
This even creeped-out House Republican Whip Eric Cantor. And that was while Cantor was attending a donkey-show*.
One assumed that after pretending to sack and pillage Minsk, Mr. Iott was done receiving the help of prominent elected Republicans.
What explains the ubiquity of the bland and notably un-incisive [Harold] Ford? Part of it may be his preternatural ability to meld himself into the prevailing sentiment of whatever milieu in which he finds himself. But primarily I believe Meet the Press always invites Ford for the same reason there are so many Olive Gardens -- you always know exactly what you're going to get
Her anointed in Alaska Joe Miller is definitely a guy who uses "The Lord" as a reason to violate the Commandments:
I lied about accessing all of the computers. I then admitted about accessing the computers, but lied about what I was doing. Finally, I admitted what I did.
He also lied about why his improper internet browsing caused people's monitors to stick together.
These are from documents of his time as a city attorney that he didn't want the public to know about (can we blame Wikileaks for this too?)
Tbogg has more -- and totally without any sarcasm (that is inappropriate).
If you have any desire to know how your non-budget reported tax dollars have gone in our awesome infinite -- perhaps infinite -- War on a Noun, you sir and/or madam, are no patriot.
No, the Pentagon will have you know it's all gone splendidly, as usual!
An intense military campaign aimed at crippling the Taliban has so far failed to inflict more than fleeting setbacks on the insurgency or put meaningful pressure on its leaders to seek peace, according to U.S. military and intelligence officials citing the latest assessments of the war in Afghanistan.
What if there was civilization on Venus an ego ago, a civilization that either evolved into a higher form or fell extinct? A billion years later, there is no trace remaining.
Or perhaps far in the past, a civilization on Venus escaped the malfunctioning of its environment by seeding life here, the next planet outward from the sun. So far there's no clue about how terrestrial life began. Darwinian evolution suggests how organisms that already exist form new species, but Darwin was silent on what created life. Microbes came into being nearly 4 billion years ago, but complex animal life appears to have begun relatively rapidly between 530 and 570 million years ago.
Maybe that was the time a Venusian civilization was dying. Maybe we find no clues of the origin of complex biology here because this process began on Venus.
Or perhaps you are a fucking hack who has no idea what the fuck you are saying?
I'm sure Malkin and Breitbart will immediately find a reason a woman needed to be literally trod upon, that lady needs to "man up" and take it I guess.
...this Jon Stewart rally is such a gloomy development. I'm sure his Million Moderate March, if it happens, will be amusing, and I wouldn't want to spoil the fun by calling it "tragic." But if that's the best the center can do, then "blackly humorous" wouldn't be that far off.
You can read this later, but for the rest of you, it appears that the current projected "rally tally" for the Stewart/Colbert get together in Washington will be high:
Comedy Central has ordered up 508 port-a-potties for its Saturday rally on the National Mall to be led by by hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, suggesting organizers expect a crowd of 150,000 people.
Apparently you order one port-a-potty per 300 attendees. Which as a potential user strikes me as far too high. But still...
An estimated 87,000 people attended a rally organized by talk-radio host and Fox News commentator Glenn Beck Saturday in Washington
So comedians likely outdraw clown nearly two-to-one.
The world's lamest Ombudsman is really tackling the difficult subjects, the one's that really matter. Andy Alexander is more effective when he's on semi-regular vacation.
It is bad enough that the people who cheered it on and went "la la la" for seven years have not really paid a price for it, even that of shame. But damned if they don't think they can just keep making shit up.
Karl Rove is not exactly a new or pleasant topic – after all how many people out there are high risk transmitters of trichinosis? But in a lifetime of lying, he made one of his bigger whoppers yesterday.
his Crossroads GPS group and other conservative organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have a right to spend unlimited amounts of money on this year’s elections without disclosing their donors.
Of course, this being Rove it’s a different tune than he has sung before, like six years ago:
“I’m against all the 527 ads and activities,” referring to a tax designation of some outside political groups, including his own American Crossroads. “I don’t think they’re fair. I don’t think it’s appropriate. They’re misusing the law. They all ought to stop,”
Faced with united Republican opposition, the Senate again failed to advance a proposal Thursday that would have required corporations to more fully disclose political donations…
In the Senate, the final vote was 59 to 39, short of the 60 votes required. All Democrats voted to support the bill; two Republicans did not vote.
All those Republicans knew a certain porcine operative was out there raising hundreds of millions from billionaires – and why make him squeal?
Of course, I've disliked Williams since long before Fox News even existed. No one seems to remember (and no one would probably have remembered this week if not for the fortuitous timing of that famous Teabagger, Mrs. Clarence Thomas, calling Anita Hill for an apology) that Juan Williams is a sexist moron.
Back during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, Williams, thought of as a "liberal" wrote scathing columns against Anita Hill, saying her story was full of holes. What he didn't say was that he was sympathizing with Thomas because at the time he was being accused of sexual harassment by 50 (you read that right, that's why I put it in bold) Post employees and was disciplined, though it amounted to a slap on the wrist, considering the numbers involved.
A Superior Court judge ruled on Saturday that most of the Fairbanks North Star Borough personnel documents of U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller should be released to the public.
Judge Winston Burbank said that the majority of Miller’s borough personnel records are of public interest.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Judge orders Joe Miller s Fairbanks borough personnel records to be released
And why does Miller want them kept secret?
Former borough mayor Jim Whitaker said last week that Miller violated the borough ethics policy by using its computers for partisan political purposes, and may have been involved in illegal activity.
Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Judge orders Joe Miller s Fairbanks borough personnel records to be released
Most politicians arouse my skepticism. Not to mention what we are subjected to on a daily basis that masquerades as news.
My point is, the seemingly ever-growing masses of "sheeple" don’t seem to have a fully developed or functioning B.S. meter. If they did, they wouldn’t be so easily led to believe the half-truths and outright lies being spread by talking heads and politicians with hidden agendas. One thing is certain, fear is a powerful tool being wielded every day by those who strive to divide and turn us Americans against each other. Yes, I said Americans, not Caucasian Americans or African Americans.
Our first African-American President has not surprisingly caused racial polarity -- at it certainly is not the fault of the President. What is depressing is how much bullshit demagogues are allowed to get away with.
The allegations of prisoner abuse by US troops from 2005 to 2009 occurred despite a crackdown on such behavior that was promised in the wake of the 2004 scandal over abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which reports that "303 allegations of abuse by coalition forces were reported in the military files after 2004."
Fortunately, the Huffington Post provides an alternative which will have far more Americans doing investigative work on detecting vestigial penis. Which is not disturbing at all.
Dated September 24, 2010 and signed by Koch himself on company stationery, the letter urges recipients to join “our network of business and philanthropic leaders, who are dedicated to defending our free society” – and specifically to attend the group’s next meeting at a Palm Springs resort in late January. Most revealing is an attached brochure about the network’s most recent meeting, which occurred in Aspen last June 27-28...
conservative journalists were the true stars of that June meeting, notably Washington Post columnist and Fox News pundit Charles Krauthammer (who spoke at a mountaintop dinner on “What’s Ahead for America?”), the National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru, syndicated columnist and author Michael Barone, and Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal editorial board. Glenn Beck of Fox News – who has lately been defending the Chamber of Commerce as advocates of “the little guy” – is also listed as a “presenter.”
Nobody was supposed to talk about the meeting, as the brochure's “Confidentiality and Security” section emphasizes, so nobody was meant to know that Krauthammer, Ponnuru, Barone, Moore and Beck were flown out to Aspen, lodged in luxury accommodations, and presumably paid a handsome honorarium by Koch to entertain and enlighten the would-be saviors of the Republic. But now we know. So where are the guardians of media integrity, who made so much noise about the innocuous jawing of the liberals on Journolist?
Still more troubling is the same brochure’s boast that Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia have addressed past meetings of the Koch network. Why would two Supreme Court justices show up at a secret conclave of far-right activists and corporate lobbyists, impairing the transparency and impartiality of the nation's highest court? This is a much more important story than that harebrained harassing phone call by Virginia Thomas to Anita Hill.
And Conasan is right, other than his article and a few blog posts, this story will go nowhere.
Virginia Thomas. If you hadn't put down that Bloody Mary or something to harass Anita Hill the other day there wouldn't be much interest in this would there?
"He was obsessed with porn," she said of Thomas, who is now 63. "He would talk about what he had seen in magazines and films, if there was something worth noting."
McEwen added that she had no problem with Thomas's interests, although she found pornography to be "boring."
According to McEwen, Thomas would also tell her about women he encountered at work. He was partial to women with large breasts, she said. In an instance at work, Thomas was so impressed that he asked one woman her bra size, McEwen recalled him telling her.
Now Ms. McEwen, herself a retired judge, can find a publisher for her memoir.
Quite the cunning plan, I bet Clarence is really happy, er, even happier.
White powder delivered in an swastika-covered envelope to the Tucson, Ariz., office of Rep. Raul Grijalva is a toxic substance, the Democratic congressman said the FBI told him Thursday afternoon…
An envelope arrived with swastikas drawn on the outside and a white powdery substance on the inside, Adam Sarvana, Grijalva’s spokesman, told the Arizona Daily Star newspaper.
It’s not the first time his office has been the target of threats, the Daily Star said. Grijalva received death threats in April, shortly after SB1070, the anti-illegal-immigrant law, was signed. He called for a boycott in response. He closed his Tucson and Yuma offices as a result of the threats, the Daily Star said.
In July, after he called off the boycott, staffers found a bullet and a shattered window inside his Yuma office, the Daily Star said.
Grijalva appeared on a national news talk show this week complaining about racist tactics being used during his campaign for re-election…
The NAACP released a report, detailed, supported in great detail, about the Tea Party movement and it's relationship to bigots and other extremists. The very first sentence of the report says:
We know the majority of Tea Party supporters are sincere, principled people of good will.
Okay, whatever, it's after that they get to the actual evidence.
As the "outrage" over pointing out the obvious ensues, let us look at how prominent members of the movement "doth" prove the evidence wrong -- outside of Carl Paladino's forwarded email of course:
How about Texas GOP candidate for the 30th District, Steven Broden?
“We have a constitutional remedy. And the framers say if that don’t work, revolution.” “The option is on the table. I don’t think that we should remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms. However, it is not the first option.”
The Republican candidate for state Senate in the 52nd District said Wednesday night that black men "find it more lucrative to be able to do drugs or other avenues rather than do education."
I imagine this gentlemen would find out more about black men, but when he sees them all garbed and black it makes him worried and nervous so he's never actually met one.
No, in David Broder's daily fantasy, they are all just people who will have to act like veterans. Veterans of either the Confederacy or the Einsatzgruppen, but veterans nonetheless.
At Gawker, for the sole reason it is full of Gawker-commenters proclaiming someone else getting too full-of-themselves.
In other words, it is a Gawker thread.*
Which is like Glenn Beck saying he's never seen a half-human half-monkey hybrid in his bathroom mirror.
*This is a bit like one of my, or any other, Firedoglake threads when a large number of the commenters manage to proclaim Obama a secret right-wing operative or a Balloon Juice thread where the large number of the commenters proclaim Firedoglake commenters and posters secret right-wing operatives. It's the circle-of-blog-life.
Longtime NPR contributor Juan Williams has had his contract severed by the radio network! Because, guess what, he made some stupid comments about Muslims on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor. (Spoiler: He is scared of them.
No intelligent statement has ever followed, "I'm not a bigot, but..."
Juan Williams has been such a shill for his higher-paying source for so long, I'm rather amazed it took this to get him shit-canned at NPR. But now he can go full double-stuffed for Rupert.
"I don't think we came from monkeys. I think that's ridiculous. I haven't seen a half-monkey, half-person yet."
For those of you keeping score about Beck; that's decoding mysterious gold tablets with your magic hat, Native Americans as lost tribe of Israel, and Jesus' farewell tour of North America all totally true -- but evolution totally false.
But really, no half-human half-monkees ever seen?
Truly the greatest dance sequence since this.
*and also truly the oldest of tropes, humans and other primates share a common ancestry -- just like Glenn Beck and Juan Williams now share a common benefactor, Australopithecus Rupertus.
... who sent the following after reading about the Teabagger and Supreme Court spouse Ginni Thomas.
Did you see this item? Is this woman insane? Do you think she's secretly trying to undermine her husband? How does this stunt help him? I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Thomas found out!
But more seriously, why isn't Congress investigating the relationship between Mrs. Thomas's foundation's funding and litigants before the Court? Didn't Thomas vote to allow unlimited spending by and secret funding of political organizations? Why isn't he being impeached?
If you were married to a man so bitter and childish, wouldn't you try to undermine him?
It doesn't. It makes him look bitter and childish all over again. (Just as an aside, is there anything more exhausting than people who are bitter? Christ, they bore me, too.)
Because Congressional Democrats are afraid of their own shadows. The Republicans will be mean to them if they investigate!
Why, yes. He did. He certainly did.
See answer to No. 5. Adding that impeachment is off the table because the country already knows that the Court is compromised at best and corrupt at worst. We've accepted that our institutions, from the Court to Wall Street to the media, are broken.
As the senate races in my own state aren't even remotely competitive (can you name the people running against Gillibrand and Schumer? I can't...), Sestak's the only candidate to whom I donated money this cycle. I really want him to win.
I await your various and sundry apologies for all those things you did (and damn the facts, you know those don't matter] that may have somehow affected me 20 years ago.
To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself (Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811).
When John Mitchell's wife Martha was constantly trotted out by the press via the Nixon Administration as a representative of crazy and unstable -- only to have been found to be telling the truth? [Probably not, even I was just a kid then]
Well, nowadays, of course, the opposite happens, and it's OKIYAR?
A few days ago, Brandeis University professor Anita Hill received a message on her voice mail at work.
“Good morning, Anita Hill, it’s Ginny Thomas,” said the voice, “I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something. I would love you to consider an apology sometime and some full explanation of why you did what you did with my husband. So give it some thought and certainly pray about this and come to understand why you did what you did. Okay have a good day.”
I'd hate to see anything once associated with George W. Bush and Tom Hicks flourish, but on the other hand, they're gone and this on-going rout is against the Yankees and makes Rudi Giuliani cry (and helps Steve Gilliard get his wings if there is a heaven).
If the Catfood Commission really does plan on raising the retirement age beyond 65, is it possible we can import some new LaFayettes from France?
Demonstrators have taken to the streets of nearly 250 cities and towns across France today expressing their outrage over a government plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62.
The masses in France have figured out that the Ponzi Scheme is actually the opposite of what the elites are selling them:
Opinion polls show a majority of French resent the plan to raise the minimum and full retirement ages by two years to 62 and 67 respectively, and feel they are being punished unfairly for a failure in France's cherished social security system.
Funny how just as in the good Ol' U.S. of A., the wealthy are pushing this charge so they can get even wealthier, but unlike here, the people are having none of it.
Why can't they just shut up and watch 'Dancing with the Stars', like in America and have some franco-David Brooks say it proves how awesome the nation is for quietly allowing itself to be pillaged?
With most French citizens supporting the strikes, Sarkozy may be paying the highest price...A poll taken Oct. 6 and 7 shows Sarkozy's approval rating at just 31 percent, the lowest since his election in 2007.
Florida authorities are investigating the law offices of David J. Stern over how it handled foreclosure paperwork. As the AP notes, Cheryl Salmons, an office manager at the law offices of David Stern, "would sign 500 files in the morning and another 500 files in the afternoon without reviewing them and with no witnesses," according to Kelly Scott, a former assistant at the firm.
The perks for good performance were considerable, according to Scott's statement. Tampa Online notes office employees were lavished with gifts:
"As a perk of Samons' [sic.] job, Stern's office would routinely pay her personal mortgage, a car payment, her electric bills and her cell phone bill, according to Scott, who told investigators Stern also bought Samons [sic.] a new BMW sport utility vehicle every year and gave her and other employees jewelry. Additionally, Stern purchased employee David Vargas a house, a car and a cell phone, Scott claims in her statement."
U.S district judge Virginia A. Phillips issued a tentative ruling Monday rejecting the government’s request for a stay in the injunction against “don’t ask, don’t tell" but will issue a formal ruling by late Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning.
During the 25-minute hearing, Phillips wasted no time in rejecting the government's arguments that barring dadt immediately would be an undue burden on the military and called the justice department's declarations to the court both vague and insufficient.
Faced with mounting debts and decreasing donations, the Crystal Cathedral announced today it was filing for bankruptcy protection...
We've always believed in a big God … a God Who is greater than any problem or challenge we could ever face."
[Church Sheila Schuller Coleman] said the bankruptcy declaration "is just one more chapter in the book that He is continuing to write -- and we know that God's plans are good -- we have no doubt His chapter will be good!"
Yes, I believe that God is calling it "Chapter 11".
If I was Pat Robertson, I would undoubtedly declare this God's judgment on something...something crazy no doubt. But I'm a mere cynic.
Bad enough when Americans are stupid, the last thing I need to see is this:
Thirteen percent of Germans would welcome the arrival of a new "Fuhrer," a new study suggests in what may be the most striking example yet of the rise of right-wing extremism in Europe today.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, more than a third of Germans feel the country is "overrun by foreigners," roughly 60 percent would "restrict the practice of Islam" and 17 percent believe Jews have "too much influence."
Security guards for Alaska senate candidate Joe Miller handcuffed and detained the editor of the online magazine "Alaska Dispatch" on Sunday while he tried to interview the Republican nominee, according to multiple reports...
...Hopfinger had been trying to ask Miller questions when two or three guards told him to leave or risk being charged with trespassing.
When Hopfinger continued to try to ask questions, one of the guards put the reporter in an arm-bar and then handcuffed him.
Hopfinger was released after police arrived.
The reporter was on public property where a public event was being held at the time of the incident.
Candy Crowley challenged Gary Bauer, a board member of the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI), to reveal the names of the donors funding ECI’s attack ads in Pennsylvania against Democrat senate candidate Joe Sestak. Bauer refused (“of course not!”), and then explained that his pro-Israel donors might face harassment if their names were known
It certainly wasn't the best of times, and thankfully not the worst of times -- but it was certainly closer to the latter than the former. Sorry Dickens.
Pressed by "Meet the Press" moderator David Gregory, Buck said he believed that being gay was a lifestyle choice and expressed no regrets about his four-year-old characterization of an alleged rape as "buyer's remorse."
Huh, a Republican pressed by David Gregory usually means they got a big ol' hug. But it gets worse:
"You can choose who your partner is. I think birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically you have a choice," Buck said.
That's right, being gay is like being an alcoholic. Classy.
During our hour together, Obama told me he had no regrets about the broad direction of his presidency. But he did identify what he called “tactical lessons.” He let himself look too much like “the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.”
Oh, for crap's sake!
Here's a summary of the two parties:
The Democrats always learn the wrong thing, while the Republicans have never learned a damn thing.
There was one face I didn't recognize, and that was Robert Gnaizda, who comes across as the movie's George Bailey to Martin Feldstein's Mister Potter. But the people who provoked the most laughter and scorn from the audience were Scott Talbott, chief lobbyist for an outfit called the Financial Services Roundtable, and Glenn Hubbard, a guy whose deanship of the Columbia University Graduate School of Business would be in serious jeopardy after his performance here... in any sane world, but who probably has nothing to worry about given some of the names on the list of Columbia University trustees.
Oh, and Mr. Ferguson? I loved that shot you took of Paul Volcker with a tumbler of what I assume was Scotch.
By the way, it's been more two years since the insane-making "Morning Joe" prompted me to give up cable. With the exception of the super-duper glam lighting on Norah O'Donnell, the show doesn't seem to have changed much...
In other words, Republicans use extremist tactics and extremist rhetoric (for, truly, there's not a single thing passed in this Congress that even approaches "socialism"), and, if those fail, they lie outright. And in doing so, they make their mostly reasonable, way-too acquiescent opponents seem like despicable fuckbags who want America to become part Mexico/part Sharialand. That's an awesome con job: shutdown the functioning of part of the government through procedural chicanery that most people won't give a damn about (A hold? What the fuck is that? We don't have time for civics classes anymore) and blame the majority, which is easy to understand: "Oh, Democrats in power. Democrats must naturally suck."
The frustrating part is that, even if polls now show some tightening in races, it's worked. ...
You can't unfuck something that you've fucked. Republicans have paid almost no long-term price for the Caligula-like madness of the Bush administration. There's a chance that, now, two-years later, they're gonna get rewarded for refusing to participate in running the country. It's like setting free an arsonist after you've started to rebuild the house and telling him, "Oh, and here's those matches we took from you. Sorry for the inconvenience."
The GOP would be looking at dozens more seats. But no, thankfully, they decided to go with only "over-the-borderline" personality disorders:
Republican candidate Blake Farenthold, who is running for Texas's 27th district House seat, came under scrutiny this week when images surfaced of him out for a night on the town with women in attire leaving little to the imagination.
In the pictures, which were reportedly taken last year and published online by thecrushgirls.com, Farenthold is dressed in pajamas featuring a yellow ducky design.
David Vitter finds that one embarrassing (see end of video).
There are some conservatives that are funny...but they don't make a lot of political jokes, because making jokes about the poor, minorities, and other underdogs is not so much funny as it is mean and pathological. There, you need no doctoral thesis.
Conservative comic Evan Sayet blames media gatekeepers for keeping right-of-center comics out of traditional media outlets.
Oh yes, it's the so-called liberal medias fault...that you are not funny.
Again, this was explained some time ago, in a far away exotic land:
Keep flyin' that freak-flag soon to be regularly paid FoxNews pundit:
Fineman reported Thursday that O'Donnell is raising money from her Tea Party supporters by attacking Republicans. "I've got Sean Hannity in my back pocket, and I can go on his show and raise money by attacking you guys," O'Donnell said, according to two top GOP insiders.
Funny, most of us have the equivalent of a Sean Hannity fall out of my backside twice a day.
Spokane Police have arrested a man waving a meat cleaver at Sen. Patty Murray's supporters before her debate with Dino Rossi.
Officer Jennifer DuRuwe says the 50-year-old was holding a knive and yelling profanities while he drove past a group of Murray supporters just before 5 p.m.
During a town hall meeting Thursday, Obama said he was obliged to enforce and defend “don’t ask” because it became the law 17 years ago.
“Congress explicitly passed a law that took away the power of the executive branch to end this policy unilaterally,” Obama said in response to a question about why he had not lifted the ban. "So, this is not a situation in which, with a stroke of a pen, I can simply end the policy.”
Of course in this case, you need not even use a pen, you can just sit there.
But no, it's going to be "this unconstitutional, discriminatory law sucks -- how dare a judge declare it so, I guess I'll have to appeal to preserve it."
But at least we found some Republicans the President is willing to fight:
For six years, Justice Department lawyers have pushed back against a challenge to the law brought by the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group.
Mr. President, this refusal to grasp "change" when it is laid before you on a silver platter...
What he said regarding the depressing off-the-cuff statements (at least I hope they were) of Obama adviser Valerie Jarret when she referred to the suicide -- sadly one of many -- of a 15-year old boy who was gay and the victim of bullying.
I am writing because I am appalled and angered by Valerie Jarrett’s comments to the Washington Post regarding the suicide of 15 year old Justin Aarberg.
To say that this boy "made a lifestyle choice" not only shows that Ms. Jarrett is out of touch with modern understanding of gay & lesbian issues (this is terminology that fell out of favor with scientists and psychiatrists in the 1970s) but also seems to blame Mr. Aarberg for consciously inviting his own harassment.
She absolutely does. And the Administration needs to do a hell of a lot more in this area, and stupid and out-dated terms like this are code-words we expect from the likes of Newt Gingrich, not the Obama Administration.
Why was the national media obsessively covering the Delaware debate? It wasn't exactly Lincoln versus Douglas.
You have to wonder if they just are determined to try to show that crazy people are not crazy and you're actually the crazy one, or they actually hate Republicans enough to only show the crazy ones?
Or as most of the nation (well a small fraction actually) who watched the debate asked, "who's the boring bald guy next to the crazy lady?"
All 33 of the Chilean miners (well 32 and 1 Bolivian) have been rescued from the worst Six Flags ride ever (actually second worst after the 'Waterworld' Slip and Slide).
Oh during the early days of this blog (y'know when I hadn't yet run out of material and my posts didn't just get put up based on the power of my OCD) the fun I had with the posts of one Pat Sajak and his right-wing lunacy. It was the epitome of ham-handed bromides that only a mother and Chuck Wollery could love. But alas, like most things that seem like gifts of an arbitrary and malevolent God, one day it all went away.
Thank goodness that National Review Online needed to add intellectual heft, because glory days, Pat Sajak is back and less rational than ever!
Who needs George Clooney, Barbara Streisand, or Sean Penn when the Right has Chuck Norris and -- "oh my God, I must say", P_t Sajak?"
if, for example, a ballot initiative appears that might cap the benefits of a certain group of state workers, should those workers be able to vote on the matter?
Yes, ol' P_t is certainly on to something, or perhaps on something. Those who may be affected by policies should not vote at all. People who have, may have, or have married, should not vote on issues that relate to issues like marriage. Only men and women of non-child producing years should vote on reproductive rights, this will empower older people and give children a vote. Oh, and those who may benefit from tax cuts, like millionaires should not vote on such issues, sorry P_t.
Not to mention, as P_t does mention, state workers like, police officers, fire fighters, emergency workers, national guard personnel, all should give up their right to vote on issues that affect them, because what have they ever done to have the right to vote anyway? They're all ciphers, they haven't done anything substantial like supervise somebody else turning letters.
Maybe, as one on P_t's post suggested, we can set up a special "Panel" to decide who gets to vote? We can use all those folks that had their hearts set on getting on a Death Panel and use them there. As long as they are not police officers, fire fighters, emergency workers, military personnel, government employees, men or women of child bearing years, people who have, may have, or have had sex, or millionaires. You know, no citizens. Finally, the GOP has a position for illegal immigrants they can document.
Now that the Corner of Duct-work Street and Asbestos Avenue is allowing comments -- or will be -- does that mean that Jonah will start writing those things instead of composing fictional emails in his head?
Like many, I occasionally re-visit the great reads of my past. At present I'm reading, Robert Remini's trilogy on Andrew Jackson, the latter surely one of the most important, complex yet cartoonish, revolutionary, alternately heroic and repugnant characters in American History. There are things I'm learning anew about Jackson that have application to today's FoxNews driven falsehoods. For example, Jackson and virtually all political leaders of pre-statehood Tennessee were more than willing to contemplate becoming Spanish if it helped them kill as many Native Americans as possible since the Washington Administration was reluctant to do so.
It is that most repugnant topic, Jackson's facilitation of crimes against Native Americans (he had lots of support on the issue sadly), that comes to mind now. Specifically his refusal to enforce the decision of the Supreme Court in Worcester v. Georgia, holding that the Cherokee Nation in Georgia was entitled to Federal Protection from the State's efforts to remove them from their land. Not only did Jackson not enforce the law, he encouraged the flouting of the decision and the removal of the Cherokees (and other tribes) from their land. One of the most flagrant violations of the Constitution in American History, though certainly not the only one.
Now here we are, 178 years later, and a Federal Judge, Virginia Phillips, has ruled DADT violates the Constitution and it should be banned. Under the circumstances of the case, did she go beyond what was necessary? Perhaps.
But here's the thing, it may not be how the Obama Administration would have liked to have had DADT overturned, but it is a way that it can be overturned nonetheless. It is the right thing, and unlike with the Jackson Administration, it is perfectly legal to do sit on your hands and let the law die.
It may be too late for the Cherokees, Mr. President, but here's a chance to at least somewhat balance out history. At this point, it doesn't appear you'll do so.
Chilean miner after miner brought to the surface. After the four healthiest have been hauled to the surface, they are now beginning to bring those in the toughest shape.
Naively, I hope this leads to some important reforms.
But for you and your man Carl Paladino, and the two nobodies running against Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer*, these midterms would have been 100% dull and 100% depressing.
*Bet you didn't know Chuck was up for re-election this cycle. God knows I didn't, until Culture of Truth clued me in.
I don't really wonder "why" religions are quick to thank God for events that have favorable, but logical outcomes, but don't blame God for being an asshole when a young child drowns or a family dies in an earthquake. Forget thinking about why God put even the rescued in harm's way to begin with.
The three Christian denominations have each claimed credit for what they say is divine intervention in the survival - and expected imminent rescue - of the 33 men who have spent 67 days beneath the earth.
You know, the drill hasn't quite reached the miners. Maybe we should just shut down the machinery, withdraw all the tools and the laborers, and have [the three claimants of competing miracle claims] stand above the men and use their magic to complete the rescue. That would be impressive.
They don't twitter, or farm out their facebook page, but they do this:
Fred Keller and Judy Foster of Wasilla, Alaska converted their 1976 Mazda pickup truck into a giant Radio Flyer wagon. It took 11 months to build. Keller says, "you kind of get the sensation of driving a sports car."
Please stop taking pictures of your penis and sending it to others. Nobody, and I mean, nobody wants to see that and it isn't as funny as you think it is.
As any rational person would, I blame Judd Apatow.
(Note: Tavaris Jackson would like to remind you, he can get a team to 1 and 3 for about $18.5 million less and without taking pictures of his junk.)
A Colorado woman who claims she was raped five years ago has released a tape conversation between her and Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck, the Weld County district attorney, that she says proves he tried to blame her for the episode.
The secret recording by the victim, provided to The Colorado Independent, reveals Buck telling the woman the details appeared to show she consented to the sexual encounter, though he admits the woman " never said the word yes."
President Obama sent three qualified nominees to the Senate several months ago to serve on the board of governors of the Federal Reserve. Two were confirmed after significant delays. The third, MIT's Peter Diamond, was blocked by Senate Republicans.
It appears that the Nobel Prize committee was more impressed with Diamond than the GOP was.
The 2010 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science was awarded on Monday to Peter A. Diamond, Dale T. Mortensen and Christopher A Pissarides for their work on markets where buyers and sellers have difficulty finding each other, in particular in labor markets.
For decades, the researchers have studied what happens when a market is not made up of identical, cookie-cutter units -- as is true with the job market, where all workers have different skills and weakness. In many cases, there are significant search costs to finding the ideal match between a buyer and a seller of a good, like the job to a job-seeker.
Keep in mind, he appears to have been blocked by one conservative senator, Alabama's Richard Shelby (R), who said Diamond, among the most accomplished economists of his generation, lacked the necessary qualifications for the Fed. Diamond's Nobel prize in economics makes Shelby look a little more ridiculous this morning.
Apparently the opening for 'The Simpsons" last night was directed by a British street artist named Banksy that I'm not going to pretend I heard of before. Pretty strong:
According to Charley Casserly of CBS, Brady and Moss had a verbal altercation before the trade and that the pair had to be separated. During the spat, Brady told his receiver to shave his beard. Moss responded that Brady should cut his hair, because he looks like a girl.
The owners of the metals plant whose reservoir burst, flooding several towns in western Hungary with caustic red sludge, have expressed their condolences to the families of the seven people killed, as well as to those injured. They say they are sorry for not having done so sooner.
MAL Rt., which owns the alumina plant in Ajka, also said it was willing to pay compensation "in proportion to its responsibility" for the damage caused by the deluge.
And those folks were so close to becoming just like Republicans. The secret is to not only cause the disaster, but refuse to take responsibility and not apologize after.
Nothing seems to be propping up the latest installment of The Apprentice, which only averaged 3.75 million and was one of the show’s lowest rated-telecasts ever among adults 18-49 (a mere 1.3/4). Somebody put The Donald out of his misery!
Donald Trump is perhaps the biggest phony ever allowed before the public, and I say this in an age he shares with Glenn Beck.
I don't claim to be any kind of genius, or even have a drop of business acumen, but If I inherited half-a-billion dollars I can assure you I would manage not to go bankrupt twice, I certainly wouldn't sell myself as the be all and end all of the business world.
