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But seldom has the idiocy of right wing media been so well demonstrated as it has been by Rush Limbaugh recently. Here he is on the Sean Insanity show, where he went on some insane rant that the recognition of the fact that Barack Obama is America's first black president is racism. Seriously. Just acknowledging a historical fact is racist:
LIMBAUGH: We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president.
No, we should hope he succeeds because if he fails, we fail. It's pretty simple.
I suppose you could argue that, if the shoe were on the other foot, I might feel the same way. But I've seen what a failed presidency looks like. Among the consequences is a tremendous death toll, even if you ignore the economic craphole we're in. There's no way I want to go through that again, no matter who gets elected.
This is what we'll be going through for the next four years - at least. Stupidity, whining, and BS from the right. No matter how badly their ideology fails, it'll always be right and the left will always be wrong. And not because they worry about what's best for America, but because they know which side their bread is buttered on.
And all those slow learners, all those chumps, will repeat everything the right wing media says, because they're too damned sheepish and afraid to try thinking for themselves.
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This video from Momlogic.com is too cute not to share.
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Email from Robert Redford and the NRDC
On Saturday night, a federal judge ruled in our favor and blocked the Bush Administration from proceeding with the lease sale of 110,000 acres of Utah's Redrock wilderness to oil and gas companies.
This is a huge victory for our nation's legacy of public lands - and a final rebuke to the Bush Administration as it slinks out of town.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4885879
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"We must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights."
Barrack Obama, July 15, 2008
Well, yesterday President Obama's administration carried through on his promise to act. Airstrikes by American pilotless drones killed 17 people in two successive attacks in North and South Waziristan. Three of them were children.
Needless to say, I'm a bit disappointed in this.
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Waaaahhh. Republicans have such thin skins. The Bushies think Obama was mean to their guy in the inaugural address:
"There were a few sharp elbows that really rankled and I felt were not as magnanimous as the occasion called for," Karen Hughes, a longtime Bush confidante, said in an interview. "He really missed an opportunity to be as big as the occasion was and, frankly, as gracious as President Bush was as he left office."
Dan Bartlett, another top adviser, used similar language. "It was a missed opportunity to bring some of the president's loyal supporters into the fold," he said. Marc A. Thiessen, the chief White House speechwriter until this week, added: "It was an ungracious inaugural. It was pretty clear he was taking shots."
After what Bush did to America and the world, they got off lucky.
Rahm was having none of it:
Mr. Emanuel mocked Bush advisers for bristling at the message of the Inaugural Address. "If they didn't know that was the judgment of people, then their subscription to the newspapers were canceled over the last three years," he said.
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The new season of "Lost" kicked off tonight. If you haven't seen it, "Lost" is about a group of desperate people out of touch with the world. It's based on the true story of the Republican Party. Craig Ferguson
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A federal grand jury has indicted three owners of a Mobile-based pharmacy, four pharmacists and five others in a $4 million steroid distribution scheme that allegedly operated in at least 10 states, according to court documents unsealed Thursday.
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Too much law, too little enforcing
Dad used to say laws only keep honest people honest, they don't stop determined crooks. Therein lays the nugget at the center the nation's financial problems. From the general financial collapse, to Bernie Madoff's giant ponzi scheme, to the collapse of such shining beacons of integrity as Enron, there's ample evidence thievery abounds.
http://www.teambio.org/2009/01/23/too-much-law-too-little-monitoring/
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Memo to DC Democrats - h/t Cogitamus
The American people didn't elect you to "get along" with anyone. We didn't give you control of both Houses of Congress - in record numbers - and elect you to the Presidency because we want "bipartisan" solutions and a new era of comity.
Do you really think that it was Obama's talk of "post-partisanship" and "reaching across the aisle" that caused us to turn out in record numbers to propel him and dozens of new Democratic Reps and Senators? Here's another interpretation of recent electoral events. Do try to keep up; this will deal in concepts entirely foreign to you.
The American people got angry at being lied into an illegal war. We got angry at the Bush Administration blatantly and casually breaking long-standing treaties regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. We got angry at the ways in which the Bush Administration bullied and bought off corporations to spy on our phone calls, text messages and emails. We got angry at the way in which the Bush Department of Justice eviscerated the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution, the way they used their positions as law enforcement officials to bring false charges against Democrats while intentionally ignoring brazen lawbreaking on the part of Republicans. We got angry at the way science was distorted and misused, at our children being used as footballs in their silly games.
Most importantly to the election of Barack Obama, we got angry - and scared, frankly - at what's happening to our economy. Side note: to 299 million of the 300 million Americans, the word "economy" means "will I get my paychecks and can I pay my bills with them?" That's it. It doesn't mean "let's worry about the TED spread and the dividends paid to shareholders."
All of this to say, my dear Democrats in DC, that the American people put you in charge to get things done. To get us out of Iraq, close Gitmo, pay attention to scientists, get the unqualified religious freaks out of the Department of Justice, and start doing things.
Get that? Doing things. We want you to accomplish things. And for the record, being bipartisan isn't an accomplishment. It's what people do when they're insulated from the cares and worries of regular people. Perhaps in some Platonic ideal of government, one where people of good intentions hold different views of the correct way to address challenges, compromise is possible. But we don't have that kind of government. What we have is a GOP caucus in both the House and the Senate made up of rich bastards who want nothing more than to return to power and get richer. They will obstruct anything that's helpful to regular Americans. They will obstruct things that help their most ardent supporters and have been doing so for years now, because they simply don't care about them. They don't care about anybody but themselves, and would enjoy nothing more than to ensure the complete failure of every campaign promise Obama made over the last two years.
And once they've wrecked everything you try to accomplish, they'll go on TV, blame you for it and ride the resulting wave of resentment back to power. This is not a new strategy. It's not a secret. Everything the Republicans are going to do has been laid out in front of us for decades now. How is it that dumb bloggers can predict with startling accuracy the trajectory of every single "compromise" bill sent through the House and Senate while you, our elected Democrats in DC, get surprised every time?
Just get things done. If you must, keep going to those wonderful Georgetown cocktail parties you love so much. Keep up appearances, be nice and civil. But get things done.
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Carmen and John Thain are laughing all the way to the bank AT YOU!
Read: http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2009/01/nationalize-banks-and-hang-banksters.html
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Bush's economic miracle: Georgia's unemployment just exceeded 8%.
And California is suffering from the Schwarzenegger effect - a 9.3% unemployment rate - Read it at Los Angeles Times
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Oh look! The west's trees are dying - not because tree huggers won't let people cut the trees down, but because of global warming. Imagine that: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-trees23-2009jan23,0,2122604.story
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The day after Roe's anniversary, Obama has lifted the global gag rule on giving federal money to international groups that perform abortions or provide abortion information.
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Obama's EPA has already put the kibbosh on new coal plants, demanding they meet stringent standards before they're approved.
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After the Gazan slaughter, is it time to reconvene the Nuremberg court? http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2009/01/after-gazan-slaughter-is-it-time-to.html
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This is precious. Talk about a party in disarray. Either the GOP is as delusional as John McCain was on the state of the economy or they have some seriously lameass webmasters over at the National Republican Congressional Committee:
"Thanks to Republican economic policies, the U.S. economy is robust and job creation is strong."
Meanwhile, back on planet earth:
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Uh oh, the "live music" performed at Inauguration by Yo Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman was in fact recorded, because they were worried their precious fingers would freeze and they'd screw up. Does this make Obama's inauguration illegitimate too?
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Yesterday President Obama met with congressional leaders from both parties to discuss his economic recovery and reinvestment program, though Republicans did not appear to be interested in compromise. According to the New York Post, Obama told the GOP members at the meeting that they have to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh if they wanted to accomplish anything:
"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."
When Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) complained about the spending plan, Obama shot back, "I won," adding, "I will trump you on that."
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Media keeps advancing falsehood that the Pentagon has confirmed that 61 former Guantanamo detainees have returned to the battlefieldSince President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring that the Pentagon's detention facilities at Guantánamo be closed within a year, numerous media figures and outlets have repeated or failed to challenge the claim that 61 former detainees held there have returned to the battlefield. In fact, the figure, which comes from the Pentagon, includes 43 former prisoners who are suspected of, but have not been confirmed as, having "return[ed] to the fight."
The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda's Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.
Why is this repeatedly framed as a problem for Obama, when what this really is is evidence that the Bush administration accomplished NOTHING with Guantanamo? This is not a problem for Obama. This is proof that the last administration was a group of incompetent hacks. Bush decided that he had the right to detain people forever, do whatever he wanted to them, and they had no rights whatsoever, he ruined our international reputation and most likely violated dozens of laws, yet he let these allegedly dangerous people go. Why? What was the purpose of Gitmo, anyway? Why do all this stuff and STILL let the dangerous guys go free?
Because they had no idea what they were doing. They were so intent on DWTFTW, to hell with domestic and international law, that they paid no attention to the fact that torture and abuse doesn't lead to good evidence and means that you can not prosecute. They made such a hash of the evidence that even today they can not prosecute half these guys because the evidence is in such disarray.
The moral of this story is not the danger for Obama going forward with his Gitmo decommissioning, the moral is that when venal, shallow, small men are given unfettered power and authority, they do incompetent, stupid, and evil things.
And only in America would they never have to pay a price for that.
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Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a former U.S. Attorney and Attorney General for Rhode Island, today sharply criticized the argument some Republican members of the Committee are making for delaying a vote on the nomination of Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder:
"Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have asked Eric Holder to make a commitment, before he is even confirmed, that he will not prosecute any Bush Administration officials for their involvement in acts of torture during the last administration.
"Anyone familiar with the criminal justice system - especially those with experience as prosecutors or judges - should know that a prosecutor should make no determination about who to prosecute before he or she has all the facts, and particularly not in response to legislative pressure.
"After all we have recently been through at the Department of Justice, I would hope and expect that upon calm reflection, no one on our Committee would expect the Attorney General of the United States to make prosecutive decisions based on legislative pressure."
11. Called up leaders in the Middle East to talk about "next steps for peace."
In Preston Hollow this afternoon, Secret Service agents and Dallas police SUVs blocked the entrance to Daria Drive, the road that leads to the Bushes' recently-purchased home on Daria Place.
One agent said they are only in place when the Bushes "are in residence."
Only people who live on the street and their guests were being allowed onto the street.
Must be great to be a neighbor of the McStaggers. Wait until he knocks on the door to "borrow" a cup of Wild Turkey.
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According to NSA whistleblower Russell Tice, not only were they spying on our faxes, phone calls and emails, they were tracing all our credit card transactions, too. He says that information on tens of thousands of US citizens are now in digital databases warehoused at the NSA.
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Freddie Mac is back at the trough - asking for another $35 billion: http://rawstory.com/news/afp/Freddie_Mac_to_seek_30_35_billion_d_01232009.html
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VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI says social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace can foster friendships and understanding, but warns they also can isolate people and marginalize others.
Dear Mr. Pope: Too bad these guys weren't isolated from the collection plate:
Two Roman Catholic priests — Fr. John Skehan, 81, and Fr. Francis Guinan, 66, have been accused of an astonishing criminal enterprise — stealing between $800,000 and $2 million from Church funds at St. Vincent Ferrer Church, in West Palm Beach. Shekan has withdrawn his not guilty plea and admitted the theft (tough insists that it was no more than $100,000) while Guinan continues to maintain his innocence. They allegedly stole the money to use on holidays and gambling.
What is interesting about the case is that most of the crimes are beyond the reach of prosecutors under the statute of limitations. The success of the criminal conspiracy was that it occurred over 20 years and presumably involved small amounts of money. The money was allegedly hidden in the church ceiling and offshore account. I guess the parishioners now know why Skehan beamed while staring up to the ceiling while speaking of our reward from up high.
For the full story, click here
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