Former UN Ambassador John Bolton (who the Senate would not confirm and got the position thru a recess appointment) was there, and suggested that Obama might learn a needed lesson if Chicago were destroyed by a nuclear bomb.
"The fact is on foreign policy I don't think President Obama thinks it's a priority. He said during the campaign he thought Iran was a tiny threat. Tiny, tiny depending on how many nuclear weapons they are ultimately able to deliver on target. Its, uh, its tiny compared to the Soviet Union, but is the loss of one American city" – here Bolton shrugged his shoulders impishly – "pick one at random – Chicago – is that a tiny threat?"
About 11 people wandered into the rows of seats set up hopefully in the basement of a downtown Border's bookstore to hear Joe speak. Joe addressed them from behind a lectern and with a microphone, but that seemed unnecessarily formal.[....]Wurzelbacher was scheduled to speak and sign books for three hours, but the Joe Show was over in 55 minutes. Total copies of "Joe the Plumber" sold: five.
"What I'm hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that."
There are no words to describe a man who would seek to punish a child with a disease such as AIDS in order to teach the mother some sort of moral lesson. Never mind the fact that one can get HIV through means other than their own actions, ie blood transfusions.
TSA's reach now extends to the seasonal workers who dress in colonial garb at a historical park called the Hugh Moore Historical Park in Easton, Pa. who must acquire biometric Transportation Worker Identification Credentials (TWIC). The park as one boat pulled by two mules moving two miles an hour. http://jonathanturley.org/2009/02/26/the-mule-menace-tsa-moves-against-possible-mule-skinner-mujahideen/#more-8527
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Here's a picture of REPUBLICAN mayor Dean Grose, who sent the email that shows the White House lawn planted with watermelons, with the headline, "No Easter egg hunt this year":
He probably got the idea from Diane Fedele, the president of Chaffey Community REPUBLICAN Women Federated in inland Riverside County, who sent an email blast that contained a graphic showing "Obama Bucks," which depicted Barack Obama's face on a food stamps certificate, along with a bucket of fried chicken, ribs, Kool-Aid and a slice of watermelon.
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In the wake of finding out that a detainee has suffered multiple attacks upon his genitals with a scalpel, and that incidents of detainee abuse have INCREASED since December, Long Island REPUBLICAN Congressman Peter King has found a new scandal [spew alert].
Detainees at Guantanamo are treated far better than most American prisoners in the US jails and prisons I've inspected over the years. The unfounded accusations that are so regularly and cavalierly made about Guantanamo are a slander against the brave men and women of our armed forces, who perform their duties at that facility so professionally and under such duress.
If there's any scandal at Guantanamo, it is that the detainees are treated too well.
Keep reading: http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/26/guantanamo-has-peter-king-lost-his-mind-or-just-his-humanity/#more-37560
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The Toll in Iraq
1.6 Million Deployed, 4,232 Killed,
30,981 Wounded, 180,633 Disability Claims, 2,095 Compensated.
The 30,981 wounded figure is those that the DoD officially recognizes as being wounded "in combat". The actual figure is more than four times that total. If you lose your arm because you were driving a supply truck and an IED went off next to the truck, you are not listed as being wounded "in combat" because you are not a combat soldier and nobody was shooting at you (being blown up, apparently, does not count as being shot at). Similarly, if you were in the loo at your base and a mortar shell falls near you and blows off all three of your legs, you aren't counted as "wounded in combat" because you weren't "in combat" -- you were in the loo. The DoD has been using all sorts of stratagems of that sort to deny veterans the compensation and medical care they deserve for serving in a war zone. It's important to know that, when you look at the difference between wounded, disability claims, and compensated in the numbers above. It is a disgrace and should be front-page news in every newspaper in America, yet for some reason, is not...
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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg just penned an opinion regarding gun control which convinced all but two of her Republican appointed colleagues to agree with her that people who abuse their spouses lose the right to own firearms.
Only Scalia and Chief Justice Roberts dissented. I guess they don't mind if wife beaters can buy guns with which to threaten and/or murder their battered spouses and children. Way to show those family values, guys.
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Bobby Jindal may have railed against stimulus pork in his speech about miserly mice to voracious volcanoes, but in fiscal year 2008, his last hurrah as a U.S. congressman representing Louisiana before taking over the governor's mansion, Jindal scored big in the pork contest. He, sometimes in concert with other lawmakers, ended up bringing home $97,913,200 in bacon. That put him at the number 14 spot in Taxpayers for Common Sense's annual tally of the most successful appropriators in the House. There was only one other lawmaker that's ahead of him that wasn't on the appropriations committee.
Hypocrisy seems to be the name of the game among the so-called rising stars in the Republican Party. From Sarah Palin's family values/unwed pregnant teenager dichotomy and her own lies about the "bridge to nowhere" and ethics scandals to Bobby Jindal's love of earmarks for his own state, these prospective 2012 candidates are only arguably good at talking the talk, but they sure as hell don't walk the walk.
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It still needs to go to the House, but by a vote of 61-37, the Senate passed a bill providing full voting representation for the nation's capital in the House of Representatives, nearly ensuring that the measure will become law this time around. The measure, if it became law, would increase the size of the House of Representatives to 437 from 435, adding not only a seat from the District of Columbia but also one from Utah.
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The US defense department has lifted a ban on news organisations showing pictures of the coffins of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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The Senate to investigate the CIA
We can't allow the CIA to hold the country hostage. We just can't. Too many horrors in the last eight years to let it go, and Panetta better make it clear to his employees.
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The Obama administration has notified Congress that "Chas Freeman has been appointed chairman of the National Intelligence Council. The right wing, outraged over his views on the Middle East conflict and opposition to the Iraq war, had tried to stop the appointment of Freeman.
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Today, the Obama administration plans to rescind the controversial "conscience rule," which "allows healthcare workers to deny abortion counseling or other family planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs."
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To congressional Republicans, one of the most objectionable parts of an early version of the House's economic recovery package was funding for family planning services. Conservatives cried that spending "hundreds of millions on contraceptives" wouldn't stimulate the economy. (Even though it would.) President Obama agreed to drop the provision from the recovery package. However, he has reinserted it into his FY 2010 budget. On p. 127, there is a provision to "[e]xpand availability of family planning services under Medicaid," which is estimated to save the government $190 million over 10 years. Here are statements from Planned Parenthood and NFPRHA.
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Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison:
HUTCHISON: I think we get revenue the way we've done it in the past that has been so successful in the past and that is tax cuts…Every major tax cut we've had in history has created more revenue.
Krugman?
"[E]verything you've heard about how revenues have boomed since the Bush tax cuts is wrong," economist Paul Krugman wrote, noting that government revenues climbed steadily through the Clinton administration, then plunged dramatically following the 2001 Bush tax cuts. And falling revenues during tax-cutting Republican administrations means growing debt:
Hutchison must be looking at a different "history" than everybody else.
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Willard Romney's "family jewels" stolen from Utah home: http://wonkette.com/406611/breaking-romney-family-jewels-stolen
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The spy shop that brought you the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program wants to expand its power under President Barack Obama, the nation's top intelligence chief told Congress Wednesday, in a little-noticed intelligence grab.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/NSA_expands_power_Eavesdropping_agency_may_0227.html
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The Obama Justice Department continues to stand behind a Bush era law meant to prevent lawsuits against telecommunications companies accused of illegally sharing private customer information with intelligence agencies.
In a brief filed late Wednesday obtained by Raw Story, the Department of Justice provided its views to Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, after the San Francisco federal judge questioned the constitutionality of the wide-sweeping law and whether it gives the U.S. Attorney General too much power in deciding whether a company is immune from lawsuits after it has shared information with federal agents.
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obama_DOJ_backs_up_Bush_wiretapping_0226.html
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Senator Brownback and the talking embryos
Sen. Sam Brownback, Catholicism concern troll, judging and then asking not to be judged for it.
Not certain it works that way, Sam.
If you fundraise for Jesus based on several big, fat lies, just how many levels of blasphemy and deadly sin have you committed?
Holy roller, my ass.
CREW has filed an ethics complaint against Brownback for allowing a staffer to mock-up faux Senate letterhead for the fundraising missive for a Catholic charity group. Mind you, fundraising against a bill that doesn't even exist.
Hmmmm. . . bearing false witness and stabbing Senate colleagues in the back by questioning their faith, all for petty fundraising and political gain? And, incidentally, who died and made him Pope?
Boy, that Senate chumminess is just oozing out all over, isn't it Senator?
Here's hoping Democrats remember that the next time someone on the GOP end of things says something about bi-partisanship. Especially those targeted in the letter.
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