Haven't we heard this broken record endless YouTube loop before from the man who made billions for his former company while it electrocuted our troops and served them contaminated water? Besides, doesn't he know that we have a fictional hero by the name of Jack Bauer who will protect us? I hear he's been doing it for years.
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The raids on homes around the country were billed as carefully planned hunts for dangerous immigrant fugitives, and given catchy names like Operation Return to Sender.And they garnered bigger increases in money and staff from Congress than any other program run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, even as complaints grew that teams of armed agents were entering homes indiscriminately.
But in fact, beginning in 2006, the program was no longer what was being advertised. Federal immigration officials had repeatedly told Congress that among more than half a million immigrants with outstanding deportation orders, they would concentrate on rounding up the most threatening — criminals and terrorism suspects.
Instead, newly available documents show, the agency changed the rules, and the program increasingly went after easier targets. A vast majority of those arrested had no criminal record, and many had no deportation orders against them, either.
"It is reprehensible and hypocritical that the Defenders of Wildlife would use Alaska and my administration as a fundraising tool to deceive Americans into parting with their hard-earned money.
"The ad campaign by this extreme fringe group, as Alaskans have witnessed over the last several years, distorts the facts about Alaska's wildlife management programs. Alaskans depend on wildlife for food and cultural practices which can't be sustained when predators are allowed to decimate moose and caribou populations. Our predator control programs are scientific and successful at protecting vulnerable wildlife. These audacious fundraising attempts misrepresent what goes on in Alaska, and I encourage people to learn the facts about Alaska's positive record of managing wildlife for abundance.
"Shame on the Defenders of Wildlife for twisting the truth in an effort to raise funds from innocent and hard-pressed Americans struggling with these rough economic times."
Members of the House Appropriations Committee were debating the cost of photocopying at Arizona State University and whether those costs decline as the semester wears on and students drop classes.
But committee Chairman John Kavanagh, R-Fountain Hills, interrupted to say the conversation was way too 21st century.
"Since our cuts are going to send ASU back to the Middle Ages, the question is how many monks will they need?" he said.
Kavanagh warmed up to the Middle Ages metaphor, noting that the Department of Chemistry should be changed to the Department of Alchemy.
Ho, ho, ho! That's so clever and rich. University employees are about to lose their jobs because of these budget cuts, but Kavanagh doesn't care, because he's got a job. He's not worried his mortgage.
This, dear readers, is a perfect illustration of the contempt Republicans have for the rest of us.
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China's environmental disaster is evident in its so-called "cancer villages" and damage to its historic landmarks like the Great Wall.
Story here.
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There are few legislators who fall into the category of "awesome," but they include fellas like Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, and, of course, Dennis Kucinich.
Kucinich's story itself is damned interesting. Here's a guy who grew up in a large family one could classify as "housing challenged," became the youngest mayor of Cleveland. He refused to allow the electric company there to be privatized, and it led to a price on his head. Really. He lost reelection when the banks trying to buy Muny Light forced default. 20 years after, though, Muny Light expanded and thrived. Kucinich had saved its ass and nearly got shot in the head for it.
Right now, he's railing about naming rights, which is a detail many folks wouldn't have thought of. But why in hell should any company that took TARP money get to buy naming rights? Why should taxpayers pony up so that they can go to the "Fed-Ex Staples K-Mart Wells Fargo Bank of America Stadium?"
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Birthday calculator: http://www.paulsadowski.com/BirthData.asp Cool stuff, thanks, Rachel!
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House passes health care for children 290-135
There are 178 Repukes in the House. 135 of them voted against health care for children and 5 couldn't be bothered to vote. You can see the Hall of Shame here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll050.xml#N
Why do Republicans hate children?
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Obama has an op-ed in today's Post, reminding people about the elections and the failed GOP strategy that caused the economic crisis. He starts by describing the crisis, which is apparently necessary because many in Congress and most of the pundits in DC don't really grasp the severity of the situation. This is one of those times when the public is way, way, way ahead of Washington in understanding the problem. That's because they're living it and the elites in DC aren't. Obama then slashes through the Republican arguments (while never mentioning that they are, in fact, Republican arguments).
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From CNNMoney: unemployment rates rose in 98% of metropolitan areas across the country in December.
MarketWatch: 522,000 jobs lost in January.
And the Republicans continue to grandstand and stall.
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Yesterday, in response to Josh Marshall's post "Dim Broder", Krugman ripped apart the bi-partisan blather of Broder, the painful king of the conventional wisdom: http://www.americablog.com/2009/02/krugman-on-efforts-to-get.html
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Bill Gallagher goes off on Rushole Limpbaugh, and rightly so.
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Obama limits executive pay. More of this please.
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It shouldn't have required global outrage, including a smackdown by Germany's Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, to make Pope Ratzo realize that when you were a member of the Hitler Youth, you probably ought not to be "palling around" with Holocaust deniers:
Responding to an extraordinary burst of global outrage, especially in Germany, the Vatican for the first time on Wednesday called on a recently rehabilitated bishop to take back his statements denying the Holocaust.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the Vatican Secretariat of State said that Bishop Williamson "must absolutely, unequivocally and publicly distance himself from his positions on the Shoah," or Holocaust, or else he would not be allowed to serve as a bishop in the Roman Catholic Church.
How do you "distance yourself" from your own thoughts? This is a ridiculous request on the face of it. It's one thing to garble a sentence so it means something other than what was intended. But Richard Williamson has spoke quite plainly and succinctly about his view that perhaps 300,000 Jews died in Hitler's camps, and that there is no evidence that there were any mass executions in gas chambers.
Sorry, Ratzi. You blew it big time on this one. And if there's any "taking back" to do, it's your "rehabilitation" of this guy. Unless, of course, you knew damn well what you were doing and hoped no one would notice.
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Well here is some cheerful news for a Thursday! Everybody and their mom likes to file unemployment claims these days, on account of the no jobs anywhere, but the claims take forever to be processed because everybody at the unemployment office got laid off due to lack of funding. MORE »
Isn't the Bush economic miracle just fabulous?
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