Friday, July 10, 2009

Headlines - Friday

Orrin Hatch never fails to embarrass me
 
 
Orrin says: 
 
"Hate-crimes bill unconstitutional"
 
The political stars have finally aligned for passage of a new and expansive federal hate-crimes law. Soon, President Barack Obama and a number of his Democratic allies in Congress will likely stand on a stage to tell the world just how much they hate hate, and they'll have a new law to prove it. Sadly, they could have expressed this same sentiment without recklessly and needlessly expanding the powers of the federal government. But what would be the fun in that?
 
Keep reading more pure genius here.  
 
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Wolf hunts to re-start following Obama decision
 
Yes, Obama confirmed a Bush administration position that will make it open season on wolf populations in Montana and Idaho. Having populations in the hundreds is hardly what most would consider strong numbers in such large areas. Siding with the ranchers and game hunting operations over the environment is a major disappointment. Major.
 
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Let's put a little white chocolate Lester Maddox in next year's Easter basket

Dr. John G Duesler, Jr.
President,
The Valley Swim Club
Director of Marketing, Professional Disc Golf Association.
Owner,
The Chocolate Squad

Dear Dr. Duesler,

I commend you sir for taking a stand for traditional confederate values and
throwing those 60 black kids out of your pool. I know it ain't easy for you. It seems like everywhere I look someone's calling you a racist and a bigot. And you know it's only going to get worse as more and more people hear about it. If I were you, I'd ask the Lord to cause Debbie Rowe to punch Katherine Jackson very hard in the face very soon. It's really your only hope right now.

Hopefully you will find some comfort in the knowledge that you were right when you said allowing black kids to swim would "change the complexion" of the club. It's true. I've seen the photos at your website. Your club rivals the the LDS Institute building on the BYU-Idaho campus in Rexburg, Idaho as the whitest spot in all of North America. Heck, your members make the Pillsbury Doughboy look like Rico Suave in comparison. I mean good golly, man, Pat Boone would probably kick his own melanin-challenged ass out of the Valley Swim club pool so as to not darken its hue.

But after looking at your other website--the one touting the health benefits of a chocolate diet--I have to wonder just how committed you are to the Confederate-American lifestyle. Damn, that is one brown website. Why no white chocolate? Are you some kind of milk chocolate miscegenist?

You know your story has to have gotten Lou Dobbs's attention. How do you think he'll react to seeing this second site? It'll break his heart. Same goes for Tucker Carlson. He's going to think you
can't govern your own business if you don't put a little more white on that page. Please get some white chocolate up before they have a chance to see it.

Better yet, how about featuring a line white chocolate segregationists on that site. Wouldn't it be great to give the kids a white chocolate Lester Maddox, Bull Connor, or Jeff Sessions for Easter rather than some suspiciously-hued milk chocolate bunny?

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot

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Murdoch's lackeys (I mean journalists) caught hacking into cell phones of celebrities and politicians: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media
 
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Here we go again. Fasten your seat belts. We've just started testing on Wall Street's Depression 2.0 Beta. How much do you think taxpayers will have to shell out to save the banks when they threaten to collapse two years from now?
 
It appears we're going to allow Morgan Stanley to gin up the derivatives scam again. Via dday at Hullabaloo)`
 
 
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Tim on the choice that presently exists for President Obama and his merry men and women:

The simple fact is that Obama doesn't have a multifaceted decision to make. Doing the right thing (one could call that 'respecting his oath of office') will bring on a political shitstorm as every Republican down to the student government level declares that the government has gone commiefascist and starts digging bunkers in their back yard. If Obama doesn't want that fight then he has to keep innocent people in cages and tell the courts and the international community to go f*ck themselves.

Our punditry likes to make this hard, aided by critters such as Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham. It's not hard. Republicans have zero power right now. None. They don't seem to care about it, either. They're busy fighting amongst themselves over whether Sarah Palin is the awesomest ever or just regularly awesome, whether the Earth really is 6,000 years old, whether tomorrow will bring us all economic ponies, and what to do with the Ron Paul signs in the garage. Not to mention that they haven't got a moral pot to piss in thanks to everybody taking Argentinian mistresses for great justice all over the place. So as to Republicans, I can't see they mount any threat equal to the whole "keeping innocent people in cages" karmic double-down we seem to be engaging in these days.

And not for nothing, but I think Tim's being a little reductive when he talks about Obama only telling the international community to go "f" itself by staying his present course. He's telling a majority of Americans, who voted for him and campaigned for him and donated to him and care about silly things like the rule of law, to go "f" themselves.

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Exploding Slim Jims!

slim-jim-surreal

An explosion last month destroyed the only Slim Jim plant in the U.S., the Post reports. And the company that makes Slim Jims, ConAgra (CAG), hasn't produced any since then and won't do so for at least another month.

Industry analysts say that Slim Jim loyalty is very high, and that people aren't going to be OK with substitutes if the real thing is gone. That's why some fans may be hoarding the remaining supply.

Analysts tell the Post that ConAgra could produce as many as 500 million Slim Jims every year. ConAgra said it won't return to full Slim Jim production until the fall.

Clearly, Slim Jims are like crack for the taste impaired.

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Oh those family-values Republicans

Personal responsibility seems a bit weak with this one

It looks like John Ensign's sexual dignity -- which hasn't been high lately -- has plunged to new depths. His lawyer has just released a remarkable statement saying that Ensign's parents paid the Hamptons $96,000 after the 51-year-old senator told his Mom and Dad about the affair.

The senator's father, Mike Ensign, is a casino mogul who sold his shares in the Mandalay Group for around $300 million earlier this decade.

The statement is a response to Doug Hampton's claim that Ensign paid a severance package of over $25,000 to Cindy Hampton when she left his political committee -- which would be a felony violation of campaign finance law if he wasn't reimbursed. A good government group called today for a criminal probe into the matter.

Here's the full statement: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/ensign_still_bringing_dirty_laundry_home_to_be_was.php?ref=fpa

Don't forget that Ensign was the loudest voice denouncing Bill Clinton for having an affair, screaming that his credibility was shot and he ought to resign.

Now he is caught in his own web of deceit and payoffs.  The more that comes out the more unseemly the whole affair becomes in the eyes of everyone watching.   If you want to try your hand at reading the tea leaves, keep a watchful eye on the republican power structure in Nevada.   If Governor Jim Gibbons or Representative Dean Heller speak out against him or call for his resignation - he's toast.  Until then, you can assume the state party is going to stand by their man.

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The Science Party  A new report by Pew Research finds that scientists overwhelmingly identify as Democrats or Democratic-leaning Independents - 81% - versus 12% who either identify as republicans or republican-leaning independents.

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Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

Buried deep in an article about the CIA's lying and deceiving Congress for the last eight years was this little tidbit:
In a related development, President Obama threatened to veto the pending Intelligence Authorization Bill if it included a provision that would allow information about covert actions to be given to the entire House and Senate Intelligence Committees, rather than the so-called Gang of Eight — the Democratic and Republican leaders of both houses of Congress and the two Intelligence Committees.
The Gang of Eight has not been effective at doing anything, so far as I can see. When they are "read into" a program that is highly questionable if not outright illegal, they don't do anything to stop it. They might as well expand it to the "Gang of Nine" with the ninth member being the statute of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial.

Beyond that, as for all those Republicans and their allied Hindenbergs who were demanding that Nancy Pelosi should step down for accusing the CIA of lying to Congress, Hell will probably freeze over before they apologize to her.

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Yawn

American International Group (AIG), the insurance giant that has received tens of billions of dollars in government bailouts, "is preparing to pay millions of dollars more in bonuses to several dozen top corporate executives after an earlier round of payments four months ago set off a national furor." AIG "has been pressing the federal government to bless the payments in hopes of shielding itself from renewed public outrage."

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Confidential Pentagon test results reveal that the F-22 requires "more than 30 hours of maintenance for every hour in the skies, pushing its hourly cost of flying to more than $44,000." Despite such shortcomings and Defense Secretary Robert Gates's stated desire to end the F-22 program, committees in both houses Congress voted to continue funding the program last month after being lobbied by the manufacturer.

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New from the Urban Dictionary: Pullin' a Palin:

1. Quitting when the going gets tough; abandoning the responsibility entrusted to you by your neighbors for book advances and to make money on the lecture circuit.

2. Bizarre move that will damn ambitions for higher office.

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Some right-wing blogs have been pushing a USA Today analysis — which found that counties that supported President Obama in the election are getting more stimulus money, per person, than counties that backed John McCain — to claim that the stimulus is actually "an Obama-supporter-payoff scheme." Steve Benen noted, though, that the conservatives crowing about this article clearly didn't read all of it, as it includes these sections:

Much of [the money] has followed a well-worn path to places that regularly collect a bigger share of federal grants and contracts, guided by formulas that have been in place for decades and leave little room for manipulationThe imbalance didn't start with the stimulus. From 2005 through 2007, the counties that later voted for Obama collected about 50% more government aid than those that supported McCain, according to spending reports from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Adam Hughes, the director of federal fiscal policy for the non-profit OMB Watch, explained that "it would be almost inconceivable for [the spending imbalance] to be the result of political tinkering." But did this stop Fox News from picking up the story and promoting it in the exact same way as the right-wing bloggers? No, of course not.

Today, Fox News' Stuart Varney premised an entire segment on the right-wing's false claim, and wouldn't concede the point, even when former Texas Rep. Martin Frost referenced the above sections of the USA Today story.

A fair reading of the article supports the simple conclusion that economically-distressed areas voted for Obama.

This is not the first time that Fox has picked up a conspiracy theory from conservative blogs and run with it. But it's a particularly egregious example since the second paragraph in the referenced article counters the conspiracy. Sean Hannity sent out a tweet about the non-story today.

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Torture by Mexican government in drug war highlights U.S. loss of credibility on human rights: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/09/torture-hypocrisy/ 

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Johnston: Palin Is Just A Fame Whore

Nobody pulls off a sweater vest like Levi.

Levi Johnston made quite a name for himself by impregnating that Palin daughter (NOT PIPER YOU MONSTERS) and then going on the Larry King Live occasionally and grunting out a few monosyllables in between commercial breaks. "Yes. No. I don't know." But yesterday he held a NEWS CONFERENCE at his lawyer's office to reveal the SHOCKING TRUE SECRET behind his ex-girlfriend's mom's resignation from the Alaska governorship.

"She had talked about how nice it would be to take some of this money people had been offering us and you know just run with it, say 'forget everything else,'" he said.

You know, money attached to book and TV deals. Apparently Sarah Palin was really excited about her book deal, which tells you everything you need to know about literacy, publishing, and the state of the written word in America today.

Anyway, that was his big revealing observation, that Sarah Palin wanted to make money from being famous and was too lazy to be governor at the same time. Scandal.

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Oh look! Obama's going to meet with the pope: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/obama-pope-to-hold-frank-_n_229317.html

Thankfully, Obama finds time in all of his travel to return back in this country long enough to continue another Bush policy before he departs again. 

Thanks, Barry.

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Man gored to death during running of the bulls: 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/daniel-jimeno-romero-kill_n_229281.html

Let's talk about what happens to the bulls, who are not given a choice if they want to participate:

The bulls are bred in fields and are not accustomed to the noise of the crowd or being surrounded by people. They are kept in crowded, dark enclosures, and when they are prodded onto the streets with electric shocks, they are momentarily blinded by the sunlight. They are terrified and are hit by runners with rolled up newspapers. The corners of the bulls' route are quite sharp, and the animals often lose their footing and slide into walls, breaking bones and injuring themselves.

All the bulls who slip and slide on the streets of Pamplona are running towards a bloody and horrific death in the bullring.

The bulls die every time. 

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