Saturday, July 18, 2009

Headlines - Saturday

 
Let's face it, folks. We Americans always seem to be able to afford ways of killing people. That's free enterprise. But we can't seem to be able to afford to keep people alive with universal health insurance. That's socialism.
 
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Al-Jazeera Reporter Imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay to Sue George W. Codpiece
 
Sami al-Haj – freed in May 2008 after more than six years – to launch legal action against former US president: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/17-1
 
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Institutionalized ignorance
 
The less you know, the easier it is to be a Republican. Intellectual powerhouses are not welcome in today's GOP, where their perception of the average, everyday American is Joe the Plumber or Sarah Palin. The right values ignorance, because the facts so often are contrary to their ideas. Take a spin through the right wing blogosphere and you'll see very little actual reporting; you'll see links in opinion pieces that lead to other opinion pieces, you'll see comments written by people who are ignorant as all hell -- and damned proud of it. Right wing talk radio is dominated by mindreaders who tell you what liberals believe, while being 100% wrong.
 
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As Brady points out:

My favorite part of this exchange was Buchanan's claim that 108/110 white males on the court was acceptable because "This has been a country basically built by white folks in this country." Perhaps Buchanan simply forgot to think about this recent news story:

Iowa Rep. Steve King defended his vote Wednesday against a House resolution that acknowledged the use of African-American slaves in the construction of the U.S. Capitol.

The western Iowa Republican was the only House member to oppose the measure late Tuesday. The resolution, which passed 399-1, orders officials to place a marker inside the new Capitol Visitor Center using some of the original stone quarried by those slaves for the historic building.

Argue all you like that this country was built by "white folks," you jackass. They certainly didn't do it alone. They did it on the backs of others, and in doing so, they blocked those generations of people from routes to achievement, and they did so culturally and institutionally. That's the point. Schmuck.

Proud, so proud of Ms. Maddow, who stood toe to toe with this idiot and didn't even pull a Teresa Giudice table-flip, which would not have been an unreasonable reaction to the ignorant, troglodyte ideas venting past her from this jackass.

Oliver Willis: 


Black slaves picking cotton


Chinese Railroad Workers


Hispanic Farm Labor

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Republican sexy time playhouse

Somehow this will be blamed on Bill Clinton:

A Capitol Hill townhouse that serves as a dormitory and meeting place for a band of conservative Christian lawmakers has been linked to a third episode of marital infidelity, this time in a Mississippi court filing by a former lawmaker's estranged wife.

In an "alienation of affection" lawsuit, former Rep. Charles W. Pickering Jr.'s estranged wife, Leisha, alleges that he carried on an extramarital affair with a onetime college sweetheart while he lived at a house at 133 C Street in Southeast Washington. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Gov. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., both of whom admitted to cheating on their wives in recent weeks, are members of the Christian fellowship of lawmakers known as "C Street" for the address of the house where several of the members live at any given time.

On the other hand, since the establishment of C St., accidental asphyxiations by conservatives found suspended from the ceiling while wearing two wetsuits and with a dildo shoved up the butt are down 14% so I think it would be fair to say that we are seeing progress since they are getting out of their rooms and going out and making new friends.

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http://blog.bioethics.net/spine.gif

Wow! Are Dems in the House really going to go against Obama and investigate the secret CIA program that Dick Cheney had been hiding from them (and us) for years? 

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Walter Cronkite died yesterday. He was 92. The NY Times called him the "iconic Anchorman." He was.

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Full-bore, batshit Republican racism

No, I'm not talking about Pat Buchanan's meltdown last night. I am referring to the speech on the floor of the House of Representatives by a noted Thuglican, Congressman Todd Tiahrt of Kansas, whose argument against abortion was to ask what would have happened if two notable Americans' mothers had aborted them.

The two Americans this jackass chose to highlight as candidates for abortion, if it had been legal when their mothers were pregnant, were President Barack Obama and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

If you think it was a coincidence, just sheer-assed luck, that Tiahrt selected two prominent African-Americans as his hypotheticals for "what if they were aborted", then maybe you'll also believe that Dick Cheney is a true patriot, that George W. Bush was the smartest president since Thomas Jefferson, that there is prime Florida swampland waterfront property for sale and such a deal I have for you! 
 
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frago

In a story that has become so common that it is almost passé, yet another conservative official has been busted sending racist e-mails. This time, the culprit is Atwater, CA Councilman Gary Frago, who sent at least half-a-dozen racist, anti-Obama e-mails to Atwater staff and community members:

Some compared Obama to O.J. Simpson while others suggested that "n[*****] rigs" should now be called "presidential solutions."

Perhaps the most overboard e-mail was sent on Jan. 15. It read: "Breaking News Playboy just offered Sarah Palin $1 million to pose nude in the January issue. Michelle Obama got the same offer from National Geographic."

Frago admitted sending the e-mails, but showed no regret. "If they're from me, then I sent them," he said. "I have no disrespect for the president or anybody, they weren't meant in any bad way or harm."

When given an opportunity to explain himself, Frago somehow managed to dig himself a deeper hole by saying: "I don't see where there's a story, I'm not the only one that does it. … I didn't originate them, they came to me and I just passed them on."

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zellmillerweb

In 2004, then-Democratic Sen. Zell Miller (GA) threw his support behind President Bush with an angry speech attacking Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) at the Republican National Convention. Apparently, the passage of time hasn't softened Miller's anger. Yesterday, he continued his assault on the left while speaking to more than 1,000 mostly-Republican lawmakers from around the country. Miller punctuated his speech with a not-too-subtle racial barb at President Obama, saying he needs to stop meeting with foreign heads of state and that Rahm Emanuel ought to get some "Gorilla Glue" to keep Obama tied to his chair in the Oval Office:

He drew more applause from the mostly Republican legislators who packed a downtown Atlanta hotel ballroom when he said Obama needed to spend more time in Washington and less time traveling abroad.

"Our globe-trotting president needs to stop and take a break and quit gallivanting around," Miller said, adding that White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel needs to put "Gorilla Glue" on his chair to keep him in the Oval Office.

In his speech, Miller fed the predominantly conservative crowd more right-wing rhetoric, claiming the U.S. is "printing money like we are the Weimar Republic" and labeling Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison "nuts."

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Paul Krugman points out that Goldman Sachs really are a bunch of pirates whose main objective is to loot the US economy and play the rest of us for suckers. You may recall that when Goldman Sachs got into trouble, the Secretary of the Treasury was a Goldman Sachs alumnus and while he was perfectly willing to Lehman Brothers fail, he did his utmost to keep Goldman Sachs going, even if it cost us (the taxpayers) many, many billions of dollars to do so.

Matt Tabbibi has a story that alleges that Goldman Sachs's entire business model is centered on creating investment bubbles, profiting from the sale of the bubble investments and then profiting from cleaning up the wreckage.

When it comes to damaging the American (and the planetary) economy, al Qaeda are rank amateurs compared to the pirates of Goldman Sachs.

Fat chance they'll be stopped anytime soon, though. 
 
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All sales are final*
 

This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for—thought they owned.

…The author who was the victim of this Big Brotherish plot was none other than George Orwell. And the books were "1984" and "Animal Farm."

*Unless they are not.


 

 

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