Headlines - Thursday

"My plan is to say y'all come...I got the fried chicken and potato salad." Michael Steele, asked by a gay person of color, what his plan is moving forward regarding inclusion of diverse populations in the Republican party Link 

"Yes, that's right. To lure African-Americans into the GOP, Steele is offering "fried chicken and potato salad." Since he mentions Republicans should also be reaching out to the LGBT community, I wonder what stereotype he's going to offer us?  Buttplugs and Birkenstocks?" LGBT blogger Bil Browning,   Link

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h/t Dick:

 

* The meat you buy could be contaminated with drug-resistant MRSA. 

* Some states have unemployment higher than 20%.

* Now that the price of oil has gone down 15%, the price at the pump has increased more than any month since they gouged us last summer. 

* As is the case with almost every aspect of life, government and commerce in the US these days, when oversight is overlooked, conditions always seem to gravitate to the intolerable.  Must be Bill Clinton's fault that foreign exchange students found themselves caught in a nightmare of neglect, malnourishment and abandonment by those supposed to protect them. 

 

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On Sunday, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) called on the Obama Administration to cancel the rest of the stimulus plan, saying it was a complete failure.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) blew Kyl's arguments out of the water, reminding Kyl that only $56 billion of the $787 billion had yet been spent and that under Kyl's plan, tax cuts for middle-class Americans would be rescinded and jobs from much-needed infrastructure improvements would be lost.

Durbin's response was good, but what happened next was a thing of beauty: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/15/753780/-Obama-calls-Kyls-bluff-on-stimulus,-McCain-freaks-out

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What's the secret CIA scandal really all about? http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2009/07/whats-secret-cia-scandal-really-about.html

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Forget Bipartisanship

The Senate HELP committee held four weeks of markup hearings on their health care bill. They accepted 160 Republican amendments. They allowed virtually every amendment, every concern of Republicans to a free and open vote. And in the end, the bill split entirely along party lines.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/forget-bipartisanship-by-dday-senate.html

 

Way to never learn from your mistakes, Dems! 

 

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Jesus' General writes to Mormon presidents Beck and Monson: The Running of the Gays: http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2009/07/running-of-gays.html

 

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Sotomayor sides with conservatives on the Supreme Court: http://jonathanturley.org/2009/07/15/sotomayor-rejects-use-of-foreign-law-siding-with-conservatives-on-the-supreme-court/

 

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Oh hail our monkey overlords! Simians moving closer to operating flesh-eating robots: http://jonathanturley.org/2009/07/15/oh-hail-our-monkey-overlords-simians-move-closer-to-operating-flesh-eating-robots/

 

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Meghan McCain states the obvious:

"Joe the Plumber — you can quote me — is a dumbass. He should stick to plumbing."

I wonder, if in a future unguarded moment of candor, Miss McCain will blurt out the name of the person responsible for elevating all of these "dumbasses" to the national stage.

I believe she calls that person "dad."

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Mu-Wha-Ha-HA!

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In the Wall Street Journal today, Karl Rove (who should be in jail) "continues to argue that only Republicans can get us out of the economic mess that they created." Offering advice to Obama, Rove suggests more tax cuts: "House Republicans offered an alternative recovery package of immediate tax cuts and safety-net measures that cost half as much as Mr. Obama's stimulus program."

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Politico notes that, after American International Group paid out $165 million in bonuses to top executives in March, Congress exploded in a political orgy of outrage. "But when the news broke late last week about a second, $235 million round of AIG bonuses, the halls of Congress resounded largely with, well, silence."

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Get psyched for religious propaganda wars in Afghanistan. Wall Street Journal

 

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The Day Sarah Palin Scraped Off Her Makeup

Much like her political cousin Gordon Brown, Alaskan anger bear Sarah Palin loves to slather on the makeup with a trowel. But when she finally takes it off at the end of a hard night's twitterin', the results are NOT what's best for Alaska.

Hunters from the Alaskan coastal town of Wainwright first noticed the dark, shiny substance floating for miles in the icy Arctic waters of the Chukchi sea, according to reports in the Anchorage Daily News.

The odorous substance, which has been described variously as "gooey," "gunky" and "hairy" has been also been found of the coast of Barrow, 72 miles north east of Wainwright.

Samples of the huge "gobs of gunk" were taken on Friday by officials from the North Slope Borough, who flew out to Wainwright with the US Coast Guard to investigate. Jelly fish and a dead goose were found tangled up in stands of the substance.

Arctic sea full of huge blobs of floating 'goo' [Telegraph]

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Brace yourself  The death toll of western troops in Afghanistan is mounting rapidly and steadily - rivaling the bloodiest days in Iraq in the number of killed and wounded NATO troops. 

 

4,323 soldiers killed in Iraq; 739 in Afghanistasn.