Mark Shea isn't the only Catholic blogger aghast that Marc Thiessen is defending torture on Catholic grounds. Zippy Catholic confronts Marc Thiessen for twisting Catholic teaching: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/02/catholics-against-torture.html#more
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Business Week reports that the income of "the 400 highest-earning U.S. households grew to almost $345 million in 2007 [the latest year data is available], up 31 percent from a year earlier." One imagines those households lost a good bit of that income in the subsequent crash. Ryan Avent:
I don't know how people think that this is politically sustainable. It's a massive populist backlash waiting to explode.
People could begin to fly planes into buildings or something. The only thing I know for sure is that the Democratic party is incapable of addressing or channeling this. They couldn't sell a joint in Jamaica.
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Terrorists Are Criminals Too
Amy Davidson still doesn't understand why Republicans resist trying terrorists as criminals:
If it had been discovered, midway through Timothy McVeigh's trial for the Oklahoma City bombing, that he had a connection to Al Qaeda (and yes, there are those out there who believe he did—it all has to do with the Philippines), would we have abandoned the process that led to his conviction and execution?
Another strong point:
Terrorists can't be tried as criminals, we are also told, because they came to this country with the aim of killing Americans. What about a man who flies to America and kills his sister or ex-girlfriend who's an American citizen, and maybe a couple of her friends for good measure, because he believes she is not living up to the strictures of her religion? (Or just because he's jealous, or for no reason at all?) What if he went home and had to be arrested in his apartment by, say, the French police? Wouldn't he be a criminal? Would Cheney be offended by the idea of putting him on trial, and in jail? A real jail, that is—not a limbo like Guantánamo.
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Vegetable Gardener is a great resource if you are just getting started with vegetable gardening, or want to learn new tricks.
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"Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols says he's going on a hunger strike because he claims prison officials don't provide him a fiber-rich diet."
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Toxic Water At Marine Corps Base
A North Carolina congressman said Thursday that he wants an investigation into reports that levels of a cancer-causing chemical in tap water at a Marine Corps base were downplayed and then omitted from official documents.
Democratic Rep. Brad Miller called for the probe by his House science subcommittee Thursday — a day after The Associated Press reported on new documents that indicate massive fuel leaks at Camp Lejeune and high concentrations of benzene found in a water well there in 1984.
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"Homey made this bed, now he has got to lay in it." Stephen Baldwin, who's not only racist but he's also religiously insane and politically and historically insane if he thinks "Homie" created Bush's depression Link
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The Politics of Wah Link Excerpt:
People who talk about how "the government that governs best governs least" suddenly start singing a different tune (usually complaining) when the snow starts coming down hard and fast. "Why weren't the plows out earlier?" "Why didn't they start salting the roads last night?" "Why isn't my street plowed?" These also tend to be the same people who complain about taxes as well--but when snow comes down in record amounts, the amount of taxes they pay aren't the issue any more, it's, "Why aren't you plowing MY street?"
Reagan got many Americans into this mindset 30 years ago, and they've been playing the same tune ever since: You can have it all, and someone else can pay for it. And woe be to any mayor or governor who doesn't pay attention to the problems of the locals, no matter what the trouble. Poor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake didn't have time to take a deep breath before Baltimore got slammed with the largest amount of snow on record.
Despite the city getting leveled with more snow than Syracuse, N.Y., all you hear is "the city's doing a crappy job of plowing the streets." Let's note that Baltimore budgets for Baltimore winters, not upstate New York ones."
Ed Schultz had a good take on the teabaggers who claim they want less government.
When it comes to the Toyota recalls, do they want more or less government?
Should congress hold hearings or let the marketplace work?
Next time we have a Swine Flu scare, do they want more or less government?
Next time we have million pounds of beef with e-Coli, do they want more or less government?
To paraphrase a Popeye line from the Forties, "Teabaggers, half the time they don't know what they want and the other half of the time they don't know what they want."
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The top 400: Income way up and taxes way, way down
A new IRS report on the richest 400 taxpayers shows their income rose an average of $81 million -- in a single year
By Joe Conason
Before angry voters restore Republicans to power -- in the name of "tea party populism" -- perhaps they should consider just how well right-wing rule worked out for them during the past decade. Last fall a Census Bureau study found that real median household income had declined from $52,500 in 2000, the last year that Bill Clinton was president, to $50,303 in 2008, George W. Bush's final year -- a period during which Republicans dominated Congress as well. Millions of those median households lost their health insurance (and, since the onset of the Great Recession, many of those same families have lost jobs as well). http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/02/17/top400/print.html
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An arctic seal wandered into New Jersey and was almost killed by rescuers trying to help it after it was hit by a snow plow.
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Democrats' non-existent security message.
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The Kentucky Senate is poised to pass a bill allowing the Bible to be taught in public schools. Sen. David Boswell (D-Owensboro) modeled the bill on a Texas measure.
While Boswell insists that "the purpose is to allow the Bible to be used for its literature content as well as its art and cultural and social studies content," the ACLU insists that legislative statements reveal an intent to establish religion. There is no constitutional barrier to the Bible being included in material that looks at a variety of religions or legal sources. However, to the extent the effort is to establish religion or has such an impact, it could lead to litigation.
For the full story, click here.
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Via the USDA's Food Environment Atlas. Lots more maps at the link.
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Benny Hinn Fails To Heal His Marriage
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2010/02/benny-hinn-fails-to-heal-his-marriage.html
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Tea Bugger O'Keefe Did Not Wear Pimp Drag Into ACORN Offices – NYT, Other 'Liberal Media' Outlets Duped: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2010/02/19/tea-bugger-okeefe-did-not-wear-pimp-drag-into-acorn-offices/
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FYI: All 319 Bush-Cheney Era Terror Suspects Tried in U.S. Courts Were Read Their Miranda Rights.
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Yessiree, it's time once again for we members of the Family Research Council's Super-Duper Prayer Team to get on our knees and give God a dirty prayerchez.
The latest praynalingus orders tell us to thank the Lord for allowing people to be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition: "God has heard our cries and helped us halt the advance of the 'health reform' freight train engineered by President Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and others."
Keep reading: http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2010/02/family-research-council-god-hates-gays.html
RT @daveweigel: RT @mattklewis: RT @KuhnCNN Overheard at #CPAC10 by a college aged girl: "do you think Reagan is going to talk soon?"
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All politicians are madhouse freaks: Morford.
... Bayh echoed that selfsame poll when he suggested the only way to "fix" Congress might be to vote all the jackals, special interest shills and fringe nutballs out of both parties, and then vote in an entirely new cadre of untainted humans, real reformers, people who know how to work together and make things happen, sans the bickering and acid and hookers and handouts.
You can see the problem right there. Who the hell might that be, exactly? Where do we find people like that? Do they even exist? Have we not already established the fact that American politics, as it is now designed, largely draws freaks and gladhanders, shysters and fools?
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I felt this Tim Pawlenty line from his CPAC speech deserved a post of its own.
"I think we can learn a lot from that situation. Not from Tiger, but from his wife. She said she'd had enough, and we've had enough."
"I think we should take a nine iron and smash the windows out."
How long before we hear of a crazed wingnut arrested for smashing windows in a federal building with his nine iron? With all this talk of war and revolt and "fighting back", Republicans are begging for some poor unfortunate nutcase to take matters into his hands. I don't know, maybe like stealing a single engine plane and flying it into a building housing government offices.
I once believed Pawlenty to be one of the saner Republicans. I was wrong.
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Just not this woman.
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An exercise in ass-covering
Keep in mind, however, that the FBI was so convinced that Dr. Steven Hatfill did it that the FBI agents stalked Hatfill. Just as the FBI did when they were trying to frame Richard Jewell, the FBI invited reporters to witness the execution of search warrants. It was all extreme bullshit, carried out to try and force a false confession. The government had to pay him several million dollars to settle his lawsuit against the FBI.
A dead guy did it.
How convenient for the FBI.
If he is right, that is a very bad place to be. Our economy does not work if people are not willing to spend money. Simply put, people go out and buy goods. The more that people buy, the more demand there is. More demand, more goods are made, which means more jobs are created up and down the supply chain. If there is inflation, the subtle pressure is to spend now, as saved cash will not buy later what it will today.
In a deflationary economy, the pressure is to save, not spend, as saved cash will buy more later. People buy less, jobs are lost. Stores and factories close, nobody leases the spaces, landlords go bust, property values fall and if you think that a U-3 unemployment rate of 10% is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
But you will, if the party of Hoover has anything to say about it.
A comment from Anonymous:
The bottom line is, I think the American people are tired of the failures of the Democratic party. We need some fresh faces in the Congress. The American people understand this and this is why the Republicans are predicted by polls to make big gains in the Congress in the coming elections. The Democrats had their chance and they blew it. Now, let's give the other party a chance. If we do, then we can once again enjoy the economic prosperity that Americans enjoyed for much of 2000 to 2007. I urge all Americans to put the partisanship and pettiness aside. Vote GOP in November. I guarantee you that the Republicans will work hard to end the gridlock in Congress and they'll end all the nasty partisanship that the American people have become tired of.
My response:
Sorry it has taken so long to respond to the second poster, but it took that long for me to stop laughing. What you are suggesting is analogous to someone in 1933 saying that the way out of the Great Depression would be to revert to the economic policies of Calvin Coolidge. The Great Recession, the hole we're in now, didn't happen overnight, either. The economic mismanagement of 1981-93 and 2001-2008 set us up with huge deficits, and now obstructionist Republicans are against the Keynesian policy of deficits to help pull us out of this? Since when did they become concerned? When they voted, to a member, in the House against the Clinton economic plan in 1993, which eventually produced record surpluses before Il Doofus got in there and handed out tax bonanzas to his rich friends? To you, nonpartisanship not only means capitulation, but also Einstein's definition of insanity: repeating the same process over and over, expecting a different result. Republicans were in power most of the past 30 years. And, since they've packed the courts with right-wingers, the Supreme Court has basically handed them back the country by ruling that it's legal for the Fortune 500 to essentially buy Congress and the presidency. They had their chance, and now it's a cinch they'll get plenty more. Once they've run us into the ground as far as they had by 1932, then maybe the American people will REALLY wise up.
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