Headlines - Friday April 30

 

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Free advice to every teabagger along the Gulf coast who is ranting about what the federal government should be doing to mitigate the massive environmental damage from the BP oil spill: 

 

Let state and local governments fix it. Hell, let BP fix it, for isn't that what you Ayn Randian cranks all believe, that the corporations would never ever do anything like this or, if they did, they'd fix it because "their good name is on the line"?

Every asshole now yelling about what the Feds should be doing who, not long ago, was waving a sign around at a tea-party and screaming about how "we don't want anything from the Federal government" should just shut the fuck up and go swimming off the Gulf Coast.

You're welcome.

Update: If we don't give as much money and attention to prevention (no more fucking drilling!) as to cleanup, it'll be as inexcusable as the New Orleans levees. "US President Barack Obama has said "every single available resource" of government will be deployed to help contain the Gulf Coast oil leak. Up to 5,000 barrels of oil a day may be now be leaking into the water after last week's explosion on a BP-operated rig, which then sank. Oil is expected to start washing ashore in the coming hours. The US government has designated the Gulf of Mexico oil spill as an "incident of national significance". This allows it to draw on resources from across the country to deal with the leak.  A state of emergency has been declared in the state of Louisiana, whose coastline is the most threatened by the spill. President Obama has dispatched high-level administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, to the area. He has also ordered environmental agency officials to inspect all offshore oil rigs and platforms to make sure they adhere to US safety codes. Speaking at the White House, Mr Obama said: "While BP is ultimately responsible for funding the cost of response and clean-up operations, my administration will continue to use every single available resource at our disposal, including potentially the Department of Defence, to address the incident."

 

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Oil Spill Threatening Endangered Birds: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/4/29/861979/-Oil-Spill-Threatening-Endangered-Birds:-DK-Greenroots

 

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The National Enquirer was right about John Edwards ...

 

Tiger Woods: "I cheated 121 times, forgive me, Honey?" 

 

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Hooray! Most of the Arizona Mexicans ran back to Mexico to harvest their taco farms, and the rest of them fled to Utah and joined the Mormon Church. RedState

 

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"A new survey finds Americans continue to find it difficult to name a leader of the GOP. Only 29% of respondents named someone, while 18% said nobody and 52% were unsure."  - Political Wire, Link 

Don't you love it?

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US Military Joins Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Effort  'The Exxon Valdez is going to pale in comparison'

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Citing Katrina Myth, Obama Claimed 'Oil Rigs Today Don't Generally Cause Spills':

"I don't agree with the notion that we shouldn't do anything. It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don't cause spills. They are technologically very advanced. Even during Katrina, the spills didn't come from the oil rigs, they came from the refineries onshore."

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John Boehner: No longer welcome in Arizona

I think that outfit qualifies as "suspicious behavior".

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Now some Palestinian cleric is claiming that Allah caused the volcano in Iceland.

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Louisiana-based shrimp fishermen have filed an economics damages suit against British Petroleum, Halliburton, and the owners of the oil rig that has caused one of the greatest environmental disasters in recent memory.

Who's defending the shrimp?

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Soldiers in Afghanistan interpret Lady Gaga.

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Raping children is okay, but ...

VANCOUVER: Lesbian teacher fired from Catholic school after partner has baby.

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Were you all bummed out because the Goldman Sachs investigation was just this wimpy little civil suit from a bunch of bureaucrat nobodies at the SEC, whose only enforcement power is imposing tiny fines on impossibly rich people? Fear not! Now federal prosecutors are sniffing around this slimy cadre of villains. Soon there will be mass arrests, savage prosecutions, entire wings of federal penitentiaries given over to dozens of bankers, etc. Or not? Who knows, actually! The New York Times will only say that the feds are investigating "trading" and that it's at a "preliminary stage" and that they would face a "higher bar" than the SEC, so, meh, probably nothing will come of it. Jail cells sit empty, hungry for banker-flesh.

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Why Do We Have a Deficit? Because the Rich Don't Pay Taxes.

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My spirituality as an atheist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2nfXfTg92E&feature=player_embedded#!

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The Original Tea Party: Circa. 1959

 

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Glenn Beck has lost 1/3 of its TV audience since January.

 

 

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Is Arizona out of touch with the rest of America? Or, is it the precursor of things to come elsewhere? To the extent that racial and ethnic conflict underpins these developments in the Grand Canyon State, there is reason to be wary.

 

Demographically, there is no doubt Latinos and other immigrant minorities are America's future, and on this, Arizona stands on the front lines. Over the past two decades the state has seen its Latino population grow by 180 percent as its racial composition shifted from 72 to 58 percent white.  Keep reading here.

 

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GOD PUNISHES PHOENIX WITH AMERICA'S DIRTIEST AIR: Mexican Jesus isn't very happy with the capital of Arizona, is she? "In its annual air-quality report card, the American Lung Association put Phoenix at the top of its list of U.S. cities with the worst year-round dust pollution, as measured by levels of airborne particles that invade the lungs and bloodstream." California's cities still have the worst air overall, a result of America stealing California from Mexican California and also because of Prop. 187. And Prop. 8, too, probably. And Prop. 13, always goes back to Prop. 13. WebMD/Arizona Republic

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A bunch of Christ-dorks in Jeebusland have done it again:

The Oklahoma Legislature voted Tuesday to override the governor's vetoes of two abortion measures, one of which requires women to undergo an ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before getting an abortion.

A second measure passed into law on Tuesday prevents women who have had a disabled baby from suing a doctor for withholding information about birth defects while the child was in the womb.

In all seriousness, WTF?! Oklahoma dudes, you do not have a horse in this race, so quit trying to cripple the jockey.

You realize, of course, that 1) you are both talking down to and belittling women by ordering the doctors to explain to them (using simple, one-syllable words) what is going on inside of their own bodies. 2) Additionally, by legalizing doctors to lie to their patients you are now accessories before the fact to any number of cases. 3) The insurance companies might want to talk to you about the expense of keeping some non-viable babies (like those born without lungs or brains, and yes, it does happen) on life support (I'm assuming that the money argument might touch your GOP souls…)

If your goal is to make abortions nonexistent in your land, then state it up front. The Taliban would.

Update: Florida is following suit. The state is also trying to pass a law that would ban sex with animals. 

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Journalists must donate to anti-choice organization in order to cover Palin's speech. 

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THIS IS WHY WE NEED A BLOGGERS UNION FOR CHRIST'S SAKE: Now this is interesting, isn't it. From Maryland politics blogger Adam Pugnacco: "Five weeks ago, I received an unsolicited offer from the Washington Post. They asked if they could post my picture and biography on their website and link to every new blog post appearing here if I agreed to produce regular original content for them at their request. I turned them down. Why? Because they wanted me to work for them for nothing." There is much more, and a follow-up here. Richard Cohen, meanwhile, presumably still earns a paycheck from the Washington Post Co., America's #1 value stock. Maryland Politics Watch

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Ted Nugent writes beautiful ode to 'Herculean' Sarah Palin for TIME

Somewhat famous rock 'n' roll wingnut Ted Nugent is a contributor to the hot new TIME 100 list, which we are too scared to check out in full. (Did Meghan McCain make it, or did Didier Drogba "kick her out" of the last spot? That is a soccer joke!) While Nugent, tragically, did not make this list (again, we don't know, maybe he did!), he was awarded the prize of writing Sarah Palin's entry, which begins like so: "If Sarah Palin played a loud, grinding instrument, she would be in my band." Jesus. MORE »

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Weeping Senator Jim DeMint of the Party of No: "it's not our fault!!!"

"Just because we don't want to work with the Dems doesn't mean the President should not roll over for us," says gpuke idiot.

"The president is the one who put the kibosh on working together, and now he's just trying to use the mainstream media to confuse the American people. The fact is I think he thinks Americans are stupid, and he's going to play this out until he gets a headline in every paper that Republicans are obstructionist. The fact is, he's the one who's obstructing real bipartisanship."

Yes, because there are 41 little Obamas voting "no" repeatedly on the Senate floor the past two days.

Unbelievable.

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Rich are richer, poor are poorer: guess who has to sacrifice to pay off the debt?

 

Headlines - Thursday April 29

 

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"If God is with us, who can possibly stand against us? The answer is no one." - Glenn Beck, explaining how the GOP lost the last two elections, Link

 

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Where are the prosecutors?
Eliot Spitzer wonders about Obama  by Joe Conason Link

If Eliot Spitzer is truly on the road to rebirth as a politician, the single issue that he still owns is financial wrongdoing. Eradicating the scams he once prosecuted as New York attorney general, before such chicanery brought down the national (and global) economy, is not only popular but essential. While Spitzer makes no excuses for himself, his advocates have suggested that the former governor's powerful Wall Street enemies gave a hard push to the prostitution scandal that forced his resignation.

Whether or not Spitzer believes there was a conspiracy against him, he shows no signs of backing down from his old adversaries. Today on New Deal 2.0, the news and opinion website of the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, he and Bill Black, the economist and scholar who is among the nation's leading experts on financial fraud, launch a broadside at Goldman Sachs and former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, among others, and more or less insist that the public interest demands indictments... 

But our president, much as we like him, isn't into "looking backwards" or "assigning blame."

He figures if he's nice to them...

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An open letter to conservatives - with lots of links.

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Brilliant.

Because letting gun owners wave around their Glocks while sucking down a Double Espresso Caramel Machiatto at Starbuck's wasn't a stupid enough idea.

Certain Virginians think gun owners should have the right to get wasted on the firewater without having to worry about concealing their deathsticks.

This country is rapidly becoming a candidate for the Darwin Awards. Seriously.

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Wisco: Tea Party Statists

Supposedly, I'm a statist. That's a fun new word all the teabaggers have learned from objectivist Utopians. It apparently means someone who's secretly a commie or a Nazi or both (they don't seem extremely clear on the difference). Or someone who believes in global warming and thinks we ought to do something about it before a bunch of people die. Or those who think that maybe not getting reamed by insurance companies might make for a helpful change of pace. Or someone who thinks that someone ought to do something about the fact that women make less on average -- for the same jobs -- as men. You know, crazy, pie-in-the-sky stuff like that. I love me some of that "Big Gummint."

Keep reading: http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2010/04/tea-party-statists.html

 

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After pleasing our Lord by asking forgiveness for worshipping the false idol of the "intellectual mind," this young woman is filled by the Holy Spirit who expresses God's love through a kind of chicken-inspired ballet. Surely, this is a sign from God that he approves of Sue Lowden's Chickens for Checkups healthcare plan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqLvV21tsdw&feature=player_embedded

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Angry about Arizona's new law, and aching to participate in the boycott of Arizona Iced Tea? You might want to know that the stuff is made in the NYC area, which is also home to the company's headquarters.

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"In 2004 the social question that animated the campaign was gay marriage. Before the election season had unfolded, I had talked to George about not making gay marriage a significant issue. We have, I reminded him, a number of close friends who are gay or whose children are gay. But at that moment I could never have imagined what path this issue would take and where it would lead." - Laura Bush, writing in her forthcoming memoir.

The path this issue took, of course, was Laura's husband using the issue of gay marriage to demonize millions of gay Americans. Despite his "close gay friends."

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Teheran's police chief is threatening to arrest women with suntans. Where does he think he is, Arizona?

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Have you noticed how God only informs Republicans of his intent.  Why is that?  Texas Republican state Rep. Leo Berman…

"I believe that Barack Obama is God's punishment on us today, but in 2012, we are going to make Obama a one-term president."

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Mario Piperni: Glenn Beck, a pot, and a kettle.

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Climate Change legislation - Mario Piperni .

There are a number of reasons to distrust oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens, not the least being his funding of Swiftboaters in their malicious smearing of John Kerry. That said, I believe his concern for clean and alternative energy development is real.

T. Boone Pickens, the legendary oil investor and, more recently, a devout champion of ending America's reliance on fossil fuels, said on Tuesday that he's confident the Obama administration's hotly-anticipated climate change bill will be announced soon by Sen. Harry Reid.

"[Natural gas is] the only resource we have in America that will move an 18-wheeler other than diesel, and we're importing the diesel," Pickens said. "It's cleaner, cheaper, abundant and ours. We're fools not to do this."

Pickens added that he'll support the legislation — provided it includes the natural gas credits he called for. Pickens is pushing tax credits of $65,000 for the purchase of natural-gas powered trucks.

"I don't know the other parts of the bill," Pickens said. "But I will be for the bill. I will just have to accept the other parts because this is too important for the security of America."

The test for Pickens will be what he says when the climate change bill makes it to the Senate floor and his Republican buddies try to obstruct it because…well, because that's what a Party of No does.

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Climate change is making allergies worse.

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Unsurprising news: In addition to being expensive and compromising privacy, the new full-body scanners that the TSA is installing don't work.

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Oh. hey! Look who discovered the "T-word"

The NY Times:

The torture of Iraqi detainees at a secret prison in Baghdad was far more systematic and brutal than initially reported, Human Rights Watch reported on Tuesday.

The Washington Post:

Adding to the political tension, Human Rights Watch released a report late Tuesday saying that members of a military unit under the command of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, systemically tortured and sexually abused hundreds of Sunni Arab prisoners.

NPR:

Iraqi men held for months at a secret prison outside Baghdad were systematically tortured and forced to sign confession statements that in at least some cases they were forbidden to read, according to a new report by a human rights group released Wednesday.

When OTHER people do it, HRW is a legitimate, credible source, and it is not "allegations of torture" or "enhanced interrogation techniques."

Funny, that. In a really sad way.

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Jon Stewart asks how can Apple pretend to be the rebels of the tech industry when they can use the cops as their private goon squad.

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Party of Hoover keeps standing up for the banksters

For a third time, the Hooverites stood up for Wall Street and the banksters. The Democrats are going to make them keep doing so.

Took the Dems longer than it should have to come up with this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHtW0E2l-Tc&feature=player_embedded

My prediction is that there will be a couple of more votes at best and the Republicans will then throw in the towel. They'll go to Wall Street and the banksters with their hands out (Sen. Nelson will crawl back to Warren Buffet), they'll tell them that they did the best they could, but donations to elect more Hooverites would help in the long run.

UPDATE: The GOP caved faster than I thought. I thought that the party of Hoover would be good for at least another day or two of their obstructionist nonsense.

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Birther rally to bring comedy n' costumes to D.C.

How do we know this special-people rally is going to be super special? The organizer wants you to "bring your birth certificates." YEAH THAT'LL SHOW KENYAN JOE! See you there at the Ellipse! Don't forget your misspelled signs with the "GO BAK 2 AFERKA," etc.

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Last of Earth's Oil Spilling Into Gulf of Mexico, To Be Burned

This week's stuff we can't stop from pouring out of the Earth's crust is … oil! And like that Icelandic volcano, the Gulf oil spill is one of those disasters you hear about and then forget and then it keeps popping up in the news again and suddenly it's UH OH NO WAY TO STOP THIS. The British Petroleum-leased rig exploded on April 20, and eleven workers were presumably killed in the blast. Every day since, some 42,000 gallons of crude oil have poured out of the hole at the end of the 5,000-foot-long pipe. But now, BP says the well is spewing more than 200,000 gallons per day. If the company can't stop the spill, the Department of Defense will take over. The Coast Guard has already begun burning the oil off the sea's surface. At least the sheets of oil rolling onto the Louisiana coastline this morning are the "color and texture of iced tea." Mmm, tea! America loves tea. New York Times/Wall Street Journal

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Compare and contrast; a sea of sludge, edging towards New Orleans vs. reaping power from Ocean Breezes -- the headline on a story about Cape Wind, the country's first offshore turbine -- also just approved by the White House.

You'd think there'd be no contest. But then there's this -- even as it belched, BP on Tuesday reported a more than doubling of its first-quarter profit: Profits rose from $2.56 billion to $6.08 billion while its alternative energy division saw losses.

A few hundred milllon out of $6.08 billion. The price of all that Cajun coastline just may not be high enough to make a dent.

And that's why it's not a level playing field. We don't need even-steven energy policy. We need aggressive government affirmative action for alternatives.

The death throes of the fossil fuel industry are going to be cataclysmic unless we have a large, strong, profitable renewable energy industry in place to protect us.

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Governor Goodhair kills desert beast in elaborate manhood ritual

Texas Governor Rick Perry admitted to the press yesterday that he actually occasionally feels fear deep within his mighty, manful chest — fear of legless, poisonous reptile-monsters. This confession took place in the only context in which a male Texan is allowed to discuss vulnerability or emotions of any sort: as part of anecdote about how he shot some living thing in the head and left its corpse to moulder, out in the blighted wasteland that he calls home.

So, yeah, Rick Perry was out jogging with his daughter's dog and shot and killed a coyote, is the thing. If we had to choose between our own adorable domestic pet and some mangy cur, we'd probably do the same thing, if we carried around a .380 Ruger loaded with hollow-tip bullets when we went jogging! But when we told the story to the press, we would probably not be this hilarious:

"I'm enjoying the run when something catches my eye and it's this coyote. I know he knows I'm there. He never looks at me, he is laser-locked on that dog," Perry said.

"I holler and the coyote stopped. I holler again. By this time I had taken my weapon out and charged it. It is now staring dead at me. Either me or the dog are in imminent danger. I did the appropriate thing and sent it to where coyotes go," he said.

Perry said the laser-pointer helped make a quick, clean kill.

"It was not in a lot of pain," he said. "It pretty much went down at that particular juncture."

Please use the phrase "at that particular juncture" today to make a traumatic but life-affirming moment in your day sound like a dull meeting of middle managers! Perry later drank the coyote's blood and praised its spirit for all the good it had done during its time on this plane of existence.

Perry also said, "Don't attack my dog or you might get shot … if you're a coyote." Why does soft-on-crime Perry refuse to shoot human dog-threateners? (Thanks to reader "Monsieur Grumpe" for the tip.) [CBS]

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ACLU to Obama: 'Entire world is not a war zone'

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Tancredo's conspiracy theory: Obama hides his birth certificate to stir up the right and make us look crazy

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The Louisiana Democratic Party has released this new ad, "Forgotten Crimes," to remind Louisiana's voters that one time David Vitter wore diapers around and had sex with prostitutes, but faced no prosecution or professional punishment. Why is the Louisiana Democratic Party trying to "smear" David Vitter with these gritty pube videos? Forgotten Crimes

 

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Headlines - Wednesday April 28

 

Republicons voted again yesterday to deliver for their Wall Street benefactors.

 

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Mexico just issued a travel advisory for its citizens who are thinking about visiting Arizona.

 

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                                  The Goldman Rule
                            No dough unto others; dough only to thyself.

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U.S. senator says "shitty deal" one million times. On C-SPAN.

 

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Jesus' General: God talks to Brother Beck.

 

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By unanimous vote, the California Assembly has repealed the archaic law requiring research into a "cure" for homosexuality.

 

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Mandatory ID papers for brown people? Vital to the security of the state!

Somewhat more secure ID cards for everyone? Jackbooted fascism!

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If Fox and Wingnut Daily say it's true it must be so.

 

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Media Matters grabbed snapshots of a ton of headlines from across the country blasting the GOP for filibustering financial reform, and yet: 

 

From Gallup: GOP is up by 20 points by those 'very enthusiastic about voting.'             

 

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Tourre's Syndrome

 

...is a psychological malady when banksters blurt out, to the astonishment of everyone within earshot, "We're not guilty!" and "I did not mislead!"

It's a sad condition, really, but wholly expected under the circumstances when Goldman Sachs executives get called before Congress every few months and get barked and growled at by toothless lawmakers on three inch-short leashes.

 

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Senastor Ben Nelson (D-NE), who has twice in the last two days voted against allowing the debate over financial regulatory reform to proceed to the floor of the Senate may have something of a conflict of interest. His constituent (when Warren Buffet lives in your state, and it happens to be a place where cows happen to outnumber people by orders of magnitude, you only have one constituent) would have to put up cash for his derivatives business if the law passes as written. But Nelson isn't just Buffet's Senator. He is an investor in Buffet's company, owning up to $6 million in Berkshire Hathaway stock.

 

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Teabaggers only care about the rights of white people

 

As Eugene Robinson has pointed out, in his column in today's WaPo, one might rationally expect that a law which demanded that people, American citizens, no less, carry ID with them and present it whenever a cop asks to see it should normally be expected to arouse the ire of the Teabaggers.

After all, the Teabaggers were the ones screaming about the Constitution and their rights and so on and so forth.

But when the rights to be trampled on are those of non-whites, the Teabaggers are conspicuously silent.

Curious, isn't it?

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Iowa: in the race for crazeeeeeeeee!

Remember last week when we reported about how Georgia was legislating against microchipping humans and some nutty lady in Georgia testified that the Department of Defense had put a beeper into her vaginal-anus area? Me neither!

So here's your vaginal-anus beeper update for today: Some wingnut in Iowa (The Mayonnaise state?) wants to microchip illegals so he can track 'em. It's part of Pat Bertroche's campaign platform as he runs for Congress:

"I think we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going. I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I microchip an illegal? That's not a popular thing to say, but it's a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under.

I wonder if Grandpa Walnuts will give this idea some thought in his campaign? I bet AZ will double-down for this! "Tag and release, boys!"

Take THAT, Georgia!

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Will the terrible Democrats please stop considering a long-overdue immigration bill, now that Lindsey Graham is upset? Mean old Harry Reid had pwomised him an energy bill (dead on arrival) first before pwomising him an immigwation bill! Then he switched it up! And now Lindsey Graham is so upset that he says they don't need to deal with immigration until 2012, it's no big deal. More here.

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Chutzpah - murdering your parents and then asking for leniency from the court because you're an orphan. *

Via Balloon Juice:

Arizona agency seeks federal help on immigration law

The Arizona agency tasked with training 15,000 law officers to enforce the state's controversial new illegal immigration law has asked federal authorities for assistance, but administration officials say it is unclear whether the government will help....

John Cole at Balloon Juice:

...How about this for an answer? NO.

You guys want a police state, pay for it yourself. You probably should have thought about this before you all passed the idiotic bill in the first place....

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As the world's biggest arms dealer - and one that sells to anybody who's got the cash - the U.S. is hardly in a position to criticize. "The US defence secretary has warned that Hezbollah now has more rockets and missiles than most governments. Robert Gates accused Syria and Iran of supplying weapons of "ever-increasing capability" to the military wing of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement. "This is obviously destabilising for the whole region," he said following talks with his Israeli counterpart. But Mr Gates did not say if Syria was supplying Hezbollah with Scud ballistic missiles, as Israel has alleged. Hezbollah fought a 34-day conflict with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese people, mostly civilians, were killed. Some 160 Israeli people, most of whom were soldiers, also died. United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the conflict, included an arms embargo on Lebanon, except for transfers authorised by the Lebanese government or UN."

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Idyllic Pacific island paradise sacrificed to the questionable needs of the U.S. Military is nothing new - ask the former residents of Bikini Atoll.

Department of Defense squandering tens of billions of dollars on a dubious project is also nothing new.

Even American citizens getting bulldozed by uncaring bureaucrats is, tragically, still not new.

But hitting all three in one giant boondoggle? Now that's a hat trick.

Koohan Paik in The Nation explains.

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Seven animals being eaten to extinction.

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Coastguard considers setting fire to the oil spill in the Gulf.

The answer is clearly more drilling.

 

 

 

Headlines - Tuesday April 26

Corporate tax rate - the truth

Next time a teabagger or conservative economist complains about high corporate rates impeding economic growth, feel free to set them straight.

"The key point to recognise is that it is not simply the statutory rate of corporate income tax that is important here, but also the effective tax rate for current corporate income tax, taking into account all the additions and deductions to profit before tax that tax rules may require."

From an August 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO):

"Statutory tax rates do not provide a complete measure of the burden that a tax system imposes on business income because many other aspects of the system, such as exemptions, deferrals, tax credits, and other forms of incentives, also determine the amount of tax a business ultimately pays on its income."

The US effective corporate tax rate is the key indicator here and it is lower than all but one of the G8 countries.

h/t MediaMatters

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Who actually believes every dollar not spent on Predator Drones could be used to feed poor people? Because that is some serious horseradish: those dollars are already appropriated for government Death Ray programs. Weekly Standard

 

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Republicans have taken more Wall Street cash over the past 6 years than Dems - which is why it's no surprise that they fought to keep negotiations secret and all voted against even having a debate about financial reform. 

 

 

Obama did issue one of his harshest statements to date on the GOP filibuster of the Wall Street reform bill.

 

Maybe he's gotten the hint that they're not going to work with him. And that they're assholes.

 

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"I thought about asking a guy who snorted cocaine and got arrested for DUI when 
 he was 30 to come and speak to our kids, but George W. Bush was not available." 
- Woodland Middle School principal  Terry Oatts, after parents criticized him for allowing a convicted rapper to do community service by talking to the kids Link

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"The only thing Obama knows about money is how to spend other people's." - the blind and vulgar Pigboy 

 Rush, shall we look at the proof again?

 

Who needlessly spent the most money?

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Mission accomplished: Iraq Election Chaos as 52 Candidates are Disqualified.

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RNC still sending out deceptive 'Census' mailer.

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Shameless: Last month, Sen. Chuck Grassy (R-IA) — a vocal opponent of the new health care law — issued a press release taking credit for some provisions in the new health care law. "The health care legislation signed into law yesterday includes provisions Grassley co-authored to impose standards for the tax exemption of charitable hospitals for the first time," the release boasted. "The provisions enacted in the new health care law are the result of Grassley's leadership on tax-exempt organizations' accountability and transparency, including hospitals."

Now, Grassley's office has issued another release, highlighting how the new law would help Medicare beneficiaries in rural Iowa.

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Wisco: Will Republicans self-destruct over Wall Street reform?

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Jesus' General: Did Shlomo prank Moses?

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How tragic. Not.

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Andrew Sullivan tips us to some cartoon-to-cartoon support offered from the Simpsons to South Park, after the latter's creators received death threats for depicting Mohammed in a bear costume. The Simpsons ran the above message in the opening to last night's episode.

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The Vatican is threatening to cancel the Pope's upcoming visit to Britain after the publication of an internal memo suggesting some fabulous activities for Palpatine during his visit.

The British government has reassigned those responsible for the memo and has issued an abject apology to the Vatican.

UPDATE: According to the Guardian UK, the Vatican has just confirmed that the Pope will visit after all.

The pope's visit to Britain will not be affected by the disclosure of a Foreign Office document mocking the Catholic Church, the Vatican said today. Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi had noted the Foreign Office apology and said the paper would have "absolutely" no impact on Benedict XVI's visit in September, an official confirmed.

Unlike, say, the impact that being raped had on the little boys. 

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Morford: Real women cause earthquakes.

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Greg Palast: Behind the Arizona immigration law: GOP game to swipe the November election

It should be no surprise at this point; this is how Republicans operate. Whether it's voter roll purges in Florida, inadequate voting machines in black precincts in Ohio in 2004, or calls for literacy tests, it is now a FACT that Republican election tactics include, and rely heavily on, the disenfranchisement of Americans who don't vote Republican. For all the talk about ACORN, there has been NOT ONE INSTANCE of EVEN ONE PERSON who voted fraudulently as a result of anything ACORN did. And yet, we have two tainted presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 behind us, and now Virginia and Arizona essentially advocating Jim Crow-type tactics.

This is what Republicans are. It has always been thus.

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The inexperienced socialist Marxist president who could

Go ahead, Rushpublics, call him a radical Marxist commie socialist. But while you're zinging him with labels, you might want to add "successful":

By the end of this year, Obama "will have soundly achieved many of his chief campaign promises while running a highly competent, scandal-free government. Not bad for a guy whose opponents (in both parties) for the White House suggested he was too green in national life to know how to do the job -- and whose presidency began in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis that demanded urgent attention and commanded much of his focus."

Wait, what? "Scandal free"? A far cry from these pages and pages of Bush crime family escapades.

 

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How over the top is Arizona's new immigration law?

Former Congressman Tom Tancredo — the same guy who said we should send the president back to Kenya and said a Supreme Court nominee is part of the "Latino KKK" — said this weekend that the new Arizona immigration law goes a little too far.

"If I had anything to say about it, we'd be doing it in Colorado," Tancredo told Denver news station KDVR. But, he said, "I do not want people here, there in Arizona, pulled over because you look like should be pulled over."

When Tancredo thinks you've gone too far on immigration reform, there's a pretty good chance you've gone too far.

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On the other hand, if they are more like our cousins the chimps, they might be an asset to this spinning blue rock... "For the first study, scientists observed how three adult chimpanzees reacted when an elderly female, named Pansy, gradually passed away in an indoor enclosure at Blair Drummond Safari Park in Stirling, Scotland. The over 50-year-old Pansy had grown increasingly lethargic before lying down on the floor one day after eating. ... "In the days before Pansy died, the others were notably attentive towards her, and they even altered their routine sleeping arrangements to remain by her, by sleeping on the floor in a room where they don't usually sleep," lead author James Anderson told Discovery News. ... Blossom, another elderly female, and Pansy's daughter, Rosie, both stroked and groomed the dying Pansy, and sometimes just sat, subdued, beside the elderly female."

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Andy Borowitz via YubaNet.

NORFOLK, VIRGINIA (The Borowitz Report) – Eleven indicted Somali pirates dropped a bombshell in a U.S. court today, revealing that their entire piracy operation is a subsidiary of banking giant Goldman Sachs.

There was an audible gasp in the courtroom when the leader of the pirates announced, "We are doing God's work. We work for Lloyd Blankfein."

The pirate acknowledged that they merged their operations with Goldman in late 2008 to take advantage of the more relaxed regulations governing bankers as opposed to pirates, "plus to get our share of the bailout money."

"There are lots of laws that could bring these guys down if they were, in fact, pirates," one government source said. "But if they're bankers, our hands are tied."

Oy...

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Greenwald: The New York Times' Muslim problem 

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Here we go again:

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has voted no on the cloture motion to start debate on Sen. Chris Dodd's (D-Conn.) financial regulatory reform bill — meaning the motion will likely fail, 58 to 42, short of the 60 votes needed. Republicans will tout this as an extraordinary victory demonstrating bipartisan opposition to moving forward on financial regulation until the bill is tried, tested and sorted. But my guess is that Nelson knew the motion would not pass, having failed to garner Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) vote earlier today, and decided not to vote for it at that point.

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"Jamie, do you have any idea how long we are going

to have to wear The Azure Letter?"

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Chimpy done wrote something! 

Decision Points, by Chimpy McStagger, will be published on November 9, 2010, by Crown Publishers …

Centered on the fourteen most critical and historic decisions ("Ah counted 'em mahself using all mah fingers and toes.") in the life and public service of the 43rd President of the United States. ("Ah wanna use mah favrite blue crayon t' day. It seemed like a blue crayon kinda day.")

Since leaving the Oval Office, Chimpy has given virtually no interviews or public speeches about his presidency. (Who would listen? Even Chimpy is not that stupid. Well, actually he is that stupid. Never mind.) Instead, he has spent almost every day writing Decision Points ("How Ah Spent Mah Summer Vakayshun, by Chimpy McStagger")

• Chimpy brings readers inside the Texas Governor's Mansion on the night of the hotly contested 2000 election ("Ah had nachoes 'n' Wild Turkey t' go with mah felony.");
• aboard Air Force One on 9/11 in the gripping hours after America's most devastating attack since Pearl Harbor ("Teletubbies was pre-empted. This will not stand!");
• inside the Situation Room in the moments before launching the war in Iraq ("Ol' Turdblossom and Blam-Blam wouldn't play Leggo with me, so Ah knowed somefing was up!");
• and behind the Oval Office desk (Y'all ain' seen nuthin' till y'all seen what a mess Ah made back there!')

The former President offers:

• details about his decision to quit drinking ("We was outta booze that day, that horrible day…"),
• his discovery of faith ("Ah have faith that we will never be outta booze agin!") …

Decision Points will carry a suggested retail price of $35 (wait a week or two and you can find it remaindered everywhere.) A cloth-bound, signed ("Ah will put mah X on it mahself, Ah swear to Jeebus!"), and numbered limited edition of 1,000 copies, priced at $350, is also planned. At publication, the former President will embark on a national book tour. ("Ah wanted t' start at Six Flags, but then Pickles reminded me of whut happened the last time Ah went on the Tilt-a-Whirl.")

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Mexico President Felipe Calderón "vigorously condemned" Arizona's draconian new immigration law yesterday, saying it "opens the door to intolerance and hatred," and promised it would be at the top of his agenda when he comes to Washington next month. Other "Mexican officials reacted with swift and near-universal condemnation, warning that the law could harm trade, tourism and bilateral relations."

Wages earned in the US and sent back to Mexico are Mexico's second largest source of income.

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America's Churches Will Shut Down Because 'Young Adults' Don't Ever Go To Church

A fun new study by that Pew Research group finds that only 65% of "millennials" (young adults) consider themselves to be Christian, and only half of the alleged Christians even understand the central tenant of the religion: That the Jesus character is the only way to be "saved" by God, the purported "second daddy" of Jesus. Overwhelming majorities of these 18-to-30 year olds don't go to church, avoid that weird Bible book, and only half of these nutty kids even believe in God at all!

Keep reading here.

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We Are Sick, Depressed & Near Death, But Still Better Than the U.S. Senate

The results of many tragic health studies were dumped on America last night, and the prognosis is Awful. You already knew 67% of us were overweight or obese, but did you know nearly half the adults in this country suffer from either high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or diabetes? Keep reading: http://wonkette.com/415050/we-are-sick-depressed-near-death-but-still-better-off-than-the-us-senate#more-415050

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Stephen Hawking wrote some calculus last night and concluded that when we do finally meet aliens they are going to slaughter the crap out of us and then silent-auction our organs on Craigslist, just like Christoper Columbus did with the Native Americans. Daily Intel

 

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Especially if they are worse than us Didn't these fuckers read the story of Kitty Genovese in Sociology class? A homeless man lay dying on a New York sidewalk, blood pooling beneath him as he bled out from stab wounds. Surveilance cameras show at least seven people walking past him, looking back, some even gawking - and one person even lifted his body before walking on. It was nearly an hour before rescue crews arrived and by then it was too late.  The man was dead...stabbed to death when he came to the aid of a woman who was being attacked.