Headlines - Tuesday December 27

Headed out of town to work until around January 5th. Enjoy a peaceful start of the New Year!

 

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Borowitz: ‎"2011 in Review: After nine years of war in Afghanistan, US succeeds in killing bin Laden. In Pakistan."

 

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Remember the Alamo! - Serial adulterer and self-proclaimed smartest blow job aficionado in the room Newt Gingrich didn't know how to file to run for Virginia's Goat Rodeo. Then Newticles compared his failure to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Then Newticles declared that his campaign will hold the mother of all write-in campaigns. Then Newticles learned that write-in campaigns are against the law in Virginia. Then Newticles learned that dimwit theocrat secessionist Rick Perry had the same problem. (Think Progress, TPM)

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One of the most difficult problems faced by Newt Gingrich in appealing to religious voters is his record of adultery and three marriages. His campaign insists that it was his first wife, Jackie, not Gingrich, who wanted the first divorce. However, recently released papers contradict that claim and indicate it was Newt Gingrich who wanted the divorce.

Continue reading 'Court Papers Reportedly Contradict Gingrich On First Divorce'

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Montana Voters Move To Recall Senators Over Votes Allowing Indefinite Detention of Citizens

 

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Rick Perry is the only sitting governor in the race and says that it's only fitting for his state's taxpayers to pay for his "extravagant" security detail. Because anytime he mentions Texas, they win. Or something.

 

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We're #1!

Good news everyone, one of the fastest trains in the world was launched today. Unfortunately, it wasn't in America.

Despite experiencing a number of issues earlier this year, China launched a new super-rapid test train this past weekend.

The new high-speed train can travel as fast as 500 km/h (about 310 mph), and was made by a subsidiary China's largest train provider CSR Corp Ltd. It launched over the weekend and was created to resemble an ancient Chinese sword. [...]

China's $1T USD high-speed rail bid hopes to build 13,000 km (8,078 miles) of high-speed rail network by 2012, and about 20,000 km (12,427 miles) by 2020.

While China's primary motives for developing high-speed rail include energy-efficiency, economic growth, and convenience, George Will reminds us that the primary motive for promoting high speed rail developement in America is the liberal agenda to collectivize and brain-wash everyone.

Governors John Kasich of Ohio, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Rick Scott of Florida have all rejected federal funds for high speed rail projects, costing their states thousands of jobs in the process.

Drill baby drill.

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TIME's "Person of the Year" Cover: The Photo You Didn't See

TIME magazine has used a photo of Sarah Mason, a 25-year-old Occupy L.A. activist, photographed by LA Weekly's Ted Soqui as she stood in a line, arms linked, during a November 17 protest at Bank of America Plaza, for its cover. The TIME image - created by Shepard Fairey, the L.A. artist also known for his Obama "Hope" poster is a sanitized version of the original photograph. The 99% insignia on the bandana masking Mason's face has been removed. CW/RSN 

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The Confederacy's War On Christmas

 

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Heaven forbid Congress does anything to stop handouts for the 1% bankers or Big Oil, but you can always count on them to throw the poor under the bus. How very moral and decent of them. The Hill:

 

Just days before the holiday season, the Obama administration released more than $800 million to states as part of a program to help low-income people pay their heating bills during the winter months. But the move comes as the program, known as the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), faces major funding cuts. A year-end spending bill approved by Congress in recent days slashes funding for LIHEAP. The legislation funds the program at $3.48 billion, down from about $4.7 billion last year. That's about a 25 percent reduction 

 

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Taibbi: A Christmas Message From America's Rich

 

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Touched by a Wild Mountain Gorilla

 

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Here is Governor Haley's response to the DOJ, on Facebook:

"The President and his bullish administration are fighting us every step of the way," Haley wrote. "It is outrageous, and we plan to look at every possible option to get this clearly political decision overturned so we can protect the integrity of our electoral process and our 10th amendment rights."

Wow. "Our Tenth Amendment rights"?

Can someone ask Governor Haley why she believes "our Tenth Amendment rights" trump federal civil rights legislation that was reauthorized by a huge Congressional majority as recently as 2006? Can someone ask Governor Haley if she knows that former President Reagan said this when he signed the 1982 reauthorization of the portions of the Voting Rights Act that she objects to on "states' rights" grounds?

On signing the 1982 extension of the Act, which passed the House by a vote of 389 to 24 and the Senate by a vote of 95-9, President Reagan called the right to vote the 'crown jewel of American liberties.'

What happened? We went from the "crown jewel of American liberties" when Reagan was smiling for the cameras to a Facebook post babbling something about the Tenth Amendment?

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I'm Not Homophobic, I Just Don't Like Being Around Gays and Their Bathrooms Scare Me

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Because those fuckers are not only rich, but while most of the rest of us have lost ground, those asswipes have only gotten richer. It will probably be no shock that some of that increased wealth comes from borderline corruption and insider trading.

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If we've told you once, we've told you a dozen times -- It's China's turn at bat. Believe us yet? "Afghanistan has agreed to sign a deal with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) for oil exploration and extraction, the president's office said in a statement Monday. ... The state-owned Chinese oil giant will develop three oil fields, along with Afghan company Watan Group, located in the Amu river zone in Sar-e Pol and Faryab provinces in northern Afghanistan, the statement said. ... "This is the first big contract for exploration and extraction of oil in Afghanistan," the statement said. ... "There are 87 million barrels of oil in the area." ... Six oil deposits have been discovered in Afghanistan, including in Herat, in the west, Helmand in the south and Paktia in the southeast. ... Afghanistan's natural resources could theoretically generate billions of dollars in tax revenue. But exploitation of these resources faces massive hurdles due to ongoing instability, woeful infrastructure and endemic corruption."

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Another tale of outrage from the war on voting. "A 93-year-old Tennessee woman who cleaned the state Capitol for 30 years, including the governor's office, says she won't be able to vote for the first time in decades after being told this week that her old state ID failed to meet new voter ID regulations. ... Thelma Mitchell was even accused of being an undocumented immigrant because she couldn't produce a birth certificate: Mitchell, who was delivered by a midwife in Alabama in 1918, has never had a birth certificate. But when she told that to a drivers' license clerk, he suggested she might be an illegal immigrant. ... Thelma Mitchell told WSMV-TV that she went to a state drivers' license center last week after being told that her old state ID from her cleaning job would not meet new regulations for voter identification.  A spokesman for the House Republican Caucus insisted that Mitchell was given bad information and should've been allowed to vote, even with an expired state ID. But even if that's the case, her ordeal illustrates the inevitable disenfranchisements that result when confusing voting laws enable state officials to apply the law inconsistently. ... The incident is the just latest in a series of reports of senior citizens being denied their constitutional right to vote under restrictive new voter ID laws pushed by Republican governors and legislatures. These laws are a transparent attempt to target Democrat constituencies who are less likely to have photo ID's, and disproportionately affect seniors, college students, the poor and minorities."

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Seriously, anyone who denies global warming is too stupid and/or evil to be allowed to drive, much less vote. "The Nepalese Himalayas have been warming significantly more than the global mean temperature in recent decades. Glaciers in much of the region are showing signs of shrinking, thinning, and retreating; and this is producing a lot of melt water. On Ngozumpa, some of this water is seen to pool on the surface and then drain away via a series of streams and caverns to the snout of the glacier. There, some 25km from the mountain, an enormous lake is growing behind a mound of dumped rock fragments. This lake, called Spillway, has the potential to be about 6km long, 1km wide and 100m deep. The concern is that this great mass of water could eventually breach the debris dam and hurtle down the valley, sweeping away the Sherpa villages in its path. The threat is not immediate, but it's a situation that needs monitoring, say scientists."

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Police Block Protesters From Bringing Food To Zuccotti Park For Christmas Celebration | Occupy Wall Street protesters convened for a Christmas celebration at their old campsite in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan yesterday, but when volunteers showed up with bags of cookies and food for a planned afternoon potluck, New York Police Dept. officers prevented them from entering the square, Manhattan news site DNAinfo.com reports. An NYPD spokesperson offered no comment on why the volunteers, who instead distributed the food along the sidewalk outside the park, were not allowed in. The protesters, meanwhile, celebrated the holiday by taking communion and singing Christmas carols. Here's a picture of five-year-old Aidan Ortiz playing his plastic trumpet to celebrate the holidays in Zuccotti, courtesy of DNAinfo.com:

 

 

 

Headlines - Monday December 26

In a Christmas Eve mass conducted in the Vatican Gift Shop, Pope Benedict decried the commercialization of Christmas. 

 

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If God himself was behind the Denver Bronco's recent run, then He sent Tim Tebow a little message about humility yesterday.

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Skippy's environmental news stories Sunday

 

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Charles Pierce: America's Muddling Purpose, Circa Christmas 2011

 

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The robber barons would be so proud.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Who says bipartisanship is dead? Senators from both sides of the aisle can still come together to make the lives of children more dangerous.  Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) are leading the charge to reject proposed Department of Labor regulations that would ban some child labor on our farms. What kind of odious government regulations are these? These new rules would attack the freedom of our children to mix noxious pesticides, climb tall ladders, and demolishing barns on farms that are not owned by their parents. If I can't force my 11 year old to mix pesticides, we might as well just live in Soviet Russia. Moreover, since so much farm labor is done by immigrants these days, these regulations are a clear attack on the white right to exploit brown people. I am truly outraged. My love of racism combined with my passion for child labor has led me to become a huge supporter of our next president, Newt Gingrich.

Let me tell you a story about the good old days, before a bunch of liberal do-gooders got in the way of the free market. In the late 19th century, sawmills used to have the problem of sawdust building up under the saws. Eventually the sawdust would get so high as to get in the way of the saw. Actually stopping the saws to clear the sawdust would be a clear violation of my rights as a capitalist. So my forefathers simply hired children to crawl under the saws and clean it out. While the saws were still running. If one took a sawblade in the head, well, those Finns all have 15 kids anyway. I can just hire another. And they have one less mouth to feed. A public service to all!

30 senators have signed on to this bill, including 4 Democrats.

Once corporations have taken over all the schools, the kids who can't afford pay-as-you-go elementary school will have to be put to work somewhere. It just makes sense.

 

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The proper way to interpret repug pronouncements on Democrats, liberals, minorities and poor people is as confessions: whatever they accuse others of - voter fraud, fascism, criminal behavior and laziness - is what they themselves are guilty of.

The insistence that people who work minimum-wage jobs but need food stamps and other assistance must be lazy is particularly egregious. It has to be, to cover what repugs are trying to hide: that the real lazy parasites on society are the rich.

Scott Lemiuex at Lawyers, Guns and Money, on the values presented in some reality TV shows:

What I find particularly interesting is the vision they present of a desirable life. These programs cater to the wealth fantasies of their audiences, obviously, but they do so in a way that suggests that the epitome of the contemporary American Dream is to acquire either enough independent capital, or a sufficiently unlimited access to an income stream generated by someone else's labor, to allow one to do nothing - or more precisely, to do nothing but consume.

Indeed, despite the enormous differences in context, these shows remind me of nothing so much as Orwell's description of the world view of many a Victorian novelist, and in particular Dickens:

SNIP

Orwell's essay is more than 70 years old, and it makes me wonder about the extent to which contemporary American society has returned, or regressed, to the rentier values that Dickens's novels uncritically reflect. The key to these programs is that no one, or least none of the central characters, ever does anything resembling work. The "housewives" don't have jobs, of course, but they are also almost never shown doing any parenting, let alone performing traditional domestic unpaid labor (all this has, as the expression goes, been outsourced). The Kardashian sisters are occasionally shown dabbling in things like launching a perfume line, but the point of their various shows is that they are 24/7 Party Girls. (For all I know turning your life into a reality TV show may be very hard work. The point here is not how much work the various Kardashians may do, but that their programs work very hard to represent them as people who do nothing).

And this isn't merely a matter of not working for income: the most striking aspect of these shows is the extent to which they portray a class of people who have no vocation, in the broadest sense, of any sort, or indeed even any serious interests, besides spending money while being on the equivalent of a perpetual vacation.

SNIP

Still, one of the consequences of America's increasingly unabashed embrace of plutocracy over the last generation is that we now have a genuinely enormous class of social parasites, living off inherited capital, or the stupendous income stream of the one member of an extended family who has a job. (A vignette from the beginning of the previous century: The Duke of Somewhere or Another was passing through customs at Ellis Island. On the immigration form under "Occupation" he wrote "Peer of the Realm." The Irish-American cop who took the form crossed that out and wrote "Unemployed.").

Consider that the bottom threshold for the annual income of the richest .1% of American households is close to two million dollars (that's per year), and that there are approximately 120,000 such households, containing around 500,000 people. This suggests that well over one million Americans live in households with annual incomes of at least one million dollars per year. Of course some of these people are children, but a lot of them are fundamentally aimless adults who have nothing to do but spend money. So perhaps it's not surprising that, increasingly, we're seeing the celebration of a social class full of people who, as Orwell pointed out, are "just about as useful as so many tapeworms."

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The Fight Over Keystone XL Now Has A 60-Day Deadline

 

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Paul Krugman:

Oh, by the way, you may have heard reports to the effect that Jon Huntsman is different. And he did indeed once say: "Conservation is conservative. I'm not ashamed to be a conservationist." Never mind: he, too, has been assimilated by the anti-environmental Borg, denouncing the E.P.A.'s "regulatory reign of terror," and predicting that the new rules will cause blackouts by next summer, which would be a neat trick considering that the rules won't even have taken effect yet.

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Belly-up to the trough, boys - Another day, another lobbying group prepares to lobby bribe congress to lower corporate taxes. Everyone need to remember that corporations rarely pay the stated rate and needs to look at the actual rate. For instance, GE has a negative tax rate and the US Government owes them billions of dollars. (Reuters)

 

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Looking at a brown Christmas ? Blame global warming.

 

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"When a photo of a homecoming kiss between Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta kissing her 'partner', Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell went public on December 22, it set gay and lesbian hearts atwitter. What the predominantly heterosexual population thought of it was unreported. [snip] Gays and lesbians play on the inherent sense of fairness and tolerance that is a hallmark of American society. The result is that homosexuality is now widely represented in popular culture to the point of being accepted as 'normal.' It is not 'normal.' It is a sexual aberration involving a very small portion of the overall population, perhaps no more than four percent. Always was, always will be." - Alan Caruba, writing for Tea Party Nation.

 

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She prayed to Jeebus and all of the woman's "missing parts" were instantly returned to her body. And then she got pregnant. Glory! Praise! Pay me!

 

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Two States With No Open Gays In Office

The Victory Fund's Denis Dison notes:

Last week's news that Southhaven, Miss., Mayor Greg Davis informed a local newspaper that he is gay means just two U.S. states remain on the list of those with no openly LGBT elected officials–Alaska and South Dakota. That doesn't mean these states aren't served by LGBT elected officials, just that none have self-identified publicly either in speeches or in the media.

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This shouldn't even be a point of discussion in 2011. The Confederacy committed treason against the United States 150 years ago. Give it up, South.

At an event in South Carolina yesterday, Newt Gingrich was asked by a town hall participant to offer his views regarding the state's decision to fly the Confederate flag at the statehouse in Columbia. The woman's question was met with a smattering of boos from the audience.

"I have a very strong opinion," Gingrich said, prefacing his weak response. "It's up to the people of South Carolina." (He then qualified his answer by assuring that he is opposed to segregation and slavery.)

There's something incestuous about using states' rights in defense of a flag that represented the bloodiest and conpletely racist failure of that idea in American history. And Gingrich uses the name "Lincoln" to inspire him during debates? The president who ultimately was murdered in his opposition to states' rights? That's rich.

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A provision contained within the bill that put a tear in John Boehner's beer this week, the bill which includes a 2 month extension of payroll tax-cuts and unemployment benefits, is a provision that specifically prohibits the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, and President Obama has issued a statement reiterating his opposition to this provision.

In this bill, the Congress has once again included provisions that would bar the use of appropriated funds for transfers of Guantanamo detainees into the United States (section 8119 of Division A), as well as transfers to the custody or effective control of foreign countries unless specified conditions are met (section 8120 of Division A). These provisions are similar to others found in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. My Administration has repeatedly communicated my objections to these provisions, including my view that they could, under certain circumstances, violate constitutional separation of powers principles. In approving this bill, I reiterate the objections my Administration has raised regarding these provisions, my intent to interpret and apply them in a manner that avoids constitutional conflicts, and the promise that my Administration will continue to work towards their repeal.

To recap:

- President Obama signed an executive order on the day he took office in 2009 to close Guantanamo Bay

- This is the fourth time since 2009 that Congress has voted to block the closure of Guantanamo Bay

- Congress has voted overwhelmingly, in a bipartisan fashion, each of those four times to block the closure of Guantanamo Bay

The good news is, there is one provision in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that grants the president the discretion to hold civilian trials for detainees. And while some would argue that it shouldn't be a matter of discretion, I would point out that having the discretion is better than having no choice other than military trials, which is what we have right now.

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If you're at all curious at finding out which presidential candidate best matches your political beliefs, here's a little test you can take to find out.

The 2012 Candidate Match Game

 

Headlines - Saturday December 24

 

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Boom:

The U.S. Department of Justice will block the voter ID provisions of an election law passed in South Carolina earlier this year because the state's own statistics demonstrated that the photo identification requirement would have a much greater impact on non-white residents, DOJ said in a letter to the state on Friday. [...]

Because Justice Department lawyers reached the conclusion that South Carolina's voter ID law would have the effect of suppressing minority voter turnout, they found it was unnecessary to examine whether that was the intent of the legislators who voted for the law.

This is huge news for a number of reasons. First, obviously, because of the direct impact in South Carolina. Unless the state files suit or there is other arrangement with the Justice Department, those voter ID requirements are now dead. (And yes, they may file suit. We're talking about a state and a party that is very, very intent on disenfranchising as many voters as possible before the 2012 elections.)

Second, it finally shows a bit of movement on the part of the Justice Department in fighting these ridiculous new laws clearly targeted against poor and minority voters. There are eleven other states that have passed similar voter ID restrictions; we can only hope that this is the first of a series of actions.

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Hey Republicans, here's some of that election fraud you've been looking for.

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Brent Bozell On Fox News: Barack Obama Looks Like A Skinny Ghetto Crackhead

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Rod Parsley: Satan Cooked The Books!

This is the same guy who sells "covenant swords" and "prayer cloths" that will cause God to make your creditors forget your address. He also tells people to burn their bills and send him the money instead.

 

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Not only is John Boehner not good at winning, he's not good at losing either.

During his concession speech yesterday, he said a few things which may come back to haunt the Republicans next fall.

You know, sometimes, it's hard to do the right thing. And sometimes it's politically difficult to do the right thing. But, you know, when everybody called for a one year extension of the payroll tax deduction, when everybody wanted a full year of extended unemployment benefits we were here fighting for the right things. May not have been the politically the smartest thing in the world, but let me tell you what. I think our members waged a good fight. [...]

If you can get this fixed, why not uh, why not do the right thing for the American people – even though it's not exactly what we want?

Boehner is obviously implying that the right thing to do would have been a 1-year-extension, and he's right, but here's the thing — the Democrats, including President Obama himself, called for a 1-year-extension as early as September.

The Republicans refused a 1-year-extension unless all sorts of other awful shit was included in the bill, so what the Democrats settled on instead was a compromise brokered by Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell which included a short-term, 2-month-extension.

Fortunately, John Boehner's failure was so complete, so absolute, that no one seems to be taking his victimhood routine seriously.

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23% is smaller than 22% at Fox.

 

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Big Oil doing what Big Oil does. The track record in Nigeria is already bad, but this one stands out.

Oil from an offshore spill has spread roughly 100 nautical miles after a leak occurred while loading a tanker, a Nigerian official said Thursday. Royal Dutch Shell shut down a deep-water oil field off Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta on Tuesday. Peter Idabor, the head of the country's oil spill management agency, said the offshore oil spill is likely the worst in a decade.

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Occupy Albany Ends After Brutal Police Assault

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US Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry have failed to qualify for the party's Virginia primary election, local media reported early Saturday.

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Josh Brown: Dear Jamie Dimon

"...it hates people who have been bailed out and don't display even the slightest bit of remorse or humbleness in the presence of so much suffering in the aftermath."

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Global warming hates a white christmas.

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Here is some very weird new holiday ad from loathed Kochgobbler Scott Walker. He is serving at a soup kitchen with his family and, you know, trying to make "getting along" faces at the invisible off-camera poors while his wife plaintively begs Wisconsin to "put our differences aside" and "move forward together" instead of focusing on all this silly old recall business, for peace. We're guessing it's his wife who has to do the talking because of the dripping sarcasm in Walker's voice you normally hear every time he opens his mealy mouth about "struggling" families? READ MORE »

 

 

Headlines - Thursday December 23

 

Boehner, forced to do the right thing.

 

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Gays sorry for causing straight MN GOP senator to cheat on her husband

Oh, here's a tragedy: Minnesota's (now former) Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch had been working so hard on a constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage in her state, but ALAS, the amendment couldn't be approved in time to keep her own straight marriage safe from harm — she resigned her Senate leadership post last week after being caught having an affair with a male staffer. Minnesota's homos feel just terrible about all of these problems she is having as a straight married lady, on their account, so they have kindly decided to apologize, aww. 

From the open letter written by Minneapolis gay rights activist John Medeiros:

Dear Ms. Koch,

On behalf of all gays and lesbians living in Minnesota, I would like to wholeheartedly apologize for our community's successful efforts to threaten your traditional marriage. We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an "illicit affair" with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife. These recent events have made it quite clear that our gay and lesbian tactics have gone too far, affecting even the most respectful of our society.

We apologize that our selfish requests to marry those we love has cheapened and degraded traditional marriage so much that we caused you to stray from your own holy union for something more cheap and tawdry. And we are doubly remorseful in knowing that many will see this as a form of sexual harassment of a subordinate.

It is now clear to us that if we were not so self-focused and myopic, we would have been able to see that the time you wasted diligently writing legislation that would forever seal the definition of marriage as being between one man and one woman, could have been more usefully spent reshaping the legal definition of "adultery."

Okay, now HURRY UP Minnesota and make sure that constitutional amendment is approved before any more Senate Republicans are forced to cheat on their spouses. [City Pages]

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Mitt Romney doesn't want voters to know what's in his tax returns

 

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One of the greatest success stories of the first four years of the Obama Administration is the resuscitation of Detroit and the American auto-industry, and this would not have been possible without direct, government intervention.

That intervention was a success, and the entire country is better off because of it.

After selling roughly 11.8 million cars and trucks last year, U.S. vehicle sales to businesses and consumers are expected to hit nearly 12.8 million in 2011…That's up from 10.6 million at the height of the Great Recession in 2009. Through November, new-vehicle sales had logged six straight months of year-over-year gains. That should continue in December, when 1.2 million vehicles are likely to be sold.

If it weren't for the Obama Administration, Government General Motors would have imploded, and the economy would have lost at least another million jobs as the endless chain of service centers, suppliers, and dealerships that maintained and sold GM vehicles closed their doors.

The auto-industry bailout was not without casualties, as General Motors was forced to discontinue several veteran brands such as Pontiac and Saturn, but the consequences of doing nothing would have been severe and the American auto-industry may have never recovered.

The saving or creating of jobs isn't the only story though. The rest of the story is a renewed relationship between the auto-workers union and the auto-industry, and in the wake if its restructuring, Detroit is giving back to its workers.

Meanwhile, the general consensus among Republicans is that bailing-out the auto-industry was a mistake, and some have even outright called for letting the industry go bankrupt.

The most infamous opinion on the subject is of course Mitt Romney's 2008 op-ed simply titled 'Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.'

Romney would also like to take credit for the bailout, which he claims was modeled after his own plan, even though he called for bankruptcy. Or something. It's difficult to keep track of where he stands on any issue, but 'Let Detroit Go Bankrupt' is pretty clear.

The rest of the Republican candidates, including Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, and Jon Huntsman have also declared that they would not have bailed out the auto-industry.

Suffice to say it should be crystal clear who is on the side of working-class people and who is not. Because both parties are not the same. Not even close.

You can find a comprehensive list of GOP stances on the auto-industry bailout here.

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There's no indication of content, but it might clarify how the administration interprets the law.

Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed speculation Wednesday that President Barack Obama would issue a signing statement when he makes the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and its controversial detention provisions law.

"We made really substantial progress in moving from something that was really unacceptable to the administration to something with which we still have problems," Holder said in response to a question from the Wall Street Journal's Evan Perez. "But I think through these procedures, with these regulations we will be crafting, we can minimize the problems that will actually affect us in an operational way."

I doubt it will contain the magic words ("the war on terror is over") but it could help to ameliorate some fears about civil liberties.

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Mario: You'll Never Hear About It On Fox News

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Krugman: The Post-Truth Campaign

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Utah proves once again that it is fucking retarded.

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The TSA has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars in its relentless production of security theater. One wonders how confiscating the Cupcakes of Death is keeping us safe.

Someday, people will smarten up and realize that it is high time that we stop giving blank checks to the "we're only trying to keep you safe" crowd. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. So we'll keep surrendering our liberties, freedom and dignity to the "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear" security goons.

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Vote for me, I'm incompetent!

That is her pitch: That she should be elected president because she is not good at her job.

"I am not a politician. I am a real person. I don't even know how to be a politician," Bachmann said in a news conference outside a high school in Grundy Center, Iowa.

Bachmann has been a Congressman for five years. Before that, she was a Minnesota state senator for six years. She'd been politically active for years before that.

Eleven years in elective office, more than that flogging for donations, and she claims that she's not a politician?

She's either one of the biggest liar in this year's pack* or she's telling the truth, in which case she is bragging about a stunning level of incompetence.

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Tell me again why this is so dangerous to the world?

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A series of bomb attacks killed at least 63 people in Baghdad. The attack is the first major act of

violence in Iraq since the U.S. troop withdrawal last Sunday and offered the first sign of a violent backlash against

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's efforts to arrest Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi. Police report the bombings targeted

Shi'ite districts in Baghdad.

 

 

Headlines - Thursday December 22

 

My wingnut's response to the photo:

 

"Do you REALLY buy into the baloney that those lice infested losers represent 99% of our population?? They were largely PAID by Soros and unions for their pu...rposes and the majority couldn't adequately express WHY they were there. No wonder ... it is probably even abhorant to them that they were clueless ... they just hated rich people. Trouble is the RICHEST among us are people like Soros and his gang ... who manipulate wall street and have profitted abscenly and have a plan to ruin our economy so advantage can be taken by them. Soros got rich doing this in other countries. The mindless follow him and his paid media pals and well funded socialist organization, without a clue they are nothing but puppets."

 

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Watch this.

 

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Gingrich Plummets in Polls as Voters Start Remembering Who He Is

Dawning Awareness Threatens Campaign

DES MOINES (The Borowitz Report) – In a development that has imperiled his front-runner status in the Republican presidential race, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has plunged in the polls as voters have begun to remember who he is.

Mr. Gingrich had been surging in recent weeks, but according to pollster Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota's Opinion Research institute, "That was before people's memories of who New Gingrich is started gradually kicking in."

According to a new poll released today, Mr. Gingrich fared especially poorly among voters who agreed with the statement, "Wait a minute, that guy?  He was an enormous dick."

"Newt Gingrich has got to do something fast to keep people from remembering who he is," pollster Logsdon said.  "He might try growing a moustache or wearing an eye patch, but that might be too little, too late."

On the ground in Iowa, Gingrich campaign strategists are working overtime to confront the challenge posed by voters remembering who he is, aides to the former House Speaker said today.

According to one campaign source, the Gingrich campaign has begun seeking the support of people with mental disorders and other memory issues that make it hard for them to retain basic information.

"The problem is, most of those people are currently running for President," the source said

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Beautiful: Scott Walker Recall Supporter Puts Up 'Recall The Kochsucker' Sign Outside Her Motel

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After the death of Christopher Hitchens, God's Gentle People flooded twitter with death threats against people who mourned his passing.

This is not the first time Christians have spammed the internet with death threats aimed at atheists. Earlier this year after American Atheists Communications Director, Blair Scott appeared on Fox News a long list of death threats were posted on Fox News's facebook page. Last time, the mainstream media did not cover the mass amount of Christian death threats toward Scott and toward atheists in general. This time is no exception. It is however likely that if Muslims or atheists were to have posted death threats toward Christians it would undoubtedly be front page news and in fact has been on occasions.

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Watch this and share.

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Scientists are growing human skin out of harvested foreskins in order to reduce the need to use animals to test drugs and cosmetics.

The foreskin used for the process is only taken from boys up to the age of four. "The older skin is, the worse the cells function," explained Andreas Traube, an engineer at the institute's department of production technology and automation. "It is also important that the cells we use are coming from a uniform source," said Traube. "This avoids discrepancies in the production of the new skin." The equipment developed by the Fraunhofer team can extract between three to 10 million cells from a single foreskin. In the incubator these cells then multiply hundreds of times. The brand new skin cells are mixed with collagen and connective tissue, which then becomes 'proper' skin, measuring up to five millimetres in thickness. The whole process can take up to six weeks, but according to Traube, "We can't use the machine to speed up the process; biology needs time to take its course."

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"How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" -- John Kerry, 1971      

 His name is David Hickman, only 23

 Hang your head and cry. Such a waste.

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Common Dreams: Lone Holdout's First Nuclear Winter Looms in Tohoku

Oh, and the Japanese government is saying it might take 40 years before the plant can be fully shut down.

This is exactly why we should stick with nuclear power, because it's so safe.

Fun fact: Maybe if Japan hadn't used $29 million of tsunami donations to kill whales, they could help this poor man and his animals.

Fuckers.

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Brain buffering.

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Tim Tebow's message for gay teens considering suicide; it does not get better. Like 99% of hardcore evangelicals, Tebow is a dick. 

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Michael Morton, 57, spent nearly 25 years in prison for murdering his wife before he was able to force Texas authorities to finally test DNA evidence that proved his innocence. Now he is demanding that the prosecutor be held accountable for withholding evidence. The problem is that the then-Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson, now a district judge in Georgetown (left).
Continue reading 'Judge and Former Prosecutor of the Year Accused Of Withholding Evidence That Sent Innocent Man To Jail For 25 Years'

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If you're looking for a president who supports gay-rights, Newt Gingrich suggests that you support President Obama.

I say that's good advice.

"I asked him if he's elected, how does he plan to engage gay Americans. How are we to support him?" Scott Arnold, an associate professor of writing at William Penn University, told the Des Moines Register. "And he told me to support Obama."

No other president has been as supportive of equal-rights as this president, with the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell now on the books and the Defense of Marriage Act facing serious legal challenges following the Department of Justice's assessment that it is unconstitutional.

Every single Republican candidate for president has pledged themselves to fighting The Gay, and if we had a Republican president right now, DADT would still be the law.

Thanks to Obama, the military barriers continue to fall.

It's a time-honored tradition at Navy homecomings – one lucky sailor is chosen to be first off the ship for the long-awaited kiss with a loved one. Today, for the first time, the happily reunited couple was gay. The dock landing ship Oak Hill has been gone for nearly three months, training with military allies in Central America. As the homecoming drew near, the crew and ship's family readiness group sold $1 raffle tickets for the first kiss. Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta bought 50 - which is actually fewer than many people buy, she said, so she was surprised Monday to find out she'd won. Her girlfriend of two years, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell, was waiting when she crossed the brow. They kissed. The crowd cheered. And with that, another vestige of the policy that forced gays to serve in secrecy vanished.

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Our Tea Party congress now has the lowest approval rating of any congress on record, with a record 86 percent disapproval rating. And this poll was taken before the House of Boehner killed the two-month payroll tax-cut and unemployment benefit extension.

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Mario: Congress' Unfolding Tragicomedy

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You really have to give them credit for such a story. The previous tale of Kim Jong Il's birth on Mount Paektu, Korea rather than Siberia where the family was in exile was fancy enough, but the story of his death takes it up to eleven.

Also right up there is the tale of the now dead president working hard until the end on his train en route to somewhere important, even though his train had not moved in days. Our politicians often have creative re-writes of history but it's still nothing compared to this. Even the Bible, which was written hundreds of years after the fact, has a number of stretches, but it might not be this bad.

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Why Fat Conservatives Love Calling Michelle Obama Fat

 

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This seems to have flown under the radar for many of us:

Resisting strenuous last-minute lobbying by some of the nation's biggest utilities, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday a final rule requiring power plants to reduce emissions of mercury and other toxic pollutants by roughly 90 percent within the next five years.

This is a big victory for environmentalists and scientists who have worked for 20 years to regulate these pollutants — and an even bigger one for the public. When fully effective, the rule could save as many as 11,000 premature deaths a year and avoid countless unnecessary illnesses.

Kthug puts this in perspective:

Let me repeat part of that: it will save tens of thousands of lives every year and prevent birth defects, learning disabilities, and respiratory diseases. This is actually a much bigger issue, when it comes to saving American lives, than terrorism.

This is a nice Christmas present to America.

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Huh? You mean it wasn't the richest 1% that created jobs?

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Uh-oh, Ron Paul needs a nap! Poor old grampa crankypants walked out of an interview with CNN's Gloria Borger after she repeatedly asked him, as everyone has been doing for the last half-decade, whether he had read any of the murderously racist tirades of the attention-deprived libertarians writing for one of his eponymous newsletters in the 80s and 90s. You never thought it could happen, but apparently even Ron Paul gets tired of saying the word "NO" over and over sometimes! READ MORE »

 

Headlines - Wednesday December 21

 

Happy Winter Solstice Day!

 

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Wisco: GOP's Economic Sabotage Backfiring

 

and, The Church of the Free Market.

 

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"We've asked for it back..." -- Obama, on how he handled the downed drone in Iran

 

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Endorsements! - Serial adulterer and blow job aficionado Newt Gingrich gets the endorsement of notorious hate group American Family Association founder Donald E. Wildmon. The AFA believes, amongst many other beliefs that non-Christians should not be protected by the Constitution. (The Ticket)

 

 

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It gets better - Superficial sanctimonious Xristian Xrazy ball-throwing person Tim Tebow is being petitioned by his fans to record an It Gets Better video, you know, that helps encourage kids to not kill themselves after being bullied by superficial and sanctimonious Xristian Xrazies. (The Huddle)

 

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The head of Iowa's Family Leader, the authors of that "blacks did better under slavery" pledge, has endorsed Rick Santorum. One Iowa reacts via press release:

 

Today's endorsement of Rick Santorum by Bob Vander Plaats comes as no surprise. Both Santorum and Vander Plaats have all built their careers attacking loving and committed gay and lesbian couples, and the fact is that Vander Plaats caved to the extreme social conservative agenda. With poll numbers lagging, it is clear Rick Santorum does not have a chance against President Obama in November, and Vander Plaats has endorsed a losing candidate. Today's announcement proves what we have known all along: Bob Vander Plaats is out of touch with what voters want. What Iowans care about are jobs and the economy, and they deserve a candidate who does too.

 

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Bob Cesca: You're doing great, Republicans!

 

and this: Procedural Circle-Jerk

 

This too: The Republican Frontrunner is a Grifter

 

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Someone calls Gingrich an f***ing asshole at a grocery store. 

 

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As 2011 Concludes Republicans Take A Solid Lead In Lying

 

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Dana Milbank: Braveheart Republicans? Or false-hearted?

 

What a f***ing joke they are.

 

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Charlie Pierce, Esquire, is alarmed by a new "pediatric health" study:

Of all the numbers in this new study, the following remains an astonishing statistic: By the time they're 23, 41 percent of American kids have been busted for something more serious than a traffic stop… To me, it's an indication of that something is seriously out of whack in the way we're asking our law enforcement community to interact with our children.

Children today grow up surrounded by the police power of the state, both the soft and hard versions of it. At almost every level of their lives, they are policed, in one way or another, either by the police themselves, or by administrators and bureaucrats to whom the police and the courts have subcontracted the job. They have no Fourth or Fifth Amendment rights as soon as they walk through the schoolhouse door. They are searched. They are tested for drugs. Their rights of free expression are tightly circumscribed. Rights unexercised atrophy. We have raised, and are now raising, generations of children who are completely ignorant of the rights they have as citizens, and we are doing it through the application of the most coercive powers the state possesses…

Another triumph for the Banana Republicans! Let's face it, the fortunate sons of the One Percenters—ask the C-Plus Augustus—have always been able to treat the police as nothing more than well-armed security guards. Cops were for keeping those people in line and away from the better neighborhoods, unless they were toting cleaning equipment or yard tools. And the bottom Twenty Percenters, give or take, knew "the arrangement" and warned their kids about the dangers. But over the last few decades, as the unindicted Watergate co-conspirators cemented their criminal takeover under St. Ronnie and the two Bush regencies, those Americans who were once fortunate enough to consider themselves "middle class" have been ever-so-slowly relegated to the ranks of barbarians-outside-the-gated-community. And the increasing militarization of School Security (because drugs! Gangs! Forced busing! Drugs! Hippies! Also Columbine! Foreigner gangs! And did we mention, drugs!) has been one weapon for reminding the rank and file that they—we—have no rights our masters can't find an excuse to erode.

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Let's say that you want to be a school administrator. So here is the test: It comes to your attention that a student with Down's Syndrome has hugged a teacher's aide. If your reaction is to have the kid arrested and charged with sexual harassment, then: Congratulations! You're qualified to be a school administrator.

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Raw Story: Rich people less empathetic than the poor: study

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These punks are sociopaths who deserve long prison sentences and a lifetime of punishment for this. Then, with prison records, unable to get jobs or apartments, they should find themselves homeless and victimized by suburban punk assholes who will beat them up for shits and giggles and post it to the internet. "A 20-year-old and a 17-year-old have been arrested in New Jersey after they allegedly posted videos on YouTube of themselves beating and kicking a homeless man. ... Taylor Giresi, 20, allegedly beat the homeless man in a wooded area of Wall Township as an unidentified 17-year-old cameraman cheered him on, according to The Associated Press. ... "About to go beat up this bum," Giresi says as the video begins. ... After pushing the homeless man to the ground, the suspect kicks him in the head. As the homeless man gets up, he is hit with a rock and falls again. ... "Take his bike," the cameraman says. ... "No, I need my bike!" the man exclaims. ... In a second video, Giresi is seen tackling the homeless man from behind. Blood is flowing from his nose as he stands up. ... "Oh, my God, you're bleeding!" the teen cameraman says sarcastically. "We didn't mean to do that. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Wipe off the blood." ... Giresi then reaches out with his arms as if to give the homeless man a hug, but instead gives him a knee to the stomach."

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The phrase you're looking for is "republican inbreeding." "According to the world's largest online family ancestry database Ancestry.com, former President George W. Bush and presidential contender Mitt Romney are cousins -- 10th cousins, twice removed. Indeed, the Ancestry.com, historians found that "[Mitt] Romney is actually related to six past presidents -- more than any other 2012 GOP contestant." It turns out that Romney shares a similar bloodline to fellow candidate (and Mormon) Jon Huntsman. Romney's great-great-grandfather, an early Mormon missionary, is actually Huntsman's great-great-great-grandfather. The "Romney-Hunstman-George W. Bush connection comes through Anne Marbury Hutchinson, who was a religious-freedom advocate in early 1600s." Granted, none of this has any bearing on the candidates' qualifications for the presidency. It does, however, provide great fodder for a potentially hilarious family reunion."

 

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A federal judge sentenced white supremacist Kevin Harpham to 32 years in prison for the attempted bombing of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Spokane, Washington. Harpham was honorably discharged from the Army and had no criminal record, but the judge said Harpham had been influenced by "shrill and caustic and vitriolic" culture fueled by talk media.

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Former President Bill Clinton said Newt Gingrich is "not really" responsible for balancing the budget in the 1990s, as the former House speaker claims. "He did work with me to pass some good budgets," Clinton acknowledged, however, in an interview with the NBC's Today show.

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The Department of Homeland Security told Congress yesterday that it will cut the number of National Guard troops at the U.S. Southwest border from 1,200 to 300 with greater air support. The change is possible "because of a jump in the number of Border Patrol officers in the region, an increase in technology and a drop in apprehensions at the border."

Let's spend as much money as we possibly can so the defense contractors can keep raking in the cash with the new "aerial assets equipped with the latest surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities."

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Santorum: "I'm for income equality."

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The Occupy Wall Street protests, since they began, have received a fair bit of ire from the 1 percent, as some of the richest Americans have taken exception to the protesters' focus on growing income inequality and the political power of corporations. Bloomberg today rounded up a series of billionaires and wealthy CEOs griping about how unfair the criticism of them has been, likening the Occupy protesters to imbeciles and saying that the protesters' call for the rich to pay their fair share is vomit-inducing.

But it's simply undeniable that the richest 1 percent have seen their income explode in the last few decades, and that many of them are not paying their fair share in taxes, taking advantage of loopholes, tax havens, and the preferential tax treatment of investment income to drive their tax rates down below the rate paid by middle-class families. In just the last few decades, taxes on the richest one percent sunk dramatically. At the very top of the income scale, share of income of the 400 richest Americans quadrupled in the last 12 years, while their effective tax rates were halved:

As Reuters' Felix Salmon put it, "let's not kid ourselves that the men with the billions…are in any way hard done by. Not when there's so much real hardship in America." Indeed, last week the Census Bureau reported that about half of Americans are either living in poverty or qualify as low-income.

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Major investigation: Capitol Xmas tree lacks Jesus-themed ornaments

The Christian News Service has done a careful study of five of the five thousand donated ornaments on the Capitol Christmas Tree, and the findings are not pretty. Two out of these five ornaments were about Barack Obama, and zero were about Jesus. So by statistics, we can say that 2,000 of the ornaments on the tree this year are about Barack Obama, and still none of them are about Jesus. GOOD ENUFF MATH 4 TERRORFYING HEADLINE: "U.S. Capitol Tree Pays Homage to Obama — But Not Jesus." AAAAAAHHHHH. READ MORE »

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Texas Tops List of 10 States Worst-Ravaged By Natural Disasters in 2011

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Well, this makes sense: John Boehner announced that House Republicans expect to vote down tonight a two-month payroll tax cut extension that passed 89-10 in the Senate, presumably to round out the year in teabagger obstructionism with a full-circle reversal of the defining GOP platform for the last million years, "not raising taxes." Nobody even seems to know why they are having a petulant adolescent fit over the bill other than that mean Dad Barack Obama likes it, forcing John Boehner to just wing an official objection on the grounds that the extension lasts only two months instead of, uh, twelve, and twelve is a higher number. READ MORE »