Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Headlines - Wednesday February 9

Behold the Republican caucus voter from Iowa.
 
There are some things Frank Luntz and Fox News would rather not say explicitly out loud if they don't have to. Luckily, they have Republican voters to back them up and make the insane connections they merely insinuate. Who here thinks Obama is a Muslim and that is why he is letting Egypt become a democracy or whatever? Very good, very good. You all get ice cream.

Of course, the best part comes at the 0:35 mark with the bald guy:

"He talks about making them into a republic, but all he talks about are democracies. He doesn't know what a republic is."

Sounds like a Basil Marceaux plant. Everyone leaves this inane comment alone, but Luntz should have pressed further and asked if Obama's Muslimness influenced him to support traffic-stop slavery. THERE'S the truth. Thank God we have this jukebox full of small-time wingnuts to tell the news-viewing public how the world works.

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A senior member of the US Marine corps is telling people "multiple platoons" are deploying to Egypt, a source tells us.
 
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If you wanted to place an ad during this year's Super Bowl, it would have cost you $100,000 per second.
 
 
I'm sure the GOP is hard at work creating jobs now that they're in charge. Oh wait ...
 
Is this the best use of the House's time? Republican Rep. John Kline is a sponsor of a resolution in the U.S. House that would reaffirm "In God We Trust" as the national motto and encourages the posting of the motto on government buildings and in public schools. The resolution has raised the ire of secular groups who say the resolution is unnecessary and that it is discriminatory against non-believers as well as faithful Americans whose religious traditions do not involve a Judeo-Christian god.

The resolution reads in part, "Whereas the sentiment, 'In God We Trust', has been an integral part of United States society since its founding; Whereas if religion and morality are taken out of the marketplace of ideas, the very freedom on which the United States was founded cannot be secured; Whereas in times of national challenge or tragedy, the people of the United States have turned to God as their source for sustenance, protection, wisdom, strength, and direction."
 
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From the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up files, Rep. Bill Posey's (R-FL) response when asked if it was hypocritical for him to accept government run health care benefits after voting to repeal health care reform:

I don't know. Am I a federal employee?

ThinkProgress followed up with Rep. Posey's press secretary George Cecala. Mr. Cecala confirmed for us that Congressman Posey is, indeed, a federal employee. In addition, despite Posey's attempts to evade the question, Mr. Cecala told us that the Florida Republican does accept government-subsidized and managed health care and has done so for his entire congressional career. When asked how the congressman would respond to the hypocrisy angle, Mr. Cecala told us "you can't just single out members of Congress and then just ignore other federal employees who receive the same benefits."

Sure we can. The 'other federal employees' aren't taking our money and subsidized health care with one hand and trying to deny the same benefits to everybody else with the other.
 
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Meet Denny Rehberg, the newly announced Senate candidate from Montana:

One month after the murder of U.S. District Judge John Roll in Tucson, Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-MT) addressed the Montana state legislature Monday and complained about the federal court decision to keep the gray wolf on the endangered species list: "When I first heard his decision, like many of you I wanted to take action immediately. I asked: How can we put some of these judicial activists on the Endangered Species list?"

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Wisco: If the Muslim had stabbed the Christian, then it'd be big, national news. 
 
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We're sure that somewhere in the United States, someone is kicking himself right now for not thinking of this first. "China's history with food safety is a rocky one, but even in the annals of robbery and abuse, this will go down in infamy. ... Various reports in Singapore media have said that Chinese companies are mass producing fake rice made, in part, out of plastic, according to one online publication Very Vietnam. ... The "rice" is made by mixing potatoes, sweet potatoes and plastic. The potatoes are first formed into the shape of rice grains. Industrial synthetic resins are then added to the mix. The rice reportedly stays hard even after being cooked. ... The Korean-language Weekly Hong Kong reported that the fake rice is being sold in the Chinese town of Taiyuan, in Shaanxi province. ... "A Chinese Restaurant Association official said that eating three bowls of this fake rice would be like eating one plastic bag. Due to the seriousness of the matter, he added that there would be an investigation of factories alleged to be producing the rice," Very Vietnam noted."

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According to the TAX EXEMPT American Family Association, Native Americans are "morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil" because they rejected early efforts to impose Christianity upon them. Bryan Fischer explains: http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/02/american-family-association-native.html
 
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Folks, this one takes the cake.
It would be legal for an Iowa business owner who cites religious beliefs to refuse to provide jobs, housing, goods or services to people involved in a marriage that violates his or her religious convictions, according to a bill an Iowa House subcommittee will consider on Wednesday. House Study Bill 50, called the Religious Conscience Protection Act, would allow a person, business or organization such as a charity or fraternal group to deny services without fear of facing a civil claim or lawsuit if they think doing so would validate or recognize same-sex relationships. The same-sex exclusion is by itself constitutionally troubling, several legal scholars and civil rights activists said. However, the bill is so broad that it would legalize a wide spectrum of other discriminatory acts, they said. They raised questions about whether services could be denied if, say, a Christian were married to a Jew or if a woman who is 60 married a man who is half her age and the couple could not procreate.
Iowa's GOP House Speaker says the bill "has a shot" of passing. Our hero in the state Senate, Mike Gronstal, will likely block the bill from consideration there.
 
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Catholic Church Launches Confession App

The Catholic Church has launched an official confession app for the iPhone. And unsurprisingly, absolution isn't free.
The program - called Confession - went on sale last week through iTunes for $1.99. Described as "the perfect aid for every penitent", it offers users tips and guidelines to help them with the sacrament. Now senior church officials in America have given it their seal of approval, in what is thought to be a first. The app takes users through the sacrament - in which Catholics admit their wrongdoings - and allows them to keep track of their sins. It also allows them to examine their conscience based on personalised factors such as age, sex and marital status - but it is not intended to replace traditional confession entirely. Instead, it encourages users to understand their actions and then visit their priest for absolution.
Say five Grindrs and go forth and sin no more.
 
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Lawrence O'Donnell: Socialist Football League
 
But socialized health care is where we draw the line.
And don't forget the $450,000 taxpayer-funded flyover by Navy jets for the closed stadium where fans watched on jumbo screens.  
 
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Morford: All your problems, instantly solved
 
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Will Bristol Palin become the first unwed mother and high-school dropout to become President of the United States? Fox thinks so.
 
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Sean Paul Kelley (in toto): Food riots across the Middle East, starvation in portions of sub-Saharan Africa, India outsourcing crop growing to Africa, China importing mass amounts of cereals, 100* plus temperatures in Russia, a failed wheat harvest there, massive winter storms two years running in the American Northeast, epic, biblical scale floods in Australia, and last but not least a tie for the warmest year on record?

What part of anthropogenic climate change do we not understand?
 
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So tell me again ...
Why we've wasted so much money and so many lives over there as opposed to having killed a half million of them (as vengeance for 9/11) and left off?

An Afghan physiotherapist will be executed within three days for converting to Christianity.

Said Musa, 45, has been held for eight months in a Kabul prison were he claims he has been tortured and sexually abused by inmates and guards.

...
I thought we were bringing "freedom" and "democracy" there? After 10 years, it doesn't look like much of either has taken hold. Time to go.

Update:

Another example of why we should split tomorrow:

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Tuesday compared Western reconstruction teams in his country to "plumbers" who were no longer needed and said they should leave.

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Karzai's comments, his latest outspoken swipe at Western allies of his government, came during a press conference at the presidential palace in Kabul.

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Newt Gingrich and His Wife, Callista, Tour the Apartment Where Ronald Reagan Was Born of a Virgin in 1911
 
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Jill: How can you be "pro-life" and be opposed to women's health?
 
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Could the GOP be more hateful if they tried?
I have to wonder about that. There was a bill in the last congress to crack down on the sexual trafficking of minors. It would have given grants to states to work against sex trafficking and it would have set up a way to track children who were ensnared and used by the traffickers.

The bill failed to be passed into law.

It failed because
Republicans, particularly Sen. Jeff Sessions*, wanted to make sure that the children who were being exploited for sexual purposes were also arrested and charged with prostitution.

Obsidian Wings has a lot more about the GOP's War on Women. I just picked one thing out from that post to highlight it.

Forget all the blather about "fiscal responsibility," the Republicans are showing their true colors. They are just as eager to use the force of government to meddle in people's personal lives as any statist, conservative or liberal.
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Hillary slips up and tells the truth about the "war on drugs" "In what will likely be seen as something of a Freudian slip by the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said recently in a Mexican news interview that the United States cannot legalize drugs as a means of fighting the black market because "there is just too much money in it.""

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Here are the 48 times O'Reilly annoyed President Obama by interrupting him.  You know, the sort of decorum one usually has when ones speaks with the head of state.

"After he interrupted me for the 40th time, I said, 'Mr. O'Reilly, I'll bet you don't even have coitus without interruptus!'"

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