Headlines - Wednesday May 18

 

###

 

Important Rapture Update

According to End Times proponent Harold Camping, the rapture will occur promptly this Saturday at 6pm in each God-created time zone, giving those of you on the west coast an extra three hours to get right with Jeebus once people on the east coast start vanishing. Also, a massive earthquake will serve to announce the rapture's onset in each time zone. Just so you know.

###

 

 

###

 

The vote was nearly 100% party line, Republicans defending billions in subsidies to Big Oil while they talk about eliminating Medicare and cutting $4 trillion from programs that help you every day.

Here's the vote tally. "Yea" is a good vote, but 60 votes were needed because the Republicans were filibustering again.

More on how Big Oil bought the vote:

 

The 48 Senators that voted against cloture today on S. 940, the Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act, have received $370,664, on average, in campaign contributions from the employees and political action committees (PACs) of oil and gas companies during their time in Congress, while those who voted to consider the legislation received just $72,145, on average.

 

It's more important for Republicans to give tax breaks to companies that are pulling in ten billion dollars in profits every three months than it is to do anything about the deficit.

Of course, Republicans are concerned about the deficit if it gives them a way to turn the screws on working people and senior citizens. But when it comes to trying to get Big Oil, large multinationals and rich people to cough up a little more, hell, the GOP has their backs.

That has not changed since the day that Theodore Roosevelt left the presidency, for he was probably the last Republican who gave a damn about anyone who wasn't wealthy.

 

### 

 

###

 

Blackwater's Erik Prince is setting up no-Muslims battalion for Abu Dhabi to use against revolution and Iran.

 

###

 

 

###

 

If they nailed Roger Clemens for lying to Congress, they damn well can nail Goldman Sachs! But they never will

But They Never Will.

Matt Taibbbi lays out, in an extensive article, the lies that Goldman Sachs executives told to Congress.

But shit, you know and I know that those fuckers in the Department of Justice will never do a goddamned thing about it. Goldman Sachs executives can hire the kind of lawyers that, in comparison, would make Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyers look like a bunch of 3Ls from a bottom-tier law school.

The DoJ sometimes appears to have a bit of a yellow streak-- oh, they're big at going after your garden-variety crooks, insider traders and even mafiosi, but going after people who have the juice that Goldman has may be too much for them. DoJ doesn't like to lose. Goldman can probably afford to hire every criminal defense lawyer between Portland, Maine and Richmond, Virginia.

DoJ have to get help from from the Treasury Department in order to unwind the tangled fuckery of Goldman, but the Treasury is so riddled with moles from Goldman alumni that DoJ could be reasonably certain that their legal strategy might as well be posted simultaneously on the websites for the WaPo and the NY Times.

But the legal talent that Goldman can bring to bear and its information network within Treasury probably pale in comparison to the number of politicians that Goldman owns. Their executives could probably dump bodies along Wall Street and they'd only be given tickets for littering. And those tickets would be fixed before the summonses could be entered into the system.

Goldman execs could go before Congress, swear to tell the truth, tell them that the Sun rises in the west, that the Moon is made of cheese, that Dubya has a IQ of 235 and DoJ could never make a case against them for lying to Congress.

And that is just the way it is.

 

###

 

###

 

Wisco: The Bush tax cuts failed. Period.

 

###

 

Jill: Don't insult my intelligence

 

And in a related story: F**k you, Ben Stein.

 

### 

Sen. John Ensign set an example for all the Savior's followers when he signed this photo to his lover's husband with these words: "To Doug, your Friend and brother in Christ, John Ensign U.S.S."

###

For cruelty's sake alone. "Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) this week asked a judge if the state may stop defending a law that gives citizens in same sex relationships the right to visit their partner if they're in a hospital. ... Passed by Democrats in 2009, the state's domestic partnership registry was meant to give same sex couples more rights. While it succeeded in doing so, rights for domestic partners in Wisconsin do not rise to the level of special rights granted by marriage. ... It allows anyone to register a domestic partner with the state, who can then visit them in the hospital, make key end-of-life decisions and inherit property in the event of one partner's death. ... Gov. Walker contends that this is unconstitutional. According to a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examination of the governor's legal brief, he claims that allowing partners these basic rights does not serve "the public interest," insisting that the state should not have to pay attorneys to defend it."

### 

###

 

Good: Charges filed against sixth "kill team" soldier. "Army prosecutors filed charges Tuesday against a sixth Washington state-based soldier in a plot to murder Afghan civilians for sport during patrols in Kandahar province last year. ... Staff Sgt. David Bram, of Vacaville, Calif., now faces charges that include solicitation to commit premeditated murder, aggravated assault on Afghan nationals, failing to report crimes including murder, planting evidence and unlawfully discussing murder scenarios with subordinates. ... Army prosecutors say the soldiers from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle, killed three Afghan civilians during the patrols, in each case by finding isolated men, pretending they posed a threat, and slaughtering them with guns or grenades. ... One soldier, then-Cpl. Jeremy Morlock of Wasilla, Alaska, has pleaded guilty in a deal to testify against his co-defendants and was sentenced to 24 years in prison. The others are awaiting courts martial."

 

### 

Stephen Hawking has made it official…well, sort of.

"I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

Hawking says he is not afraid of dying, not that he's in any hurry to do so. Same here. Death has never been a worry for me and the fact that there is in all probability no afterlife is not a concern either. And with no tangible proof of any kind, why should Christ's heaven, Thor's valhalla or Mohammad's paradise be any truer than the other?

Judaism, I believe, has it right on this one. It is more concerned with the actions of individuals in the present life than a concept of bliss and eternity in an afterlife.

In any case, Twitter is ablaze with reaction as atheists and theists battle it out. Few topics gets people as feisty and combative than when one messes with their spiritual beliefs.

 

###

Ten years ago, the Culture of Life was going strong. How do we know this? Arnold Schwarzenegger got one of his maids pregnant a decade ago, and she went through with it, having the kid and pretending her husband was the father. Yay! We're so happy for that maid! Wasn't it great that she Chose Life? She will now get to team up with Bristol Palin (assuming she's not one of those Messicans and can speak English or whatever it is those Palins communicate in) and parade the kid across the country as it TERMINATES teen abortion with all the strength of a grandchild of a Nazi. None of those Kennedy broads-on-the-side ever had a baby, right? That's how you know Arnold is a Republican. And all of this is why his wife left him. [LAT]

###

Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas said yesterday that critics of the court's decisions are either illiterate or lazy, and that their critiques are undermining "the integrity of the law." Thomas, who hasn't uttered a word during the high court's oral arguments in years, said in a Georgia speech that the "cynics" are merely "drunk on their own opinions."

###

 

Congressman suggests staving off default by selling most of Utah

Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL)

To address the nation's deficit as we reach our impending statutory debt limit, conservatives refuse to consider asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share. Instead, many want to place the burden on the backs of Main Street America. Florida Republican congressman Dennis Ross went a step further today, suggesting that the U.S. government could actually sell off part of America:

Dennis Ross, a House Republican and a member of the Tea Party caucus, told Reuters: "I don't think Treasury has been up front with us. I am not convinced the sky will fall in on August 3."

Ross added: "I'm not an economist, but I have maintained a household. The federal government owns 70 per cent of Utah, for example. There are federal buildings. If you need cash, let's start liquidating."

Among other novel approaches offered by conservatives to address the deficit: Selling off all the gold at Fort Knox.

###

Constituents laugh at Rep. Quayle for denying existence of billions in special oil subsidies.

Iowa Voter to Gingrich: "Why don't you get out before you make a bigger fool of yourself" 

More of this please!