Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Headlines - Wednesday May 25

 
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Retired Chaplains throw a dead-ender hissy-fit, want protections for service members and Chaplains who want to keep preaching and practicing hate. "Leaders of 21 religious groups that provide chaplains to the U.S. military want assurance from Congress or the Pentagon that chaplains and servicemembers won't be punished for openly discussing their objections to homosexuality, in light of the "don't ask, don't tell" overturning, according to a story from The Associated Press.  ... The retired chaplains sent a letter Monday to the chiefs of chaplains of the Navy, Army and Air Force. ... "This is already an assault and a challenge on individual conscience and some soldiers may think it's forcing them to abandon their religious beliefs or being marginalized for holding to those beliefs," said Douglas E. Lee, a retired Army brigadier general and chaplain, whose signature was the first on the letter, according to the story." (We say that they have their bennies and they are civilians now, so they should STFU, because they represent the past and the world has moved on without them..)
 
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What is even creepier is that he predicted this would happen not long ago
 
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Peter Fonda  suffers delusions of grandeur

Peter Fonda doesn't know what his fingers are doing.
 
Peter Fonda is training his grandkids to use rifles.  Why?  Obamageddon is upon us, obvs.
Easy Rider star Peter Fonda, at the Cannes Film Festival, says he is training his grandchildren to take up arms against President Obama.

I'm training my grandchildren to use long-range rifles," said the actor, 71. "For what purpose? Well, I'm not going to say the words 'Barack Obama', but …"

He added, enigmatically: "It's more of a thought process than an actuality, but we are heading for a major conflict between the haves and the have nots. I came here many years ago with a biker movie and we stopped a war. Now, it's about starting the world.

"I prefer to not to use the words, 'let's stop something'. I prefer to say, 'let's start something, let's start the world'.


Really, Peter Fonda? Easy Rider ended the Vietnam War?
 
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Big Ag was already killing the Gulf before this years flooding compounded the problem. "Nancy Rabalais, marine scientist and executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, is probably our foremost authority on the vast, oxygen-depleted "dead zone" that rears up annually in the Gulf of Mexico, fed by fertilizer runoff from large Corn Belt farms. ... In a report on the PBS Newshour blog, Rabelais delivers some bad news: Floods in the Mississippi River watershed this spring are washing tremendous amounts of fertilizer into Gulf, promising to generate the largest dead zone on record. ... In addition to carrying in fertilizer runoff, the floods threaten to worsen the dead-zone problem by flushing in much more fresh water than normally makes it into the Gulf, PBS reports."
 
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You know what pisses me off?

Hurricane devastates New Orleans - Christians say it was an evil city.
Anything happens outside the US: Christians say God hates non-Americans anyway.

Tornadoes rip through the Bible Belt: crickets.  Not a word.
That pisses me off.
 
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How Do You Spell Sociopath? G-O-P
 
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Hoyer: cuts to Medicare are on the table
 
Well, that's a tad idiotic to admit when the GOP is still saying "no tax cuts" and Democrats, for the first time in a long time, have Republicans on the run over Ryan's budget proposal to dismantle Medicare.

And again, why make this concession when the Republicans haven't conceded anything yet?  This would be our second concession.  The first is holding the talks at all and conceding that we need to cut $4 trillion, and start immediately.
 
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John Edwards will be indicted for campaign finance irregularities "The ABC11 Eyewitness News I-Team has developed exclusive new information that has not been previously reported. .. The United States Department of Justice in Washington has given the go ahead for John Edwards to be prosecuted in connection with a campaign finance investigation. ... A source familiar with the case tells the I-Team Edwards now knows that federal prosecutors intend to indict him."

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Wisco: The politics of hate
 
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A comment about Repugs at TPM: If it can't be solved by tax cuts, deregulation or killing or imprisoning brown people, it, by definition, is not a problem.
 
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Team Elizabeth Warren vs Kochsucking Blatherskite.
 
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Paul Ryan got his ass kicked by a couple of girls yesterday. An hour after the polls closed, the race was called for Kathy Hochul in the NY 26, Jack Kemp's old seat and a district that no Democrat has won in over 40 years. Major props go to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair who managed the messaging and the ad buys and made this pick-up possible. She just aced her first test since taking the reins after the inept Tim Kaine's departure. One more thing: Paul Ryan got his punk ass kicked by a couple of girls in the NY 26 tonight. Now let's get organized and help Debbie beat Ryan in the Wisconsin 01, where it really counts. That would be the ultimate "don't fuck with Medicare" message. Ryan has a real challenger next year in Rob Zerban, and of course there's an Act Blue Page.
 
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Their audience is either wising up, or they are dying off. Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity have both lost a staggering percentage of their audience in the latest Arbitron ratings. While they still retain, respectively the number one and number two talk radio programs, this has be causing at least a little bit of concern . Limbaugh has lost a third of his listeners since the last ratings period and Hannity has lost more than a quarter of his. Meanwhile, Imus, inexplicably, is gaining listeners.
 
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Nosferatu.
 
Return of the Rat: Giuliani Considers Running Again For President of 9/11
 
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In spite of overwhelming evidence of price fixing and speculation, the GOP moves to cut funding for the federal agency that serves as a watchdog over the oil industry. "Republicans have, for the last several weeks, been lambasting President Obama for the nation's high gas prices, while promoting so-called solutions - like authorizing more offshore oil drilling - that won't bring down gas prices. At the same time, House Republicans are actively undermining the agency charged with policing manipulation in the oil markets. ... ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson admitted earlier this month that, according to traditional supply and demand, oil should cost about $60 or $70 per barrel, instead of hovering around $100. Analysts at Goldman Sachs estimated that speculation was adding roughly $27 per barrel earlier this month. Instead of addressing this clear problem, House Republicans have proposed cutting the budget of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission -- which oversees trading in energy markets -- by 15 percent from its 2010 level."

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Sadness
Petition to recall Gabrielle Giffords not really very nice
 
 
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Report: across the country, Conservaturds shift taxpayer dollars from public to private schools
 
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Sarah Palin is apparently banking on a Palin-backed documentary about ... Sarah Palin in an effort to rebrand her image and possibly prep her for a presidential run. The Undefeated comes to a theater near you in June.
 
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Good luck with this! .....

With Chrysler paying back its $7.6 billion federal loan six years early, Democrats are taking the opportunity to demand an apology from Republicans who bashed the deal as a waste. And they're taking particular aim at Mitt Romney over his 2008 NYT Oped: "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt." Josh Marshall

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FEMA Declares Eric Cantor a Disaster Area
Congressman Denies Funds to Self
 

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – One day after Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) stirred controversy by withholding funds for tornado relief, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took the extraordinary step of declaring Rep. Cantor a disaster area.

Within hours of the declaration, FEMA officials were dispatched to assess the damage to Mr. Cantor's status as a human being capable of empathy.

"I've seen a lot of hurricanes and tornados, but this is something new," said FEMA spokesman Tracy Klugian.  "Rep. Cantor appears to have been caught up in a moral vacuum."

While concerned FEMA officials looked on, the morally ravaged House Majority Leader took to the floor of the House to make the case for denying funds to repair himself.

The FEMA spokesman said that the agency was currently trying to estimate the cost of rebuilding Mr. Cantor's soul.

"Quite frankly, I've never seen devastation like this," Mr. Klugian said.  "It's like there's nothing there."

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