Headlines - Wednesday August 31

 

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August has become the deadliest month for U.S. troops in the nearly 10-year-old war in Afghanistan, where international forces have started to go home and let Afghan forces take charge of securing their country.

 

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Daryl Hannah arrested at White House

 

Why is this any different than the Bush days?

 

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Time for the White House to rein in Michelle Obama's out-of-control spending

 

Of course, if it had been Laura Bush doing this, we'd have been in an uproar.

 

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Let's Make It Official: Obama Is Not Serious About a Real Recovery

 

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Wisco: GOP: Soft on Defense

 

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Patriotic Children's Book Here To Rescue Your Child From Socialism

 

 

Are little Jimmy and Janie coming home from school with a bunch of godless socialist ideas about "redistributing toys to other kids who haven't had a turn" and "waiting in communist bread lines to go out to recess?"  If you are worried this kind of Soviet indoctrination is taking hold of your youngster in our nation's underfunded miniature socialist learning labs, well then, the Internet has a thing for you. "One Nation Under God: A Book for Little Patriots" is an actual book (remember those?) for parents to read to their kids in case they noticed God and gun rights weren't mentioned enough times in their civics homework. Let's take a peek at our lessons!

Let's see, here is what your child can learn about the Ten Commandments Ten Amendments in the Bill of Rights:

The Bill of Rights tells us that
We may do what many can't.
So there would be no room for doubt,
Our Founding Fathers laid them out.

There are ten rights, and they mean a lot.
They are ten reasons that we fought.
Freedoms we didn't have before,
Freedoms well worth fighting for.

When you know you're safe in your own home,
When you know you don't have to pray alone.
When you say just what you feel,
It might not seem like a big deal.

Just remember that these rights weren't free.
Many fought for you and me.

Clever! We are assuming "right to feel safe in your own home" is the code for gun rights, since "feeling safe at home" is not actually in the Bill of Rights, is that "on target," haha? You may have to explain that one more fully to the kids.

And, bonus, some Big Hollywood reviewer is thrilled with this book, because it doesn't make her feel like she is turning her son into a gay socialist when they read it together:

My son has a Ronald Reagan action figure (okay, maybe it's not an action figure but I refuse to call it a doll) in his room along with Navy SEAL posters and plenty of little green army men.  He plays with toy guns and wears camouflage pants and says "Semper fi" to any Marine we come across in an airport or at Costco.  We're not exactly the typical family you might find on the west side of Los Angeles.  So you can see why this is the kind of book I can feel good about reading with my son.

Yes, safer to skip all those other homosexual anti-military books out there. [The Internet/ Big Hollywood]

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Puerto Rico's Sen. Roberto Arango says his resignation was brought about by a conspiracy of his political enemies. Enemies who apparently forced him to show his fellow Grindr members the results of his fabulous weight loss. IN HIS ANUS.

 

In his resignation letter effective August 31, Arango says his political enemies are to blame for his downfall. "I affirm with the up most certainty that the controversy which Puerto Rico's Senate and the city capital is currently facing is the result of a sinister maneuver orchestrated by my political enemies," he wrote. When the Puerto Rican TV show Dando Candela presented the conservative lawmaker with a photograph of a naked man, he didn't exactly deny he was the subject in the photograph: "You know I've been losing weight. As I shed that weight, I've been taking pictures. I don't remember taking this particular picture but I'm not gonna say I didn't take it. I'd tell you if I remembered taking the picture but I don't."

 

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When anti-gay Christianist hate groups call for nationwide boycotts of LGBT-friendly companies, that is a righteous use of the free market in order to preserve morality, marriage, family, and the American way. But when GAY groups use or threaten the use of a boycott, THAT is homofascist intimidation, intolerance, bullying, and an attempt to deny the freedom of speech.

Just so we're all clear.

 

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The American Family Association, which screams and complains every week about its hate group designation, would like to imprison millions of Americans merely because of who they are. But remember, WE are the Nazis.

 

Both of the cases that went to the United States Supreme Court that dealt with the issue of whether states should criminalize sodomy, and of course they still ought to be able to do it, every state in the union criminalized sodomy until 1962 and then forty nine states until 1972, then they began to fall like dominoes. But by the time of the founding until the late 20th Century, homosexual activity was a felony offense in the United States of America, there is no reason why it cannot be a criminal offense once again, absolutely none.

 

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Borowitz: The kind of people you used to cross the street to avoid are now all running for President.

 

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Via Glennzilla, this:

"The number of people worldwide who are killed by Muslim-type terrorists, Al Qaeda wannabes, is maybe a few hundred outside of war zones. It's basically the same number of people who die drowning in the bathtub each year," said John Mueller, an Ohio State University professor who has written extensively about the balance between threat and expenditures in fighting terrorism.

I bet if you compared how much we spend on terrorism per yer per death and calculated how much we would need to spend to have the same per capita ration for cancer deaths, it would be hundreds of trillions. But then again, with us all afraid, we don't notice the erosion of our rights and liberties. So we got that going for us.

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We keep hearing about these outrageous wastes of money yet somehow, too few people in Washington do anything about it. The wars keep going on - they even expand into new countries - and nobody dares question the spending. It's seemingly OK to cut funds from middle class Americans who are already suffering but no, the military keeps getting a free ride. No wonder so few people like either Congress or the president. What's to like about any of them? There's absolutely no leadership in Washington from either side.

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Where are all the detached fetuses of which you speak?

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REPORT: 25 Corporations Paid More To Their CEO Last Year Than They Paid In Taxes

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Five brave souls attend Christine O'Donnell book signing in Florida

Nimrod second-tier grifter Christine O'Donnell is trying desperately to sell her dumb book about how to knit homemade dildos Xtine's Tea Party expertise, which ranks somewhere below the sequence of random numbers and letters in a license plate database for its contribution to policy. A crowd of four teabaggers showed up to her book signing in Naples, Florida to meet her, plus one guy who asked her to sign a copy of his devil worship handbook, which she refused to do. (Haha, we like this guy.) 2012 preseason grifter tryouts are coming to a close, and we don't see her making the cut. Maybe it's time to just go back to selling vibrators and sorcery manuals on Amazon, Christine? READ MORE »

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Dan Savage: Shouldn't homophobic politicians and anti-gay bullies be presumed to be gay until they get caught up in a straight sex scandal?

Headlines - Tuesday August 30

I wish more organizations stopped inviting Republicans to events honoring things they don't support. May I suggest Tom Morello instead?

Community parades often feature local politicians waving to the crowds, but this year's annual Labor Day parade in Wausau may be short a few elected officials.

That's because the head of the group that sponsors the Wausau Labor Day Parade, the Marathon County Central Labor Council, is telling Republicans lawmakers from the area that they're not welcome on Sept. 5.

"Usually they've been in the parade, but it seems like they only want to stand with us one day a year, and the other 364 days they don't really care," said Randy Radtke, president of the Council. The Council is made up of about 30 local unions from the Marathon County area.

In a statement, Radtke added that parade is intended to celebrate working men and women and what the labor movement has given them: weekends, a 40-hour work week, child labor protection and a safe working environment.

"It should come as no surprise that organizers choose not to invite elected officials who have openly attacked worker's rights or stood idly by while their political party fought to strip public workers of their right to collectively bargain," Radtke said.

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Republicans Complain About Cuts to FEMA Hurricane Relief...You Know the Cuts They Wanted

 

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At least 29 people were killed today, including MP Khalid al-Fahdawi, and 38 others were wounded when a suicide bomber attacked Umm al-Qura Mosque in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad today.

August has been the latest of several bloody months in Iraq, with attacks centering around Ramadan commemorations. This included a serious of strikes two weeks ago, which killed at least 74 people in a single day.

Too bad our anti-war president doesn't see this epic fail and get us the f**k out of there.

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Glenn Beck says that Hurricane Irene is "a blessing from God".

With this kind of religious insanity it's no wonder America is in trouble. So as a Liberal Atheist I have to respond with, "May God bless Glenn Beck as well." Marc Perkel

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A Dog's Heartbreak: Loyal Pooch Waits by Slain Navy SEAL's Coffin 

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Ranger's Widow Expelled from Rumsfeld Book Signing

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Calling the GOP "Anti-Science" is Being Generous

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All Heterosexual Men Are Pedophiles

Delaware pediatrician Dr. Earl Bradley has been sentenced to 14 consecutive life sentences after being charged with 471 counts of molesting over 100 girls in his practice, providing blatant proof that heterosexual men are all inherent molesters who should not be trusted around children.

The "vast majority" of Bradley's victims were under 3 years old, lead prosecutor Paula J. Ryan stressed in urging the harshest possible sentence for the once-respected physician whose crimes sent shock waves throughout Delaware and beyond and ranked him among history's worst pedophiles. "Earl Bradley committed unspeakable acts upon those who could not speak for themselves," Ryan told the judge. "He deliberately manipulated the parents of these children. He manipulated those who worked with him, and he repeatedly and intentionally -- without remorse or hesitation -- attacked and sexually assaulted toddlers and nonverbal children. "To make indescribable and horrific matters even worse, he videotaped these incidents for his own perverse pleasure, endlessly editing and copying, permanently memorializing his attacks on these children for his own twisted collection," she said.

The American people need to rise up and demand that heterosexual men be banned from any job that provides access to our nation's vulnerable children!

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Months after sweeping into power in the state legislature, Indiana's teabaggers instituted the nation's strongest school voucher system, which allows parents to use taxpayers' money to pay the tuition for private Christian schools. And things are turning out exactly like you'd expect.

Weeks after Indiana began the nation's broadest school voucher program, thousands of students have transferred from public to private schools, causing a spike in enrollment at some Catholic institutions that were recently on the brink of closing for lack of pupils. It's a scenario public school advocates have long feared: Students fleeing local districts in large numbers, taking with them vital tax dollars that often end up at parochial schools. Opponents say that violates separation of church and state. Supporters respond that parents, not government, decide where the vouchers will be spent.

Not only are these kids suffering through the brainwashing of a private Christian school, YOU are paying for it.

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Anti-gay Puerto Rican GOP territorial Sen. Roberto Arango has resigned after he was discovered showing his anus on the gay hook-up site, Grindr. Arango initially dismissed the revelation, saying that he was only uploading photos to show off his recent weight loss. IN HIS ANUS.

A Puerto Rico lawmaker has resigned following reports that explicit photos of him surfaced on an iPhone application for gays and bisexuals, the head of the U.S. territory's Senate announced Sunday. Sen. Roberto Arango, a Republican who represents the capital of San Juan, presented his letter of resignation after a weekend meeting, Senate President Thomas Rivera Schatz said. Schatz did not release the lawmaker's letter, but said the circumstances that led to the resignation "are very lamentable." Local news media published photos from the application showing a man's nude upper body with a cellphone obscuring his face. Another photo showed a rear view of a nude man on his hands and knees. Another showed a fuzzy image of a face that seemed to match Arango's.

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Governor Chris Christie held a press conference today estimating that the damaged caused by Hurricane Irene could be in the tens of billions of dollars. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul made the case for abolishing FEMA. Again.

Will the free market pick up the tab for cleanup and reconstruction? How many residents of New Jersey even have flood insurance? I'd guess very few.

How are all of those privately run shelters working out?

Oh wait, they aren't privately run. No private company is going to open a private disaster shelter as some things simply aren't meant to be profitable.

What would Jesus Ayn Rand do?

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Mario: Krugman on the right's willful ignorance.

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More of this, please .....

GOP Rep. Dan Lungren, a member of the House Leadership, encountered hostility from his constituents at a second town hall over the weekend. But, unlike an event earlier this month in which a young woman in the audience who challenged him on the issues was forcibly removed, this time it was Lungren who threatened to leave, eliciting a chorus of "boos."

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One of the nation's foremost experts on climate change was arrested outside the White House on Monday morning after he joined a protest against a planned Canadian tar sands pipeline.

Dr. James Hansen, who runs NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, was arrested along with 139 other protesters taking part in a series of demonstrations against the planned $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport 500,000 barrels of crude per day from America's neighbor to the north all the way to the Gulf coast of Texas.

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The term you're looking for is "crony capitalism" -- and Leon Panetta veritably defines "crony" so don't look for it to change any time soon. "Nearly half of the approximately $300 billion of taxpayer money the Department of Defense spent on projects in 2010 was awarded for no-bid contracts -- some of which weren't necessary, the Center for Public Integrity's iWatch News reported on Monday. ... The cost of the non-competitive contracts the U.S. military has tripled in the last 10 years, now tallying up to $140 billion of taxpayer money per year on quick solution defense spending. ... Though competition amongst companies saves taxpayer money, the stated urgent nature of the military's needs pushed aside fiscal concerns. In 2001, the Pentagon's non-competitive contracts cost around $50 billion. In 2010, nearly a decade after the war on terror began, that spending has risen to around $140 billion. Only 55 percent of contracts awarded in the first two quarters of 2011 were competitive."

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US government scientists spent 1940s infecting Guatemala with STDs

Fun with science: a U.S. presidential panel has discovered six decades too late that from 1946-1948, U.S. Public Health Service scientists were trolling the insane asylums, prisons and hospitals of Guatemala looking for brown people to inject with syphilis and gonorrhea, "just to see what would happen." The report notes that "new information indicates that researchers were unusually unethical, even when placed into the historical context of a different era." Thanks, presidential panel! U.S. officials now have a copy-paste template for the 2081 report uncovering the actual extent of the hellacious torture methods the CIA was busy trying out "just to see what would happen" on its detainees in various other brown people countries across the world.  READ MORE »

Headlines - Monday August 29

The Tea Party is the Christian extremist, and full-bore racist, wing of the Republican Party. Except for the 27 percenters, normal people now hate them.

 

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Common Dreams: Cesium in Incinerator Dust Across East Japan

 

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There is No Moral Case for Tax Havens: They are the epitome of unfairness and injustice, leaving ordinary citizens to foot the bill for multinational corporations

 

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In the latest example of worthlessness, The Drudge Report puts up a headline decrying Hurricane Irene as a "phony hurricane." If you want to make yourself stupid, just drink. It's more fun.

 

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Via Kevin Drum, here's a chart showing peak oil production throughout the world.

How an eventual decline in oil production will create mayhem with the world economy:

Global production of oil has hit a ceiling — or, at best, will grow very slowly for the next few years on its way to a ceiling in 2015 or 2020 or so — and this is going to cause severe volatility in the global economy. As world GDP grows, demand for oil increases and bumps up against the supply ceiling, prices spike upward, and the world goes into recession. Demand for oil then decreases a bit, the economy recovers, rinse and repeat.

The sooner we shitcan fossil fuels as an energy source, the sooner we'll be on the vanguard of an all new green energy economy.

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Don Davis: Cheney insists on doing book tour through Hurricane Irene

"IN ORDER FOR READERS TO REALLY APPRECIATE WHAT I STAND FOR, THERE'S NOTHING BETTER THAN TO HAVE THEM FEEL AS CLOSE AS POSSIBLE TO BEING WATERBOARDED."

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Skippy's environmental news stories Sunday.

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Fuck this guy

Republican Barack Obama says filthy tar sands pipeline is great

The difference between the environmental policies of Barack Obama and George W. Bush? You expected it to be bad with Bush Jr. Today, the White House is surrounded with people protesting the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline. Here's how Rep. Henry Waxman described it: "This pipeline is a multi-billion dollar investment to expand our reliance on the dirtiest source of transportation fuel currently available." He was one of 50 in Congress to officially protest to Hillary Clinton, who as secretary of state has jurisdiction over this dirty nightmare being extended from Canada's filthy earth-raping tar sands extraction pits to the American Midwest. Says the Politico just now: "The Obama administration is working overtime to fight the perception that it's dissing green groups and rubber-stamping a controversial 1,700-mile oil pipeline." Well that sounds about right for Obama, working at the last minute on the perception of something rather than its reality. READ MORE »

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Proven lies Fox news has reported in the past year 

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Hey! Who likes white people?

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Maureen Dowd, self-appointed Queen Bee Mean Girl of the Villagers' lunchroom, is the perfect reviewer for Darth Cheney's new book

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Why, yes, readers! That is in fact an op-ed piece in the Politico by… Chuck Norris.

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Presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-Moron) told The Associated Press Sunday that as president, she would approve drilling for oil and natural gas in the Everglades

Oh, and she also suggested God used the hurricane and last week's earthquake to tell politicians to cut spending: 

"I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."

It's ironic that God would use a hurricane to send a memo about cutting government spending, considering that the damage it causes it likely going to increase government spending. Meanwhile, religious leaders from disparate faith organizations have come out against further spending cuts on services for the poor.

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Pastor Mikey wants to put people on some kind of twisted perversion of an enemies list.

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For the right, ideology trumps common sense.

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House Republicans plan to hold votes nearly every week this fall to repeal environmental, health, and labor regulations they claim are stifling job growth. The main targets will be new rules from the National Labor Relations Board and pollution regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency, according to Majority Leader Eric Cantor's (R-VA) memo to GOP members.

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Craig Ferguson joked last week about Hurricane Irene: "Our thoughts, of course, are with everyone on the East Coast preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Irene. In Washington, D.C., thousands have been left with no power. They're called Democrats."

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Random muslim becomes millionth 'al Qaeda #2' after robot kills him

Anything besides hurricane news today? Yes! The Pentagon or the CIA or whatever corporation runs the robot death drone planes that constantly rain bombs on brown people throughout the world just announced that about a week ago, one of those robot death drone planes dropped a couple of million-dollar bombs somewhere and one of those bombs blew up a random Muslim or Arab (both?) somewhere, and this guy … let's see, "Atiyah Abd al-Rahman," yep he turned out to be the latest "Number Two Al Qaeda," perhaps the Assistant Chief Financial Officer or whatever, on August 22, when he was apparently killed. READ MORE »

Headlines - Sunday August 28

Rick Perry has joined Frothy Mix, Crazy Eyes, and Magic Underpants in signing NOM's five-part vow to crush the civil rights of LGBT Americans if elected president.

 

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AFA: Whoops, We're Big Fat Liars

Without apology, the American Family Association has rescinded its ridiculous lie that the APA was considering "normalizing" pedophilia. This move follows a JMG post denouncing this lie and numerous JMG reader emails to the APA demanding action. However Matt Barber's press release on this nonsense has also been picked up by virtually every wingnut outlet, including World Net Daily, Townhall and others. But good work, JMG-ers!

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Why is none of this surprising?

Following a six-month long investigative research project, the Center for American Progress released a 130-page report today which reveals that more than $42 million from seven foundations over the past decade have helped fan the flames of anti-Muslim hate in America.

[...]

Over the past few years, the Islamophobia network (the funders, scholars, grassroots activists, media amplifiers, and political validators) have worked hard to push narratives that Obama might be a Muslim, that mosques are incubators of radicalization, and that "radical Islam" has infiltrated all aspects of American society — including the conservative movement.

[...]

The money has flowed into the hands of five key "experts" and "scholars" who comprise the central nervous system of anti-Muslim propaganda:

[...]

These five "scholars" are assisted in their outreach efforts by Brigitte Gabriel (founder, ACT! for America), Pamela Geller (co-founder, Stop Islamization of America), and David Horowitz (supporter of Robert Spencer's Jihad Watch).  As the report details, information is then disseminated through conservative organizations like the Eagle Forum, the religious right, Fox News, and politicians such as Allen West and Newt Gingrich.

Pamela Geller and Fox News as purveyors of hate?  Really?  Shocking!  /snark

This report confirms what most sane observers of the hate-fest already suspected – that similar to the growth of the Tea Party movement, the anti-Muslim rhetoric of the last number of years has its roots in right-wing ideology and big money.  There are few things easier to do in life than exploit the innate xenophobic tendencies of people and the right does it so very well.

Say what you will about the right but no one can claim that they don't "put their money where there bigotry is".

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Marc Perkel: "Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman has publicly stated that he believes in science. The news media seems more interested in asking candidates about God and what religion they are. I think it's time that the news media ask candidates if they believe in science and what their relationship is with reality. Those of us in the reality based community want to know if candidates have a personal relationship with the real world."

 

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Moammar Gadhafi's spank-bank found! - and it is full of pictures of Mistress Condi. Eeeeeew, gross!

 

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Puerto Rican Senator Roberto Arango Caught Posting Nude Pics On Grindr

 

If you're gay, and you want to post naked pictures of yourself and your anus on a gay social network, fine! Go ahead! But please, for your own sake and others', drop the anti-gay, legislative crusade before you do so.

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Pledge Writers Sucking The Big Government Teat

Remember that pro same-sex marriage pledge which several Republican presidential candidates signed their name to? The pledge which compels candidates to oppose gay-marriage at every level of government, among other things.

This shouldn't come as a shock, but Vander Plaats' organization, which drafted the pledge, is guilty of violating it themselves.

Bob Vander Plaats' Iowa Family Policy Center accepted at least $2.2 million in government funding between 2006 and 2010 as it fought efforts to undermine the state's same-sex marriage law, the Associated Press is reporting. The group successfully unseated three Iowa Supreme Court justices who overturned a law prohibiting marriage equality. [...]

The report follows an earlier AP investigation from May, which had concluded that the group — which now operates under the FAMiLY LEADER name — "received more than half of its funding from federal grants over a five-year period," benefiting from "President George Bush's faith-based initiative, which made it easier for social and religious organizations involved in community work to win federal funding."

Vow 13 of the Family Leader pledge calls on candidates to demonstrate a "Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA's $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget."

Apparently the way you "demonstrate a commitment" to downsizing the public debt is by adding to it. You "demonstrate a commitment" to downsizing government by sucking off the socialist, big government teat.

Socialism is okay if you're a Republican.

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A Rare Admission On Fixed News

 

Fox News anchor Clayton Morris admitted on air Sunday morning that Fox News' own "fact-checkers" have confirmed that man-made climate change is real, but also highlighted that the facts don't matter.

MORRIS: If you dive into the weeds a little bit on this global warming thing, you see that it seems that facts are certainly on Huntsman's side on all of this and fact checkers have come out, we're actually having our own brain room look look at this right now that any of Perry's comments don't seem to hold a lot of water. [But] It doesn't matter. What's resonating right now in South Carolina is helping Governor Perry tremendously and he fired back at Huntsman on global warming and gaining traction, facts or not.

Video here.

Wait. Didn't your very own Sean Hannity say a snowstorm in the middle of winter proves global warming doesn't exist? I'm pretty sure he did. It's one of my favorite quotes.

Morris probably didn't realize exactly what he was admitting to while trying to make his point, but he's right. Facts don't matter to the lunatic base.

Every fact in the book could be on Huntsman's side, or President Obama's side, or anyone's side, but it doesn't matter because the base isn't interested in that. That doesn't further their interests.

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Mario: Glenn Beck – Hurricanes, God, Blessings and Dollars

 

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Rick Perry's "Dead Peasant Insurance"

 

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If you want to know how government entitlement programs have weakened America's moral fiber, you need look no further than Marco Rubio. His father, Mario, was a retired bartender, who lived off Social Security and Medicare until his death in 2010.  His mother, Oria, is a retired hotel housekeeper, living off Social Security and Medicare. Marco himself received all his education at taxpayer expense from public institutions: South Miami Senior High School, Santa Fe College, University of Florida, and University of Miami. And, since 2000, Marco has been living off government largesse, first as a representative in the Florida legislature, and now as a U. S. Senator. No wonder, then, that Marco Rubio is such an intellectual lazybones and moral sloth.

 

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Jill: Forget the next world, in THIS world you're on your own*

 

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This isn't a surprise. It's just incredibly disconcerting:

 

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GOP Congressman: 'Oil Companies Pay Their Fair Share' | The Petoskey News reports that Rep. Dan Benishek (R-MI) recently became the latest Republican to offer his full-throated defense of the oil industry. The congressman told a public forum that Democrats "talk about raising the taxes on the oil companies. I think oil companies pay their fair share." Despite making a whopping $36 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, the biggest five oil companies get $4 billion in tax incentives a year, courtesy of American taxpayers. (HT: Politico)

 

Headlines - Thursday August 25

 

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Profit on Wall Street, Recession on Main Street

In America's deeply dysfunctional economy, unemployment is stuck at a 'new normal' of 9%, while corporate profits race ahead

 

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Climate Cycles Linked to Civil War, Analysis Shows

Changes in the global climate that cut food production triggered one-fifth of civil conflicts between 1950 and 2004

 

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A former Clinton speechwriter urges President Obama to drop the post-partisan crap.

 

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The last few years have been replete with stories of incredible fraudulent and possibly criminal acts for banks in the mortgage crisis. Thousands have lost their homes and faced financial ruin. The Administration is yielding to demands from lobbyists for the banks and particularly targeting Eric T. Schneiderman, the attorney general of New York, in demanding support for a deal that would offer just civil fines rather than criminal penalties.Continue reading 'Obama Administration Pressures Prosecutors To Drop Criminal Investigations Of Banks Over Mortgage Fraud'

 

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WorldNutDaily's Joseph Farah: Hurricanes & Earthquakes Are Punishments For Homosexuality

 

Oh really?

 

God Smites GOP Leader Eric Cantor's District with 5.8 Earthquake

 

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Heritage Foundation: Poor People Aren't Really Poor, Poverty Is A Leftist Scam

"The typical poor child, in fact, lives in a house that has air conditioning, cable TV, a computer, three color televisions, an Xbox, a DVD [player], one or two cars [for] the household, [and] there's not any sign of food scarcity. Everything I just said comes from government reports, but the government doesn't publicize that information. The welfare state has a vested interest in exaggerating poverty in order to build bigger government bureaucracies to serve the poor, and the news media are even worse than the government." - Robert Rector, "senior research fellow" with the Heritage Foundation.

 

 

 

 

 

Headlines - Wednesday August 24

USA becomes Food Stamp Nation but is it sustainable? Genna Saucedo supervises cashiers at a Wal-Mart in Pico Rivera, California, but her wages aren't enough to feed herself and her 12-year-old son. Saucedo, who earns $9.70 an hour for about 26 hours a week and lives with her mother, is one of the many Americans who survive because of government handouts in what has rapidly become a food stamp nation.

 

How about instead of killing people around the world and bailing out corrupt corporate bastards, we focus on creating jobs so we don't have to hand out food stamps to everyone?

 

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Jesus' General: Real men shoot a blessed arrow

 

Brian Martin is a sinner. He rejected God's command to multiply and be fruitful and, instead, chose to shutdown his spermatazoan-American highway by having a vasectomy.

But now, brother Martin is repentant and wants to restore his vasa deferentia to their former glory. But that kind of retooling is costly. Thankfully, Blessed Arrows, a group that helps "Christian couples to confess openly their sin, repent before God and others, and act on that repentance through obedience in putting their bodies back the way God designed them," is willing to help.

They've established a fund to help Brother Martin and have raised $669.16 of the $2000 needed to bring his salad shooters back up to Jesus' standards. But they can't do it alone. They need our help. So please consider helping Brother Martin regain the ability to shoot blessed arrows by sending a few dollars, chickens, or mason jars filled with liberated spermatazoan-Americans to the fund.

 

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South Carolina Dale Richardson has been arrested on charges that he is a serial rapist who kidnapped women and assaulted them in a trailer behind his Freedom Free Will Baptist Church.
Continue reading 'South Carolina Pastor Charged With Serial Rapes Of Women Behind Church'

 

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After gaining tons of positive press for comments on global warming and evolution, yesterday Jon Huntsman completely threw his credibility out of the window by announcing that he was open to being the vice presidential choice of Michele Bachmann.

CNN's Piers Morgan asked the former Utah governor "If Michele Bachmann continued to get real traction, and she came to you and said: Look, you're the other part of the party. Together we can create sweet music. Could you countenance such an idea?" Huntsman replied, "You know, if you love this country, you serve this country. Every time I've been asked to serve over different administrations— from Reagan, to the two Bushes, to President Obama — I have the same answer, and that is if you love this country, you serve her." "And so if you're in a position to better the country, to bring whatever background you have to bear, whatever experiences to use in fine-tuning our future, I'll be the first person to sign up, absolutely," said Huntsman, who most recently served as U.S. ambassador to China.

So much for the "moderate hero of the GOP."

 

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This is a bit much even for a group of people as distinguished as they in the art of corruption.

Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World arrested on suspicion of involvement in phone hacking and bribing the police, was receiving payments from News International after starting work as the Conservative Party's Director of Communications, the BBC reports. Coulson's received hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance payments until the end of 2007, which means he continued to be financially linked to the UK division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp for several months during his tenure as David Cameron's main media adviser, the BBC reports.

Mister Coulson was still on the payroll of Murdoch's News Corp. while serving in the Cameron Administration as his closest media adviser.

It doesn't get much more blatant than this. And they either assumed no one would ever find out, or they simply don't care.

Either way, I'd consider this a fairly major blow to the credibility of the Cameron Administration. And if they didn't know he was still on Murdoch's payroll, they should have.

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Wisco: Conservative Thinkers' Self-Inflicted Dilemma

 

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Former Goldman Sachs VP Turned Issa Staffer Supervised Scheduling Of Elizabeth Warren Incident

 

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Apparently, the Lord is a fan of separation of church and state.

 

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Donald Trump talking nonsense about Libya.

"You have all these rebels running around… Are they from Iran? Who's gonna take over Libya? Who's gonna take over the oil? So what do we get out of it and why don't we take the oil? I mean, why aren't we reimbursing ourselves?"

Just knowing that this guy is on your team should be enough reason for anyone to switch sides.  Trump should never have backed out of the primary.  He belongs right along side Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich, Santorum and the other rodeo clowns.

Wondering…do sane conservatives walk around with paper bags over their heads?  And if they don't…shouldn't they?

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Hannity's Ridiculous Attempt To Credit Bush For Qaddafi's Overthrow

Apparently desperate to make sure President Obama didn't gain politically from the imminent fall of Qaddafi, Hannity came up with a ridiculous talking point: That in his Libya policy, Obama had adopted President Bush's doctrine of preemption. Continue reading »

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Tom Ehrich: Religious right will ruin the U.S.

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102 Things NOT To Do If You Hate Taxes.

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Hey guys, remember that time Bobby "Bubba" Jindal mocked volcano monitoring and Boom! Right away that big volcano in Iceland exploded and all the airlines were grounded like forever and they were losing $1B a day in revenue? Me Neither! Anyway, that pinhead Eric Cantor wanted to shut down the USGS right after the Japan Tsunami disaster and BOOM! his district is the epicenter of a rare east-coast earthquake with nuclear power reactors that are now using diesel generators to keep the fuel cool.

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Defense contractor KBR has filed a lawsuit against Jamie Leigh Jones, a former employee who sued the company in 2007 after allegedly being drugged and raped by a group of co-workers in Iraq.

The lawsuit seeks more than $2 million to cover their legal fees, and accuses her of making fabricated and frivolous claims, according to the Wall Street Journal.

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Jill: You have to wonder about a man who can so blithely kill so many people

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Bank of America may need another $100-$200 billion.

Let them fail.

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America's presumably anti-tax party wants to raise your taxes. Come January, the Republicans plan to raise the taxes of anyone who earns $50,000 a year by $1,000, and anyone who makes $100,000 by $2,000. Because these are the people who can most afford a tax increase, the middle class and working poor.

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Apparently, the republicans are willing to declare all-out war on young people as punishment for young people rejecting the GOP. "This year, newly-elected Republicans in the New Hampshire legislature pushed a bill to restrict the state's minimum wage law to the lowest federally mandated amount. The bill, backed by GOP leadership, was vetoed by Gov. John Lynch (D-NH), but still passed by an override vote in both chambers. New Hampshire will continue to have the federal minimum wage, which is $7.25 per hour, a $15,000 salary for a full-time worker. ... State Rep. Carol McGuire (R-NH), the sponsor of the law, still believes the federal minimum wage is too high. In a statement to reporters, she said she would like to repeal all minimum wage laws and have corporations pay workers whatever rate they desire. She also said the $7.25 minimum is overly generous to young people who are "not worth the minimum.""

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He sure picked the right victim, didn't he? "A judge Tuesday dismissed all charges against former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a day after prosecutors said the hotel maid who had accused him of trying to rape her could not be trusted. ... A total of seven charges - four felonies and three misdemeanors - were dropped and Strauss-Kahn was a free man for the first time since May 14, when he was taken off of a jet about to leave New York for Paris and put in jail. He left the courtroom smiling after Tuesday's hearing, which lasted about 13 minutes. ... "I am satisfied the people's application was made in good faith ... I see no basis to deny the people's application," Judge Michael Obus said in upholding the prosecution's request to drop the case."

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Headlines - Tuesday August 23

'Pro-Life' Republican Kansas Governor Guts Funding For Dying Infants

 

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Mario: Republicans – On The Wrong Side of Science

 

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Rick Perry's porn problem - he was a hardcore porn distributor.

 

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The racial idiocy of Obama's GOP "friend"

Tom Coburn says our black president likes programs that "create dependency" because they helped him

 

Translation: "Obama's a ni**er and you know how ni**ers love free handouts."

Okies eat that racist shit with a Texas-sized spoon - no wonder they re-elect Coburn every term.
It's the same mentality that sends Jim Inohofe back to Washington every term

...and Obama has spent almost three years trying to get these cavemen to like him?

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Now hiring (over there) - You know all that money that US multinationals want to repatriate at near zero tax rate? Well it comes from their overseas operations. So who are these companies and employees over there? No one is allowed to know!

Some of the country's best-known multi­national corporations closely guard a number they don't want anyone to know: the breakdown between their jobs here and abroad.

So secretive are these companies that they hand the figure over to government statisticians on the condition that officials will release only an aggregate number. The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009.

And that's why they need a tax break to reward their bad behavior. (WaPo)

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Winning the Future -South Dakota adopts a 4-day school week to cut costs. Because when you want to return America to being a world leader, you have to hobble the next generation by cutting education to pay for tax breaks for billionaires. (AP)

 

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Things you can say to irritate a Republican.

 

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I couldn't have said this better myself. 

 

And in a related story, fuck these people.

 

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Determined to destroy the economy and Obama's chance for reelection, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) refuses millions in unemploymnet funds from stimulus bill. 

 

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Fed gave $1.2 trillion to aristocracy of American finance: Bloomberg. 

 

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GW Bush minus even the chimp intellect. 

 

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In other news, Rick Perry would like for you to forget everything he said in his book which was published only nine months ago, and the scientists behind the infamous "Climategate" emails have once again been exonerated of any wrong-doing by the National Science Foundation.

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Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would beat President Obama if an election were held today, according to a Gallup poll released Monday. Romney leads Obama 48-46 among registered voters. Obama is tied with Texas Gov. Rick Perry, and leads Reps. Ron Paul (TX) and Michele Bachmann (MN) by two and four points, respectively.

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McCain and Graham pout U.S. didn't get to drop enough bombs on Libya

Aging lesbian power couple John McCain and Lindsey Graham are excited to hear about what appears to be the final collapse of the Qaddafi regime in Libya, although Sartorial Satan is still in hiding and Tripoli is not yet under full rebel control. Team McHamBiscuits nonetheless have an important nonsense neoconservative reflection on the whole saga: "we regret that this success was so long in coming due to the failure of the United States to employ the full weight of our airpower." So sorry! to Libya, that the U.S. was not more involved in your conflict. U.S. military intervention in foreign conflicts is historically a top choice for fast conflict resolution, so really just a huge apology if Libya feels it missed out on that. Can John McCain still get some of Libya's money, though? READ MORE »

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Wisco: It's Come to This: Republicans Want to Raise Taxes on Consumers

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"That's so baloney. Rich people don't create jobs. Companies create jobs. [...] You probably pay a higher rate than I do… and yet my income is probably many times what yours is." Henry Bloch, founder of tax preparation company H&R Bloch

Yep, the reality that Republicans don't want you to know about. Rich people pay a lower effective rate than you. Even though they complain about the (staggeringly low) 35 percent tax bracket, no one in that bracket actually pays that rate. Warren Buffett, as I recall, pays around 17 percent. And if there are, in fact, rich people paying 35 percent, they need to fire their accountants.

I'm really thinking that the far-right wants to reverse the progressive tax. Poor people in higher tax brackets than rich people. Bloch and Buffett have both confirmed that rich people pay a lower effective tax rate than less wealthy people. And I'm sure by now you've seen the Jon Stewart segment in which he aired clips from Fox News Channel people crying about poor people not paying taxes (due to unemployment, etc). The only time Republicans appear to support higher taxes is when they're talking about working and middle class people.

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