Headlines - Monday August 1

Borowitz: "Thanks to the hard work of Republicans in Congress, the catastrophe that they made possible might be avoided."

 

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So they've reached a deal - because Obama and the Dems agreed to no tax hikes, no ending subsidies for big oil, and no unemployme­nt extensions­. 

 

Paul Krugman this morning: [T]he deal itself, given the available information, is a disaster, and not just for President Obama and his party. It will damage an already depressed economy; it will probably make America's long-run deficit problem worse, not better; and most important, by demonstrating that raw extortion works and carries no political cost, it will take America a long way down the road to banana-republic status. 

 

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Unemployment will be higher, growth will be lower, because of budget deal.

 

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Lab-grown meat is this week's Green Thing. Using tissue engineering techniques, it would generate up to 96% lower greenhouse gas emissions per pound.

 

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Afghan Civilians Pay Lethal Price for New Policy on Air Strikes

Reducing 'collateral damage' is seen as a 'secondary consideration' as the coalition prepares withdrawal

 

I'm so glad we're going to be cutting our own social programs, but have money to kill these people. Thanks, Hopey!

 

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Debt ceiling increases by president. Why did Ronald Reagan hate America?

Of course Obama hasn't been in office for 8 years like The Gipper or Chimpy, but still, a large % of his spending is thanks to Chimpy ...

 

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Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule–and both commonly succeed, and are right… The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds. ~H.L. Mencken

 

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The Rude Pundit: We lose because we don't just lie like the right does. 

 

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Borowitz: Debt Ceiling is Raised Before Tea Party Understands What It Is

 

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Everything old is new again

The Washington Times:

The U.S. Secret Service does more than protect Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — the agency also pays him rent.

Since April, Mr. Biden has collected more than $13,000 from the agency charged with protecting him and his family for use of a rental cottage adjacent to the waterfront home he owns in a Wilmington, Del., suburb.

Mr. Biden, listed not as vice president in federal purchasing documents but as a "vendor," is eligible for up to $66,000 by the time the government contract expires in the fall of 2013, the records show.

Officials say the arrangement came about when a previous tenant moved out of the cottage and the Secret Service moved in.

Edwin M. Donovan, special agent in charge at the Secret Service's Office of Government and Public Affairs in Washington, said the agency pays $2,200 in rent per-month, the same amount a previous tenant had paid before moving out.

We've been down this road before:

After angry callers kept insisting that the Secret Service is paying enough rent to Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton (for space on their property in Chappaqua, N.Y.) to underwrite the Clintons' mortgage, we checked with the agency that protects presidents, former presidents and their families. Secret Service spokesman Jim Mackin told us that the agency is paying the Clintons only around $1,100 a month — a figure based on a government formula and the standard arrangement in such situations.

The right wing has a nonstop bullshit factory, but sometimes they just relabel old products.

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"Now that Marcus and I have borrowed $417,000 for a  golf-course home, a loan backed by Freddie Mac, we believe this program should be dismantled before other good conservative Republicans are tempted to become insufferable hypocrites."

 

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The New York Crank has some good suggestions on what to cut first.

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As Washington conservatives - both republican and democrat - prepare to destroy the economy that has made America the envy of the world for more than a century, here's a reminder from February 2010 of just how critical American economic strength is to American global leadership.

 

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Margaret and Helen are back.

 

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The entire world knows the Teahadists are terrorists far more dangerous than OBL and al Qaeda ever dreamed of being. "Presidential candidate and ultra-conservative congresswoman Michele Bachmann prays every day for guidance. "The American people are looking for someone who will say, 'No'," she said last week. "I will be that person... I won't raise taxes. I will reduce spending. I won't vote to raise the debt ceiling. And I have the titanium spine to see it through." ... Developing her theme, she added that the little people of America, factory workers and housewives, tell her: "'Michele, stand strong. Michele, don't cave.' The American people are scared to death they have lived through the pinnacle of American greatness, that we may be in decline." ... The struggle to secure a deal between the Republicans and Democrats to lift the $14.3 trillion cap on the country's national debt is seen by disinterested onlookers as a foolish squabble between self-serving politicians, whose silliness risks potential default on the US's national debt and a first-order financial crisis within the next 48 hours. ... If only it were just an ordinary political squabble. The reason the US is so close to economic calamity is that its politicians have existentially different views of the world. As the US faces stagnation and retreat from "the pinnacle of American greatness", these differences have become crucially important. This goes to the heart of how the US can recover its greatness."

 

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Mexican narco-thug admits to hundreds of killings. "Police in Mexico say a suspected cartel leader they arrested on Friday has confessed to ordering the murder of 1,500 people in northern Chihuahua state. ... Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, 33, is also suspected of masterminding the attack on a US consulate worker and her husband in Ciudad Juarez last year. ... Officials say Mr Acosta Hernandez is a key figure in the Juarez cartel. ... Juarez is Mexico's most violent city, with more than 3,000 murders in 2010. ... The suspect, who is better known as El Diego, is accused of being the leader of the La Linea gang, whose members work as hired killers for the Juarez cartel. "

 

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Remember ... none of this is over no matter what happened this weekend.

 

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July was Iraq's second-deadliest month of the year, with 259 Iraqis dying in violent attacks. "Iraq remains an extraordinarily dangerous place to work," said U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Stuart Bowen. "It is less safe, in my judgment, than 12 months ago."

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Thanks for the memories

Debt Ceiling Party Finally Shows Signs of Hazy Come Down

Oh look, Washington's McDebtpocalypsegeddon inferno dance party is finally winding down. Or is it? Can it actually be true? Here is Obama claiming that the fiesta keg is all but empty, and boy does he look tired/hungover/ like he made out with John Boehner a few more time than he wanted to. A deal! A debt deal has been reached. What sort of "party favors" will America take home from this particular congressional coke-n-hookers sleepover party binge?

Uh, let's see, spending cuts of about $2.4 trillion and a coupon for a bag of fried donut holes, everyone! "The result would be the lowest level of annual domestic spending since Dwight Eisenhower was president," Obama said. How about a return to Eisenhower-level taxes for the wealthy? No, the Democrats lost their balls and the Jell-O shots contest yet again. What else? Oh, America gets another bipartisan debt commission that everyone will ignore. Bad party favor, America gets one of those every year. Is there anything fun for the American people in the goody bag? No, just a little note that says, "the global economy will not collapse tomorrow, you're welcome."

Pending final passage, the agreement marked a dramatic reach across party lines that played out over six months and several rounds of negotiating, interspersed by periods of intense partisanship.

"Sometimes it seems our two sides disagree on almost everything," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in floor remarks.

"But in the end, reasonable people were able to agree on this: The United States could not take the chance of defaulting on our debt, risking a United States financial collapse and a world-wide depression."

Both Houses still have to vote on this, but as far as the markets are concerned, the Panic Is Over. Don't forget to sign the guestbook on the way out, etc etc. [AP]

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Sarah Palin's favorable documentary "The Undefeated" tanked in box offices, bringing in just $5,200 last week. Not only are overall sales down, but in its third week, per-theater sales also plummeted 62 percent from $6,500/theater to just $1,762/theater.

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TAX THE RICH THEIR FAIR SHARE!!!