Headlines - Thursday September 29

Taking off today to work in Zion NP until around the 18th of October. Talk amongst yourselves, and enjoy the calm.

 

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Things The Republican Congress Has Done, INSTEAD Of Creating Jobs

 

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Next GOP Debate Question Suggestion: 'Should Women Be Forced To Conceive After Rape?'

 

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I don't know why we're not seeing much about this on the news, but I'm sure they would tell us if there was anything to worry about, right?

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Chief Raoni crying when he learned that the President of Brazil approved the Belo Monte dam project on the Xingu indigenous lands. Belo Monte will be bigger than the Panama Canal, flooding nearly a million acres of rainforest & indigenous lands. 40,000 indigenous and local people will be forced off their native lands (as well as millions of unknown species & plants) In the name of "progress"

 

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Sounds fair to me. If Florida wants to test welfare recipients for drugs to receive their money, it shouldn't be an issue asking the same from the political class who receives a lot more taxpayer money. The testing should also include the governor as well, of course.

Columnist and best-selling author Carl Hiaasen offered to pay for drug testing for all 160 members of the Florida Legislature in what he called "a patriotic whiz-fest." Several of the law's supporters say they're on board.

"There is a certain public interest in going after hypocrisy," Hiaasen said Tuesday, two days after he made his proposal in a Miami Herald column.

"Folks that are applying for DCF (Department of Children and Families) money normally wouldn't be standing in that line, and on top of that humiliation they now get to pee in a cup so they can get grocery money for their kids," Hiaasen told The Associated Press in an interview at his Vero Beach home.

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Was there really any doubt that the racist senator was a Republican?

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Too bad he'll be dismissed as that "rabid ex-pat."

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Wisco: Obama Jobs Plan Would Be Effective, So Of Course It Must Be Killed

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"Americans Dislike the Tea Party More Than Ever Before."

The Tea Party is that broad cross section of ordinary Americans that stretches all the way from the audience of Rush Limbaugh to the audience of Sean Hannity. Every day people, standing up for what they believe in, which is whatever they're told to believe in. These patriots have had to endure a lot, from listening to Breitbart speak, to being subjected to Michele Bachmann's unblinking stare. And now there's another hardship these average Americans must face -- the dislike of the average American.

A new poll shows that just "28 percent of Americans hold favorable views of the tea party, an all-time low in the 19 months that CNN/ORC pollsters have gauged Americans' feelings about the movement. At the same time, 53 percent of Americans think poorly of the tea party, an all-time high."

And CNN's not alone here. According to the report, "In a pair of Pew Research Center polls conducted in February 2010 and August 2011, disapproval of the tea party jumped from 18 percentage points; the percentage of those who said they liked the movement increased from 33 to 36 percent. Washington Post-ABC and Wall Street Journal-NBC polls also found declining support for the tea party from 2009 to 2010."

What's happening here is more than just familiarity breeding contempt; familiarity is breeding specific knowledge. When the TP first started, people were like, "They're unhappy? I'm unhappy too! Good for them..." But then they started to learn what the 'baggers were unhappy about and it was stuff like communists taking over and birth certificates and other crazy shit. People didn't like that so much. All the "Let's let the US go into default!" batshittery probably didn't help much either.

So keep doing what you're doing, 'baggers. It's working out great for all the people you think are your enemies. (Mother Jones)

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Smart people love Perry:

NPR: Nice Polite Republicans

NPR justifies their radio silence on the Wall St. protests:

"The recent protests on Wall Street did not involve large numbers of people, prominent people, a great disruption or an especially clear objective."

–NPR Executive editor for news Dick Meyer

But you get some teabagging dingbat screaming that the Kenyan Usurper Hawaiian Devil Baby is a socialist taking away their freedoms, and they get a full hour with Konan-the-Librarian.

(NPR)

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Welcome the Amero - In a move that will surely make Bachmann-the-Nut screech and give the Goldbug a stiffie, three GOP senators have introduced a bill that will phase out the US Dollar bill and replace it with "an unpopular" coin. (The Hill)

 

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Lesbian couple sues New York county clerk for refusing to issue them a marriage license. "Two women who wanted to get married in a small town in a rural New York town are suing the town clerk who refused to sign their marriage certificate because she believes homosexuality is a sin. ... The lawsuit will stand as a milestone test case in the wake of New York's months-old legalization of same-sex marriage: whether government workers' personal beliefs can trump the duties of their jobs. ... Rose Marie Belforti, the elected town clerk for Ledyard, NY, refused last month to sign the marriage license for Deirdre DiBiaggio and Katie Carmichael, who are from Miami, according to the New York Times. Belforti had previously arranged for a deputy to issue licenses for same-sex couples so that she didn't have to notarize a marriage she did not believe in, but DiBiaggio and Carmichael didn't want to wait for an appointment with the deputy. Belforti refused to sign their license."

 

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Tax deductible support for bloodthirsty, bigotted terrorist thugs? "SOS Israel is an Israel-based organization supporting Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank. U.S. donors are directed to send their contributions via Machanaim Inc, a U.S.-based 501c3 nonprofit organization. This means that donations to SOS Israel -- via Machanaim -- are tax deductible, which means that American taxpayers are subsidizing them. SOS Israel explicitly states their mission as: SOS Israel was founded in 5763 (2003) to oppose and fight the political accords with the Arabs that include land or security concessions. SOS Israel is against giving up any part of Eretz Yisroel -- the Holy Land -- or compromising the security of those that live there. ... While SOS Israel tries to portray their vigilante campaign as a form of self-defense, settlers have for years committed acts of "price tag" violence against Palestinians and their property in response to efforts to constrain settlement growth. A recent analysis by Israel's Shin Bet security agency concluded that "price tag" attacks by right-wing Jewish activists in the West Bank should be considered terrorist activity."

 

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The Afghan war is getting more violent, as security incidents have increased 39 percent so far this year over the comparable period of 2010, according to a new UN report. The U.S.-led coalition disputes those numbers, saying the report is "inconsistent with the data that we have collected." Violence decreased 20 percent in July compared to July 2010, the coalition said.

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State Department Keystone XL Hearings Run By TransCanada Contractor

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Headlines - Wednesday September 28

Rick Perry has never made more sense.

 

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Health care criminals

Besides being illegal, they're also expensive:

According to a 2011 report from the Government Accountability Office, Medicare makes an estimated $48 billion in "improper payments" each year, an estimate that's almost certainly lower than the actual amount since it doesn't include bad payments within the prescription drug program.

Fred E. Dweck was a surgeon and director of a healthcare business in Miami who swindled Medicare out of $24 million. How the fraud worked:

Dweck's gimmick, like the payment system he was manipulating, was simple: He gave the go-ahead to official orders for prescription drugs, staff-assisted insulin injections, in-home visits by nurses, and an assortment of other treatments for an estimated 1,279 different patients, none of whom actually needed treatment. With the help of five nurses who faked bundles of official patient records and payment forms, Dweck raked in cash on the taxpayer tab.

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Global warming's biggest losers

 

An interactive map by The Global Adaptation Institute shows global warming vulnerability and readiness by nation. Bradford Plumer captions:

[T]he map underscores one big hurdle for any coordinated world effort on climate change. The countries likely to get smacked the hardest aren't, by and large, the countries currently pumping out the most greenhouse gases. One big exception is China, which scores dismally on GAI's "readiness" index. That may explain why leaders in Beijing are taking increasingly ambitious steps to rein in carbon pollution. (Whether they'll actually succeed is a different question, but a sense of urgency does seem to have taken hold there.)

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Hey guys, remember that time when the GOP was thinking about changing the Constitution so that Ahhhhhhnold could run for preznint? Me Neither! But it seems that Ahhhhnold cannot forget it, so he has commissioned a series of seven larger-than-live bronze statues of himself (in his pre-adultery Terminator days). One goes to his hometown in Austria, another is going to Columbus Ohio (Why? Who cares!), and the rest seem to be destined for mysterious locations, too. (NYDailyNews)

 

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"Tony Perkins Says Christie's Anti-Bullying Position Will Be Problem For GOP."

See? Christie's against bullying and this is a problem. (ThinkProgress)

 

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Christian Pastor David Serrano heckles Obama and calls him the antichrist. This douche is also known for disrupting local government meetings with screams about the apocalypse and God's Vengeful Earthquakes.

 

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The Republicans went through all of that trouble holding disaster relief funds hostage, making themselves look like assholes in the process, and now they have nothing to show for it thanks to Harry Reid's persistence.

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Roger Ailes spilled some news about his ridiculous network:

He made a big admission to Newsweek, saying that he has made a "course correction" at Fox News, veering it away from the hard-right line it took in the earlier days of the Obama administration. [...]

He also spoke openly about many of his anchors, saying that Bill O'Reilly "hates" Sean Hannity because he's jealous of his radio success (and thus confirming years of rumors about the animosity between the two).

Ailes also called Hannity "predictable" and said that he sometimes has to have a word with Shepard Smith when Smith says things that may not go over well with the Fox News crowd.

Obviously he still plans for the network to remain conservative, just not as wingnutty. But the ideology of the network was never really the issue. Fox News Channel's biggest flaw is that it's so divorced from reality. They fabricate the news and attack anyone — civilians, high school administrators, noncombatants — with whom the hosts have a beef. If it was a conservative network, fine, be conservative. But stop lying about the news.

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Dirty little red state secret: welfare disguised as defense spending

 

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Researchers at Argonne National Labs have developed a $10-30 set of parts that can be inserted into a Diebold voting machine and used to alter votes. The machine can be opened by using a standard hotel minibar key, or a similar, easily copied key, and the parts can be inserted in a matter of seconds. Once the parts are inserted, votes can be altered by remote control from a distance of up to 1/2 mile (or I assume the device could be set to do a pre-programmed vote modification).

Paper or absentee ballots, people!

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AP: Health officials say as many as 16 people have died from possible listeria illnesses traced to Colorado cantaloupes, the deadliest food outbreak in more than a decade. The CDC said Tuesday that they have confirmed two deaths in Texas and one death each in in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Last week the CDC reported two deaths in Colorado, four deaths in New Mexico, one in Oklahoma and one in Maryland.

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Veterans attempt citizens arrest of Rumsfeld in Boston

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Abortion returns to television

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Details of the secret investigation are sketchy, but it is clear the Milwaukee County district attorney's office is investigating charges that Wisconsin Right to Life offered rewards for volunteers who signed up sympathetic voters in the recall races. Several people familiar with the investigation said subpoenas were being distributed "like candy."

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Teabagger Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is single-handedly blocking new safety regulations for oil and gas pipelines out of principle, despite the fact that the industry supports the new rules and "even after a gas pipeline rupture last week shook people awake in three counties in his home state of Kentucky."

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Premiums for employee-sponsored health insurance continue to skyrocket even as more workers receive less generous coverage, according surveys released today. Half of all workers at small firms with individual policies had premiums of more than $1,000 — up from 16 percent of workers in 2006 — as employers face rising health costs by requiring workers to pay more out of pocket. TP Health's Igor Volsky explains why.

Yes, well try not getting employee sponsored insurance and paying for all of it on your own while not in a group.

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Perry makes up convenient story of teabagger persecution

Rick Perry put on his best mom shirt and sweat all over the stage as he performed in a severe, drooling twang the Tea Party's most cherished political tradition, the factually false re-telling of historical events. Here he is making up things about the original Boston Tea Party, telling everybody that "there was a time in this country when people were afraid to go out in public. You go back to Boston in the 1770s and people had to disguise themselves," which is not, of course, actually the case. Our money's on "Rick Perry conveniently confused Tea Party mythology with the popular narrative of persecution suffered by early Christians for political gain," but that's as much as we're going to think about it. What does someone else have to say? READ MORE »

 

Headlines - Tuesday September 27

 

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Christians criticizing others' faiths = love. If they rudely return the favor = persecution! Glory!

 

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The American 'allergy' to global warming: Why?

 

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Global warming's CO2 culprit jumps 45% since 1990

 

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GOP Lollipop kids

 

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Greenwald: What Media Coverage Omits about US Hikers Released by Iran

 

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Hundreds of Christian pastors plan to spend next Sunday's sermon campaigning for a specific political candidate, a violation of IRS rules exacted

during the Johnson administration: http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2011/09/october-2nd-hundreds-of-christian.html

 

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The tax free American Family Association has been on a boycottin' fuh-renzy over the last week. First it was Ben & Jerry's, then the AARP, and now - Dancing With The Stars. But they are totally not economic terrorists! At all!

 

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King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has graciously extended the right to vote to women.

"We refuse to marginalize the role of women in Saudi society in every field of work," Abdullah said yesterday on state television. "Women have the right to submit their candidacy for municipal council membership and have the right to take part in submitting candidates in accordance with Shariah." Saudi Arabia enforces gender restrictions interpreted from the Wahhabi version of Sunni Islam. Men and women are strictly segregated in public, including at schools, restaurants and lines at fast-food takeouts. That keeps women out of sales jobs in malls and stores, unless the outlet caters exclusively to a female clientele, and they are also barred from driving.

Now they just need someone to drive them to the polls.

 

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FLORIDA: Lt. Governor Calls On Christians To Rise Up And Take Over America

 

Since this country pretends to be 97% christian and we're as fucked up as we are, I'd like to see atheists have a chance at running it.

 

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Meanwhile, in another universe 

Michele Bachmann delivered a bewildering set of reasons for not normalizing trade relations with Cuba during a campaign stop today.

[The] Republican presidential candidate said Monday that it would be "foolish" to normalize trade with Cuba because Hezbollah could soon have "missile sites" there.

"Why would you normalize trade with a country that sponsors terror?" the candidate asked a crowd of supporters in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "There is reports that have come out that Cuba has been working with another terrorist organization called Hezbollah. And Hezbollah is looking at wanting to be part of missile sites in Iran and, of course, when you are 90 miles offshore from Florida, you don't want to entertain the prospect of hosting bases or sites where Hezbollah could have training camps or perhaps have missile sites or weapons sites in Cuba. "

Hezbollah "missile sites" in Cuba?

Really?

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Maybe the self-proclaimed debt/deficit hawks running for president and embracing St. Reagan as their lord and savior ought to take a look at this chart:

I suppose this is why they behave as though history began on January 20, 2009.

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Skippy's environmental news Sunday, a couple of days late.

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5 Republican Facts That Every American Should Be Mad About

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More of this, please:

 

"You've got a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change" -President Obama speaking in Silicon Valley.

 

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Please Sign the Pledge to Carry Out Troy Davis' Final Request: End the Death Penalty here.

 

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Two Simple Charts: Do Wealthier Companies Really Create Jobs?

As ExxonMobil increased its income from 2005 to 2008, it actually eliminated 3,800 jobs. And as Koch Industries gained $16 billion in net worth, it eliminated 13,000 jobs. Any questions?

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24 Policies That Republicans Supported BEFORE They Were Against Them

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This should surprise no one:

According to a new study at the University of St. Gallen seen by SPIEGEL, one contributing factor may be that stockbrokers' behavior is more reckless and manipulative than that of psychopaths. Researchers at the Swiss research university measured the readiness to cooperate and the egotism of 28 professional traders who took part in computer simulations and intelligence tests. The results, compared with the behavior of psychopaths, exceeded the expectations of the study's co-authors, forensic expert Pascal Scherrer, and Thomas Noll, a lead administrator at the Pöschwies prison north of Zürich.

"Naturally one can't characterize the traders as deranged," Noll told SPIEGEL. "But for example, they behaved more egotistically and were more willing to take risks than a group of psychopaths who took the same test."

Particularly shocking for Noll was the fact that the bankers weren't aiming for higher winnings than their comparison group. Instead they were more interested in achieving a competitive advantage. Instead of taking a sober and businesslike approach to reaching the highest profit, "it was most important to the traders to get more than their opponents," Noll explained. "And they spent a lot of energy trying to damage their opponents."

Using a metaphor to describe the behavior, Noll said the stockbrokers behaved as though their neighbor had the same car, "and they took after it with a baseball bat so they could look better themselves."

We're a country led by psychopaths and sociopaths. We shouldn't really be shocked when GOP audiences are cheering executions. It's just in our DNA.

And in a related story, International trader: 'I go to bed every night and dream of another recession.'

Psychopath

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Karen Finney, writing in The Hill:

Then, the unthinkable happened when the mob booed Stephen Hill, an American soldier currently serving in Iraq who happens to be gay. Not only did no one on the stage have the courage to stand up for Hill, none of the three debate moderators recognized the significance of that moment and asked the candidates about it. It brought back memories of another American hero, John Lewis, being called a racial slur that begins with "n," by an angry mob during the healthcare debate. Simply shocking.

There have been some post-debate expressions of regret, but not much outrage. No one has apologized to Stephen Hill. At one point in time booing a service member — particularly one serving in a time of war — would have been quickly condemned, as Democratic leaders did in response to "General Betray-us," which also crossed a line.

The question is whether anyone within the Republican Tea Party will have the courage to lead rather than feed the angry mob.

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Karen Finney: the angry  mob

... Then, the unthinkable happened when the mob booed Stephen Hill, an American soldier currently serving in Iraq who happens to be gay.  Not only did no one on the stage have the courage to stand up for Hill, none of the three debate moderators recognized the significance of that moment and asked the candidates about it.  It brought back memories of another American hero, John Lewis, being called a racial slur that begins with "n," by an angry mob during the healthcare debate. Simply shocking.

There have been some post-debate expressions of regret, but not much outrage.  No one has apologized to Stephen Hill.  At one point in time booing a service member — particularly one serving in a time of war — would have been quickly condemned, as Democratic leaders did in response to "General Betray-us," which also crossed a line.

The question is whether anyone within the Republican Tea Party will have the courage to lead rather than feed the angry mob.

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Jill: Ooh, Shiny!

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Apparently the boyos at the BATFE wasn't just letting smugglers buy guns and funnel the guns to Mexico. The ATF agents were using their authority as law enforcement officers to directly buy the guns that they then gave to the Mexican cartels.

Wouldn't that be like the FBI buying high-speed getaway cars for bank robbers?

What was the point of all of this, other than to make sure that American firearms were given to the cartels' gun thugs? And having done that, was all this done so that the BATF could then say "see, we need more gun control and more authority for our agents and more agents and a bigger budget"?

Was all of this, including the murders of Border Patrolmen, done just so the BATF could prevail in the Annual Battle of the Budget?

If so, can anyone posit a reason why the BATF's budget should not receive something like a 25% haircut?

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Black, like thee - The column begins:

Yippee! It's our turn.

Now that the presidential campaign season has begun, it's okay for President Obama to openly court black people again. He even used the b-word recently.

Whenever he gets in front of what should be a friendly audience, President Carebear starts punching hippies:

"I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I am going to press on. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We've got work to do, [Congressional Black Caucus]."

Which earned him this rebuke from the WaPo's Courtland Malloy:

"The unemployment rate among blacks stands at 16.7 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 11.5 percent when Obama took office. By some accounts, black people have lost more wealth since the recession began than at any time since slavery. And Obama gets to lecture us?"

(WaPo)

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Here is the next thing for a #GOPDebateAudience to cheer inappropriately. "The nation's biggest oil companies -- many of them headquartered in oil-rich Texas -- are raking in record profits this year and don't need any more incentive to keep doing business. But Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) and his hand-picked appointees are giving them one anyway, and literally taking money away from children and schools to pay for it. ... Public education -- along with Medicaid, women's health care, and the Texas Forest Service -- was gutted in the budget Perry signed this year. But the governor's hand-picked appointees on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality look likely to raid another $67 million from public schools to give Big Oil a tax break"

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Undisclosed campaign funds allowed by the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling will continue to grow and lead to scandal if the system isn't reformed, according to a report from the Committee for Economic Development. "The lack of transparency poses a grave threat to our democracy," said the report, which 32 business leaders and university professors signed.

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A shocking new Gallup poll proves that 81% of Americans — an all-time record — are against the American Government, while 82% are against Congress specifically. And 49% of Americans believe the U.S. Government is "an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens." But to read POLITICO, you'd think we're just in a polarized campaign environment or whatever, and that everything will "work out in the end." Haha, it will, but not in a way that POLITICO staffers or other Washington factotums can appreciate. Also, you need to include "Wall Street/The Fed" and "The Pentagon/Military Contractors" in the U.S. Government, as those are both the primary interests and the primary beneficiaries of the U.S. Government. When's the next straw poll or whatever? READ MORE »

 

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American Media Hates Peaceful Protesters For Not Being Violent Pigs

 

Occupy Wall Street has just completed its ninth day — but you wouldn't know, since America's glorious free press is too busy covering the Big Stories: "New Ben and Jerry's flavor in poor taste?" and "Man with brokenleg survives 4 days in desert" and "Michele Bachmann goes somewhere, says something". The anti-American media-fairness group FAIR recently deduced, "The answer to the problem of non-coverage would seem to be simple: If the people occupying Wall Street want more media attention, they should just call themselves Tea Party activists."

Keep reading: http://wonkette.com/453674/american-media-hates-peaceful-protesters-for-not-being-insane-violent-slobs

 

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20% of Food Stamp Users Had No Earned Household Income Last Year

 

So it's white U.S. citizens who make up the bulk of food stamp users. Damn, there goes another tea party myth!

 

 

 

 

Headlines - Monday September 26

 

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At least 30 Iraqis were killed and 116 more were wounded in the latest attacks, which include a major bombing in Karbala.

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If global warming continues as expected, it is estimated that almost a third of all flora and fauna species worldwide could become extinct. Scientists from the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (Biodiversität und Klima Forschungszentrum, BiK-F) and the SENCKENBERG Gesellschaft für Naturkunde discovered that the proportion of actual biodiversity loss should quite clearly be revised upwards: by 2080, more than 80 % of genetic diversity within species may disappear in certain groups of organisms, according to researchers in the title story of the journal Nature Climate Change. The study is the first world-wide to quantify the loss of biological diversity on the basis of genetic diversity.

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Who wouldn't want to play Blackwater's video game? 

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h/t Dick: More good news from Afghanistan.

 

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Robert Redford: Punching Back at Big Oil

 

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Google Goes Red

 

Google, whose top executives have long been a bottomless cup of campaign coffee for Democrats, is finally entering its bipartisan phase, theatrically hiring Republican operatives and broadcasting the news through insider Washington publications, pumping air into a K Street tech bubble.

 

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As Palestinians Push to Restart Negotiations, US Quietly Supplies Israel With Bunker-Busting Bombs

 

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Is Daniel Gordon even his real name?

Fugitive Rhode Island Rep. Blames Crimes On Fake Iraq War Service

 

Rhode Island GOP lawmaker Daniel Gordon Jr. was last heard from a week ago when the Rhode Island State Police discovered that he is a wanted fugitive in the state of Massachusetts who also turns out to be a prickly violent criminal with a two decade-long rap sheet more extensive than, eh, let's say "the complete works of Shakespeare," give or take a few hundred words. This tragic idiot also turns out to be a third-tier con artist whose foolproof response to journalists asking about his criminal misadventures was an epic fiction blaming PTSD he says he sustained while serving in Iraq during the first Gulf War, 'cause the Mooslims blew up his leg. He would love to show you the proof, but also very tragically, uh, a massive house fire sadly destroyed all the evidence! The Department of Defense has no record of any of this either, because they hate freedom.

Here is the hilarious tale of Gordon lying over and over, badly, to an AP reporter:

On Friday, Gordon insisted that his service record is incomplete. He said he couldn't provide evidence of his time in Iraq because many of his photos and keepsakes from his service were destroyed in a house fire when he was living in Fall River, Mass., in 2005.

"I'm disappointed that the DOD didn't provide you with a full and accurate record," he told the AP on Friday. "I don't know what else to tell you."

Records obtained from the Marine Corps show Gordon joined the Marines on June 4, 1987, and served at bases in South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington and California, and spent six months with an aviation unit at a Marine Corps air station in Japan.

The records show no deployments to the Middle East. Maj. Shawn Haney, a public affairs officer with the Marines, said Gordon's file would indicate any time spent in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain or Iraq during the Gulf War.

Gordon told reporters this week that his right leg was struck by shrapnel "eight miles south of Baghdad" in February 1991. He said his unit was based in Bahrain.

"I can assure you, I was there," he said Wednesday.

Gordon's record lists two awards, one for his time stationed in Japan. The other, the National Defense Service Medal, was given to all personnel on active duty at the time of the Gulf War, regardless of where they served.

Gordon said he received the Southwest Asia Service Medal, an award given to members of the armed services deployed to the Middle East for the Gulf War. The award is not listed in his file. Asked if he would present the medal publicly, Gordon said it wouldn't do any good because they are easily found at pawn shops.

GAH! The socialist pawn shop cabal strikes again. [AP]

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Sounds like quite a few people who expected "change" aren't seeing it.NY Times:

 

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As Rick Perry is now learning, you get sent to Tea Party Hell not for your sins, but for the few decent things you have said and done in your life.

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It cannot be said enough: David Gregory has never met a Republican meme that he didn't embrace with full force. For a guy who doesn't believe it's his job to ask follw up questions to fact check a guest, he sure does love coming back and back again to a narrative that Republicans put out without context or veracity.

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Worldwide, the number of obese now outpaces the number living with chronic hunger and famine as a global public health threat. "Obese people now outnumber the hungry globally, but hardship for the undernourished is increasing amid a growing food crisis, the International Federation of the Red Cross warned on Thursday. ... The Geneva-based humanitarian group focused on nutrition in its annual World Disasters Report, released in New Delhi, seeking to highlight the disparity between rich and poor, as well problems caused by a recent spike in prices. ... In statistics used to underline the unequal access to food, the IFRC stressed there were 1.5 billion people suffering obesity worldwide last year, while 925 million were undernourished. ... "If the free interplay of market forces has produced an outcome where 15% of humanity are hungry while 20% are overweight, something has gone wrong somewhere," secretary general Bekele Geleta said in a statement. ... Asia-Pacific director Jagan Chapagain called it a "double-edged scandal" at a press conference in the Indian capital, adding that "excess nutrition now kills more than hunger"."

 

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Wall Street: The cops went after the wrong people.

 

You know, the titans of arbitrage and other speculative financial alchemy could easily calm the seas by taking a few lousy percentage points in their top marginal tax rate. They won't. Who do you think will spray protesters after they break public safety unions in the interest of accumulating an even higher proportion of wealth? Just asking.  

 

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Obama Slams GOP's Booing Of Gay Soldier: 'That's Not Reflective Of Who We Are'

 

Yes it is.

 

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Dream On; Torture Nation Edition

From a piece by Ariel Dorfman:

Dick Cheney, it has been said, fears that "somebody will Pinochet him." ... If Cheney really loved his country, he would demand that a grand jury be convened, he would want a world where the schoolchildren of tomorrow, his own grandchildren and great-grandchildren, can truly pledge that there will be justice for all.

He would want to clear his name and never more see it even remotely associated with Pinochet, that thief, that traitor, that man who tortured his own people and lives on only in the annals of villainy.

You should read the entire piece, it won't take long.

But this is the thing: Dorfman is truly wrong about the "justice for all" part. Cheney believes in Richard Nixon's concept of the law and the presidency, which is: "If the President does it, it is legal."[1] That is why Cheney all but ordered Bush to pardon Scooter Libby.[2]

Cheney was an elected tyrant. He probably will not live long enough to be tried for his crimes, at least not in a court of law. But in the judgment of history, he will be named for what he was: A brutal war criminal.

And we, the citizens of the United States, will go down as this generation's version of the "good little germans" who closed our eyes and ears to the crimes being committed in our names and did nothing about it.

Cheney stained the honor of this country. His eagerness to pervert the material witness statutes into tools for holding people in detention without access to counsel or the courts and his advocacy for the use of torture stained the honor of this country. It gave moral cover to other brutal regimes who tortured their own people.

But that stain on our national honor need not have been permanent. We, the people, the citizens of this country, by not demanding that Cheney be held to account for his crimes, have made Cheney's stain irrevocable.

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U.S. To Hand Over Iraq Bases, Equipment Worth Billions

 

Headlines - Sunday September 25

Good news: Radioactive Rice "Far Exceeding" Safe Levels Found in Japan

 

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Inmates facing execution in Texas - which leads the country in state-sanctioned killings - will no longer get their choice of last meal after a state senator complained it was "a privilege the perpetrator did not provide to their victim." The move came after white supremacist Lawrence Brewer ordered a huge meal - two chicken fried steaks, a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, fried okra, a pound of barbecue, three fajitas, a meat lover's pizza, a pint of ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts - though he didn't eat any of it. Troy Davis, the same night, declined the offer altogether. Sen. John Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee,  called the decades-old tradition "ridiculous. This old boy last night, enough is enough. We're fixing to execute the guy and maybe it makes the system feel good about what they're fixing to do. Kind of hypocritical, you reckon?"

"There are a lot more serious abuses that have gone on in terms of lack of due process in Texas. Inmates would much prefer a last lawyer to a last meal," said Richard Dieter of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.

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"On Sept. 20, 2011, a date that will live in infamy, the U.S. armed forces were deliberately and successfully attacked by advocates of the scourge of homosexuality. The elimination of the last vestige of moral restraint on sexual perversion in the U.S. military, commonly known as the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, ushers in a new Orwellian era in which the military leadership of our nation will proclaim the unnatural as natural, the unhealthy as healthy and the immoral as moral. As an Orthodox priest who still loves all of the troops I served as a chaplain for a quarter of a century, I pray that God the Holy Trinity will preserve and protect the U.S. armed forces — especially in this new Dark Age." - Father Alexander Webster, writing for Stars & Stripes.

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60 people (and counting) arrested today during the Wall St. protest march up to Union Square. The cops used mace and pepper spray on unarmed protesters. Oh, and helicopters have been buzzing overhead.

Isn't it lovely when the thin veneer of democracy in this country slip off, exposing what's really underneath?

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Seven U.S. states have sided with the Department of Justice against the mega-merger of AT&T and T-Mobile.

While I'm not in favor of any huge monopolies, why aren't they going after banks, credit card companies, media empires, etc.?

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Is this even legal?

MOBILE, Ala (Reuters) – Starting on Monday, nonviolent offenders in Bay Minette, Alabama, will get to choose whether to serve their sentence in a jail cell or a church pew.

Municipal Judge Bayless E. Biles is launching "Operation Restore Our Community," intended to function not only as a diversion program but also to address jail overcrowding issues in the southwest Alabama community.

Misdemeanor offenders will have the option of attending church every Sunday for a year rather than serve their sentences in jail. Participants must check in with both the police and a clergy member each week, and if they follow the rules can have their case dismissed.

Do we really need to incorporate churches into the prison industrial complex?

If your jails are overcrowded, quit sentencing people to jail time for smoking a joint and save space for the real criminals. Ya' know, the ones who wear suits and carry a Blackberry.

And another thing: in 1997, the U.S. Bureau of Prisons statistics on inmate religious preference showed that prisons are already full of christians: 

Judeo-Christian Total 83.761% (of the 74731 total responses)

Not unexpected as a result. Note that atheists, being a moderate proportion of the USA population (about 8-16%) are disproportionately less in the prison populations (0.21%).

I'd say the far more effective alternative would be to send offenders to Atheist meetings, where they could learn techniques for resisting the criminal behavior that they apparently learned in church. 

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"Don't Ask Don't Tell is now over. Gay people can enlist, fight overseas, and then not be able to get married when they get back home." –Jay Leno

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h/t Dick - Taibbi: GOP Debaters Get Shit Wrong, Don't Care

538 has an interesting piece on Polifact's ratings of the truth of statements by Republican candidates for President. The net of it is that almost every time Michele Bachmann opens her mouth, she's lying. I'll go out on a limb and argue that Santorum would be just as bad if he ever got a chance to speak, but his sample size is pretty small, as is Huntsman's.

According to Polifact, at least 71% of what Obama says is at least half right, versus 51% for Perry and 64% for Romney.

Another message of this chart is that a big part of Ron Paul's appeal is that he doesn't tell a lot of lies. He comes by his crazy ideas honestly.

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Taiwanese animators: GOP primary debate audiences embarrass Republican Party

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It sounded unrealistic (and like BP propaganda) when the initial theory was promoted and now it sounds like there's more information on this ongoing problem.

Tar balls washed onto Gulf of Mexico beaches by Tropical Storm Lee earlier this month show that oil left over from last year's BP spill isn't breaking down as quickly as some scientists thought it would, university researchers said Tuesday.

Auburn University experts who studied tar samples at the request of coastal leaders said the latest wave of gooey orbs and chunks appeared relatively fresh, smelled strongly and were hardly changed chemically from the weathered oil that collected on Gulf beaches during the spill.

The study concluded that mats of oil — not weathered tar, which is harder and contains fewer hydrocarbons — are still submerged on the seabed and could pose a long-term risk to coastal ecosystems.

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Jurassicpork: We Need a Guilt Project

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Republicans lie, cherry pick and distort? You don't say. "House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce oversight and investigations subcommittee have been subpoenaing records from the White House' Office of Management and Budget, and have, it seems, been selectively leaking them to the media. ... For example on September 14th, the non-profit and non-partisan group the Center for Public Integrity published a story with the headline: "Obama administration agreed to Solyndra loan days after insiders foresaw firm's failure," based on "excerpts" of OMB and DOE e-mails that it had obtained from the House Energy & Commerce's Oversight & Investigations Subcommittee. ... The story quoted a DOE official predicting in an e-mail that Solyndra would run out of cash by September 2011, and noted that it was one red flag out of many that the White House should have paid attention to before making the loan guarantee. ... But on Friday, DOE spokesman Damien LaVera sent out a note to reporters saying that the e-mail quote had been: ... selectively pulled from an Aug. 20, 2009 email to make it look like Solyndra would run out of cash by Sept. 2011."

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Republicans bash No Child Left Behind, then bash Obama for trying to unravel it.

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Bristol Palin gets into bar fight with angry homosexual.

 

Headlines - Friday September 23

Stop Pretending You're Not A Conservative! You Wrecked The Country, Now Own Up To It!

 

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Hypocrites: Republicans Decrying 'Job Killing' Green Energy Agenda Have Sought Green Jobs For Their Own Districts

 

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"Pay me to run! Then I'll think about it."

As you may know, Gov. Palin is on the verge of making her decision of whether or not to run for office.

It's one of the most difficult and important decisions of her life. And I want her to know that she has our support.

Gov. Palin is a proven leader. She's a common-sense conservative who fights for the rights of Americans like you and me - not special interests or big corporations.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama's presidency is a disaster. One in five working-age men are out of work. One in seven Americans are on food stamps. Thirty percent of our mortgages are under water. Parts of Michigan and California are suffering from unemployment numbers that are greater than during the depths of the Great Depression.

Someone must save our nation from this road to European Socialism. Do you think it should be Gov. Palin?

If so, can you send your best, one-time gift to SarahPAC today to help her elect more common-sense conservatives - and show her that we support her if she decides to run?

She really is turning into a Nigerian bank scam, isn't she?

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And so it begins. Tag the children when they are young and they won't think twice about allowing themselves to monitored as adults. The process is called "normalization" and the next step will be to place one on the child's body, in a necklace or bracelet perhaps, followed by implanting it under the skin at birth. In ten years or so, the banks will roll out a "convenient" sub-dermal chip that you can just wave over a sensor. No more stolen credit cards or ID theft, just the loss of your privacy. And people said it was "far-fetched." Doesn't sound so crazy anymore, does it? 

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Canada to Build Twenty-foot Fence if Perry Elected

Could Be Electrified, Border Officials Warn

 

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We needs Dems like this to run in 2012.

 

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Hey kids, have you heard about this whole big Solyndra loan guarantee thing? It's basically where this one solar energy company acted just like the nuclear energy industry and it's the worst thing ever -- I guess because no reactors are involved or something.

Anyway, it proves this whole "green energy" stuff is just a bunch of hooey and we should just stick with what's working for us.


Click for animation

Next thing you know, they'll be saying we can get free energy from the wind! Crazy treehuggers... (MarkFiore.com)

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See how he doesn't even bother to put his hand on his heart during the national anthem? Remember all the screaming in 2007 when our current Commie-In-Chief did the same thing? Washington Monthly asks:

 

"Will the picture of the Republican candidates lead to widespread questions about Perry's patriotism? Will be it be shown, over and over again, on cable news? Will the Texas governor be asked for an explanation? Or is there some quality about Perry and Obama that makes the former's patriotism beyond reproach and the latter's suspect?"

 

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NYC Catholic Archbishop Sends Letter To Obama Demanding Support For DOMA

"Mr. President, I respectfully urge you to push the reset button on your Administration's approach to DOMA. Our federal government should not be presuming ill intent or moral blindness on the part of the overwhelming majority of its citizens, millions of whom have gone to the polls to directly support DOMAs in their states and have thereby endorsed marriage as the union of man and woman. Nor should a policy disagreement over the meaning of marriage be treated by federal officials as a federal offense—but this will happen if the Justice Department's latest constitutional theory prevails in court. The Administration's failure to change course on this matter will, as the attached analysis indicates, precipitate a national conflict between Church and State of enormous proportions and to the detriment of both institutions." - New York Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan, from a lengthy letter to Obama.

Some suspect that then Milwaukee Archbishop Dolan hid as much as $130M in church funds in order to avoid paying massive child molestation settlements.

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Rick Perry's Pay-to-Play Bonanza

 

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Pam Olsen, who is one of Rick Perry's campaign leaders, advocates for Seven Mountains dominionism, a surging theology which claims that only Christians are approved by God to rule America. Olsen also says that God punishes the nation with natural disasters when gay rights advances are made. Oh and I almost forgot, she can raise the dead! Rick Perry for president! Video here.

 

 

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Bill Clinton on the success of Republican economic philosophy. Or a lack thereof.

You know, there's not a single solitary example on the planet, not one, of a country that is succesful because the economy has triumphed over the government and choked it off and driven the tax rates to zero, driven the regulations to nonexistent and abolished all government programs, except for defense, so people in my income group never have to pay a nickel to see a cow jump over the moon. There is no example example of a succesful country that looks like that.

Every Ayn-Rand worshiping Libertarian ought to be asked every single time they step up to the podium to provide an example of a successful libertarian country. There isn't one and never will be.

I would ask the same of on-the-fence independents who seem to think the Republicans might have an idea or two worth trying despite the complete lack of evidence to support their policies.

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Jon Stewart makes an impassioned plea for your help. Cue the Sarah McLachlan music…

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Bob Cesca: Rick Perry's Epic Lying Could Make Him the Next President

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Republicans are betting that if they can force Pres. Obama to capitulate one more time, they'll turn Democratic voters' enthusiasm gap in 2010 into an enthusiasm chasm in 2012.

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Conservative pundit Michelle Malkin and actor Alec Baldwin got into a Twitter war over last night's highly controversial execution of convicted murderer Troy Davis.

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Jeremy Irons talks about the death penalty: "Capital punishment means that those without the capital get the punishment."

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If a Democratic debate audience had done this, it would be the only thing we heard about for the next 14 months. They just booed a US soldier serving in combat. Think about that. This is what the Republican party has become. A bunch of far-right bigots and extremists. The Tea Party and the evangelical nuts run the entire thing now.

And watch Rick Santorum not say a peep when these right-wing freaks are booing a US soldier serving in combat.

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At Thursday night's Republican presidential debate, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) proposed the elimination of all taxes, but then added that the government did need some money to run.

"You earned every dollar, you should get to keep every dollar that you earned," the candidate said. "That's your money, that's not the government's money."

"Barack Obama seems to think that when earn money, it belongs to him and we're lucky just to keep a little bit of it. I don't think that at all. I think that when people make money, it's their money."

Bachmann added: "Obviously we need to give money back to the government so that we can run the government."

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Okay, see if you can follow the logic here...Republicans say they love the military, the military really does love green energy and wants lots more of it, so in response...republicans cut green energy programs. Got it. "The Department of Defense - eager to reduce its dependence on oil in the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq and keen to become energy-efficient at home - is aggressively investing in clean technology, from advanced biofuels to electric vehicles, solar-powered batteries and blankets for soldiers in the field and bases that generate their own electricity. ... "From Barracks to Battlefield: Clean Energy Innovation and America's Armed Forces," a report released Wednesday by Pew Charitable Trusts, examines the Department of Defense's leadership role in deploying nascent clean energy technology and driving its commercial development, giving an overview of what each branch of the armed services is doing. ... The military's support of clean energy innovation is tied to the desire to save American lives, the report says. Today's soldier requires 22 gallons of fuel per day on average, an increase of 175 percent since the Vietnam War. In Afghanistan alone, 20 million to 50 million gallons of fuel is delivered each month. Eighty percent of the convoys into Iraq and Afghanistan are for fuel, and in 2010 there were 1,100 attacks on fuel convoys."

 

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Republicans like to talk about how the Bush Boom was so great from 2003-2007, but the reality is the entire 2000-2010 decade was awful for America.

Median household income fell 2.3% to $49,445 last year and has dropped 7% since 2000 after adjusting for inflation, the Census Bureau said Tuesday. Income was the lowest since 1996.

Poverty rose, too. The share of people living in poverty hit 15.1%, the highest level since 1993, and 2.6 million more people moved into poverty, the most since Census began keeping track in 1959.

Overall the American middle class basically never recovered from the 2002 recession.  The housing and credit bubble formed to pull us out of the funk while we spent billions on Iraq and Afghanistan rather than the US was five years of paper growth that detonated in our faces in 2008, but it lasted long enough to get Bush re-elected.  Overall the middle class has taken a serious hit in this country in the last ten years.  And 2012 may very well mean another even worse decade is ahead.

We are now suffering through the Bush Great Depression. Don't let anybody call it anything else.

 

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Since Elizabeth Warren announced her intention to challenge Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) in the 2012 election, Republicans have sought to paint her as an Ivy League elitist for teaching at Harvard Law School. Now the Massachusetts GOP is trying another tactic altogether — directly lobbying Harvard not to pay Warren's salary while she is running for the Senate.

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Rep Joe Walsh: Media will protect Obama in 2012 because he's black.

Walsh has made more TV appearances than any other House freshman. Perhaps he's just desperate to shift media focus away from his persistent refusal to pay child support for his three children. Perhaps he thinks lobbing race-based attacks at the media is the only way to do it. Regardless of his reasons, he's liable to repeat it over and over again. "And there's nothing racist about this," he has said of the attack. "It is what it is."