"pretty soon, even here in Washington, it adds up to real money," says the president.
Except, you know, really it doesn't. Let's say the administration finds $100 million in efficiencies every working day for the rest of the Obama administration's first term. That's still around $80 billion, or around 2% of one year's federal spending.
OK, politics is theater. But you could argue that the president shouldn't feed the bogus claim that we can close fiscal gaps by eliminating a bit of waste.
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"These soldiers didn't design these techniques on their own: we were following orders." - Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who ran Iraq prisons in 2003, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
This girl looked pretty happy to be following the orders she got:
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Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis told the New York attorney general he believed former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke wanted him to keep quiet about the worsening terms of the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch, according to testimony reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
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Why is it so hard to imagine Condoleezza Rice approving torture?
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I am shocked, shocked to learn that the lobbying group for the fossil fuel industry suppressed the findings of its own scientists that the science linking climate change to carbon dioxide emissions was irrefutable.
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Pretty fuckin' sad: Torture victim John McCain warned Thursday that any attempt by the Obama administration to prosecute the Bush-era lawyers who wrote memos signing off on waterboarding would start a "witch hunt."
Let's revisit that one sentence here, shall we?
"But to criminalize their legal counsel, unless you can prove that they intentionally violated existing laws or ethics, then this is going to turn into a witch hunt."
Could someone please notify the Senator from Arizona that torture does, indeed, 'violate existing laws or ethics?'
And maybe not so coincidentally - McCain's comments are an eerie echo of those made my Karl Rove the other day. Check it out...
Rove said the administration's recent disclosures about torture are "very dangerous." Rove insisted, "What they've essentially said is if we have policy disagreements with our predecessors.... [W]e're going to turn ourselves into the moral equivalent of a Latin American country run by colonels in mirrored sunglasses and what we're gonna do is prosecute systematically the previous administration, or threaten prosecutions against the previous administration, based on policy differences. Is that what we've come to in this country?"
McCain, ever the good soldier, has received his marching orders. Same old, same old...
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Krugman pretty much demolishes all the arguments about why we can't investigate torture.
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Fox's Shephard Smith goes off the reservation, drops the F bomb regarding torture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEtFMj6ZiHM
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Cheney's enormous tea bags - now he's worried about deficits?
In 2002, when Dick Cheney was putting together plans for another round of tax cuts for the wealthy, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill tried to dissuade him, noting that in less than a year the administration had already turned the $400 billion Clinton surplus into a $158 billion deficit.
Cheney's reply would become infamous. "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to O'Neill's account of the exchange.
The second round of tax breaks sailed through the GOP Congress, of course. And while the cuts did increase the wealth of the super-rich, once again they failed to "trickle down" on the middle class.
Five years later, in January 2007, Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz predicted with uncanny accuracy that Bush's economic policies had placed the country on a road to ruin: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/04/23/cheneys-enormous-tea-bags-now-hes-worried-about-deficits/
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Cool! A fossil of a 39 million year old mammal from the Canadian arctic has been found that would have looked rather like a seal in life…with a prominent exception. No flippers, instead having very large feet that were probably webbed. This is a walking seal.
You can learn more on this website all about Puijila.
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Behold the power that is the blog!
the mudflats tells us that Palin is putting the blame for her Alaskan attorney general nominee not passing the legislature squarely on...teh bloggers!!
Wow. So, it's the fault of the bloggers. Because, you see, if the bloggers and the rest of the media weren't so damned nosy and interested in what was going on in our government, and weren't sitting behind their keyboards running their mouths all the time, then people wouldn't have gotten so upset about it.
It's kind of like when Wayne Anthony Ross pointed out that there wouldn't be such a problem with domestic violence, if women would just keep their mouths shut. I guess it kind of works the same way. There wouldn't be such a problem with her appointments if the bloggers and constituents would just keep their mouths shut.
And a belated congratulations to AK Muckraker for continuing on her proud blogging tradition in spite of being "outed" by a drunk alaskan legislator.
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Thanks for all the help fixing the problems you created, you SOB's
100 days of Republican obstructionism in one minute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18NSjDI6ILk&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Ftheygaveusarepublic%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded
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Miss California must rebuke her gay chest thingies
Carrie Prejean
Miss California USA
Dear Miss Prejean,
I salute you for standing up for marriage segregation during the Miss USA Pageant. No doubt it cost you the tiara, but I'm sure God will bless you with a steady stream of megachurch appearance fees and perhaps even a stint as the interchangeable generic blond on Fox and Friends.
But, you must to do a few things to get your own house in order before partaking of any of the blessings. Most importantly, you need to divest yourself of all the gifts you've received from homosexuals, so that you do not come off as some kind of hypocrite. Specifically, I'm referring to the breasts Keith Lewis gave you. Please rebuke them loudly in the name of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, and then return them to Mr. Lewis as soon as possible. I'm sure our Lord and savior will provide you with an even better set once you do.
Heterosexually yours in a chaste and completely biblical kind of way,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
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Republicans are a bunch of whiny bitchez:
The right-wing crackpots have been in a frenzy over the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). And, as we all now know, the right-wing crackpots are all that's left in the GOP. Today, GOP Senate Leader Mitch McConnell announced, in so many words, that on behalf of the extremists in his caucus, the Republicans are filibustering the nomination of Sebelius.
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It is all politics to these clowns:
New York Republican Rep. Peter King thinks his party needs to go nuke if Bush era officials are prosecuted on torture charges.King, the outspoken ranking member of the House homeland security committee, said Republicans should "shut down [legislative] activity across the board" if any Bush-era officials are hauled into court.
"We would need to have a scorched-earth policy and use procedural means to bring the place to a halt — go to war," he told POLITICO.
He added:
"If we have another 2,000 people killed, I want Nancy Pelosi and [liberal philanthropist] George Soros, John Conyers and Pat Leahy to go to the funeral and say, 'Your son was vaporized because we didn't want to dump some guy's head under water for 30 seconds.'"
What the hell does Soros have to do with this? And did Peter King and company have to go apologize for the thousands killed on 9/11?
These people are insane.
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Making terrorists and radicals the Bush way
A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists, Guantanamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals, conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam — thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them — and then housing them in cells next to radical Islamists.That this happened is really no surprise.
In a classified 2005 review of 35 detainees released from Guantanamo, Pakistani police intelligence concluded that the men — the majority of whom had been subjected to "severe mental and physical torture," according to the report — had "extreme feelings of resentment and hatred against USA."No shit, which is why the NYPD and other police departments have made so many friends in minority communities. It's one of the reasons why the French lost Algeria; if you abuse the inhabitants of an area, all you do is make enemies.
That the Bush Administration and the US Army was ignorant of history is no real shock. George W. Bush has been the best recruiter that the Islamic militants have ever had.
We will be reaping the results of this for many years to come.
A custom firearms manufacture plans to give Sarah Palin a smokin' gift at a May banquet of the National Rifle Association, according to RedState.
NRA members, keep an eye out for your copy of May's American Rifleman, if it hasn't already arrived. According to the latest edition of the magazine, Bob Reynolds, gunsmith and owner of Templar Consulting LLC, will make a special presentation at the NRA Foundation Banquet on May 14.
It's a modified AR-15 (civilian version of the milspec M16 rifle), specially customized in honor of Gov. Sarah Palin and dubbed "The Alaskan Hunter."
The gift is an assault rifle custom-engraved with the image of a moose, the Big Dipper, a map of Alaska, and the words "In Honor of Governor Sarah Palin."
The governor could really mow down a moose with this thing, or perhaps spray several wolves from a helicopter, or, say, terrify one Levi Johnston.
Check it out:
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Weepy didn't get the memo
Weepy, the oddly orange-hued member of Congress (R-Crybaby) and notorious boner-maker, goofed yet again and forgot to say "harsh interrogation tactics." This is going to earn him a stay at Blam-Blam's Re-Education Camp and Grouse Hunting School.
They've decided to close the detainee base in Cuba without having any plan for what they are going to do with those terrorists who are hellbent on killing Americans, and then last week they released these memos outlining the torture techniques, and that is clearly a political decision, and ignored the advice of their director of national intelligence and their CIA director. The bigger question is, what is the administration's overarching plan to take on the terrorist threat and to keep America safe? The world didn't suddenly become safer in January of 2009.
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Yesterday Obama met with credit card industry officials at the White House. After the meeting, he pledged to push for a law that would offer "strong and reliable" protections for credit card users in the United States. He called the session with the industry executives "open and productive conversation."
However, one person who seemed less than interested in the meeting was White House economic adviser Larry Summers, who fell asleep:
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Shimkus: 'capping CO2 greater assault on democracy than 9/11: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/23/shimkus-co2-assault/
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House Republicans now want Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano fired after her department released that memo warning of the "fertile recruiting environment for right-wing extremists" that America has become due to the loss of all national wealth, the black president, shitty immigration policy, and the general idiocy of many American citizens: http://wonkette.com/408044/house-republicans-want-dat-dere-nippletini-woman-at-dhs-fahrred-fur-good#more-408044
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Houston, we have a solution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCLz7XQOIOQ&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmaruthecrankpot%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton listens to rethug Rep. Mike Pence whine about Obama shaking hands with America-hating socialists, then she unloads with both barrels.
As she walked off in a flurry of high-fives and fistjabs, Mr Pence was left opening & closing his ignorant blowhole like a beached mackerel on meth.
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"I call on all governments to join with the United States... in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture."
-- Joe Biden ummm... Jimmy Carter errrrr... Dennis Kucinich... whoops, nope, it was George W. Bush, 6/26/03.
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Great news in Michigan!
You have GOT to be shitting me.?!
Despite advisories that warn people to avoid contact with river sediments and consuming locally caught fish, thousands are expected to participate this weekend in a Dow Chemical-sponsored walleye festival along the Tittabawassee and Saginaw rivers, where the watershed has been contaminated with harmful dioxin and other toxic substances.
And just as the Michigan Department of Community Health is warning that children and pre-menopausal women should mostly avoid eating river fish including walleye because of contamination from polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxin, organizers of the festival say they plan to donate walleye fillets to a local food bank.
Well at least by donating the glowing, three eyed fish to local food banks, at least we can reduce the welfare caseload.
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