The new anti-gay initiative is called "Two Million for Marriage," and the organizers are calling it "2M4M" for short. Seriously. Now, anybody who's gay, or who has ever read a personal ad, knows that M4M is the call-sign for men seeking other men (and not for spiritual guidance). It's also the name given to chat rooms devoted to gay men hooking up for sex.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
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http://www.democrats.com/no-amnesty-for-torturers?cid=ZGVtczQ3OTQ0MWRlbXM=
Nate Silver is currently estimating the total number of teabaggers on Wednesday at somewhere over 300,000 people. Ezra is a bit impressed by this, saying
This is, I think, more of what conservative media and interest groups are trying to sell than actual reality. The problem is that 300,000 can sound like a lot, and we can be sure that Nate's estimate will be much lower than those proffered by the teabaggers themselves.
So let's have some context, shall we:
- 1,800,000 Americans think the moon landing was faked.
- 54,000,000 Americans think the sun revolves around the earth.
- From the same poll, 72,000,000 Americans think that the US won its independence from France or another country, or had no answer at all.
- Back in 2002, 21,000,000 Americans still believed that Elvis is alive.
America has 300,000,000 people in it. The 300,000 people who may have attended these silly teabaggings represent 1/10 of 1 percent of the American population. Pick any belief, any activity, no matter how far-fetched, how exotic or fringe it may be, and you'll be able to find more than 300,000 people who subscribe to it. Since protests are a regular occurrence every single April 15th, and since these top-down organized events had more than their fair share of politicians and paid staffers from conservative organizations, the number of people who can be described as newly outraged at their government's profligacy with their taxes is an even more pathetic number.
These teabaggings were not the moment that the conservative movement found its message or unifying cause. They were not the point at which opposition to Obama finally coalesced into a real movement. Instead, they were just another failed attempt by out-of-touch consultants and other corporate types to manufacture a grassroots movement. If all they can manage is a little over 300,000 people - a significant portion of whom were going to turn out to protest anyway because that's just what they do on April 15th - then the message here is that the GOP is still completely rudderless, leaderless and without vision of any kind. Their moneyed interests and consultants still have no clue about what resonates with the overwhelming majority of Americans.
It does, however, make me look forward to their next stunt. If this didn't work, after all, they'll have to up the ante and make it even sillier.
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The Bigots' Last Hurrah - by Frank Rich
What would happen if you crossed that creepy 1960s horror classic "The Village of the Damned" with the Broadway staple "A Chorus Line"? You don't need to use your imagination. It's there waiting for you on YouTube under the title "Gathering Storm": a 60-second ad presenting homosexuality as a national threat second only to terrorism.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/19
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U.S. Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) made it abundantly clear on This Week with George Stephanopoulos why the Republican party is adrift. No ideas, no solutions, no nothin'. Hell, they can't even agree on what the problem is. Watch the video. Stephanopoulos is both incredulous that the House Minority Leader denies the role of carbon emissions in climate change, and determined to get a coherent answer. Good luck with that, George.
P.S. Note to Boehner: Cows emit methane, not carbon dioxide. You'd think someone from Ohio would know that. Perhaps the tanning booth has fried his brain.
Video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/19/boehner-calls-global-warm_n_188688.html
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The meaning of the myth of the Obama teleprompter: http://www.pensitoreview.com/2009/04/19/the-meaning-of-the-myth-of-the-obama-teleprompter/
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h/t Dick - save this to remind the wingnuts in 2012, when they are feigning apoplexy over "Obama's economy", precisely who was president in 2008...and started it all.
2008: "Worst Year" in Fortune 500 History: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/04/19/sunday/main4954725.shtml?source=RSSattr=HOME_4954725
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271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals in the water
Forget about mining for gold, people ought to be mining the pharma gold in the water because there's a lot of it out there. Problems related to pharmaceuticals in the Chesapeake Bay tributaries have been well documented and similar problems have been reported around the country. Who wants to be drinking this water or letting their kids drink this water? Industry needs to start thinking more about the people they are impacting and be forced to clean their act. It's time the federal government starts paying attention instead of letting business pollute at will.
No one could have predicted that Jane Harman would get caught on tape promising favors to AIPAC:
Harman was recorded saying she would "waddle into" the AIPAC case "if you think it'll make a difference," according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.
In exchange for Harman's help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.
JMM and other people who understand all this better than I do have more on this, but suffice to say that Jane Harman does not belong in the Democratic party or in Congress.
She helped keep the American people from learning about the illegal warrantless surveillance program during the crucial 2004 campaign season, thereby helping to deny us the right to have that information as we weighed our choice between John Kerry and George W. Bush. Whether you dislike her as a Democrat or as congressperson or as a traitor to her country, you should not want to see Jane Harman remain as a U.S. congressperson.
If it weren't so serious, it would be laughable: a sleazy "liberal hawk" Congresswoman gets wiretapped and then blackmailed by an even sleazier Attorney General. It's the perfect story for our times, in many ways.
So as you can see the circle is complete. Caught on an NSA wiretap, Congressperson is saved, so as to defend illegal NSA wiretapping.
I just hope that neither Harman nor Gonzo is prosecuted for any of this. Obama has so much on his plate already.
Rahm Emanuel not only told George Stephanopoulos of ABC's This Week that no field officers should be prosecuted over breaking the law when it comes to torturing prisoners, but he took it a step beyond and proclaimed that even the lowlife John Yoos and Jay Bybees shouldn't face any consequences for their actions.
Is that truly what the administration thinks? That people who want to see those who illegally led the country down the road of torture held to account are simply "looking back" in "anger" and "retribution"? Fifty percent of the country favor such investigations, including 69% of Democrats and a majority of independents. Is Rahm saying that President Obama believes they're nothing more than an angry, vindictive mob, and that nobody could possibly have a rational basis for believing that our laws should be enforced?
Update: President Obama will visit the CIA today to tell them how important they are, and to "reassure CIA officers of his promise not to seek prosecution of CIA agents or former officials" involved in torture.
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Wingnuts, led by Fox News are upset by the DHS report on rightwing extremists, and think it is a "war on veterans." Janet Napolitano said the following on CNN:
Here is the important point. The report is not saying that veterans are extremists. Far from it. What it is saying is returning veterans are targets of right-wing extremist groups that are trying to recruit those to commit violent acts within the country. We want to do all we can to prevent that.
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4,274 soldiers killed in Iraq; 679 in Afghanistan.
56 US soldier suicides in first 3 months of 2009.
We killed 8 more in Pakistan with a drone.
Now that the economy is so bad, the Army has better quality recruits - no more waivers for felons or drug abusers: http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2009/04/19/military-stops-giving-waivers-to-felons-drug-offenders/
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Epic Fail
Banks that got the biggest bailouts have reduced lending:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/20/most-bailed-out-banks-red_n_188796.html
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h/t Dick
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