Here's what really happened: When Franklin Roosevelt took office, unemployment was already about 25%. And the tariff referred to here was actually the Smoot-Hawley bill, co-authored by Republicans Sen. Reed Smoot of Utah and Rep. Willis Hawley of Oregon, and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover.
Interestingly, this speech also happened on the same day as when Bachmann connected the 1970s swine flu outbreak to Democrat Jimmy Carter being president, even though it was actually Gerald Ford in office at the time.
A shout-out to Liberal in the Land of Conservative for also noticing Bachmann's false attribution of the tariff bill to Roosevelt -- and also to Matt Yglesias for pointing to the metaphysical possibilities.
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No, this isn't an Onion story. I wish. (Via Norwegianity)
When she opened the letter from her dead son's former landlord this week, Danelle Eckert thought there had to be some mistake. The letter, addressed to Eckert and to the estate of her son, Colin Byars, was demanding March and April rent, late fees and an "early termination fee" because he had left his apartment before the end of his lease. Byars, a 24-year-old teacher, was killed Feb. 21 when he was punched in the head on a Kenosha street. "I thought they must not understand that Colin was killed. But no, they understood completely," Eckert said. She said the apartment's property manager told her that they knew Byars had been killed. But the woman told Eckert the management company had been advised by their legal representative that they should go after the rent and fees.
Every time I think I've plumbed the depths of what the conservatives have done to us - what we've let them do to us - I discover that there's one more layer of shit we've penetrated than I thought.
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The handshake that wouldn't die
Oh, gimme a fuckin' break, already.
I just watched the video, and the last image it shows is the Pentagon burning on 9/11.
Fear & Smear Revisited. Boehner should be ashamed of himself.
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This just in: Byron York is still an asshole - Steve Benen explains.
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No swine flu on Felching day
Yakov Litzman
Deputy Health Minister
State of Israel
Dear MK Litzman,
It's always very exciting to see a nation incorporate religious values into public policy. That's why I stood up and cheered the news that you had officially changed the name of the decidedly non-kosher swine flu to the much more rabbinically-correct Mexican flu. My G_d, the very thought that you or someone you love could succumb such an unclean disease must have stricken you with terror, the kind of terror we Americans can only understand when we compare it to the threat of the unintentional double entendre.
And that's why I'm writing you. Recently, true Americans, Christian Americans, like myself gathered to protest an unease of indeterminate origin that now blankets the American Heartland (OK, we know the origin of the unease, but we aren't racists, dammit). We called our protests "teabagging" parties because we were going to re-enact the Boston tea party by littering the street with tea bags. Unfortunately, our protests were met with derision and laughter because, unbeknownst to us, teabagging is a kind of sexual act involving the sucking of a mans grenades.
We've already scheduled the next Felching Day for the Fourth of July, so we're going to need you to give the Department of Commerce a call right away. It's important that Commerce establish the felching brand as soon as possible.
Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
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When painters' masks simply aren't enough.
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QOTD: "Toyota's developing a miniature, environmentally-friendly car that is powered by a battery. Meanwhile, Detroit is still hard at work on an SUV that runs on rain forest trees and panda blood." Conan O'Brien
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The multiple and egregious credit card abuses by banks have been building for almost 3 decades with few if any checks on the ability of creditors to pick your pocket whenever, wherever and however they choose. Hidden fees, outrageously large late fees, double-dipping, usurious interest rates approaching 30%, and on and on, have been the mechanisms that let them get paid as much as $100 for every dollar they loan.
The Congress (finally!) is about to take some action - if the conservatives and lobbyists let them - with a bill nicknamed The Credit Card Bill of Rights. It isn't by any stretch all that's needed to stop unethical predatory credit card practices but it's a start:
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Oxycontin and old lace: two elderly women arrested in large heroin bust in Pennsylvania
Two elderly sisters — Elizabeth Marie Grube, 70, and Elaine Volkert, 65 — have been arrested for selling heroin in a type of AARP-certified drug enterprise. Pennsylvania Police seized 400 bags of heroin from Grube home and 988 bags from Volkert's home. Police also seized quantities of Oxycontin and marijuana in the raids.
While it is certainly good to see people staying active in the economy, this is a pretty rare case of elderly offenders. For the full story, click here.
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"I think that Judge Bybee should be given a medal for what he did."
Ninth Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee responded yesterday to critics about his infamous role in writing some of the torture memos. Notably absent is his earlier denial of being the author of the memos that he signed, according to close friends. He now stands by the torture memos and Rep. Peter King (R., N.Y.) says that Bybee should be given a medal for rationalizing torture. Story here.
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That's the governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, with her arm on a big-ass bear carcass (yeah, yeah, "skin") behind her. She's appearing on TLC's American Chopper to talk motorcycles and, well, what else, snowmobiles. "We love those motor sports," she tells the chopper dudes. And despite the chopper guys' shop being close to both Woodstock and New York City, she proclaims them to have "that patriotism in you that people just so respect." Guess it's a little pocket of real America amid the hippies and leftists.
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Avoid the flu: don't do what this kid is doing
Ignoring the fact that there are 36,000 deaths a year from regular seasonal flu in the US, and that there are apparently only 7 (not 152) deaths from the current H1N1 outbreak in Mexico according to the world health organization, the multi-millionaire media has successfully tossed torture prosecution off the nation's agenda w/24/7 scare stories about sneezing.
Even worse, crude oil futures prices drop drastically based on swine flu concerns, because pigs drive so much.
Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx
They strung/slung/nailed their victim's body across a stock-fence. This is the way the knuckle-dragging, slobbering rancher contingent disposes of the carcasses of the 'varmints' - coyotes, wolves, etc. - they kill.
They claim it 'sends a message' to other critters..
Lemme see if I got this right - a buncha goat humpers who got in a lucky punch on a blind complacent giant are a bigger danger than a madman who took control of Europe and murdered millions as a matter of policy?
A few thousand people, tops, who want to screw things up and return the world to the dark ages are a bigger threat than an industrial giant with millions of soldiers who wanted to shape the world to their own thousand-year dark ages? Think Progress
voted against Sebelius - already moving toward socialized car companies, we don't need socialized medicine!
Where to even start with something so profoundly clueless and obtuse?
Let's put aside the fact that many of big auto's problems are rooted in the cost of providing health coverage for retirees.
Instead let's discuss the fact that McShameless has been a recipient of single-payer, government funded healthcare for literally his entire life. He was born in a military hospital, grew up getting all his care on base and then swapped his dependent ID card for his own ID card, and continues getting the same care he had always received.
He also receives $58,000 per year disability payments - tax free. This is addition to his military retirement pay, senator pay, and social security payments.
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Psychologists who designed and supervised torture program raked in $1,000 per day.
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I will never understand the mindset that believes the most effective way to influence behavior is through a combination of threat (Hell) and bribe (Heaven.) What a low opinion of one's fellow humans is required to think they respond only to fear and greed.
Rational human beings need neither carrots nor sticks to do the correct, moral thing; doing so is its own reward.
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Economic difficulties aren't just for Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. The radio giant who brings favorites such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and Dr Laura seems to be having major financial problems. Oh to remember how the right loved to hear about problems at Air America. You know what they say about paybacks.
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62% say that torture is often or sometimes justified. When you add in the 17% who say that it is rarely justified, you get to a stunning 79% of evangelicals who would gladly put you on the rack and tear your limbs out.
The people least likely to approve of the use of torture are the heathens who don't go to church.
If I were a Christian and if I believed in all of the "Prince of Peace" and "turn the other cheek" and "God is Love" stuff that I see on the signboards outside of the churches, I'd be seriously depressed at that.
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Momon leader of NOM appears to advocate overthrow of US government "by whatever means necessary," and criminalization of homosexuality: http://www.americablog.com/2009/04/mormon-leader-of-nom-seemed-to-advocate.html
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Thank God Bush is gone - part eleventy billion
WASHINGTON — Justice David H. Souter plans to retire at the end of the term in June, giving President Obama his first appointment to the Supreme Court, four people informed about the decision said Thursday night.
Could you imagine if the Chimp got to appoint another Kool-Aid drinking, fetus-loving conservative to SCOTUS? They would have made American women get cameras implanted in their uteri.
It's going to be interesting to watch the Republicans blather about "legislating from the bench" as they demand a justice in the mold of Sammy the Stem Cell Alito, which the President made clear the other night they're not going to get.
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The US Senate, a wholly owned subsidiary of the banking industry:
On the same day that the White House announced that overextended Chrysler would go into a "quick" bankruptcy—its loans rewritten by a judge to emerge for life another day—Senators defeated a proposal to allow bankruptcy judges to rewrite home loans.
The roll call vote is here. Note that our new Democrat Arlen Sphincter voted nay. In other words, he and many others think it's perfectly okay to help the wealthy hang onto their vacation homes, boats and cars (because they're allowed the same aid for which Congress deems You the People unworthy). Other nominal Democrats who agreed that you didn't deserve that kind of help included many of the usual suspects: Baucus, Bennet, Byrd, Carper, Dorgan, Johnson, Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson (NE), Pryor, and Tester.
Let's give props to Evan Bayh, who did vote with the majority of the Dems - for a change.
Oh, and David Sirota has two questions.
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When he left office in January, 31 percent of American's viewed him positively. That number has now dropped to 26 percent.
The Bush Legacy: who? Wasn't he the asswipe who almost destroyed America? What a farking tool!
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GOP set to launch rebranding effort. Coming soon to a battleground state near you: a new effort to revive the image of the Republican Party and to counter President Obama's characterization of Republicans as "the party of 'no.'"
But the best part of the rebranding effort is the all-star team that the GOP has assembled to show their youth, vitality, and fresh ideas:
- Arizona Senator John McCain, who lead the franchise to their biggest electoral losses in modern history
- Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, brother of the despised ex-President, Chimpy McStagger, widely blamed for the demise of the GOP, and father of known drug offenders and anger management students, and husband of a notorious contraband importer and tax cheat.
- Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a former national GOP chairman, and living caracature of a corrupt white southern politician.
- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, noted volcano expert and Mr. Rodgers impersonator.
- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, K-Lo's masturbation fetish object and gold-tier Aqua Net salesman.
- House GOP Leader John Boehner, the oddly orange-hued crybaby and teller of cow fart jokes.
- House GOP Whip Eric Cantor, Britney Spears greatest fan-boy.
- Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, LiverLips husband to Chimpy's longest-lasting cabinet appointee, she-dragon Elaine Chao
Can hilarity be far behind? I'd watch this if it were a reality show!
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Conservative talker Jay Severin was suspended indefinitely today by Boston's WTKK-FM after saying this:
So now in addition to venereal disease and the other leading exports of Mexico -- women with mustaches and VD -- now we have swine flu. ... We should be if anything surprised that Mexico has not visited upon us poxes of more various and serious types considering the number of cimminalieans already here. [...]
[W]hen scoop up some of the world's lowest of primitives in poor Mexico and drop it down in the middle of the United States. Poor, without skills, without language, not share our culture, not share our hygiene. ... It's millions of leeches from a primitive country. ... Now they are exporting a rather more active form of disease which is the swine flu.
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Jindal spares money for the New Orleans Saints while slashing health care and education funding.
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Secession-ready Texas has already received the most federal disaster assistance of any other state.
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Heck-of-a-job Brownie attacks Obama administration's response to Swine Flu.
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From the China Disabled Persons Performing Arts Troupe: Buddha With Thousand Hands:
The dancer in the front is Tai Lihua, who has been deaf since the age of two. She writes on the troupe's web site:
I am deaf and suffer from lack of hearing, but I am happy. There are hundreds and thousands of outstanding artists in our country. The disabled artists are privileged to perform in famous theatres in more than 40 countries. It is our country that made this possible for us and many kind people have helped us realise our dream.
My white dance shoes share my best moments in life.
My white dance shoes bring me the joy of life.
We share our experience with the world:
As unyeiding as nature may be,
so must we ceaselessly strive along.
As tolerant as mother earth may be,
so must we act within our world with virtue.
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