Despite the fact that zoos and parks are some of the most popular public programs, politicians are selling them off or closing them due to budget shortfalls (here). It will take three years and roughly $9 million to shutdown the Franklin zoo and a smaller zoo. While the legislature provided $6.5 million for the zoos, but Governor Patrick used a line-item veto to cut the funding to $2.5 million.
A single day of expenditures in Iraq would fund every zoo currently facing closure in America for years. Yet, we are cannibalizing our public parks and zoos to fund a war for a nation with some of the largest oil reserves in the world. Putting aside the hundreds of billions spent on these wars, it took massive incompetence among our politicians to get to the point that the United States cannot even sustain its parks and zoos. Yet, there appears to be little outcry or backlash from the public.
For the full story, click here.
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The Wall Street Journal reports that the CIA program concealed from Congress was a secret plan to kill or capture al-Qaida operatives. The targeted assassinations project "hadn't become fully operational at the time Mr. Panetta ended it."
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The first full-time female FBI agent stationed at the US prison in Guantanamo, Bay, Cuba says she witnessed a drunken "spring break" atmosphere during her tenure — and has photographs to prove it.
In a little noticed complaint Friday, the 43-year-old agent, Theresa Foley, alleges that she experienced a "generally sexist, discriminatory and 'boys club' atmosphere" during her time at Camp Delta in Cuba and that she contracted a permanent debilitating disease as a result of being forced to sleep in rat-infested quarters. Foley is suing the Justice Department over her illness and purported sexual harassment.
Her illness has led to a hysterectomy and spinal collapse.
Other FBI agents, she says, ostracized her because she refused to participate in the alleged carousing. She claims to have attended parties with other FBI agents in which they wore a "mocking imitation of Arab or Afghan attire" and has pictures of "personnel at Guantanamo engaged in drunken carousing in a sexually charged atmosphere, day and night," including shots of "female employees in bathing suits or revealing attire sitting on the laps of male employees, and female employees being hugged, kissed and likely groped by male employees."
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/13/fbi-agent-guantanamo-animal-house/
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MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan, a strong supporter of Sarah Palin, is extremely unhappy with Levi Johnston for his recent criticism of Sarah Palin, including his appearance on the "Today Show" this morning in which he said Palin, at least in part, resigned the governorship of Alaska in order to make more money. Buchanan had some harsh advice for the Palin family on how to deal with Levi:
Well, first, with regard to Levi, I think First Dude up there in Alaska, Todd Palin, ought to take Levi down to the creek and hold his head underwater until the thrashing stops.
The whole "Morning Joe" gang laughed pretty hard at Buchanan's joke, while Mark Halprin helpfully offered, "That's a reality show, right there."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/13/pat-buchanan-todd-palin-o_n_230441.html
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A gay couple say they were detained by security guards on a plaza owned by the Mormon church and later cited by police, claiming it stemmed from a kiss on the cheek.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said that the men became argumentative and refused to leave after being asked to stop their "inappropriate behavior." The men say they were targeted because they are gay. http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/gay-couple-detained-near-mormon-plaza-after-kiss/
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The GOP has always been broken - BooMan
The 1930's brought a deep and abiding minority status for the Republican Party, all of which they spent nursing one form of paranoid grievance or another. In the 1930's it was red-baiting, foaming about the New Deal, and apologizing for fascism. In the 1940's, after the war, it was an unhealthy obsession with the Red Menace of Russia and China. In the 1950's it was all about communist infiltration of the government, Hollywood, and the armed services. From the 1960's on, it has been about countering the counterculture and fighting the expansion of rights to all our citizens, regardless of race, gender, religion, or sexual preference. Their one decent president in all this time wasn't even much of a Republican. The Democrats would have happily nominated the Supreme Allied Commander in 1952 if Ike had only agreed to run on their ticket. The rest of the GOP's lineup has been thoroughly corrupt, if not corrupt and incompetent.
Because science has inconveniently declined to back-up any of their fantasies, science has been completely discounted. According to Pew Research only six percent of scientists consider themselves Republicans. Think about that. Sarah Palin didn't do that. It took decades of work to reach this point even if it wasn't until the last eight years that we truly saw the national ignorance weaponized by complete Republican control.
Only three percent of blacks voted for McCain, a number similar to what Bush the Younger received. That didn't happen overnight. A higher percentage of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than Democrats. But years of bitching about social programs that benefitted a community just emerging from the yoke of Jim Crow drove blacks away from the Party of Lincoln. In this decade it has been bitching about hispanic immigration that has driven Latinos away in droves. There are 535 elected members of Congress (plus a few delegates), but there is only one Republican Jew, no Republican Muslims, no Republican agnostics, no Latino Republicans (other than the four Cubans from Florida), no gay Republicans, and no women in leadership positions.
Republican strategists know that the country is getting less white, less Christian, and less intolerant of gays, but they are powerless to stop the hatred of the Republican base towards racial and religious minorities and gays. Sarah Palin did her best to whip these aggrieved people into a violent frenzy, but she didn't create them or drive everyone but them away from the Republican Party.
Sarah Palin may own the GOP, but she didn't break it. As far as I can tell, it's been been broken since Teddy Roosevelt quit it to found the Bull Moose Progressive Party. They can never be trusted with power. Never.
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