Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Headlines - Wednesday

William Shatner makes Sarah Palin's speech into poetry.
 
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.....but she can't even talk
 
Sarah Palin shopping around talk radio show

But she's got a mind for teevee!

The trade journal Inside Radio reports: "While not exactly shopping the GOP's 2008 vice presidential candidate, sources say Palin representatives have been quietly testing the waters to see how much interest radio syndicators have for her." Perfect! This is how Palin does everything now: passive-aggressively "gauge interest" and if people don't kiss your ass enough, even though you commit to nothing, just say Fuck 'Em and move on to the next assholes who won't give you the proper respect. Then you can write a poem about it, on Twitter. [Inside Radio via Political Wire]

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Swine flu may have hit Capitol Hill.
 
No doubt, we'll be hearing more about this. But, don't worry. Members of Congress and Capitol Hill staffers have excellent taxpayer-funded health insurance. If any of them get sick, they'll be covered.

But, maybe they should quarantine all of Congress. Then, perhaps they'd actually finish their work on health care reform so the rest of us will be covered.
 
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Krugman: on Bill O'Reilly's latest health care inanity: "I need a drink."
 
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Republican Christian hypocrite Sen. Paul Stanley resigns after getting caught having an affair with a young intern. Stanley's legislative proposals were largely focused on pro-business issues, but he also sponsored failed measures to ban gay couples from adopting children. He also spoke out against funding for Planned Parenthood because he said unmarried people should not have sex.

"Whatever I stood for and advocated, I still believe to be true," he said during an interview Tuesday with Memphis radio station WREC-AM. "And just because I fell far short of what God's standard was for me and my wife, doesn't mean that that standard is reduced in the least bit."
I wonder if he went on to say that Jesus died on the cross for him so he knows God has forgiven him. He does, after all, self-identify as an "evangelical Christian."
 
You know, even if you want to assume for a minute that one guy who was murdered by the government could absorb all the sins of mankind in perpetuity, you'd think that if these people were so aware of how much a Jewish carpenter suffered for them, they would feel a special responsibility to look at the juicy young thing in the miniskirt and then look the other way.

Oh, and another Fun Fact about Rep. Paul Stanley: He is a "financial advisor" to The Stanford Group, the company founded and headed by
disgraced and indicted financial swindler Allan Stanford. He even still boasts of this on his web site.

Remind me again why anyone takes Republicans seriously....
 
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Wow. Like this is astonishing
 
I am shocked, shocked, to learn that the guy who George Bush appointed to run the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, Charles Millard, became mired in allegations of influence peddling with various Wall Street banks.

And the real "no, shit, Sherlock" moment:
One of the Wall Street firms that was sucking up to Millard was Goldman Sachs. Goldman was one of the three firms to win a contract to manage money for the PBGC.

But wait, there's more!
On July 20, the agency permanently revoked the contracts with BlackRock, Goldman and JPMorgan Chase, the third winner, nullifying the process. The decision was based on questions surrounding Mr. Millard's actions during the formal bidding process. His actions have also drawn the scrutiny of Congressional investigators and the agency's inspector general.
And more!
Mr. Millard's e-mail messages show that, while the bidding was under way last fall, he also spoke with Rick Lazio, a former House Republican who is now a senior executive at JPMorgan Chase, to discuss career options.[1]
We are seriously into the "ZOMG, a Bush Administration official ran his agency with an eye towards feathering his own nest, so what's so shocking about that" territory. Between the incompetence and the corruption of the Bush Administration, you'd be excused for thinking that they did their recruiting, in part, from among those who scored 400 on their SATs and those who were from New Jersey.

Nothing newsworthy there.
 
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Truer words have rarely been blogged.
 
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Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) recently appeared on the radical right-wing radio show of Alex Jones and the two happily traded conspiracy theories, which touched on the more wackier pearls of Conservative fringe wisdom, including claims that the White house is spiking our water with drugs to sterilize the whole country and comparing Obama's policies to Hitler and Chairman Mao.

Rep. Gohmert spoke for thirty minutes and engaged in the Republican fear-mongering about the inclusion of a public option in health care reform, claiming it "is going to absolutely kill senior citizens. They'll put them on lists and force them to die early because they won't get the treatment as early as they need," said the Congressman.

Gohmert also claimed that a public health option would empower the government with "…every right to tell you what you eat, what you drink, how you exercise, where you live." Gohmert didn't stop there; he was on a roll.

The excited Congressman then tried his hardest to make an analogy between a recent bill to humanely manage the wild mustang population, entitled "Restore Our American Mustangs Act," and government run health care that would somehow force people to use contraception against their will.

"But if we're going to pay 700 million dollars like we voted last Friday to put condoms on wild horses, and I know it just says an un-permanent enhanced contraception whatever the heck that is. I guess it follows that they're eventually get around to doing it to us," said Gohmert.

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From the wackos at the Family Research Council 

Just so you know what kind of shameless lies and demagoguery we're up against:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxFC9Af3W1U&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsusiemadrak%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

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Rahm told the Blue Dogs: No leash

Maxine Waters on Rahm and the Blue Dogs:

"That may be difficult for Rahm Emanuel. Don't forget, he recruited most of them. As when he was over in the Congress, in the leadership, Rahm recruited some of the more conservative members of Congress and based on some of the information I'm getting, he told them they could vote the way they wanted to vote, that they would not interfere with what was considered their philosophy about some of these things. And now the chickens have come home to roost."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjwgMKhYfjg&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fsusiemadrak%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

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"I am a crapweasel"

Infamous astroturf lobbying firm behind new anti-health reform group: http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/28/cppr-dci-astroturf/

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A group called "Patients First," a project of the lobbyist-funded Americans for Prosperity, has been going around the country and hosting tea parties in opposition to "government-run health care." Last week, they held a symposium in Salisbury, MD, and warned about the dangers of "socialized" medicine. Yesterday, some individuals decided to protest outside Democratic Rep. Frank Kratovil's office, even though he hasn't yet come out in favor of a public option. Protesters even hung up Kratovil in effigy:

hangingkratovil-1

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WaPo reporter: birthers get media attention because "there is no videotape of Obama being born." http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/28/wapo-birther-obama-video/

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Our long months of despair and uncertainty are finally over

With nothing else pressing going on at the moment, politicians decide to take 'stupid' to the next level:

The House resolution to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood -- which included language recognizing the state as President Obama's birthplace, in a none-too-subtle jab at the Birthers -- passed this evening by a 378-0 vote.

Among the Yes votes: Rep. Bill Posey (R-Hurrrrrr), the lead sponsor of the infamous "Birther Bill" to require presidential candidates to present their birth certificates, and who had previously said he wouldn't "swear on a stack of Bibles" that Obama is a natural-born American citizen.
That they even had to THINK about doing this still astounds me. I want to smack the living shit out of all of them. But that's just me.

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                                                            Three-card Monte.
 
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Jesus' General wonders if Jesus walked like an Egyptian.
 
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TVA ignored warnings for two decades and stifled a report that could have prevented last winters massive coal ash spill  The 111-page report from TVA Inspector General Richard Moore came as officials from the nation's largest public utility made a third appearance before a congressional panel since the spill happened three days before Christmas last year.  The breach dumped 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic-laden coal ash from the earthen dams and holding ponds at TVA's Kingston Fossil Plant into the Emory River and lakeside homes has raised questions about the risks and lack of regulation of hundreds of similar sites around the country.  In the wake of the disaster, an estimated $1 billion cleanup and several pending lawsuits from residents, TVA had a vital choice to make: Either conduct a diligent review of TVA management practices as well as to conduct a technical physical examination of the failed structure and then to publish whatever was discovered to the world.- or 'circle the wagons' and spin.  They opted for the latter.
 
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fauxfullretard.png
 
The geniuses at Fox News want to be considered analysts worth listening to - but their graphics department can't even put together a map of the middle east that has the countries labeled correctly.  At the link, you will notice that Iraq has been morphed into Egypt as if by magic.
 
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Speculators caused criminal oil prices last summer.
 
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"This being my last time to speak to you as your governor, I do want to tell you sincerely that I love you." Palin, sincerely lying to a crowd of Alaskans,  Link
 

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