Intimidating people as a political tool is not democracy. It is fascism. And more to the point of this post, if you feel the need to show up at a political or public [event] while ostentatiously carrying weapons, then you are both a whiny ass crybaby with a gun and you are a disgrace to the the concepts of freedom and democracy.
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Now the birthers have a new concern - whether or not Obama is circumcised. Oh god.
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If you're interested in the politics of health care over the past twenty years, read Ezra Klein.
"Insurers make money by denying claims. Money they spend on health care is money they lose (they even have a name for it: the "medical-loss ratio"). Private insurance is a bit like a fire department that turns a profit by letting buildings burn down."
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The real war is not between the left and the right. It is between the average American and the ruling class. If we come together on this single issue, everything else will resolve itself. It's time we took back our government from those who would make us their slaves.
Go see who said this.
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The Prejean decade begins
I really don't understand this. I didn't understand Joe the Plumber either. What about parading an ignorant, abrasive beauty pageant winner around helps your party?
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Krugman: Reflexively anti-Bush
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Already, 20 companies have agreed to pull advertisements from Glenn Beck's television hate-show, within weeks of the Fox host calling Obama "a racist" and saying the president "has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture."
Now, Farmers Insurance can be added to that list, a Farmers spokesperson confirms to Conlickico.
Suck it, you hateful twerp.
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Fake Grassroots
We all saw real grassroots movement in action last week in the progressive reaction to support Congressional members who pledged to fight for the public option. George Soros didn't manufacture it. Michael Moore didn't create it, ACORN didn't fund it, nor did a bunch of rich Hollywood Liberals. Led by Jane Hamsher, nyceve and the folks at at Firedoglake, real people led the fight to keep Democrats focused on providing real health care reform, not watered down, corporate protectionism for the monopolistic practices of health insurance companies.
Unfortunately, that's not the way Republicans and conservatives generate "grass root" support" for their positions. Here's a good example of what I mean: fake letters generated by a lobbying form in opposition to the energy bill which can only be called fraud and identity theft to create the illusion of grass roots opposition to the climate change provisions of the bill:
Congressional investigators have uncovered five more letters sent to members of Congress that falsely claimed to be from charities expressing opposition to climate change legislation.The new letters bring to nine the number of nonprofit organizations whose identities were appropriated by Bonner & Associates, a Washington lobbying firm that says it specializes in developing grass-roots support for lobbying campaigns. [...]
The committee has asked Bonner and its client, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, to go through a total of 58 letters about the climate change legislation that appear to have been sent by charities to three members of Congress — Ms. Dahlkemper; Representative Christopher Carney, Democrat of Pennsylvania; and Representative Tom Perriello, Democrat of Virginia.
That request came after Bonner's lawyers at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld told investigators that a letter from Senior Center Inc. of Charlottesville, Va., was legitimate — only to retract that determination several days later and declare that letter fake, a spokesman for the committee said.
Fear and Lies. That's what the corporate business interests are trying to sell Congress and the public. On everything from health care reform to climate change to needed reforms and regulation of the financial industry. They have no alternatives. No proposals to address the myriad problems facing this country. But they do have profits to defend and money to spend on lobbyists and corporately financed astroturf organizations, and if using fake grass roots movements, phony letters and outrageous lies to scare Congress into opposing the progressive agenda we elected Democrats to put in place are their only options to achieve those ends, than by hook or crook they'll do so.
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Watch Jeremy Scahill demolish that bloviating hack Chuck Todd on Bill Maher's show this week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWbXKyb0iiM&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fbrilliantatbreakfast%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded#t=34
Note how Todd tries to dodge the issue of Afghanistan, claiming credit for what Helen Thomas does. Note how he talks about lack of trust in government and equivocates between lying about an affair and lying to send over 4000 Americans to their deaths. Chuck Todd, who wasn't always like this, is emblematic of everything that is wrong with political journalism today. Now he gets invited to the parties, and refuses to ask tough questions. He too falls into the "He said, she said" model of journalism, in which truth and utter horseshit become one and the same.
The problem is, who actually HEARS Jeremy Scahill other than those who already know what he's talking about?
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Florida's governor, the oh-so-happily-married Charlie Crist, told a group real estate agents in Orlando that he prayed to God that Florida wouldn't experience hurricanes, and God granted the request.
Crist explained that before his election in 2006, the state experienced a total of eight hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. Then he took a trip to Jerusalem in 2007 and placed a note in the Western Wall which read:
Dear God, please protect our Florida from storms and other difficulties. Charlie.
God listened then and has kept listening, since Crist has sent the same notes via friends each year since. And no hurricanes! But Crist doesn't take credit:
I give that to God. But it's nice.
Yes, and let's remember all the practitioners of Santeria and other faiths in Florida who also have been praying for the same thing. No one has a monopoly on God.
Now if only they can pray for Crist to leave office and retire from politics. He has a future in acting--have you seen "Outrage"?
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When one man, Abdul Hanan, complained that "more people are dying," First Lt. Jake Weldon told him that the Taliban "take away your schools, they take away your hospitals; we bring those things."
Mr. Hanan remained doubtful. Some people have fled the area, fearful of violence since the Marines have arrived. He asked, "So you want to build us a hospital or school, but if nobody is here, what do we do?"
Read the whole article: http://eb-misfit.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-dont-know-answer-to-this-question.html
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See what Froomkin has to say about the public option.
In the meantime, here's Obama's weekly address: Myths and morality in health insurance reform: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ityPz0IML1Y&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Emockpaperscissors%2Ecom%2Fblog%2F&feature=player_embedded
But here's the deal: words are cheap. Yes, he speaks well, he certainly was eloquent on the campaign trail, but when it comes to politics as Molly Ivins always said, don't listen to what they say, look at their record. I said it during the primary, he has no record - certainly not a liberal one. And you know what? What little record he has now since coming to the White House is deceit and abandoning his promises. I have absolutely zero faith in him.
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The CIA hired security firm Blackwater to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay to secret prisons in Asia for interrogation, the German weekly Der Spiegel says.
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/22/cia-blackwater-transfer-gitmo/
At this point, I think the question should be what DIDN'T Blackwater and the CIA do?
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After torturing al Qaeda detainee with a handgun and an electric drill, he falsely confessed that al Qaeda was working on a nuclear bomb. Conveniently, the Bush administration destroyed tapes of Nashiri's interrogations in 2005.
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Least surprising news of the day in the "change" department: Bush's practice of extraordinary rendition continues under Obama
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/08/22/extraordinary-rendition-white-collar/
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Fat chance, jerkoff
Satan's porcine handmaiden: 'why John Conyers, the New York Times, and the WaComPo owe me an apology.'
Rather punchy blogger: why demented piglet Karl Rove owes all of us an apology. From the inside of FPMITA prison.
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"Conservative group targets Obama's vacation with attack ad. Obviously rather than spending time with his family occasionally, he should be clearing brush every other weekend."
Story here.
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Frank Rich: If Obama keeps his enemies as friends, he will "waste his opportunity to effect real change."
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Repukes shaft grandma
Levi Johnston's mom's addiction arrest due to lack of health insurance --
Sherry Johnston pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of possession with intent to deliver the painkiller OxyContin... Sherry Johnston has two pain pumps implanted in her body to deliver medication because she suffers a rare condition involving scurvy and chronic pelvic pain from prior medical surgeries, Butler said. She was receiving professional pain relief treatment but the problems arose when her insurer refused to pay for the medication.
Unbelievable. Why do upChuck Grasshole, Sarah Failin et al hate fellow republicans, babies' grannies?
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Coalition deaths in Afghanistan (notably absent is mention anywhere of civilian deaths)
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You know what would be nice? If he sent a nice card. That would be thoughtfu. Maybe a picture of a sad-eyed puppy.
Lt. William Calley this week said that he's sorry for the My Lai massacre. So that's all right then. Oddly enough, he made this apology to the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, Ohio, although I'm reasonably sure that he didn't actually lead a massacre at the Kiwanis Club of Greater Columbus, unless it didn't make the papers; I mean shouldn't he have been apologizing to the Kiwanis Club of Greater My Lai instead?
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