Andy Borowitz: For those who missed the Republican debate, there's a great piece about it in the Book of Revelation.
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I Hope They Don't Remove the Bleeding Crucifixes from Their Restrooms
Sarah Palin spoke out on Thursday against Alaska Airlines' decision to stop including prayer cards with its meal trays. The airline announced the move a day earlier, ending the tradition that lasted for 30 years.
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Apple has created 700,000 jobs - in Asia.
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Second Mayor calls @GovBrewer Otis the Drunk a prevaricator. "Out of the three officials who met President Obama on an airport tarmac near Phoenix earlier this week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is now the only one who has characterized the president as anything other than cordial. ... In numerous TV and radio interviews since the meeting, Brewer has said the president was "tense to say the least" and took issue with a book she wrote last year. She said Obama walked away from her while she was in mid-sentence and even told one Phoenix television station she felt "a little bit threatened" by the encounter. ... But Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, who was standing just feet away from the president and the governor on Wednesday during their now-infamous encounter, told TPM that Obama seemed calm the whole time. ... "He wasn't tense at all," Stanton said on Friday. "The guy's a pro." ... Though Stanton declined to discuss exactly what the governor and president said to each other, he said Obama's classic coolness was evident. ... "He doesn't get animated, but he looks you in the eye and tells you what he thinks," Stanton said. "And I think that's honestly what he did is he looked the governor in the eye and spoke and told her what he was really feeling." ... Stanton, a Democrat, is now the second elected Arizona official whose account of the incident contradicts the way Brewer has described it."
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Republican Representative Larry Pittman of Cabarrus County, NC thinks, sort of like Newt Gingrich did back in the '90s, that capital punishment is the only way to scare people like "abortionists, rapists and kidnappers" (what, no murderers?) into being better citizens (and more conservative). But Pittman goes a step further than Newt: he thinks we should bring back public hanging. It's the only way, etc. Well, about every 36 seconds a Republican calls for the return of some barbaric practice or another, so big deal. But Pittman had a funny way of expressing his views: not boldly or proudly, in front of his fellow lawmakers or at the very least, atop a milk crate in some park, but in an e-mail that he accidentally sent to every member of the General Assembly of North Carolina. Ah, well.
Pittman, like Taco Man before him, is using the excuse that he was just in a bad mood. Apparently Pittman's lightbulb of an idea was generated by the pompous e-mail that murderer inmate Danny Robbie Hembree Jr. recently sent to North Carolina's Gaston Gazette bragging about how wonderful life in prison is and how he'll never be executed thanks to endless appeals.
Pittman apparently thinks that if we could just hang Hembree, everything would be fine. So presumably just get rid of the court system as well. Have angry mobs vote over whether someone committed a crime and then have them gather in the town courtyard to watch the suckers die. Pittman's e-mail:
We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out. Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner," Pittman wrote in the email. "If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well.
And then, somewhat swiftly, the apology:
I was filled with anger, disgust, and frustration, as well as a profound sense of grief for the family of the young woman he killed. I felt a need to 'vent' some of these feelings and intended to do so to him alone. In the process, I got a bit carried away and overstated my case. I am sure I am not the only one who has ever done that.
No, sir, you are not even the only person (Republican) to have done it this week. Get in line! [WRAL]
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Let the under-oath finger-pointing begin! "A former aide to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (R) will testify against her former colleagues after officials filed charges of illegal campaign activity while working on taxpayer time, local media has learned. ... Darlene Wink, a 61-year-old former public employee charged on Thursday with two misdemeanor counts of political solicitation by a public employee, could be the weak link that spills yet another major scandal over the embattled governor, even as he appears likely to face a recall election later this year. ... Prosecutors on Thursday announced four felony charges for another Walker insider, 43-year-old Kelly Rindfleisch, who worked with Wink as one of Walker's aides. ... That brings the total number of Walker insiders facing criminal charges to six, according to The Wisconsin State Journal, which concluded the ongoing investigation had turned up a "pattern of illegal fundraising" and confirmed that Wink was working on a plea bargain that would include testimony."
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Arizona cop not sure what big deal is over his bullet-riddled Obama photo
What had we gone, a whole week or so without a news story about a public official cracking jokes online about murdering Barack Obama? That's kind of a long time! Don't "worry," however, Mexico still does not want Arizona back, so we will never go too long without one of these kinds of things while a black guy is president: the Secret Service is investigating Sgt. Pat Shearer, a Peoria, Arizona police officer, after he posted a Facebook picture of a group of assault rifle-wielding teenagers holding up a bullet-riddled t-shirt with Barack Obama's face on it during one of their Future Gas Station Attendants of America meetings. Shearer has taken the photo down, but come on, he just wants to know, what is everyone's problem? Since when did everyone start taking assassination so seriously? READ MORE »
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Pennsylvania House votes to declare bible most awesomest book of 2012
Oh thank goodness, IT WAS ABOUT TIME: Pennsylvania lawmakers unanimously approved a resolution declaring 2012 the "Year of the Bible" in their state, to publicly recognize some of the important famous people in American history who have owned Bibles and talked about Bibles — George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and of course possibly most famously and importantly of all, Ronald Reagan. OH and, also, to recognize "our national need to study and apply the teachings of the holy scriptures," AHEM AHEM. No mention of which teachings, though. Maybe some of the fun ones about the rules for public stonings in Deutoronomy or something? READ MORE »
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Internet mean girl Sarah Palin is forgoing her usual illiterate tweeting in order to defend, on teevee, Newt Gingrich, a multimedia huckster who may or may not have illegally promised Palin a cabinet position in his fantasy moon presidency. The former governor must have really pissed someone off at Fox because she's been relegated to commentating on some closed-circuit feed called Fox Business News, where she told John Stossel that the establishment (BOO!) is "trying to crucify this man and rewrite history and rewrite what it is that he has stood for all these years." Never change, Sarah. Never change! READ MORE »
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Oh look, Romney attacked Kennedy's blind trust during 1994 Senate race.
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The newly-released GDP numbers fell a little short of expectations, but given the larger trajectory, it was at least encouraging to see the domestic economy moving in the right direction in the final three months of 2011.
The American economy picked up a little steam last quarter, with output growing at an annualized rate of 2.8 percent, the Commerce Department reported Friday.
The pace of growth was faster than in the third quarter, when gross domestic product expanded at an annual rate of 1.8 percent.
The fourth quarter was easily the best three-month period of 2011, and the strongest the U.S. economy has seen since the spring and early summer of 2010.
It's important to realize, though, that 2.8% growth is hardly a breakthrough or evidence of a robust recovery. Under normal conditions, a figure like this would suggest the economy was fairly healthy and growing at a steady pace, but therein lies the point: these are not normal conditions. Given the severity of the Great Recession, and how much ground there is to make up, we'd much prefer to see a significantly higher number.
This should be of particular interest to policymakers, who may be tempted to see stronger growth as an excuse for inaction -- or worse, austerity measures intended to slow the economy down on purpose. The fact remains that we're slowly crawling out of a ditch -- taking money out of the economy and ignoring high unemployment may very well push us backwards. This is especially true in light of the ongoing risks posed by outside economic forces beyond the nation's control.
With that, here's a chart showing GDP numbers by quarter since the Great Recession began. The red columns show the economy under the Bush administration; the blue columns show the economy under the Obama administration.
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The least shocking news of the day is that Ron Paul was both fully aware of the contents of the Ron Paul Survival Report, his racist newsletter, and that he personally reviewed each issue. Oh, but, he's against drones!
These latest revelations do not conclusively demonstrate that Paul is a racist scumbag, who just happens to apologize for the South while speaking in front of Confederate flags, but they do show he knew full-well what was contained in the newsletters.
It's unfortunate some fellow liberals wasted their time pretending Ron Paul was a secret-progressive hero.
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### The least shocking news of the day is that Ron Paul was both fully aware of the contents of the Ron Paul Survival Report, his racist newsletter, and that he personally reviewed each issue. 
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