Herman Cain is a Dumbass

Can we all just agree that Herman Cain is clueless? No, really. The guy is a dumbass.

It's bad enough to berate people to reread the Constitution and then righteously quote from the Declaration of Independence, but how about just stepping on the idiocy throttle and running over some Paul Ryan budget doublespeak?!

Nobody’s talking about the fact that the centerpiece of Ryan’s plan is a voucher. Now, a lot of people don’t like to use that term because it has a negative connotation. That is what we need.

People don't like the word "voucher" when it comes to Medicare. That's because the Eddie Munster budget would pretty much kill Medicare and replace it with, as Paul Ryan would like to describe, a "premium support" program, AKA voucher from the government to help with the cost of health insurance that you'd have to shop for yourself from the various insurance companies* and pay for the difference. But in some kind of warped mentality, Herman Cain disregards the Ryan talking points in trying to rename a voucher program "premium support" (which will only increase at the rate of inflation and not the rate of premium increases) and says HELL YEAH! we need a voucher program and "nobody is talking about" it.

...WTF?!

No one is talking about it?! Has he not been watching the news or reading the paper? We know he hasn't  been taking the time to read the Constitution. Who the hell is in charge of the Cain campaign? Whoever it is should be fired immediately.

________________________
*This past Friday on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Ryan said that it's Medicare that would help seniors choose their plan which Joe Scarborough was all too eager to eat up, but that remains to be seen.

Fox "News" - Makers and Takers

Bravo, Thom Hartmann.



(Via Bob Cesca)

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Steve Benen: Taxpayer Financed Health Care for Me, Not For Thee and The Nature of a Debt-Ceiling Compromise

Dana Milbank: Republican Presidential Candidate Pawlenty Bends His Truth-Telling

John Cole: So Much Awesome In One Place

TBogg: Sarah Palin Is The Culmination Of All Human Endeavors and Wars And Probably Evolution

President Obama's Weekly Address - May 28, 2011

Brought to you by Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden on the American Auto Comeback

Quote of the Day

Republicans have a very different idea about the nature of the process. They see an alternative trade-off — the GOP will accept spending cuts, and in exchange, they won’t deliberately destroy the economy.

Dems are willing to accept concessions to strike a deal. Republicans are willing to not shoot their hostage in the head in exchange for Dems giving the GOP what it wants.

The former is an example of a party negotiating in good faith. The latter is an example of reckless thugs pretending to be a political party.

~ Steve Benen

Needless to say, he's exactly right about this. And this mindset has permeated the GOP psyche to the point that Republican Majority House Whip Eric Cantor insists on withholding financial assistance to tornado ravaged Joplin, Missouri unless there are spending cuts somewhere else.

What would the right have screeched if a Democratic member of Congress insisted on withholding funds to New Orleans in the shadow of Hurricane Katrina because it jibes with his ideology with no compassion for those involved? You know, a George W. Bush type fly-over.

Ryan's Plan Fails in the Senate

Forty Republican Senators were absolutely idiotic enough to jump off the cliff and vote for the Paul Ryan Budget plan, AKA Kill Medicare Plan.

...Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, brought the legislation to the floor so that Senate Republicans would either have to vote for it, exposing them to attacks from Democrats and their allies, or against it, exploiting growing Republican divisions on the issue.

Five of 47 Senate Republicans voted against it — four because they said it went too far, one on the ground that the budget measure that contained it did not go far enough fast enough to address the budget deficit.

The Democrats playing offense! It's a strange thing to behold.

But It's Not About Racism (The "Chugging 40s" Edition)

I had a feeling someone would say this the second I saw the President with a pint of beer in his hand. It took no more than a day. Good going, Eric Bolling, you miserable piece of shit.



For those of you who disagree that this is a racist thing to say, you're just fooling yourselves.

If Bolling wanted to wrongly smear Obama for going on his scheduled trip to Europe while a tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, he could have tweeted "Obama chugs a beer while..." or "Obama drinks while tornado kills." As if the President could put on his cape and take off to Joplin, grab the tornado by the tail and whip it into space. But he didn't. He went directly for the dog whistle with the "40s" reference.

Throughout the late 80s and 90s, 40 oz malt liquor was rolled out with “aggressive marketing campaigns aimed at minority drinkers,” which often portrayed black actors and rappers in stereotypical or exploitative fashions. There is a fairly large body of academic literature exploring the relationship between malt liquor and African Americans, and 40 oz stereotypes were even mocked in the 2009 parody of “blacksploitation” films, “Black Dynamite.”

And as soon as he was called on it, Bolling backtracks and tweets "stop.. I drank 40's growing up in Chicago... I am NOT racist". Really? Eric Bolling drank 40's growing up in Chicago? I'd like to see evidence. Any photos of that? And I'd also like to see equal outrage in Bolling's past when President Bush was playing a guitar or singing happy birthday to John McCain during the Katrina disaster. It's got to be documented, right?

Eric, you brought it up. At least be a man and own up to it, you coward. Embrace your racism. That's what your fans are waiting for.

Eric Cantor Is a Punk

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), however, said that before Congress approved federal funds for disaster relief, it had to offset the spending with cuts to other programs. The Washington Times reports:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said Monday that if Congress passes an emergency spending bill to help Missouri’s tornado victims, the extra money will have to be cut from somewhere else.

“If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental,” Mr. Cantor, Virginia Republican, told reporters at the Capitol. The term “pay-fors” is used by lawmakers to signal cuts or tax increases used to pay for new spending.Republican House Majority Whip Eric Cantor doesn't believe we should help Joplin and its tornado victims unless we cut somewhere else.

What a fucking lowlife. Everything is a hostage negotiation with these goddamned Republicans. I hope everyone in Missouri is listening to this moron and remembers it come election time. One wonders if he'd be saying the same thing if his Virginia district got hit with a natural disaster.

Forehead to Desk Moment

Well now we know why Herman Cain is so popular. I thought maybe he offered free pizza for your vote, but no. It's just that he's just as ignorant as Sarah Palin when it comes to the Constitution and misquoting it.

We don’t need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to reread the Constitution and enforce the Constitution. … And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that, so for the benefit of those who are not going to read it because they don’t want us to go by the Constitution, there’s a little section in there that talks about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

BZZZT! Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Cain. That would be Declaration of Independence you are quoting. But we have a lovely parting gift for you - the complete DVD set of Schoolhouse Rock. Please watch these to prepare for your next Republican Primary debate. I'm sure it'll give you a leg up on your competition.

Music Break! Bob Dylan

Happy 70th Birthday, Bob Dylan.

Tornado In Joplin, MO

ABC: To donate $10, text the word "TORNADO" to 20222 or call 888-56-CHILD.
The American Red Cross is providing food, shelter and emotional support in Missouri, Minnesota and other parts of the Midwest.
To make a donation to the American Red Cross' Disaster Relief, visit its online donation page.
You can also call 1-800-RED-CROSS or text "REDCROSS" to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Contributions may also be sent to your local Red Cross chapter or to the American Red Cross, P.O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20013.
To donate to the United Way, call 417-624-0153.
The Salvation Army's emergency disaster services teams are helping to feed residents and first responders in Joplin; Reading, Kan.; and parts of Minnesota affected by the storms.
To donate to the The Salvation Army's efforts, visit www.salvationarmyusa.org and click on the donation page.
You can call 1-800-SAL-ARMY and donors can text "JOPLIN" to 80888 to make a $10 donation. And you can mail a donation to Joplin Tornado Relief, The Salvation Army, 3637 Broadway, Kansas City, Mo. 64111

T-Paw's Running

Here's his awesome announcement video. Wake me when it's over.

Zzzzzzz... huh, what? Oh, right. Tim Pawlenty is throwing his hat into the ring.

And it looks like he's running on the "Insult Obama" platform with doozies like, "President Obama doesn't have the courage to face our problems" (0:50 mark) and "We're gonna have to do more than give fancy speeches. We've had three years of that and it's not working." (1:40 mark). 

I suppose T-Paw has fallen asleep to the sound of his own voice and missed the saving of about a million plus jobs with the auto loan that saved the American auto industry, which by the way, now has GM in the black. Or the turn around in job creation after President Obama took office. It's so easy to criticize when you're an armchair quarterback who said nothing during the ten years it took to get into this mess, but expect to he pulled out of it in two and a half years.

And hey, no need to thank President Obama for the $4 billion Minnesota received in stimulus funds, right T-Paw? That didn't help your state economy at all, did it? Oh wait, it did. But you go ahead and join the list of non-contenders this year. We'll be watching.

Still Here

Well, it's May 22nd, and we're Rapture free. No surprise, right? At least not to cognitive thinkers.

We joke about maxing out credit cards and quitting our jobs, taking vacations and spending all our money so that we'd be ready to go on Judgment Day. But the only real judgment is against the gullibility of those who would actually believe and blindly follow an 89-year old Evangelical radio broadcaster about a date specific Second Coming after blowing it multiple times!

For months, followers of the 89-year-old Camping, who previously wrongly predicted the rapture would occur in September 1994, have been warning that the rapture would occur on May 21, 2011.

My wife had a chat with the cashier at the grocery store this morning who was sympathetic to the man who'd spent his life savings to advertise Camping's May 21st prediction. Call me callous or cynical, but I can't find much sympathy within me for anyone who fell for this scam.

I'm not a religious person, but it would seem to me if you are a believer in the End of Days, that the whole point of being ready when Judgment Day arrives is that you've been preparing for a lifetime with good deeds, helping those less fortunate and living a honest, decent life so it won't matter when that day is.

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' ~Matthew 25:40

When the day comes, you've already "done the work" for lack of a better term. I don't think buying expensive cars, taking a final vacation and depleting your nest egg in the process is what "The King" had in mind. And it's hard for me to feel sympathy for someone who won't even think about alternatives.

The New York Post says the 60-year-old man has also self-published a book, entitled “The Doomsday Code,” based on the teachings of radio host Harold Camping who has (erroneously) predicted the apocalypse six times. When asked by the Post what he’d feel like if Camping happened to be wrong again, the retired engineer had this to say: “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it, everybody asks me that.”

To believe in crackpots predicting dates is just too naive for me to feels sorry the rubes who fell for it... and will fall for it again when the next prediction comes around.

How Many People Did This Today?

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Alex Seitz-Wald: While Cutting Social Services, Kentucky Gives $43 Million Tax Break To Bible-Themed Amusement Park

So...

... it's May 21st... 2011...

...And I'm still here...

No Jeebus......

Uh... well... this is awkward.

UPDATE: I've just been informed that the preacher fella who predicted today is expecting Jeebus at 6pm. Maybe Jeebus responded through Facebook or an Evite. So I'll reserve my own Judgement and give JC until about 7pm to show up - that includes plenty of "fashionably late" time.

Wait - 6pm EDT or PDT?

President Obama's Weekly Address - May 21, 2011

Reforming “No Child Left Behind” This Year

My Last Post

Well, this is it. All things must eventually come to an end.

After 4½ years of blogging and 3,590 posts, it's finally over. This is my last post.* I say this with a sense of deep sadness, for while I never thought when I first started this blog in November of 2006 that I'd still be adding content in May of 2011, it developed into a life of its own when I realized there were some out in the blogosphere that actually came here on a regular basis to read what I had to say. So I felt a sense of responsibility to continue to keep my blog current, even posting occasionally while on vacations, and recruiting some very good friends who can write and some very capable writers who have become friends to fill in when I couldn't. To them I give my heartfelt thanks and immeasurable gratitude for their contribution and their friendship.

Good luck to you all, and I most likely won't see you in the Afterlife.




* If Jesus doesn't come back and the world doesn't end tomorrow, please disregard this post and come back for my weekly Must Reads staple tomorrow.

Will Bachmann Denounce This?

Mother Jones: With the Minnesota legislature in the middle of a heated debate over a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state—the opponents of which, [Bradlee Dean, a Minnesota radio host, anti-gay activist] has pilloried on his radio show—the House Republican Caucus invited the controversial hair-metal evangelist to deliver the opening prayer for today's session.

How did it go? Well, the grand finale consisted of Dean alleging that the President of the United States is not a Christian. Via the St. Cloud Times:

"I end with this. I know this is a non-denominational prayer in this Chamber and it's not about the Baptists and it's not about the Catholics alone or the Lutherans or the Wesleyans. Or the Presbyterians the evangelicals or any other denomination but rather the head of the denomination and his name is Jesus. As every President up until 2008 has acknowledged. And we pray it. In Jesus' name."

I don't even know what to say about this because it's so stupifying.

The question is now whether Michele Bachmann, who has helped raise money for Dean’s traveling youth ministry and is a proponent of his anti-gay agenda, will denounce Dean and distance herself from that brand of lunacy in lieu of her possible presidential aspirations? I mean, she may be dumb, but she ain't stupid.

The rapture is coming...

POSTED BY JHW22

... and I don't mean the Biblical one.

I am more confident that Sarah Palin is going to announce her candidacy on Saturday -- the calculated day of judgment.

And although I agree with this don't sell her short take by PoliticsUSA, I still stand by my conclusion that she doesn't *want* to be President because she doesn't want to have to make decisions; she wants to make money. Otherwise, she wouldn't have left her last elected position half-way through.

But PoliticsUSA nails the complexity of Palin on the head. People who say we should just ignore her or people who say let her run, ignorantly make assumptions that are not worth risking, in my opinion. I have a deep resentment for Sarah Palin because of what she created during the '08 campaign. I still remember, with a great deal of fear and resentment, how she enabled and validated the worst of our stupid, racist, xenophobic, vengeful Americans and gave them a power they hadn't had in quite some time. She gave permission for people to speak about Obama as if he would be the worst person for President based on shallow-minded guilt by association, declarations of otherness, allowances to actually consider bringing guns to rallies, and to hate an entire religion the President isn't even part of.

In her actions, she also brought out my own hate. As much as my son and I try to avoid that word, I cannot find another way to describe my feelings for her. She created a monster in society in people like me as well as in people with a fear of a smart black man who had the potential to change America for the better. They wanted desperately to hate a person who is good so they believed lies and distortions. I hate Palin because I am smart enough to know that her form of manipulation is bad for America. The falsehoods that Obama is bad for America are easily debunked time and again. But the reality that Palin has contributed NOTHING to the discourse that is correct, insightful, inspiring of progress, or even beneficial to families with special needs children, is in no way disputable. You can't compare the results of the man she wants America to fear and hate to her work. She is in the negative column for results and if she gets a chance to run, she will not add anything for the nation to consider as viable options for results. Instead she will campaign on vitriol and lack of ideas.

And a part of America wants to feed on that.

I want her off the stage. I want her to go home and never be seen or heard from again. But that ain't gonna happen. She wants to be heard and ignoring her will NOT make her go away. Ignoring her makes her more desperate for attention.

Laughing her off as the perfect opponent to Obama because he'd wipe the floor with her shamefully ignores that she will do great damage along the way AND we will lack the benefit of a true, smart and beneficial dialogue between two reasonable candidates.

As a liberal, I get annoyed when fellow liberals want the 2012 campaign to be easy: Obama vs. a Loser. I don't. I want our country to have the two best options to choose from. I want the campaign to be hard because the debate is complex, not because we're fighting off crazy birther and racist and hateful crap.

I want America to be better. And it will not be better with Palin in any way. But I know she will insist on being part of the show.

So liberals need to wake up and start dealing with her. Quit brushing her off. Quit dismissing her as irrelevant. Because, like it or not, accept it or not, she IS relevant. She is as relevant as cancer. It's a hated reality that can't be ignored.