John Weaver and Mark Warren: Why the GOP's Voter-Fraud Scheme Is Complete Bull
Matt Sledge: Linda McMahon Proposed Social Security "Sunset" At Tea Party Forum
Mark Shade, Reuters: Pennsylvania Voter ID Law May Be At Least Partially Blocked, Judge Signals
LOLGOP: Mitt Romney Says The Fundamentals Of His Campaign Are Strong
Jonathan Capehart: 'Romney’s nightmare scenario' was a year in the making — at least
Politcol: Ann Romney – I Don’t Consider Myself Wealthy
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Must Reads
President Obama's Weekly Address - September 29, 2012
It’s Time for Congress to Help Responsible Homeowners
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Oh! It Was a Joke!
Silly me, thinking that only a sociopath would joke about his wife's emergency landing experience.
The Los Angeles Times story that relayed Romney's airplane remark to the world was based off a pool report written by the New York Times's Ashley Parker. When we asked Parker this morning whether it seemed as if Romney made the mark in jest, she left no doubt. "Romney was joking," she e-mailed. Parker told us that while the pool report didn't explicitly indicate that Romney was joking, it was self-evident that he was. "The pool report provided the full transcript of his comments on Ann's plane scare," she said, "and it was clear from the context that he was not being serious."
Yeah. He was joking. Everyone was laughing. Except I don't think it was. There was no stiff line reading by the Romneybot. There was no laugher. And if it was an obvious joke, it would have been reported as such in the first place. Judge for yourself.The Blaze hears the same thing from William Everitt, who attended the Saturday night Beverly Hills fund-raiser where the remark happened:"Basically he was retelling the story and when he said ‘I don’t know why they don’t have roll down windows on airplanes,’ he looked at the audience and everyone laughed,” Everitt told TheBlaze. “It was a clearly delivered joke … There were 1,000 people there that will tell you the same thing.”
(Cross-posted on ABLC)
Monday, September 24, 2012
Dumber Than Palin?
...I didn't think that was possible.
I knew Mitt Romney wasn't very quick on his feet, and hopefully most of America will see that once the debates with President Obama roll around. But while I vehemently disagree with his policies and ideology, I would have expected that Mitt Romney was at least a smart man out of his element in politics who will say anything because he has no moral compass. I didn't realize that he is a nitwit.
While the problems that arose with Ann Romney's airplane are nothing to make fun of, the following Mitt quote is one for the ages:
Mitt Romney doesn't know why we can't open windows on high flying aircraft. ...This guy is running for president. Maybe he really does watch Jersey Shore.“I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were,” Romney said. “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem."
(Cross-posted on ABLC)
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Quote of the Day
"Bush was president during the financial meltdown, the Obama team has turned that around pretty well."
~Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol...:blink, blink:...
Saturday, September 22, 2012
Must Reads
Ezra Klein: What Romney doesn’t understand about personal responsibility
Davis Corn: Romney's Video-Debunking Claim Is…Debunked
Alec MacGillis: How Paul Ryan Convinced Washington of His Genius
John D. McKinnon: Romney's Tax Plan Fails to Gain a Foothold
Zewlina Maxwell: Now a campaign issue: Sonia Sotomayor
Michael Lewis: Obama's Way
President Obama's Weekly Address - September 22, 2012
Congress Must Act to Create Jobs and Grow the Economy
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Possibly Jon Stewart's Best Segment Ever
I haven't had much time to blog lately because I've been burning the candle at both ends these past couple of weeks, but I did happen to catch The Daily Show last night and witnessed what I believe is one of Jon Stewart's best segments in the history of the show.
Chaos on Bullshit Mountain. Grab your popcorn and enjoy.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Understatement of the Year
“We will never have the elite, smart people on our side.”
~ Former Republican Senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
Sometimes the jokes just write themselves, or in this case, expose themselves.
Must Reads
Kurt Eichenwald: The Deafness Before the Storm
Stephen C. Webster: Paul Ryan’s campaign immediately retracts candidate’s support for medical marijuana
Kasie Hunt: FACT CHECK: Romney misstates facts on attacks
Gail Collins: Mitt's Major Meltdown
Robert Dreyfuss: Romney's Fatal Libya Blunder
Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Matt Taibbi on Mitt Romney's Crooked, Dirty Game
Dana Milbank: Mitt Romney has mess to clean up after falsely accusing Obama on Libya
Ruth Marcus: Romney owes an apology
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
This Sorry Excuse for a Man Does Not Even Deserve To Be CLOSE to the Nomination for President
Really?
Does anyone honestly believe this man is qualified to be President of the United States?
As early as 10 pm last night Secretary of State Clinton released a statement condemning the attack, but after the stroke of midnight last night, exactly one minute after the day of 9/11 concluded, Team Romney and RNC Chairman Reince Priebus unleashed a torrent of criticism and accused President Obama of apologizing for America and sympathizing with the attackers.
During his press conference today Mitt Romney claimed the president was apologizing for American values. And in this case “American Values” would seem to include the views of Florida Pastor Terry Jones who stoked violent protests outside of the U.S. Embassies in Libya and other countries by creating a rabidly anti-Muslim propaganda film.
What was considered to be a “shiny object” by the Romney campaign as recently as three days ago took center stage today as Mitt used the deaths of three Americans and a long-serving Ambassador to project the idea that President Obama is a secret-Muslim, terrorist sympathizer.
Smirk away, you sorry excuse for a human being.
By the way, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus makes Michael Steele look like Stephen Fucking Hawking.
(Via Bob Cesca)
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Sometimes I Just Shake My Head and Sigh...
...when I think about elected officials as moronic as Sen. Chuck Grassley having a say in how our government works... or doesn't work as the case may be.
One thing in particular that I didn't miss this time around in the GOP Bullshit Memes Edition of 2012 was the blood boiling ridiculousness that is the teleprompter jab. Obama's soooo dumb.... HOW DUMB IS HE?! He's sooo dumb he can't give a speech without a teleprompter. If he can't read it, he doesn't know what to say. HAR! HAR! HAR!! (This insult brought to you by some GOP idiot reading a teleprompter.)
I know it shouldn't bother me because it's obvious crap, but maybe what bugs me the most is that it's been repeated so often, most of the GOP lemmings take it as fact. They believe this while watching their political leaders READ OFF A TELEPROMPTER! So this time around, I was glad they retired this silly notion. Or so I thought.
Seriously?! What. The. FUCK?! This waste of carbon is a sitting fucking senator in Congress who has watched every President since Lyndon Fucking Johnson use a teleprompter, but obviously the reason President Obama uses it is because he's dumb, right?
And the topper is his comparison to the Romneybot-3000 who apparently is so much smarter, he doesn't need a teleprompter. That Mitt's so quick on his feet that he came up with this little gem while defending his omission of our military troops during this speech at the RNC in what was the biggest night of his political life:
Responding to an inquiry from Fox News reporter Brett Baier, Romney claimed, “When you give a speech, you don’t go through a laundry list, you talk about the things that you think are important.”Yeah, Mitt wants to talk about the important things. Why waste time giving a little shout out to the troops the GOP always loves to use as a backdrop when you can spend that valuable time letting Clint Eastwood upstage the Republican presidential nominee with an empty fucking chair?
Man, I don't know how President Obama is going to deal with such a razor sharp wit as Mitt Romney during the upcoming debates without a teleprompter.
(Cross-posted on ABLC)
Must Reads
James Downie: An excellent speech from Michelle Obama
Tom Junod: The Lonely Power of Michelle and the Idea of Barack
Haim Saban: The Truth About Obama and Israel
Jason Easley: Bill Clinton Puts Little Boy Paul Ryan Back In His Place
E.J. Dionne: Bill Clinton’s tutorial on the need for government
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall: Racism Festers In RNC's And CNN's Silence
Willard Foxton: On Assange and on CNN, Glenn Greenwald is talking out of his hat and is an embarrassment to The Guardian
Milt Shook: Most Important Qualification For President: Empathy - Obama Has It, Romney Doesn't
McKay Coppins: Romney Endorses Ultraconservative Congressman
Friday, September 7, 2012
So You Were Disappointed in President Obama
I have to admit I was surprised President Barack Obama's speech was so well-received because frankly it was not the speech I was expecting & from my twitter thread I wasn't the only one surprised. But then PBO always surprises me. I can't really articulate what I was expecting, but the heavy dose of dry humor wasn't on my list. Make no mistake, I love PBO's humor & the way he laughs at his own jokes. As my family & friends will attest, I do the same thing. I thought the speech was pitch-perfect as the President took us through the evolution of his political life. This moment as he stood before us as President demanded a different kind of speech. I was not disappointed; I was blown away. This speech was a slow burn that ended with a crescendo reminiscent of a call & response sermon--a style of his I dearly love. But, as usual, there were a few flying unicorns pooping fairy dust all over the speech.
So I'm going to address the deafening silence when he talked about drilling for domestic oil, developing natural gas and clean coal. I reject the idea of we can't do something so don't even try. Increasing domestic oil production is a necessary step in weaning ourselves off of foreign oil. Period. We cannot leap from dependence on oil to alternative sources of energy. It's impossible. Maybe we would if we could all afford to run right out and buy hybrid or electric cars, but we can't. Many of you may not remember the OPEC oil embargoes, but it was a damn scary time. Our country's security was under constant overt or implied threat. Americans were held hostage to the turbulence in the Middle East.
This may sound trivial, but during that time we didn't just turn our thermostats down, we didn't decorate for Christmas. We cancelled vacations in the family car. The cost of petroleum-based products skyrocketed. During the holiday season, we enjoy driving around, looking at Christmas lights. During those years, I remember thinking, seeing one darkened house after another, that the darkness was portending our future. But we survived that energy crisis only to experience others--a never ending cycle we must break.
I live in the state of NM, a state people associate with beautiful skies, green chili, & tourism. But we, too, are producers of oil & natural gas. Large oil & gas fields as well as giant refineries are located in the NW & SE parts of the state. NM is a huge state with endless miles of nothingness & some of it vast stretches of ugliness. Those oil & gas pumps that dot the landscape are a beautiful sight to a very poor state. The taxes generated by those pumps fund our schools. The severance taxes are critical because, while NM may be a huge state geographically, we have a small population, most of whom live at or below poverty level; therefore, we have a small tax base. Although we may depend on energy production as a source of revenue, NM is also developing alternative energy sources. So that is one reason I support Pres. Obama's energy plan--like NM energy production, his plan is a bridge between old & new.
Yes, I am fully aware of the dangers inherent in the use of natural gas. In my hometown a natural gas explosion obliterated 10 members & 3 generations of a family. In another tragedy a young Navajo family traveling across the reservation was blown to pieces when a gas line exploded under their pickup. I don't need commercials of water faucets shooting out balls of fire to understand the dangers of natural gas. But as someone who has always had a home warmed by natural gas, I also know it is efficient, plentiful, clean, & very cheap. Our heating bill in the dead of cold Albuquerque winters runs about $60.00 a month Herein lies the dilemma. Natural gas, while potentially dangerous, must be considered a viable alternative to oil & coal.
I also lived close to two coal-fired power plants built near a coal deposit on the Navajo Reservation when I taught in a northwestern NM town. For years I watched black smoke billowing out of skyscraper-like smokestacks, darkening our stunning NM sky. According to many it seemed we had a disproportionate number of young women afflicted with MS & cancer attributed to the toxic emissions from the plants. At the time I lived there I was alarmed at the growing number of seemingly healthy women who suddenly became very ill. No, that's not evidence. It is anecdotal but sometimes that can be powerful. We also believed the air inversions that trapped the air above the basin, leaving us with sunless days for a week at a time, were caused by the smoke. Finally, after years of protests by environmental groups, the stacks were fitted with scrubbers, & now the black smoke is but a thin wisp of white. Now I'm not naive enough to think all environmental & health risks have been eliminated, but certainly progress has been made.
Secondly, poverty is palatable on the reservation & coal is an important source of revenue for the Navajo Tribe. Just as in West Virginia, where coal mining has done incalculable damage to people's health & environment, the industry does provide a living to many in one of the poorest parts of the United States. So what is the solution? How can we suddenly deprive the poor of a source of income while protecting their safety & the environment? These are concerns we all have.
Choosing Pres. Obama isn't a choice between the lesser of two evils. He is the best & only hope for the environment we've had in my lifetime. I want a watch dog over oil drilling & the extraction of natural gas & coal. I want a shepherd to continue bringing alternative energy production on line. First & foremost, I need is someone who gives a damn about the safety of my family & all families. I want a leader with a conscience who will not only develop safety regulations but enforce current ones. We have these resources that we need, & we have a President who believes in & seeks out innovation to change & modernize our energy industry while providing safe jobs & a clean environment.
Here's what I know from my own experience & what I want to share with those of you who so readily dismiss the President's plan & responded to that part of the speech with stony silence. Don't scoff at the idea of safe extraction of natural gas. Don't scorn the idea of clean coal.
For the first 8 years of my life, I lived in a northern NM village where I attended a one building school that housed grades 1-12. We didn't have a school cafeteria because there were no such things, not even a concept of one. We ate our brown bag lunches seated on the bleachers in the gym. Our playground was hard-packed dirt with a couple of swings. No state of the art, safe playgrounds for us. Certainly no Internet, computers, DVD players, etc. No, it wasn't walking to a school 5 miles away in 8 feet of snow, but it was damn close. I remember when my dad brought our first tv into the house--black & white of course. Hell, I even remember a rotary phone without the rotary. I just picked up the phone & told the local operator the number to call.
But I also remember my dad getting me up at the crack of dawn to watch the flight of John Glenn into space & Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I watched with a father who was born at home to a mother born in a sod covered dug out on a NM ranch. And to a father who came to NM in a covered wagon & was alive to see that same moon walk although he never believed it.
I am in awe of what my grandparents & my parents saw in their lifetimes. I am in awe of what I saw & still see. So don't tell me we can't develop safe natural gas extraction. So don't tell me we aren't going to see clean coal. No sir! We do incredible stuff here in America. When I choose my President in November, I'm choosing Barack Obama & his energy plan, thank you very much.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
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