Must Reads

The Rude Pundit: A Final Word on the Health Care Summit: President Obama Calmly Fucks the Republicans

Bill McKibben: The Attack on Climate-Change Science: Why It’s the O.J. Moment of the Twenty-First Century

Al Gore: We Can't Wish Away Climate Change

You and Me BOTH, Brother!

George W. Bush: "I have no desire to see myself on television. I don't want to be a panel of formers instructing the currents on what to do..."

(H/T GottaLaff)

Strong On Defense Republicans

The perception, or at least what the GOP would have you believe, is that the Republican Party is the party that will keep you safe from evil, foreign boogeymen while the Democratic Party is weak on national security and defense.

And yet, we see stories like Senator Richard Shelby's, who until recently help up every Obama administration nomination until he got paid off, and even after backing off, still has holds on top positions in the Air Force. And he couldn't care less.

CNN's Dana Bash asked the right-wing senator yesterday whether his actions are justified.

BASH: I spoke with Geoff Morrell over at the Pentagon and just asked him what the impact is of not having these three people in place -- one of whom, as you know, is the number two at the Air Force. He said, "Without these people, we're not firing on all cylinders." And he also said, "It does adversely affect the organization."

Are you worried about that? This is a time of war --

SHELBY: The Pentagon is a big place. I don't think one or two will affect anything except on the margins.

BASH: Do you think that the nominees you have holds on are qualified?

SHELBY: Oh, I don't have any idea.

That's right. Republican Alabama Senator Richard Shelby has no idea if nominees for three top positions in the Air Force are qualified, yet he continues to block them. What would Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin, or any of the Fox News hacks be spewing if this had been a Democratic Senator during the Bush years? Just another example of the infinite hypocrisy in the GOP.

President Obama's Weekly Address - February 27, 2010

The Olympic Spirit, the Spirit of Bipartisanship, and Health Reform

Gearing Up for Health Care Summit

Schwarzenegger Terminates Tea Party & Van Susteren

I have to give California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger credit for sticking to his guns on this one. Asked about the Tea Party movement, The Governator responded by giving it a shelf life.

...they're not going anywhere with it because nobody is coming up and saying, Here's our candidate, here's our solution, here's what we're going to do, and have a whole policy debate over the various different issues.

...when the economy comes back, I think that the tea party will disappear...

There's something to be said for term limits when someone can be this honest about his/her thoughts.

Van Susteren also tried to get him to trash the stimulus even though he's touted it previously, but Schwarzenegger was having none of it.

Jon Stewart's CPAC Coverage

Comedy gold.

I KNEW! This Would Happen

House Minority Leader and resident Congressional Oompa Loompa John "I Can't Read 2,000 Page Bills" Boehner is now complaining that President Obama's 11 page summary for Health Care Reform is... wait for it... TOO SHORT!

A spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner today ridiculed President Obama's health care proposal because it's too short.

"The White House's 'plan' consists of an 11-page outline, which has not been scored by the Congressional Budget Office or posted online as legislative text. So they want to reorganize one-sixth of the United States' economy with a document shorter than a comic book, and they're complaining that they can't find our plan on their own website? C'mon," said the spokesman, Michael Steel, in an email to reporters.

What a bunch of fucking hacks.

Quote of the Day

"I have always been on the record, in fact, since 2003, with the concept of living our values. And I think that whenever we've perhaps taken expedient measures, they've turned around and bitten us in the backside. We decided early on, in the 101st airborne division, we just said, we decided to obey the Geneva Conventions...

...we have found that the use of interrogation methods in the army field manual that was given the force of law by Congress, that that works."

~ General David Petraeus explaining his disagreement with the Dick Cheney doctrine of enhanced interrogation, AKA torture.

Douchebag of the Week: Ryan Sorba

Is this the kind of speaker with which CPAC wants to be associated? Giving credit to the crowd, they booed California Young Americans for Freedom representative Ryan Sorba off the stage after he went off on a tangent and condemned CPAC for inviting GOProud, a gay conservative group to the convention.



So much for the party of inclusion according to Sorba. Why any member of the gay community would associate him/herself with an anti-gay political party is beyond me, but judging by the current state of the Republican party and the collective intelligence of their leaders, I'm really not surprised.

Ryan Sorba: Douchebag of the Week.