Paul Campos: Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench
David Edwards: Exclusive: Limbaugh’s parent company still using actors to fake radio call-ins, exec tells Raw
Dan Froomkin: A Reagan Republican Makes A Case Against The War -- And His Own Party
Marcus Baram: Sarah Palin 'Not Afraid' Of Jon Stewart, Says Aide
Joan Walsh: Newt Gingrich, hypocrite in chief
E.J. Dionne: What Wisconsin Democrats can teach Washington Democrats
Linda Greenhouse: Justice Scalia Objects
Richard Pérez-Peña: Christie’s Talk Is Blunt, but Not Always Straight
Tim Murphy: Birther Bill Author: What's a Long-Form Birth Certificate?
Eugene Robinson: Peter King's Modern-Day Witch Hunt
Dana Milbank: Rep. King's Red Scare
Paul Krugman: Dumbing Deficits Down
E.D. Kain: Michigan Governor Plays Fast and Loose with Democracy, Invokes Radical New Powers
Matthew Rothschild: Scott Walker Believes He’s Following Orders from the Lord
Gail Collins: Eye of the Newt
Dan Taylor: Wisconsin Republicans Have Done Progressives a Huge Favor
Angry Black Lady: Liberals, It’s Time to Stop Bitching and Start Organizing. Just Shut Up and Get to Work
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Must Reads
Friday, March 11, 2011
Devastation
More pictures here.NY Times: An 8.9-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Japan on Friday, the strongest ever recorded in the country and one of the largest anywhere in the last century. The quake churned up a devastating tsunami that swept over cities and farmland in the northern part of the country and set off warnings as far away as the West Coast of the United States and South America.Japanese police officials said that 184 people were confirmed dead and another 700 were missing, but domestic media quoted government officials as saying that the death toll would almost certainly rise to more than 1,000.
We're Watching You
I think this is a good move by the administration if only to put a warning out there and show people, especially idiots like Haley Barbour who accused President Obama of manipulating gas prices, that he's on the lookout.Speaking at a White House press conference, Obama said he’s asked his attorney general and U.S. government agencies to work with state attorneys general to monitor for gasoline-price gouging, “to make sure that nobody is taking advantage of working families at the pump.”
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Fox Nation's Spin
How about "Wisconsin Citizens Storm Capitol After Illegal Vote"? Or "Pro Worker Wisconsinites React To Union Busting Vote"?
But no. "Rabid Leftists" is the term of preference. Fox Nation never fails, do they?
Dumbass Quote of the Day
Yes, Gingrich loved his country sooooo much, that he cheated on his former high school geometry teacher and first wife, Jackie Battley with Marianne Ginther (his future second wife) and divorced Battley while she was in the hospital recovering from cancer surgery, and then cheated on Ginther with House staffer and future third wife, Callista Bisek, all the while jonesing to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky at the same time Newt was playing Hide the Gavel with Bisek."There's no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn't trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them."
~Newt Gingrich explaining his adultery.
That's some special kind of patriotism, huh?
David Broder Dies at 81
HuffPo: David Broder, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post political columnist whose even-handed treatment of Democrats and Republicans set him apart from the ideological warriors on the nation's op-ed pages, died Wednesday. He was 81....Broder, an Illinois native, was familiar to television viewers as a frequent panelist on NBC's "Meet the Press" Program. He appeared on the program more than 400 times, far more than any other journalist in the show's history.
Stop Digging, Huckabee
Former Governor, possible Republican Presidential nominee contender and recent Birther red meat thrower, Mike Huckabee has gotten into some hot water for remarks he made on a conservative radio show in which he said President Obama was born in Kenya, and threw in a couple of Mau-Mau Revolution references to sweeten the pot.
First he said he simply misspoke. Well, I don't remember anything about a Mau-Mau uprising in Indonesia. Then he said "if I'd read from my own text, page 183 of my book, I clearly said he grew up in Indonesia." Nice cross reference to plug his book, huh? There's only one problem: there's no mention of Indonesia on page 183. In fact, there's no mention of Indonesia on any of the pages of his book. It's Indonesia free.
In trying to re-re-re-explain himself on the intrepid O'Reilly Factor, Huckabee then said this:
Two things: One, in defending Obama against the birthers, he again reiterates how "different" he is and two, Huckabee is WRONG AGAIN when he says he was "raised in Indonesia.""My point even talking about him being raised in a different country, actually in Indonesia and not Kenya as I do understand. Again, it's right there in the book for me to read and everybody else, if they care to, but the point that I do want to make is that that creates a different world view. This is not a kid who grew up going to boy scout meetings and playing little league baseball in a small town."
Barack Obama was in Indonesia from the ages of 6 through 10 before moving back to Hawaii, a US state if I recall correctly. Is that an impressionable age when it comes to subjects like British imperialism in a country you were never in? I don't know about you, but from the ages of 6 through 10, I was more worried about not striking out playing stickball than about Watergate or Nixon's resignation, something that would have made me see at a young age to what depths Republicans would sink to win elections.
Mike, a little advice: Never lose an opportunity to keep your mouth shut.
ADDING... Perfect.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| On Notice/Dead to Me - Mike Huckabee | ||||
| ||||
Extraordinary For All the Wrong Reasons
Oh, she's extraordinary alright. Extraordinarily divisive, extraordinarily moronic, extraordinarily petty...Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is slated to deliver a "testimony of faith" at a religious conference in Lynchburg, Va. this fall, which will be broadcast in more than 1,000 churches nationwide.The Extraordinary Women Conference will take place at Liberty University on Oct. 7-8, dates that Politico notes fall on the same week Republican presidential candidates are expected to meet in Minnesota for the Midwest Leadership Conference, an event put on by the state's GOP...
...Liberty University chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. wrote in an email to the Lynchburg News & Advance that the institution was "honored to host (the conference) and to welcome Governor Sarah Palin to our campus."Continued Falwell: "Governor Palin is greatly admired by our Liberty University faculty, staff and students for her patriotism and her determination to stand up for what is right despite vicious and unrelenting attacks against her and her family."
Events like these and the people who run them, the people who are invited to them, and the people who speak at them are one of the main reasons I question organized religion in general. But there's always a silver lining because it looks like Sister Sarah isn't going to be running for President after all - just lobbing bombs from the sidelines as usual.
I wonder if she's going to receive her $100,000 speaking fee for her "testimony of faith"? Or maybe she'll just get a witch doctor to shake his rattle. And heaven help them if they forget her bendy straws!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Quote of the Day
"When it comes to the market economy, I am a realist. I understand that, compared to a nation of farmers and artisans, a market economy--especially under free trade, jobs offshoring globalism--subjects people to massive economic insecurity and requires a strong social safety net. The idea that Republicans are espousing that the social safety net can be sacrificed in the name of deficit reduction in order to pay for wars of hegemony is insane, inhumane, and evil.Such Republicans have nothing in common with President Reagan."
~ Paul Craig Roberts, American economist and former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration earning fame as a co-founder of Reaganomics.
Wow. When the founder of Reaganomics is not on your side, it's not a good day for the GOP.
But Roberts doesn't stop there. He also criticizes the Bush Administration's rush to war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan and our collective hypocrisy in Libya.
"Here we are, we're all concerned about humanitarian concerns in Libya, after we've wrecked two countries ourselves?... In Iraq, there were huge numbers of people dead and dispossessed, with no place to go. But none of that bothered us. When we're doing it, it's quite all right."...And Roberts can't forget how the George W. Bush administration used deception to take the country into those wars in the first place -- in Afghanistan, even though the Taliban had not attacked the United States, and then in Iraq, on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."Lies," said Roberts, "and the bastards knew it."
Morons and Friends (Fake DNA Edition)
Monday, March 7, 2011
Spread the Word
POSTED BY JHW22
What's with the right-wingers always comparing penises, I mean viewers? O'Reilly loves to compare Fox's ratings to MSNBC's. And tonight, State Assembly Speaker Fitzgerald (R-WI) said that when Michael Moore spoke to the protesters it was the smallest crowd in weeks. Considering that video and the transcript were all over my Facebook page for a day, I'd say Mr. Fitzgerald doesn't quite understand the intertubes yet. It doesn't matter how many people were at the rally. What matters is how many see it all across the country -- and the world.
So spread the word, pass this along. Michael Moore was right and apparently his words won't matter unless a bunch of people hear them.
The Bachmann-Bot 6000
I must now assume that Michele Bachmann (R-Earl Gray) is not actually a human being, but some kind of cybertronic robot preprogrammed to never stray from whatever talking point script is typed into its memory at any given time.
What other reason could there be for the Bachmann-Bot 6000 to repeat "over $105 billion" eight times in a twelve minute interview on Stretch's Meet The Press? It's hard drive must have been damaged during transport to the studio and continued rebooting during camera time. It actually pulled out a cue card in Safe Mode.
This doesn't even begin to touch on the "gangster government" comment the Bachmann-Bot 6000 used in describing the Obama administration."Crime against democracy... Obamacare... debt ceiling... $105 billion... $105 billion... gangster government... $105 billion... $105 billion... does not compute... does not compute..."
Let's also note that the Meet The Press powers that be should be ashamed of themselves for giving a wingnut like Bachmann-Bot 6000 a national platform to spread its lunacy across the airwaves. Let's hope they think twice before booking morons again... although I'm sure John McCain will make his bi-monthly appearance very soon.
Romney's Problems
So it would seem that Mitt Romney is trying to distance himself from health care reform and said he "would repeal Obamacare" this weekend in New Hampshire. A health care reform plan eerily similar to the health care reform plan he passed as Governor of Massachusetts.
But despite his presidential looks and hair, how popular is Romney with the Republican party? Not as popular as Donald Trump according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC Poll. Let me repeat that: Not as popular as DONALD TRUMP."Our experiment wasn't perfect. Some things worked; some things didn't. Some things, I'd change,'' [Romney] said. "But one thing I would never do is usurp the constitutional power of states with a one-size-fits-all federal takeover."In recent weeks, several potential candidates, such as Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), and other key Republicans like House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Wis.) have attacked the bill critics have dubbed "RomneyCare" as a failed approach that mirrors the president's plan.
Romney? Duh. Winning!
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