President Obama's Weekly Address - December 24, 2011

The President and First Lady Thank our Troops for their Service this Holiday

Here We Go Again

It's the holiday season, so that must mean it's time for Fox News to cry about the fictional War on Christmas. Jon Stewart brilliantly deconstructs.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Fa, La, La, La Ratatat

POSTED BY JHW22

Because nothing puts the Christ back in Christmas like a semi-automatic. Or a fully automatic, for that matter.

Merry Christmas

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.

"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.

"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'

"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.

"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Have a Cool Yule

Light blogging this next day or two, but I just wanted to take the opportunity to wish those who stop by a very Happy Holiday and a happy and healthy New Year.

Actual Work = War On Christmas

"It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out without doing -- frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff."

~ Republican Arizona Senator Jon Kyl on the possibility of working between Christmas and New Year's Day... like most Americans do.

Well, Senator Kyl, if you had been working all year long instead of sitting on your hands, holding your breath and saying no to every piece of legislation that has come down the pike (over 400 House bills already passed await the Senate), maybe you wouldn't find yourself in this predicament. Suck it up, jackass, and try doing the work you were elected to do. I don't remember you campaigning on your "do nothing" strategy.

President Obama's Weekly Address - December 26, 2009

Celebrating Christmas and Honoring Those Who Serve

Merry Christmas

Obama's Socialist Christmas Ornament Program

Classic.

Senator Burris' Christmas Spirit

These three minutes alone were worth all the drama that the Burris appointment scandal caused.



(H/T Paddy)

T Minus 26 Days

Merry Christmas, Mr. President-elect.

Merry Christmahanukwanzika!

Last Minute Shopping

A little bit chilly in a rainy Bryant Park on this Christmas Eve day.

(Pic taken by Broadway Carl on his crappy Treo700WX. Not the phone, just the camera feature.)

The Reinfather

Merry Freakin' Christmas.

Happy Holidays Indeed

Looking for that eye catching Christmas decoration to put on your front lawn that will be the envy of the entire neighborhood? Then look no further than this wonderful treat from American Family Association.

Let Your "Light" Shine For Christ This Christmas Season!

Looking for an effective way to express your Christian faith this Christmas season to honor our Lord Jesus? Now you can.... with the "Original Christmas Cross" yard decoration.

...Decorate this holiday season with the Original Christmas Cross to remind your friends, family, neighbors, and all who drive by your home, office, or church of the real meaning of Christmas.

Because nothing says "Peace on Earth, good will towards men" like having a five and a half foot burning cross in front of your house.

(H/T Bob Cesca)

Christmas With Mike Gravel

This is just bizarrely funny.

Note To Rudy: I Want My Fruitcake!

Not to be outdone by Mike Huckabee and his spine chilling Christmas/Jeebus commercial, Giuliani does one of his own.

It's horrible. Not only does Rudy misread my Christmas list (I have no "sthrict contherative judgeth" on it), but he comes off like an idiot trying to parody Huckabee's message without enough parody.

Even Joe Scarborough flips out! And this guy wants to be President of the United States. He couldn't even be my latex salesman.

Rep. Steve King Goes Batty

Rep. Steve King was on... wait for it... FOX NEWS today to rip into the nine Democrats that voted no on his Christianity resolution; the same Steve King that voted against a resolution for Ramadan and Diwali. It was a classic Fox hit job with the host "mm-hmm"ing and "yeah"ing every word uttered by Congressman Christmas.

Check out the video at Think Progress.

Funny that King didn't mention the 10 other members who voted "present" because they could care less about the meaningless resolution and the 40 other members who didn't even bother to vote. Interesting how the crackerjack host didn't bring up the fact that more Democrats voted for the resolution than Republicans (a fact I'm not proud of). Ah, good ol' Faux News spreading the Christmas cheer.

In response to King's challenge on wanting to know why the liberal nine voted no, Rep. Alcee Hastings ripped King a new one regarding the resolution as “another sad attempt by conservative Republicans to skew the line between church and state” and said this:

America is not a Christian nation. It is a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and everyone in between. Our diversity is our strength and those who seek to use religion as a litmus test are doing a disservice to all of us.

As for the “assault on Christianity,” all someone has to do is visit a shopping mall, turn on the radio or TV or look at the Christmas trees sitting on the front lawns of the White House and the United States Capitol to realize that no such assault is underway.

Rep. Steve King: another in the growing list of losers that need be ousted from office.

I, Steve King, a Psychotic Am

One of the major reasons the Democrats have given for not persuing articles of impeachment is the fact that it would take too long, and Congress would get little to nothing else done in the process. Well I'm glad that they have time for this little resolution because I don't know how the American people have gotten by without it so far.

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) plans to take the House floor today and introduce a bill (HR 847) recognizing the “importance of Christmas and the Christian faith.”

A spokesman for King told ThinkProgress that the bill was introduced in response to previous resolutions recognizing the Muslim celebration of Ramadan and the Hindu Diwali.

I shit you not. This is an actual resolution brought to the floor by a religious nutbag who couldn't stand the thought of other religious observances getting an offical resolution (also idiotic) in a country that has a federal holiday on December 25th, where some form of Christianity accounts for over 75% of the religious denominations and where 1/3 of the entire world is Christian. Do we really need a resolution to say Christmas is good? What a taxpaying waste!

The votes are in:

The House passed this bill today. The vote, surprisingly, was 372-9, with 10 members also voting "Present," meaning they took no position on the legislation, and 40 not voting. One of the "Present" votes was cast by Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). More Democrats -195 - voted for the bill than Republicans, 177.

The nine members who voted against the bill - God bless them! - are Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), Alcee Hastings (D-Fla.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Bobby Scott(D-Va.), Pete Stark (D-Calif.) and Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).

Well, that's a relief. Since we can't get these bastards to go after the criminal syndicate occupying the White House, I suppose I'll petition for Kwaanza to be next. I wonder how that vote will go?

All I Want For Christmas...

...is the New Senator Larry Craig Action Figure!

The perfect stocking stuffer!

It's bad enough Craig reneged on his resignation, but to make matters worse for poor ol' "Wide Stance"...

Four gay men, willing to put their names in print and whose allegations can't be disproved, have come forward since news of U.S. Sen. Larry Craig's guilty plea. They say they had sex with Craig or that he made a sexual advance or that he paid them unusual attention.

They are telling their stories now because they are offended by Craig's denials, including his famous statement, "I am not gay, I never have been gay." Those words, spoken on live national TV on Aug. 28, are now memorialized on a just-released-for-Christmas Talking Senator Larry Craig Action Figure.