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.

Must Reads

Bob Cesca: Happy Anniversary, Recovery Act

Gail Collins: The Wages of Rages

Christopher Brauchli: Republicans - Good Government's Friends

Barnabe F. Geisweiller: Hate 2.0

Glenn Greenwald: Terrorism: the most meaningless and manipulated word

John Cassidy: Tea Party U.S.A.: It’s Still the Economy, Stupid!

President Obama's Weekly Address - February 20, 2010

Premiums, Profits, and the Need for Health Reform

Terrorism?

Yesterday, a man named Joe Stack was so filled with rage at the government and the IRS in particular, he decided to burn his house down and fly a plane into an office building housing an IRS office in Austin, Texas.  It takes a special kind of crazy to be so angry about being taxed (as is everyone else in the country) that you'd kamikaze into a building.  That showed them, huh?

I just have one, simple question: What if someone with the same exact gripe against the government did the same exact thing, but instead of a name like Joseph Stack, it was Yusef Mohammed Abdul-Salaam? You think that the crazies would be calling it a terrorist act?  How soon would they be on their soap box blaming President Obama and a Democratic majority who is weak on terrorism?

Kathryn Grayson Dies at 88

NY Times: Kathryn Grayson, the petite singer and actress whose operatic voice and campus-sweetheart beauty embodied the glamour of Hollywood movie musicals in the 1940s and ’50s, died Wednesday at her home in Los Angeles. She was 88.

WHAAAAH?!

Seems President Obama has been killing too many terrorists according to the MENSA members at CPAC.

"Why have executions increased?" asked Viet Dinh, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center and one of the authors of the USA Patriot Act. Dinh complained that "the president and vice president expound this fact as a fact that they are actually successful in war."

"That doesn't mean I think they are not illegitimate," he added. "No, we have every right to kill the other side's warriors. But at what cost? When we do not have an effective detention policy the only option we have is to kill them before we can detain them. And if we don't detain them, we don't know what they know and what they are up to."

Over the course of the last week or two, the military had taken out or arrested to leaders in the Taliban and has them in disarray in Afghanistan. But now that it's not a Republican president making the calls, somehow Obama is doing it wrong. I thought the Democrats were weak on terrorism. So why is it that these morons at the CPAC conference are cheering at this ridiculous notion that we're "killing too many terrorists"?

Rudy's Henchman Goes Down

NY TIMES: Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who rose to national prominence, was sentenced to four years in prison on Thursday after pleading guilty to eight felony charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.

Under the terms of a plea agreement reached in November on the eve of his trial, the prosecution and the defense recommended that Judge Stephen C. Robinson sentence Mr. Kerik to 27 to 33 months in prison. But the judge departed from the sentencing recommendations, giving Mr. Kerik a longer sentence.

“I think it’s fair to say that with great power comes great responsibility and great consequences,” Judge Robinson said. “I think the damage caused by Mr. Kerik is in some ways immeasurable.”

How much damage would Kerik have caused if the Bush administration went with this mook to head the Department of Homeland Security at Rudy Giuliani's recommendation?

Sarah Palin's Tea Party Convention Check Clears

Asked what her advice would be to conservatives as the November elections approach, Palin first lavished praise on the Tea Party movement, calling it "a grand movement" and adding, "I love it because it’s all about the people."

But she quickly pivoted to the broader question of whether the Tea Party movement might successfully field its own candidates in national elections, and on that point she sounded far from convinced.

"Now the smart thing will be for independents who are such a part of this Tea Party movement to, I guess, kind of start picking a party," Palin said. "Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken? Which party will best fit you? And then because the Tea Party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or ‘D’."

Shorter Palin: Thanks for the hundred grand, suckers. Now vote Republican because you aren't a real party. And even though every time the so called "smaller government, fiscal conservative" Republican Party has NEVER, EVER come through with smaller government and fiscal conservatism whenever we were in power, we think you're so fucking stupid, you'll fall for the bullshit again, you betcha!

It's Called C-SPAN, Douchebags

Regarding the jobs bill:

The top two Republicans in the House sent a letter Wednesday daring their counterparts — Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer — to engage in a public discussion over ways Congress can provide a boost to the economy.

..."Clearly, we need a different approach to developing legislation that will get Americans back to work," Republican leader John Boehner and party Whip Eric Cantor wrote to Pelosi and Hoyer. "Therefore, in the interest of complete transparency on the single most important issue of the day for most Americans, we ask that you join us for an open discussion so that we can begin to change a process that has not only polarized this Capitol building but this country as well."

Televised debates in the House of Representatives? Gee, where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, it's called C-SPAN you fucking assholes!

Newly Revealed Clinton Assassination Attempt

Looks like maybe Bill Clinton had Osama bin Laden in his sights for more than one reason.

Former President Bill Clinton came within minutes of being assassinated in the Philippines by terrorists controlled by Osama bin Laden, a new book has revealed.  

...The foiled attack came during Mr Clinton's visit to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in the city in 1996. 

At one point during his stay, he was scheduled to visit a local politician, his route taking him across a bridge in central Manila.

But as the presidential motorcade was about to set off, secret service officers received a "crackly message in one earpiece" saying intelligence agents had picked up a message suggesting an attack was imminent.

The transmission used the words "bridge" and "wedding" – a terrorists code word for assassination.

The motorcade was quickly re-routed and American agents later discovered a bomb had been planted under the bridge.

The subsequent US investigation into the plot "revealed that it had been masterminded by a Saudi terrorist living in Afghanistan – a man named Osama bin Laden".

Why Is The Senate Broken?

Steve Benen knows:

As much as I'm sympathetic to the vice president's entirely accurate concerns [in regards to his statement: "I don't ever recall a time in my career where to get anything done, you needed a supermajority, 60 out of 100 senators.... I've never seen it this dysfunctional."], his omissions make all the difference. For viewers who don't know what filibusters or cloture votes are, they're thinking, "There's a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress. If the system is broken and dysfunctional, maybe it's Democrats' fault."

Except, for anyone interested in reality, that assumption couldn't be more wrong. If legislation received up-or-down votes in both chambers -- the way Congress operated for the better part of two centuries -- the system would work quite well and the dysfunction that drives everyone crazy would largely disappear.

Biden, in other words, needs to name names -- Republicans broke the American legislative process. They did so deliberately, during a time of crises, because they're desperate to undercut the Democratic majority, regardless of the consequences. The GOP's tactics have no precedent in American history, and violate every democratic norm that keeps our system moving.

Suck On It, Cheney

NY Times: The Taliban’s top military commander was captured several days ago in Karachi, Pakistan, in a secret joint operation by Pakistani and American intelligence forces, according to American government officials.

The commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, is an Afghan described by American officials as the most significant Taliban figure to be detained since the American-led war in Afghanistan started more than eight years ago. He ranks second in influence only to Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban’s founder and a close associate of Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Mullah Baradar has been in Pakistani custody for several days, with American and Pakistani intelligence officials both taking part in interrogations, according to the officials.

It's stories like these that make Dick Cheney look even more foolish than he already does when criticizing the current administration in the "war on terrorISM" on the Sunday show circuit. In one year, the Obama administration has done more to root out anti-American extremists in Afghanistan than the Bush administration had done in the previous seven.

Whether you agree with the increase of troops and our presence in Afghanistan is another issue entirely, but Cheney misinforming the public and never letting go of his fear mongering ways on a seemingly endless basis, makes him look stupid, petty and out of touch with what's actually happening. All to stay in the public eye until his memoirs get published in the next year.

So Much For The "Do Nothing" Congress

A great point was made this morning by Bob Cesca about the unprecedented amount of obstructionism that has occurred since Democrats took over the majority in Congress in 2007 and the "dig your heels into the ground" GOP mentality since President Obama took office. And yet, the President's success rate in Congress on roll call votes is higher than any in presidential history since the stat has been taken, while facing the highest obstruction in history.

The new CQ study gives Obama a higher mark than any other president since it began scoring presidential success rates in Congress more than five decades ago. And that was in a year where Obama tackled how to deal with Afghanistan, Iraq, an expanding terrorist threat, the economic crisis and battles over health care.

...A major reason for Obama's record high score this year: Democrats took away a significant number of seats from Republicans in the 2006 and 2008 elections, resulting in big majorities in the House and Senate for the president's party.

But Sarah Binder, a congressional analyst at the Brookings Institution, says there's another key reason he scored so well. She says he only took an official position on issues that were really important to him — those that he knew he had a very good chance of winning.[*] He picked his battles carefully.

"He can do that because he's been in the Senate, his staff has been in the House and he understands the process here. They are consummate congressional insiders in understanding how this works," Binder says.

Now that's not to say I believe that the President shouldn't push harder for what he wants and hold his hand out in the interest of "bipartisanship" less, but just to point out that the mainstream media meme claiming the President can't close the deal (which started while campaigning against Hillary Clinton) or wingnuts who claim "we need more than a charismatic guy with a teleprompter" is just plain bullshit.

Also, when looking at overall job approval ratings for President Obama, which currently stands at 53%, there's been an uptick in February since he started fighting back and being more vocal about what he wants and calling out Republicans who are blocking every move with filibusters, holds and in most cases, just flat out stupidity.  So when you hear "the American people have spoken" and they don't want this or that as proven by polls, I think the more telling sign is the frustration with the President not because the don't believe in his policies, but because the think he should fight back harder for his agenda.

*Sarah Binder contradicts herself - does Obama take sides when he knows it's an easy win or when it's an important piece of legislation? I personally believe it's the latter.

Adding... My point here wasn't to suggest that the Congress is doing a bang up job (clearly they can be doing much better) but only to point out the Democrats are not doing as horribly as we're led to believe by most reports. There has been some major, positive legislation passed in President Obama's first year in office, despite the Party of No.

Cry Me A River, Joe

Give me a break.

Joe the Plumber is no longer a fan of either Sarah Palin or John McCain, it seems.

Joe, also known as Sam Wurzelbacher, told an audience in Pennsylvania this week that McCain "is no public servant."

"McCain was trying to use me," Wurzelbacher said, according to public radio correspondent Scott Detrow. "I happened to be the face of middle Americans. It was a ploy.”

"I don’t owe him s—," Wurzelbacher continued. "He really screwed my life up, is how I look at it.”

In fact, Wurzelbacher's dislike for McCain is so strong that he no longer supports Sarah Palin simply because Palin will campaign for McCain's re-election.

As for Obama: "I think his ideology is un-American, but he’s one of the more honest politicians. At least he told us what he wanted to do."

You wanted your fifteen minutes, despite lying about the plumbing business, despite owing back taxes, you went on the road with the Mavericks, you tried writing a book (or at least using a ghost writer) and went on a failed book tour and played war correspondent with Pajamas Media.

And McCain ruined your life? You sleep with dogs...

Seriously, Harold Ford?

If you want to run for Senator of New York, being that you've lived here all of four years, wouldn't you think that the first thing you would do is make sure your tax records are in order? Not Harold Fold.

Ford claims to have moved to New York three years ago, and says paying "New York taxes" makes him a New Yorker. But his spokeswoman confirms to Gawker that he's never filed a New York tax return — meaning that he's never paid New York's income tax, despite keeping an office and a residence in New York City as a vice chairman of Merrill Lynch since 2007: "He pays New York taxes and will file a New York tax return in April for the first time," Ford's spokeswoman Tammy Sun told Gawker. "He will file all necessary personal disclosure and tax forms that candidates are required to file if he chooses to run." (According to Sun, Ford admitted to the tax dodge yesterday at a press availability in Albany, but we can't find any news accounts mentioning the remarks.)

Wouldn't this also mean that if he's filing Tennessee taxes and therefore claiming it as his "primary" residence, he's not eligible to run in New York? I suppose by filing in New York in April for the first time makes that point moot since there is no minimum time requirement one must live in a state for eligibility, but what does it say to the constituents whose votes Ford wants to garner?

Must Reads

The Rude Pundit: Note to Obama: Recess Appoint All of Them

Jason Linkins: David Broder Is Really Into Sarah Palin This Week

Sen. Bernie Sanders: It’s Time For a Solar Revolution

Russell Shorto: How Christian Were the Founders?

Harvey Wasserman: Our Founders Were NOT Fundamentalists

Paul Krugman: Republicans and Medicare

Michael Winship: From the Annals of Sno-Cone Science

President Obama's Weekly Address - February 13, 2010

Pay As You Go

Living in Scary Times

Well doesn't this just put a crimp in your underwear?

TPC: Gregory Girard, a Manchester technology consultant, was found with a stash of military grade weapons, explosive devices including tear gas and pepper ball canisters, camouflage clothing, knives, handcuffs, bulletproof vests and helmets, and night vision goggles, say police. They believe Girard, who pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, was "preparing for domestic and political turmoil," and feared martial law would soon be imposed.

[...]

The Massachusetts man charged this week with stockpiling weapons after saying he feared an imminent "Armageddon" appears to have been active in the Tea Party movement, and saw Sarah Palin, who he said is on a "righteous 'Mission from God,'" as the only figure capable of averting the destruction of society.

And people wonder what the big deal is about the "pallin' around with terrorists" rhetoric.

The Trap

What a bunch of pussies.





They bitch and moan about transparency and now are afraid of the transparency that's going to make them look like idiots, the same way they looked when President Obama took them on at the House Republican luncheon. You know how the Republicans could save themselves from this "trap"? Have some actual substantive ideas.

Fred Morrison Dies at 90

ESPN Sports: Walter Fredrick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died. He was 90. 

...Morrison sold the production and manufacturing rights to his "Pluto Platter" in 1957. The plastic flying disc was later renamed the "Frisbee," with sales surpassing 200 million discs. It is now a staple at beaches and college campuses across the country and spawned sports like Frisbee golf and the team sport Ultimate.

An official disc golf course at Creekside Park in the Salt Lake City suburb of Holladay is named for Morrison.

...Wham-O adopted the name "Frisbee" because that's what college students in New England were calling the Pluto Platters. The name came from the Frisbie Pie Co., a local bakery whose empty tins were tossed like the soon-to-be Frisbee.

Quote of the Day

"Recess appointments are there. Ronald Reagan made 243 of 'em. And, remember, if Reagan did it, it automatically covers your ass because he was so fucking awesome when he wasn't soiling his diaper."

 ~ The Rude Pundit on why President Obama should recess appoint every nominee being delayed by Republicans. 

Climate Change Idiots

Okay, let's get one thing straight. If you don't believe there is such a thing as global warming or climate change, your a fucking fool. Just because there is this thing called "Winter" that comes around every eight months or so, and brings with it cold weather and snowstorms, doesn't prove that global warming is a hoax.



The idea that ridiculous conservative talking heads and media pundits are using the latest blizzard on the east coast as "proof" would be hysterically laughable if it wasn't so sad. Do you know why the latest snowstorm is so bad? Because there's extra moisture in the atmosphere. Why is there extra moisture in the atmosphere? Because of global warming.

This is called science, folks.  I know they don't teach no fancy book learning in certain parts of the country while they're waving their Bibles around, but your eyes don't deceive.  The earth is warming, which causes more evaporation of the ice caps and seas, putting more moisture in the air which has to come down somewhere, right? This in turn causes harsher rainstorms and hurricanes in summer months and if it happens to be winter where you are, harsher SNOWSTORMS. In fact, this snowstorm makes the case for climate change more than it disproves it.  You get bigger storms like this, and stronger and more frequent hurricanes like Katrina.

...Gavin Schmidt, a climate modeler at NASA: "It's all in the long-term trends. Weather isn't going to go away because of climate change."

FACT: 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record. In January, major meteorological organizations throughout the world -- including NASA -- released reports showing that the past decade, 2000-2009, was the warmest on record. The reports undermine the right-wing media's numerous claims that recent snow and cold weather show climate change does not exist or has slowed over the past 10 years.

Is global "warming" a misnomer? Not really, but it is for the wingnuts who refuse to believe that the pollution emitted since the Industrial Revolution didn't or wouldn't have any effect on the planet we live on or the atmosphere that surrounds us. And since it snows where they are, it's proof positive that climate change is a hoax.  What's Hannity going to come up with when it's 97° in mid September?  Oh, right.  He'll just ignore it until the next snowstorm.

Boy, I sure hope that the baseball season isn't going to be cancelled  now that this snowstorm proves global warming is a lie. How are those players going to play in two feet of snow?   ... Idiots.

Adding... Stephen Colbert does it again, using that crazy thing Sarah Palin doesn't understand: satire.
 (H/T Cesca)

Don't Fuck With The Maddow

If there is one thing conservatives and Republicans should credit Rachel Maddow for, it's her ability in having absolutely no problem correcting the record when shown that she was wrong in her reporting after it's brought to her attention. But what they should fear is that they'd better be 100% right and not just base their accusation of slander on a technicality. Because if she finds that she's really right, she will fuck. Your. Shit. Up. Watch as she lays down the hammer on Republican Senator and climate change denier James Inhofe, who's office dared to complain of inaccurate reporting on Inhofe.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

BOOM!

Charlie Wilson Dies at 76

NY Times: Charlie Wilson, the former congressman from Texas whose funding of Afghanistan's resistance to the Soviet Union was chronicled in the movie ''Charlie Wilson's War,'' died Wednesday. He was 76.

Wilson died at Memorial Medical Center-Lufkin after he started having difficulty breathing while attending a meeting in the eastern Texas town where he lived, said hospital spokeswoman Yana Ogletree. Wilson was pronounced dead on arrival, and the preliminary cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest, she said.

Ultimate Hubris

I don't know if I understand this even as a political tactic.

Yesterday, House Minority Leader John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell were invited to the White house to speak with President Obama on finding a way forward with the jobs bill, the economy and the Health Care bill. And immediately after leaving the White House, while still on the White House lawn, basically told the President to go fuck himself.

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It's like having a little kid you've told not to touch the crystal vase on the mantle and he IMMEDIATELY goes and touches the vase, breaks it and then when asked why he did the exact opposite of what you just asked, responds "...I don't know." And Boehner still moaning about the amount of pages in any particular bill is just infuriating.

It's this obstructionism being reverberated in the echo chamber that is Fox News which causes so much confusion and disinformation to have Republicans and conservatives frothing at the mouth when it comes to anything, ANYTHING that may be critical of their party.

Take for example the comments section in Oliver Willis' blog post about the "Miss Me Yet?" George bush billboard in Wyoming.

"Anyone else notice that the home foreclosures started the same year the Democrats took over Congress? " As if there was no precursor for this problem. If they started the same year, that means the problem happened beforehand.

"one last thing it wasnt a surplus @ the end of clintons term he was .8% over GDP"   Uh, yeah. "Over" means surplus. "Under" means deficit.

"In the current wars we are fighting – you know the ones that BO was going to stop? – BO has had the most US soldiers killed by a wide margin." Really? Seven years in Iraq and Afghanistan and Obama has already caused more military dead? Fine. Pull them out. But then he would be weak on national security, right?

"All informed and intelligent people realize that W will go down in history as one of the best presidents we have ever had the good fortune to enjoy." ...How can you argue with someone who truly believes that?

And my personal favorite: "Bush inherited 911 but I never heard him whine or blame Clinton (even though Clinton and Gore played patty-cake with Al-Qaeda for years)."
Bush inherited 9/11. But we all know where that came from.

And there is the crux of the problem. You can't have a reasoned debate or policy argument when the other side doesn't even agree on the facts. Solid, documented, hard facts. If they believe President Obama is tripling the debt in his first year, If they believe more soldiers have been killed under Obama's first year than Bush's eight years, if they believe Bush inherited 9/11, for God's sake, then there's no sense in debating them because they will refuse to believe the truth even when shown documented proof.  Even simple things like, oh, let's say, a calendar! 


The the current crop on the GOP side in Congress is no different.  Rachel Maddow sums it up nicely here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Snowpocalypse!

Well, it finally started snowing here in New York City, and although it's predicted to be pretty bad (12"-18" and wind gusts of up to 50 MPH) I'm kind of surprised by the panicky reaction I've been witnessing. It's like some have never seen snow before!

Speaking of which, this is probably my favorite weatherman forecast EVER.

Music Break! The Beatles

Get Back

Light Blogging Today

Going grocery shopping.

Jon Stewart: Tea Party Convention = AMERIGASM!

Brilliant.

The Answer is "NO FUCKING WAY!"

Anyone care to answer in greater detail?

Here's one: "I'd rather be waterboarded, and thanks to Bush 43, that is now entirely feasible."
Here are some other answers.

(H/T Oliver Willis)

John Murtha Dies at 77

NY Times: Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania, a gruff ex-Marine who was one of the most hawkish Democrats in Congress but who became an outspoken critic of the Iraq war, died on Monday in Arlington, Va. He was 77.

He died while under treatment for complications of gallbladder surgery, his office said.

The first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress, Mr. Murtha voted in 2002 to authorize use of military force in Iraq. But he evolved into a leading foe of the war as it was conducted under the administration of President George W. Bush.

Old Man Yells at Gay Cloud

From Frank Rich:
The arguments for preserving “don’t ask” have long been blatantly groundless. McCain — who said in 2006 that he would favor repealing the law if military leaders ever did — didn’t even bother to offer a logical explanation for his mortifying flip-flop last week. He instead huffed that the 1993 “don’t ask” law should remain unchanged as long as any war is going on (which would be in perpetuity, given Afghanistan). Colin Powell strafed him just hours later, when he announced that changed “attitudes and circumstances” over the past 17 years have led him to agree with Mullen. McCain is even out of step with his own family’s values. Both his wife, Cindy, and his daughter Meghan have posed for the current California ad campaign explicitly labeling opposition to same-sex marriage as hate.

Read the entire, worthwhile Rich column here.

Super Bowl Champs

Congratulations the New Orleans Saints. Winners of Super Bowl XLIV!



WHODAT!

Government is Just Like High School - UPDATED

Ho. Ly. Shit.

No wonder Palin continues to criticize President Obama for using a teleprompter. He hasn't mastered the fine art of scribbling on his body.  I guess because he never had to.

Even in my sleep I can tell you that "Drill, Baby, Drill!", tax cuts and smaller government are the cornerstone talking points of the GOP and conservatives.  But Sarah Palin needs to write them down on the palm of her hand like a high schooler with crib notes to get through an hour with an adoring crowd.  She's eventually going to get sent to the Principal's office.

(H/T Bob Cesca)

Update (1:45pm): A commenter at another blog posted the following regarding this story: "I honest-to-God do not get what the big deal is about this. You folks MAKE her a big deal with all the attention you pay her." ...to which I felt a response was needed.

You've got to be kidding. The "big deal" is that [Sarah Palin] is who the wingnuts have chosen to be their leader, and while she criticizes the president for using a teleprompter that presidents have been using for the last 30+ years including [Ronald] Reagan, who she mentioned at least a dozen times last night, [Palin]'s acting like a high school cheerleader writing down talking points on the palm of her hand (that everyone else can recite in their sleep) so she doesn't fail her pop quiz even though she knew the questions beforehand.

She has a Down Syndrome baby and is appalled at Rahm Emanuel's use of the word "retarded" [to the point of calling for his firing,] but has no problem with Rush Limbaugh using it and is even making excuses for him.

You don't think that hypocrisy has to be called out?!

Adding... Margaret Carlson of Bloomberg News bet wrong in her last Countdown appearance when she said of the whole "retarded" issue, "I'm gonna go out on a limb here - I think because it is a matter of the heart for her, I don't think she wears this child on her sleeve... I bet that Rush Limbaugh quickly apologizes himself knowing that she will have to treat him the same way."

Must Reads

Gin and Tacos: An Open Letter to Tim Pawlenty

Joe Conason: Republicans revive a debate they lost, badly

Chez Pazienza: The Notorious "Big"

Glenn Greenwald: The lynch-mob mentality

Derrick Z. Jackson: The double standard at CBS

Ezra Klein: It's just you, Democrats

Gail Collins: No Holds Barred

President Obama's Weekly Address - February 6, 2010

Opening Doors for Small Business

The Complete, Unedited Bill O'Reilly/Jon Stewart Video...

... in which Jon Stewart reveals who the real pinhead is. What I don't understand is why Bill-O (to his credit) would allow the full version of the interview to be posted online for an easy comparison of what actually made the show and further shows his thin skin. The aired interview was more heavily edited than a James O'Keefe ACORN video.

This Is Just Embarrassing

This is an actual political ad.



Carly Fiorina was fired by Hewlett-Packard. Now we know why.

And They Want To Be Taken Seriously, Part 2

Martha Johnson is voted in UNANIMOUSLY, 96-0, after a political waiting game.

The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to confirm Martha N. Johnson as head of the General Services Administration, nearly 10 months after she was first nominated to head the federal agency.

Upon assuming office, Johnson "will become the first permanent Administrator of the General Services Administration in nearly two years."

Earlier in 2009, Johnson was unanimously approved by members of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. But a single senator, Republican Kit Bond from Missouri, has used his symbolic 'privilege' to hold up consideration of Johnson's nomination since last summer. The delay was meant to pressure GSA administrators to approve a $175 million federal building project in Kansas City.

ADDING... Party of fiscal conservatives, indeed.

Shelby Blocks All Obama Nominations In The Senate Over AL Earmarks

Maverick!

Then - John McCain, October, 2006: "The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it."

That time has come.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates: ...said Tuesday that he supports President Obama's decision to seek the repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military and has appointed a "high-level working group" to figure out how to do it.  

..."I fully support the president's decision," Gates said. "The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we ... best prepare for it. We have received our orders from the commander in chief and we are moving out accordingly."

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen: "I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," Mullen said. "For me, personally, it comes down to integrity -- theirs as individuals and ours as an institution."

And now what does the Arizona maverick, who may be fighting for his political life this November, have to say about it?

McCain declared himself "disappointed" in the testimony. "At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy," he said bluntly, before describing it as "imperfect but effective."

What a pillar of integrity is John McCain.

President Obama's Democratic Question Time

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"If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression -- we don't tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don't put in place any insurance reforms, we don't mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they're doing now because we don't want to stir up Wall Street -- the result is going to be the same. I don't know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place."

...if our response ends up being, you know, because we don't want to -- we don't want to stir things up here, we're just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don't know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don't know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us."

Lieberman Strikes Again!

Nothing shows human compassion, understanding the rule of law and foreign affairs more than an elected official who is the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee making waterboarding jokes.

On foreign affairs, I understand what Guantanamo has come to mean in world opinion. But we can fix that, without closing Guantanamo.

All we have to do is change its name. How about calling it the Richard B. Cheney Resort and Rehabilitation Spa?

I bet the water sports will be really great.

I'd be happy to make Joe Lieberman a reservation.

And They Want To Be Taken Seriously

Markos Moulitsas at the Daily Kos just tweeted about a new Republican poll he's still scouring over.  Here are a couple of stats via Twitter:

Just got back big poll of 2,000 Republicans. Gotta digest it, but 39% of them want Obama impeached.
~ 63% think Obama is a socialist, only 42% believe he was born in US, 21% think ACORN stole 2008 elections.
~ Actually, on the "ACORN stealing 2008 election for Obama" Q, 21% say yes, 55% say "not sure"
~ 53% think Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama.
~ 23% want to secede from US.
~ 73% think gay men and women shouldn't be allowed to teach in public schools
~ 31% want contraceptives outlawed

This is a national poll taken by 2,000 Republicans. And this party wants to be taken seriously. But I suppose this is what happens when you watch nothing but Fox News Channel all day and Glenn Beck is your hero.

I'm sure he'll wrap this up in a post. Stay tuned.

Quote of the Day

"I think almost every American here pays much less in taxes than you ought to. I'm going to go back and try to raise the taxes of most of the people who attended here."

~ Congressman Barney Frank while in attendance at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

McCain Economy Would've Been No Different - UPDATED

If things had turned out differently on a November night in 2008 and we had the pleasure of a McCain/Palin administration, the record deficit would have been the same or perhaps worse. So says John McCain's former economic policy advisor.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin argued that under McCain's stewardship economic policy would have been strikingly different than under Obama -- with a much smaller stimulus bill and government expenditures going down as opposed to up.

But the former Congressional Budget Office director did acknowledge that, even with these changes, the country "probably would still have a record deficit" as is projected under the Obama administration.

And we all know why.

...many of the deficit problems the current administration faces today are traced directly back to the policies of its predecessors. This, indeed, seems to be implicit in Holtz-Eakin's acknowledgment.

In December 2009, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities concluded that the then-$1.4 trillion annual deficit run by the government under Obama had much to do with the Bush administration's package of tax cuts, the wars it launched in Iraq and Afghanistan and its response to the recession.

I wonder if McCain would have "blamed it on Bush"?


UPDATE (4:15pm): Of course, no sooner does President Obama release his budget than The Maverick gets busy twiddling his thumbs to come up with this asinine tweet:



Maybe he should have spoken to Holtz-Eakin...

Colbert at the Grammys

This was the highlight of the show (for me anyway).



ADDING... Congratulations to Stephen Colbert's Grammy win for Best Comedy Album.