Michele Bachmann home-schooled her children. There should be a law against the mentally deficient home-schooling their children.
"As a mother of 5 and foster mother to 23, as well as someone who homeschooled her children, Congresswoman Bachmann is a strong supporter of homeschooling and is looking forward to speaking to the group in Iowa," says Bachmann spokesman Doug Sachtleben.Wow, that's 28 kids who think that Lexington and Concord are in New Hampshire...
Former Indiana Senator Evan Bayh made his decision not to run for the Senate again so he could take a cushy job as a Washington lobbyist. Now he's gone to the dark side.
Et tu, Evan?Bayh will be a commentator and political analyst across all of Fox News’ platforms. He was a Senator from 1999 to 2011, where he became one of the more prominent conservative Democrats in the chamber.
For the last few weeks, the talking heads have been wondering where the viable Republican presidential nominees were and why they were waiting so long to announce their decision to run. At this same point 4 years ago, I believe there were somewhere in the neighborhood of ten GOP candidates. But let's face facts: despite the constant fear mongering, the constant barrage of insults, misinformation and accusations of being "the other"; despite a slow economic recovery and public sector jobs putting a drag on the unemployment rate, President Obama's approval rating has been hovering around the 50% mark. At this point in the timeline of his presidency, even St. Ronnie's approval numbers weren't any better and in fact had dipped below 40% within his first two years, a number to which Obama hasn't even come close.
GASP! She was using a teleprompter?! Isn't that the tool of the devil? Why can't she scribble on her hand like the others? So MENSA member Michele Bachmann tries to cover up one of her daily mistakes by taking a swipe at arguably one of the smartest men in whatever room he happens to enter. But hasn't that become the default position for the GOP? Sit on Fox News and laugh at the President and belittle his intelligence, and soon enough the yahoos will believe it.So I misplaced the battles Concord and Lexington by saying they were in New Hampshire. It was my mistake, Massachusetts is where they happened. New Hampshire is where they are still proud of it!And by the way... That will be the last time I borrow President Obama's tele-promoter!
Exactly. But of course if ever a contest or debate were to take place, the expectations bar would be set so low, it would be spun as a win for the idiot just because she didn't manage to vomit on herself....I'd love to see Bachmann or Palin or any of these hooples challenge the president to a head-to-head round of common knowledge questions. Hell, the president could be the smartest man on Earth -- he could have solved the mysteries of the universe and defeated that computer on Jeopardy, while simultaneously defeating that other chess-playing computer -- blindfolded -- and these idiots would still be accusing him of somehow being a marble-mouthed ignoramus. Remarkable.
Paul Campos: Throw Clarence Thomas Off the Bench
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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
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.
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.”
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?
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.
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.
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."
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| On Notice/Dead to Me - Mike Huckabee | ||||
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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."
"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.
"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."
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.
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..."
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.
Walter Dellinger: The DOMA Decision
Jason Linkins: New York Times, A.G. Sulzberger Draw Criticism For Their Coverage Of Wisconsin Protests
Chris Cillizza: Who had the Worst Week in Washington? Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa.
Russell Simmons: The Hypocrisy of Peter King
Michael Winship: Wackos of the World, Unite!
JHW22 recommends...Bruce Lindner: You Might Be A Republican If...
New Jersey Governor and resident walrus Chris Christie is doing his best to plummet his numbers to Scott Walker levels. But New Jersey firefighters and police officers aren't going to sit idly by and watch.
Bill O'Reilly has been getting pretty hot under the collar at all the Wisconsin protesters chanting "Fox lies" while their so-called "reporters" are on the ground at the state capitol in Madison. So what does The O'Reilly Factor do? They lie.
Here's the intrepid BillO and his crack staff using stock footage of some random protest while speaking about the people in the streets in Wisconsin to promote the illusion that the protests are violent. Notice the short sleeve shirts and the palm trees in the background.
Now that's some fair and balanced reporting, huh? And here I thought the Wisconsin state tree was the Sugar Maple. Someone had better correct Wikipedia!
UPDATE (3/3/11, 12:15pm): Mediaite has defended O'Reilly as "not lying" regarding the above video.
Had Fox News Channel, and in particular The O'Reilly Factor, been completely honest, instead of labeling the video "union protests" they would have specified the locality of each video. It's not so hard.The segment in question occurred during The O’Reilly Factor as Bill O’Reilly was discussing the anger in the union protests. At the top of the piece, he rolled footage of a number of the “union thug” videos that have become so popular on Right Wing news sites in the past few weeks. O’Reilly clearly identified the videos as collectively coming from “all over the country.” As many shows do, this B-roll footage was replayed again during the rest of the segment, including during an interview with Mike Tobin, Fox News’ reporter who’s been on the ground in Wisconsin.Here’s where the problem occurred. Tobin was discussing Wisconsin (since that where he’s been) while the general footage played in the background. Taken out of context, these few seconds would seem deceptive. But, if you’d already seen the full segment, you’d recognize what the footage was (besides, this same clip has aired on other Fox News programs like Glenn Beck and been identified as coming from California). Further, the protest footage from Wisconsin is clearly labeled “Madison” as well as date and time stamped, while the “palm tree footage” is labeled “Union Protests.” Confusing? Not really, though if one were to simply see the 43-second clip on YouTube, one could reasonably raise their eyebrows. A reminder of the importance of context.
POSTED BY JHW22
Today "an anti-choice group in Ohio is putting a 9-week old fetus on the witness list" in an attempt to find one more trick to make abortion illegal.
Even the Westboro Baptist Church.
It's unfortunate that these low life scum make a mockery of their god and whatever twisted religion they profess by acting out in profane, bigoted protests whenever and wherever the mood strikes, like at military funerals or Holocaust museums. But hey, hate groups have First Amendment rights just like anyone else, and if you want to look like a buffoon and call the President of the United States the Antichrist, that's within your rights as well. But that's what separates us from almost every other country in the world. And sometimes it's not easy.The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a grieving father's pain over jeering protests at his Marine son's funeral must yield to First Amendment protections for free speech. All but one justice sided with a fundamentalist church that has stirred outrage with raucous demonstrations contending God is punishing the military for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.
Hey, I like Two and a Half Men as much as the next guy. It's mindless, crass entertainment that takes your mind off your troubles for 30 minutes a week... for 22 weeks out of the year. But can we please stop with the 24/7 coverage of Charlie Sheen blowing a brain gasket? I don't think my personal world is going to suffer if I lose 11 collective hours* of television entertainment per year. And that includes commercials.
When did the mind of America atrophy? When did we lose our way and become a civilization subsisting on reality television schadenfreude? And we can't even allow for legitimate news on supposed news shows anymore, as Stephen Colbert points out.
"When asked to stand guard at the doors that duty was turned over to the Wisconsin State Patrol because our deputies would not stand and be palace guards. I refused to put deputy sheriffs in a position to be palace guards."
Dane County, Wisconsin Sheriff David Mahoney on his decision to pull officers guarding the Madison Capitol building.
One simple question: why are the leading oil companies, whose profits topped $485 BILLION in a 5-year span, receiving tax subsidies from the government?DCCC: Despite the need to cut spending and reduce the debt, today House Republicans voted against cutting taxpayer spending on subsidies for Big Oil companies making record profits. Last week, House Republicans voted to slash education, research and public safety budgets that would lead to more than 700,000 jobs lost nationwide.
A have a friend who's been marching and protesting in Madison, Wisconsin for the last couple of weeks, trying to protect his union rights to collectively bargain. We met more than a few years ago working on a show together for an out of town tryout in Denver, and then again in New York City. He has since moved back to his native Madison to take an industry job and raise a family.
He wrote a stirring post on his Facebook page and gave me permission to repost it here.
I AM A WISCONSINITE.
I was born and raised in Wisconsin. At the time I did not think that made me very lucky. After I graduated from UW-Madison I moved to NYC and immediately considered myself a New Yorker. Even after moving back to raise a family I would, for a time, tell people I lived in Madison but just moved back from NYC because I felt it sounded cooler. I was wrong. There is nothing cooler than being a Wisconsinite.My family has always been politically active in Wisconsin politics and labor movements. I feel like my sisters and I spent a good portion of our childhoods at the Labor Temple on Park St. or handing out flyers at Farmer's Market. It didn't dawn on me at the time what it was I was involved in. My parents always worked for the community. They always fought for workers and those that stood to protect them. For me... it was just another rally or picnic. I didn't understand the fight that it took just to maintain what had been taken for granted by many.My mother spent over 10 years working at the WEAC headquarters in Madison where she also served as a union representative. It was something she was proud of. A little over a year ago she was diagnosed with brain cancer, the treatment of which has left her unable to work or even care for herself. That responsibility has landed mostly on my dad who is retired. Without the benefits that she worked and fought for we would not have been able to afford to treat or care for her now. She was a public worker. She was a union member. I grew up in the same house and can promise you, she did not bring home lavish pay.
This is not about money and numbers. It is about people. This is about the teachers that spend as much time with your kids as you do. It is about the nurses that care for you and yours when ill. It is about law enforcement and fire fighters. It is about the people of Wisconsin that make the state what it is.
The events of the last few weeks have been inspiring to the world. It has given me new respect for the people I have chosen to live with. It has given me faith in the power of the people. It has given me an opportunity to march with my father on one side and my son on the other. I know it means nothing to him now but some day he may look back at it as his first memory of the power of the people. We must fight on for him.
I am from Wisconsin. I always have been. Pretty cool huh?
James Uphoff, Madision, Wisconsin
Via GottaLaff:
Look, I can completely understand being an advocate for one side or another, but stupid stunts like this make the pro-life advocates look idiotic. And these are most likely the same people that agree with tort reform because they believe medical malpractice suits are are a "frivolous" waste of taxpayer money. Well how much money is being wasted on this debacle of a hearing?In support of a bill that proposes banning abortions after the first heartbeat (something that can happen within eighteen days of conception), the anti-abortion group Faith2Action has scheduled a nine-week-old fetus to testify as a legislative witness before Ohio’s House Health Committee.
NY Daily News: Hall-of-Famer Duke Snider, the last surviving regular of the 1950's "Boys of Summer" Dodgers, whose prolific home runs and center field defensive prowess earned him royalty status in Brooklyn and immortalization in song in Terry Cashman's famous baseball ballad, died Sunday in the Valley Vista Convalenscent Home in Escondido, Ca. He was 85.Snider had been in ill health the last couple of year from diabetes.
Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been doing the book circuit to sell his new memoir, Known and Unknown, and made a stop along the way to The Daily Show for a sit down interview with Jon Stewart.
I knew I wouldn't be home in time, so I recorded it and watched it the next day. And I have to say that initially I was disappointed. I had hoped Stewart would be a little more forceful with Rumsfeld and a little less deferential. It was incredibly frustrating listening to Rumsfeld's hemming and hawing about an exact word or phrasing of a question before answering it. And doubly frustrating to have Stewart stop, take a moment to regroup and rephrase in order to get through to an attempt at an answer.
But after letting it sit for a couple of days, I watched the complete, unedited interview posted on Comedy Central and have changed my mind about my overall take. I watched and listened intently to the questions and answers and I have to give Stewart credit for A) asking some tough questions and B) being incredibly patient under the circumstances. In hindsight, I'm glad that it was a serious interview and there wasn't crosstalk that you might find in, oh, I don't know, an Obama/Bill O'Reilly interview. Showing respect while disagreeing with someone is much harder than blustering over an answer you don't want to hear, and that's the last thing I want to see from a Stewart interview.
I also have to give credit to Donald Rumsfeld for having the guts to go out and expose himself. Yes, I know he's doing it to sell books, but kudos for not taking the safe route and remaining in friendlier confines like Sean Hannity's studio or Fox and Friends. And although some, including myself, may not like his answers, at least he's not in hiding like his incurious, lazy former boss. I also came to the realization that the reason Rumsfeld would object to certain ways questions were framed was because he's conditioned himself over his incredibly long career to prevent from falling into "gotcha" traps, whether it's a soundbite trap or not. He's not going to answer a question that, in his mind, he doesn't think is fairly phrased.
My overall opinion is that Rumsfeld, although taking responsibility as he must in his former position, is still too easily passing the buck on the faulty intelligence on which they relied. And while history shows that there was a run up to the Iraq War that, as Stewart says, was "arrogant in it's certainty," I think he sincerely believes that the decisions made weren't in haste, that there was a lot of effort of forethought, but he can't connect the forethought with the lack of followthrough as a mistake.
Here's the entire interview. You can judge for yourself.
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David Cay Johnston: Really Bad Reporting in Wisconsin: Who 'Contributes' to Public Workers' Pensions?
Keith Olbermann: Wisconsin and “The Union”
Nicole Belle: Why Did Paul Broun Laugh Off Supporter's Town Hall Comment: "Who Is Going To Shoot President Obama?"
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POSTED BY JHW22
No, you should not take responsibility for a jack-ass who asks, "Who is going to shoot President Obama?" but you should take responsibility for not telling that man, and the audience who LAUGHED at the question, that not only is the question inappropriate but also DANGEROUS AS HELL!!!
HELLO! We still have a member of Congress recovering from being SHOT IN THE HEAD. Today is the birthday of one of her staffers who died, Gabe Zimmerman. One of her other staffers returned to work on Wednesday, Pamela Simon. Political violence is real even if it's a crazy man who pulls the trigger. And it's the crazy person we should all keep in mind when violent words are spoken.
And no, a belated lame-ass statement IS NOT accepting personal responsibility for allowing a violent question to go unaddressed. We do not accept changing the subject, allowing people to laugh without being told to stop and without a significant statement AT THE TIME calling that language UNACCEPTABLE.
I think a proper way to show personal responsibility is for Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) to resign. That way the message is loud and clear -- Americans DO NOT THREATEN THE PRESIDENT.
If politicians actually did everything they said they'd do while on the campaign trail, the world would be a better place. But we live in reality, don't we? If someone running for president says he'd don "comfortable shoes and walk a picket line" in support of workers and unions, and then actually won the office, would you seriously expect him to do it if it came to pass?
But that's exactly what has happened and now there are pundits who are wondering if President Obama is going to Wisconsin to walk with the protesters. He's already said everyone has to tighten their belts and knows that the Wisconsin labor unions have conceded the financial point and are willing to acquiesce to Governor Walker except when it comes to giving up their collective bargaining rights, but it seems like "an assault on unions."
But, come on, guys, seriously? Walk the picket lines? He's the fucking President of the United States, not Al Sharpton!
This is why right wing pundits and Fox News models are completely unserious when it comes to matters of discussing political policy. Here's Fox News' Megyn Kelly and Monica Crowley discussing the decision of the Obama administration to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act it deems to be unconstitutional.
Now, you may agree or disagree with the decision as is your right. But is it necessary to call the President of the United States "Mubarak Obama"? Really? Is that being a serious journalist, if that's how you define yourself? And Crowley then chose to go the route of, "Well, if Bush did this..." Remind me again how the right was all up in arms when the Bush administration gave the thumbs up on waterboarding and other torture tactics in direct violation of countless treaties and military codes of conduct. A nation of laws indeed, Monica.
In the blogosphere, Andrew Sullivan points out that Matt Drudge decided to go with this lovely headline in the midst of the protests in Libya:
Well if that's the case, Drudge, WND, Malkin and her minions, and the rest of those loons should be headlining how the protesters in Libya are just drug-addled people who were taken advantage of by Osama Bin Laden. I mean if Gaddafi said it, it must be true, right? Very serious."GADDAFI: OBAMA IS A FRIEND," reads the banner headline on his [Drudge's] website right now. The link goes to a year-old interview Gaddafi gave with a London-based newspaper...So Drudge is now taking Qaddafi's insane ramblings at face value?... Drudge isn't alone. A blogger at Malkin's place picks up a loony World Net Daily article suggesting that Qaddafi, Jeremiah Wright, and Obama are all in cahoots.
Wisconsin Governor, Tea Party darling and conspiratorial union buster Scott Walker took a call today from who he thought was David Koch. Interesting who Walker's willing to speak with after saying he would speak with no one. "And so Walker, believing himself to be on the phone with his patron, seems to have had a long conversation about busting Wisconsin's unions." But it wasn't Koch. It was Buffalo Beast editor Ian Murphy.
Their conversation included trashing MSNBC, dividing the public sector and private sector unions, and the domino effect this would have in busting other unions in other states. Silly me. Taking Gov. Walker at his word, I thought this was all about balancing Wisconsin's budget and had nothing to do with union busting.Buffalo Beast Publisher Paul Fallon told The Huffington Post that the audio is "absolutely legit." That the call took place as described by the Beast has been confirmed by Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie."Basically what happened was, yesterday morning [Murphy] was watching television about this Wisconsin stuff and he saw a report where he saw Walker say he wasn't going to talk to anybody," Fallon said. "And he said, 'I bet he would talk to somebody if he had enough oomph behind him.'"
Nice going, Scotty.A member of the crew of 14 Democratic state senators who fled Wisconsin to prevent passage of a sharp anti-union measure, said a revealing prank phone call involving Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has strengthened the resolve of those breaking the quorum and pushed them even further away from the negotiating table... [calling] Walker "cocky" and "gullible" for believing that David Koch, the billionaire conservative bankroller, would call him up to discuss political tactics....The part that really had my eyebrows up is the idea that he would trick us to come back for a compromise and use that as an excuse for passing it," said [State Sen. Chris] Larson. "He is such a hypocrite because he is saying what we are doing is an affront to democracy and then he is going to trick us into coming back?""To anyone who was thinking, 'Well they wouldn't try anything shady,' this puts an end to that idea," he added.
POSTED BY JHW22
This just in...
The Obama Justice Department has decided that part of the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and will not defend it in court.Woo hoo!
POSTED BY JHW22
The emphasis is mine. The words are Sarah Palin's in her State of the State Address in 2009 -- two days after Michelle Obama became First Lady and 18 days before the First Lady launched her "Let's Move" initiative to accomplish the same things Sarah Palin laid out in her plans and speech. Sarah Palin quit her job about 5 1/2 months later, whereas Michelle Obama is still working her butt off to accomplish these goals.We have alarming levels of heart disease, diabetes, childhood obesity--and all of these maladies are on the rise. Now, I won't stand here and lecture--for very long--but health care reform on an individual basis is often just this simple: we could save a lot of money, and a lot of grief, by making smarter choices.It starts by ending destructive habits, and beginning healthy habits in eating and exercise. In my case, it's hard to slack when you have the ever-present example of an Iron Dogger nearby. But many of us could use a little more time in our great outdoors--and when you live in the Great Land, there's no excuse.Protecting good health is largely a matter of personal responsibility, but government policy can help. Our new Alaska Health Care Commission will recommend changes that affect the well-being of Alaskans far into the future.
How does Sarah Palin interpret that?Helpful tips and step-by-step strategies for families, schools and communities to help kids be more active, eat better and grow up healthy.
Considering the "Let's Move" agenda sounds just like Palin's agenda as governor, the question is, why she isn't claiming the First Lady stole the plan from her, just as Palin claimed Obama stole the "Change" messaging from her?"And I know I'm going to be again criticized for bringing this up, but instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us according to some politician or politician's wife priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions and then our country gets back on the right track."
Click on portrait for a complete list of President Obama's Executive Orders, Presidential Memoranda and Proclamations
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