...all I can say is, "Holy crap!"
Weighing in at over 245 pounds and standing 43 inches tall, George is the Guinness World Record holder for the Tallest Living Dog and Tallest Dog Ever. The Great Dane, now 6 years old, is almost 100 pounds bigger than other dogs of his breed, twice as tall as an average Golden Retriever and about the same weight as four German Shepherds, 11 Beagles or 26 Shih Tzus.
Justin Rosario: Supreme Court To Re-Examine Its Citizens United Ruling
Andrea Grimes: Texas Rep, Having Failed to Pass Anti-Choice Law, Orders Department of Health to Do His Bidding Anyway
Philip Kitcher: The Taint of 'Social Dawinism'
Paul Krugman: The Gullible Center
Maureen Dowd: Men in Black
Eclectablog: Major conflict of interest for elections panel member reviewing Emergency Manager petition challenge
The Fox Mole: Announcing Our Newest Hire: A Current Fox News Channel Employee
E.J. Dionne: Tell us more about Romney’s ‘private’ views
What. The. Fuck.“There are a lot of things that haven’t been hammered at because Rick and Mitt have been going at each other,” Friess said during an interview on Fox Business Network. “Now that they have trained their barrels on President Obama, I hope his teleprompters are bullet-proof.”
POSTED BY JHW22
Hilary Rosen created quite a firestorm last night. In my view, the firestorm is more about the offense people perceived rather than the truth she put forth. Her phrasing was inarticulate, but her point was relevant.
Yes, I know the Obama administration is wanting people to back away from Rosen's comments. I understand that. But guess what? I don't always agree with the administration and in this case, I'm going to take a stance as someone a little more knowledgeable on the issue than Axelrod or President Obama.
I am a Stay-at-Home Mom -- a SAHM. But not married to a millionaire. And I think Rosen's comments were valid: the wife of a millionaire should not be revered as a "surrogate" for her husband on women's economic issues. We can share being moms and the regular concerns that go with that. But the relatability stops there. I think it's MORE than acceptable to call out Ann Romney as being out of touch with women who make the work/family choice because of economic requirements. Good for her for choosing to stay home to raise her kids. But she can't relate to moms whose choices are made for them by economic realities.
I also notice a trend lately. Seems that when women get mad and start debating, the issue we're debating is called a "distraction". Sorry folks, but talking about how women provide for their families, whether they can or want to stay home or work outside the home, how she manages to pay bills, save for college, pay for activities, etc IS AN ECONOMICALLY RELEVANT DISCUSSION!
The war isn't between SAHMs or moms who work outside the home. The war is on women who are consistently being pushed back -- in policy and discussion. Mitt Romney is SO out of touch on women's issues that he is sending his wife out to defend him and speak for him and gather information for him.
All Rosen was saying, and I agree, is that as lovely as Ann Romney may be, as wonderful of a mother as she may be, she will NEVER be able to relate to me or the millions of other women who didn't have the luxury to make the "choice" she made. That's a point we should all be ready to state again and again. It's not a personal attack. It's a reality that must matter in the debate over women and our economic role in America and the fact that the Romneys have no business speaking for the average family.
UPDATE:
Since I posted, Ann Romney has said "my career choice was motherhood." Seems to me that is as rhetorically offensive as Hilary's implication that being a mom isn't a job. But I haven't heard anyone criticize her implication that women who don't stay home, don't choose motherhood. But that's OK. I also find it interesting that Ann Romney also said we all need to respect the "choices" mothers make. Oh, so she's pro-choice?
Also since my original post, the Catholic League Tweeted
Lesbian Dem Hilary Rosen tells Ann Romney she never worked a day in her life. Unlike Rosen, who had to adopt kids, Ann raised 5 of her own.And I haven't heard any outrage about that.
...what this deranged, megalomaniac has to say about anything?
He's "heard"? Well I "heard" that Allan West likes to have sex with goats, and how can you trust a goat fucker? No really, it must be true because I "heard" it. See how that works?U.S. Rep. Allen West told about 90 largely supportive Palm City voters Tuesday that locally prioritized federal projects — such as the St. Lucie Inlet dredging — aren't going to matter if Washington officials don't address a mounting deficit...The conservative tea party icon also got in shots at Democrats and President Obama, who spoke Tuesday at Florida Atlantic University. West said Obama was "scared" to have a discussion with him. He later said "he's heard" up to 80 U.S. House Democrats are Communist Party members, but wouldn't name names.
My first thought: He didn't want to get embarrassed in his home state in two weeks. My second thought: He may be crazy, but at least he's smarter than Newt Gingrich. And my final thought: Santorum making his announcement at Gettysburg seems so apropos.CBS: Rick Santorum is poised to suspend his bid for the presidency on Tuesday, removing the last significant obstacle in Mitt Romney's now all-but-certain march to the Republican presidential nomination.Santorum will make the announcement at a press conference in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania shortly, a senior member of his campaign staff told CBS News.
As faithful reader Nowhere Man said to me today, "He lived a full life. I wonder how he felt about his son becoming a right wing douche."
James A. Feldman: The flawed case against Donald Verrilli
Eugene Robinson: Mitt Romney can’t shake away impressions he’s made
Bob Cesca: Another Right-Wing Terrorist Hits Planned Parenthood
Jim Hightower: The Truth About the U.S. Postal Service
Dan Froomkin: Karl Rove's NAACP Analogy Runs Afoul Of Law, History
Mike Sacks: President Obama Locks Horns With Chief Justice Roberts Over Health Care Case
Adam Davidson: The Real Reason Gas Costs $4 A Gallon
Rachel Maddow: RNC chairman reflects on women, caterpillars
Sara Robinson: Did Rick Santorum just declare the next right-wing crusade?
Brendan McCarthy: Judge imposes stiff sentences on 5 NOPD officers convicted in Danziger shootings
Paul Buchheit: Five Preposterous, Persistent Conservative Myths
Sam Parry: If the Supreme Court Goes Rogue
Via Steve Benen:
...when jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it's considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape, and when the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are actually being created rather quickly......Here's [a] chart -- which reflects the revised, seasonably-adjusted data -- showing weekly, initial unemployment claims going back to the beginning of 2007. (Remember, unlike the monthly jobs chart, a lower number is good news.)
More like this, please. Watch the whole thing if you have an hour.
How many bialys can one guy eat?!AP - New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie kicked off his first official overseas trip to the Middle East Monday, meeting Israeli leaders in a visit that may boost the rising Republican star's foreign policy credentials ahead of November's presidential elections. He will move on to Jordan later this week for a personal visit with Jordan's King Abdullah....Christie's trip, billed "Jersey to Jerusalem," is a trade and diplomacy mission, according to his office.
Radley Balko: Illinois Traffic Stop Of Star Trek Fans Raises Concerns About Drug Searches, Police Dogs, Bad Cops
Steven Pearlstein: Eat your broccoli, Justice Scalia
Eugene Robinson: A stronger prescription for what ails health care
Passing the Buffett Rule So That Everyone Pays Their Fair Share
POSTED BY JHW22
I'm sick of the "a SCOTUS loss is a win for Dems" crap. A SCOTUS loss means another goddamn fight for healthcare reform. And right now, I need my insurance to stay as it is and not as my insurance company will want it to be. I LIKE ObamaCARES. I like that my son’s pre-existing condition didn’t impact our premium when we switched companies after ObamaCARES passed. I like that his and my annual exams are covered at no additional cost. I like that Sebelius is going after companies that are hiking rates too high. I like that companies can’t charge more for their income than for our care. I like ObamaCARES!
And this shit about “it will fire up the base if SCOTUS rules against the law” is pure BULLSHIT! We were fired up during the last debate and what good did it do us? We had infighting aka BITCHING from day one. Democrats fired on Obama as much as the Republicans did. We left him undefended from the shit storms of death panels every time we decided he wasn’t “fighting” hard enough. Remember? Remember how the whole “grow a pair”, “grow a spine”, “fight” rhetoric was fired at Obama every damn day by his own damn party?
Yah, we were fired up! Fired up and ready to fucking yell at our own President.
I do not want that shit again. And I don’t trust all of you to fight the next round any differently. Some of you get me on this. Some of you know EXACTLY the shit I mean and know that it will require composure and energy we don’t want to waste on the same assholes who were so COUNTERPRODUCTIVE and then didn’t even fucking bother to get out the vote the next time. Why THE FUCK do I want to enter that stadium AGAIN?!?! I don’t trust my team enough to march into that game all over again. Hell, I know what to expect from the right, but from the left? I sure as hell know some of you would fucking bail and wail.
Will I be fired up if this fails? Yeah. Will I trust that you’ll all be fired up in a productive way? HELL, NO!
I want single payer and I think either SCOTUS decision could fire us up to move toward that. But some of my teammates will totally fuck this up for all of us either way. So I’d rather keep ObamaCARES in tact and go from there. Not go back to 2009 and fuck it all up from there.
POSTED BY JHW22
When the Trayvon Martin news became a big social media event, I was on vacation in the beautiful woods of Oklahoma - yes they exist. I went to two Walmarts for groceries and was nervous as hell for my car with the Obama sunrise O sitting out in the parking lot. My hope was no one knew what that was. It was creepy. I was surrounded by hunters and obvious Tea Partiers. I felt like I'd walked into the wrong universe.
I am a white woman, so I guess there was no real way to identify me as an outsider -- although, I do look like Rachel Maddow's twin, so it's possible someone could have assumed I was a lesbian liberal Yankee and I'd have been in trouble. I'm not a lesbian but I am a liberal and was raised in New Hampshire, so I was shaky.
But I was lucky. No one sniffed me out. For that period of time, I felt vulnerable. It was my own brain doing that to me, though. No one else.
I read about Trayvon one of the days on that vacation when I hopped online for a few minutes. My immediate thought was, "I can't read that, it's gonna hurt too much". I knew there was nothing good in a story about a dead, beautiful kid. I couldn't bring myself to know what happened because I don't handle grief so well anymore.
After several losses of loved ones in the last six years, and after becoming a mom, I can't watch movies or read books that even touch on a child's death, a parent's death -- or anything sentimental for that matter.
Then we got home and unpacked and I read. I spent the next two days reading and crying and thinking about Trayvon. Thinking I'd had days where I could choose to avoid the grief. His parents had had weeks of nothing but facing theirs. And I got mad. I got mad at a law that allows police to be lackluster, to take the word of a a living man against the silence of a dead kid. I got mad at the man who stalked a child then claimed self-defense.
And now I am mad at the people who haven't uttered a peep. I am mad at apologists trying to make self-defense apply to one person but not another.
And now I am awake.
For years I have read about black men being imprisoned at higher rates than white men. I have read about more black men being falsely incarcerated and later exonerated, than white men. I have read that more black communities suffer from hunger, lack of safe housing, weaker education, slower police response times, and on and on. I've known the data. I was a Sociology minor. I'm a Democrat. I know all of the data.
But until Trayvon Martin was killed and I had to face the sadness and read and listen, I never woke up to the life. The life that is lived by a person who has lived with a system set against him in ways he never knew. In a way society still whispers in our ears but never wants to address.
I have been accused of being a Becky, or of saying the wrong thing when my intent was clearly something benign. I have been stupid and at times in my life, extremely naive. I imagine most of us have thought or said ignorant or fearful things. But we can't play tit for tat or argue over a person's past statements and deeds in lieu of listening and watching current motivation. We can't treat this time as a moment of race-baiting or PC-idealism. And that being said, we HAVE to talk about the fact that Trayvon Martin was killed because he was black. It's okay to actually say it and not feel like backs need to hunch or defensive retorts need to be spit. It's not anti-white people to say it. We can all acknowledge the truth. We, as white people can say, "I don't like that a kid died because he was black". No spite is needed. There's no need to defend Zimmerman's actions because white people are on trial for perpetuating racism by not ever wanting to admit racism. We don't need to find lame excuses or ways to blame a dead kid. It's okay to admit that the President is not being divisive when he says that if he had a son, "He'd look like Trayvon". We don't need to play stupid and act like that wasn't profound as hell. It's alright, white America, to say, "A kid died because he was black and he matters to me".
The Martin family can't hide from the loss and we can't hide from the truth. We can move forward by admitting we are sad and angry and awake.
And yes, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, and every vile white person posting at Fox.com, I'm talking to you.
Bob Cesca: The Most Underrated but Huge Obama Accomplishment
Greg Smith: Why I Am Leaving Goldman Sachs
Christopher Brauchli: Science and Santorum
Robert Reich: The Widening Wealth Divide, and Why We Need a Surtax on the Super Wealthy
Barnett Shale: Study finds no link between oil drilling, gas prices
Eugene Robinson: Trayvon Martin and dangerous times for black men
Jonathan Capehart: Under ‘suspicion’: The killing of Trayvon Martin
President Obama Says House Must Pass Bipartisan Transportation Bill
...and while I'm at it, here's last week's weekly address that I failed to post do to very limited to no blogging time. I'll be back in full force by the end of this week.
Ending Subsidies for Big Oil Companies
POSTED BY JHW22
As we all know, the GOP has been blaming Obama for killing jobs and the high gas prices, in part by saying his decision (that they pressured him to make) to delay one leg of the Keystone Pipeline. The GOP forced him to delay it then then blamed that delay for the cost of gas. It was predictable.
What wasn't predictable was the conundrum the GOP now faces on the Oklahoma to Texas Gulf branch. In case you weren't aware, we've already had oil coming into America from Canada via the Keystone Pipeline for YEARS. The branch Obama delayed is a pipe that just sends more oil to Oklahoma -- where all the oil is bottle-necked. In fact, the oil has had to be re-routed because the facility couldn't contain it all. Why? Because the oil in Oklahoma can't get to refineries in Texas. Why? Because Texas land-owners in RED counties have blocked the pipeline. Why? Because they don't want the state to take their land so a foreign company can make profits while their land is at risk of pollution.
WAIT! WHAT?
You heard me right. Conservative Republican Libertarians in East Texas Red Counties don't want a corporation to make money off their sacrifice. They want Big Government to stop the very pipeline their own party has used to paint Obama as THE reason for high gas prices. The very people fighting the Texas branch of Keystone are the very people who support the GOP's attempt to force the Keystone Pipeline expansion.
So, if we make sure every American knows that East Texas doesn't want the pipeline and if we make sure every American knows that those landowners are Republican, then we box the GOP into a corner.
So, even though I don't like the pipeline, I sure like this corner and paint can the President presented us with today. Let's paint!
Click on portrait for a complete list of President Obama's Executive Orders, Presidential Memoranda and Proclamations
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