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Mr. Bernanke cited “the depth and sophistication of the country’s financial markets (which, among other things, have allowed households easy access to housing wealth).” Depth, yes. But sophistication? Well, you could say that American bankers, empowered by a quarter-century of deregulatory zeal, led the world in finding sophisticated ways to enrich themselves by hiding risk and fooling investors.
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Well, it's clear who wears the pants in that family. Steele now says that, while he said Rush Limbaugh was "an entertainer," "ugly," and "incendiary," those weren't the words he was thinking. Those words just magically ushered forth from the mouth of the Republican party chair - he was basically speaking to the media while speaking in tongues. Or perhaps he was drugged. Or simply stupid. Whatever the reason, it's a rather amazing admission for the head of the entire Republican party to say that he give interviews and says things that he has no idea how they come out of his mouth.
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Jesus, that is pathetic. A bigoted pill-popping knuckle dragging blow hard is running a major political party, and nobody over there has even half a ball to stand up to him.
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Until this kind of dangerously stupid nonsense stops, I think riding roughshod over Republicans sounds like a damn good idea.
Joe the Plumber on newfound influence, group linked to U.S. senator warns of “extraterrestrial activity,” white nationalists, and more video from the conservative conclave.
Inside the modern conservative movement, racial resentment pays, but intellectual honesty about it can ruin your career.
I met the world's first self-proclaimed "Republican rapper" on the second day of the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference. He is Hi-Caliber, a former construction worker from New Jersey who told me that after just 10 minutes of listening to right-wing radio shock jock Michael Savage ranting about "Islamofascism" and illegal immigration, his "whole views on the world changed." Now Hi-Caliber records inspired battle anthems against President Barack Obama, who he denounces as a "socialist in the White House;" he attacks Nancy Pelosi as "phony baloney;" assails the liberal media; calls for a border fence; and warns darkly of the Fairness Doctrine.
In this Daily Beast exclusive video, Hi-Caliber kicked some of the most novel rhymes I have ever heard. Hear him for yourself.
The Republican Party, America's second oldest political party and a force in American politics and government since the time of Abraham Lincoln, died on March 1. It was 155 years old.
Death apparently resulted from injuries suffered during a violent mugging by 67 millions voters last November, ...
However, police did not rule out the possibility of suicide. [...]
The time of death was uncertain, but Lanier said it probably occurred shortly after several witnesses heard the victim declare, "If Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Ron Paul represent my future, I'll kill myself."
A zombie is a reanimated human corpse. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word entered English circa 1871; it's derived from the Louisiana Creole or Haitian Creole zonbi, which in turn is of Bantu origin.[2] A zonbi is a person who is believed to have died and been brought back to life without speech or free will.
A philosophical zombie is a concept used in the philosophy of mind, a field of research which examines the association between conscious thought and the physical world. A philosophical zombie is a hypothetical person who lacks full consciousness but has the biology or behavior of a normal human being; [...]
Fed Downgrades Economic Forecast
From “weak” to “run for your lives!!”
Psychedelic Frogfish Found at Ocean's Bottom
Marine biologists haven't seen anything like it “since the sixties.”
Colleges Warn Students About Spring Break in Mexico
Urge common sense precautions during binge drinking, drug taking, orgies.
Study: Consumers of Pornography Tend to Be Conservative, Religious
And pillars of the community.
John Westbrook and Larry Gibson performing Sheb Wooley's song at the 2007 St. Anthony, Idaho Cowboy Poetry Gathering
The good news for Obama is that he needn’t worry about the Republicans. They’re committing suicide.
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However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.
"Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by," Edelman says.
It turns out that Utah is the nation's leading consumer of broadband pornography. Which is deliciously ironic news considering that Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, a godbotherer of the Mormon persuasion, just spent a few weeks stonewalling the Senate Judiciary Committee with his hissy kabuki over the nomination of David Ogden for Deputy Attorney General. Why? Because Ogden -- GASP! -- worked for pornographers! (That's what Orrin Hatch calls it when somebody does legal work on First Amendment issues and Playboy magazine is footing the bill.)
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"Politicians never hear the verse; they only hear the chorus."
Songwriter, Gretchen Peters, took solace in those words the night her song, "Independence Day," was used to introduce Gov. Sarah Palin to the RNC. She had just finished a performance in Ft. Worth, TX, and her song — about a woman in a desperate situation — had been used by a politician who didn't know what it was about.
Speaking at a press conference on Feb 25 with DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, and reiterating a position made by the White House following DEA raids in California on February 4, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told reporters that ending federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries "is now American policy." The Attorney General's comments are the latest sign of a sea change in federal policy that prohibits the use of medical cannabis in the thirteen states that have enacted such laws.
Easing suffering: What a socialist, pinko commie, hippie, America-hating thing to do.
One of the many pleasant aftereffects of ultraconservatism's crackup is the retirement of a civic need for appalled spectators to demonize its out-patient disciples -- or whacko-ize them, if you will -- because they're doing such a marvelous job of it all by themselves.
"Man, this CPAC thing is crazy," observed Mr. Samuel Wurzelbacher, a.k.a. Joe the Plumber, to fellow attendee Mike Huckabee -- and that's probably the sanest thing we'll ever hear Sam/Joe utter. With concise but tragically fleeting lucidity, he captured the moment, the spirit, the zeitgeisty degeneration of his semi-philosophical compadres.
Sam/Joe Wurzelbacher/Plumber was, as the Politico reported, "a headliner at a Thursday panel titled 'Conservatism 2.0.' " A headliner, mind you: an itinerant, breathtakingly clueless bullshitter was a CPAC-Chosen One to enlighten the multitudes on the fundamentals of conservatism. Breathtaking indeed.
If I were the chairman of the Republican National Committee, I would assume that I had an open invitation to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference, a meeting of the rightest of the right held in Washington every year about this time. I would express my deepest concern over what this conference is doing to my party, and express it in as blunt of terms as possible, all the better to make the attendees understand what I was about to say. It would go something like this:
Fellow conservatives, each year, you descend upon Washington, D.C., and each year you invite the most divisive, shrill, ridiculous, and downright dangerous people to speak. If I remember correctly, Ann Coulter was here last year, and you all gave her a standing ovation after she said, "(the usual Ann-speak that gets people riled up)" This year, you are giving an award to a man who has said he hopes President Obama fails before a live radio audience of millions.
So please, for the love of God, get the hell out of here and quit stinking up the place while there is still a Republican Party to defend. Just go. And don't let the door hit you on your asses on your way out. Thank you.
Of course, I am not the chairman of the RNC, and I doubt the actual chairman of the RNC would have the stones to deliver remarks like this to a bunch of right-wing crazies exactly one rung higher (? - G) on Darwin's Ladder than the Ku Klux Klan. So instead of expressing concern that will either fall upon deaf ears or provoke hostility, I'll rejoin you all in the cheap seats, order another beer and some nachos, and watch the implosion of the Republican Party in progress.