D.C. Snow Shutdown Hurts Local Businesses
Graft, bribery off 40%.
Report: Blackwater Billed Pentagon for Prostitute
Charge hidden under “Hammer: $500.”
New Theory: Universe a Giant Hologram
Cosmos nothing more than special effect at some humongous trade show.
POLL
71% Say Palin Unqualified to Be President
But qualified to be GOP nominee.
Would the American people really be willing to settle for the cardboard box instead of the pizza?
... The very same people who have been demanding for years that Muslims be imprisoned for life, tortured and killed with no trials or charges of any kind suddenly become extremely sensitive to the nuances of due process and humane detention conditions -- they start sounding like Amnesty International civil liberties extremists -- the minute it's a Christian, rather than a Muslim, who is subjected to such treatment ...
...
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Let me choose my words carefully here. Dick Cheney's a fine fellow. He's entitled to his own opinion. He's not entitled to rewrite history. He's not entitled to his own facts. The Christmas Day Bomber was treated the exact way that he suggested that the Shoe Bomber was treated. Absolutely the same way. Under the Bush Administration there were three trials in military courts. Two of those people are now walking the streets. They are free.
There were 300 trials of so-called terrorists and those who engage in terror against the United States of America who are in federal prison and have not seen the light of day. Prosecuted under the last Administration. Dick Cheney's a fine fellow, but he is not entitled to rewrite history without it being challenged. I don't know where he has been. Where was he the last four years of the last Administration?
...
PNAC got its new Pearl Harbor. What we need now is a new Boston Tea Party.
"Pamela Rose takes jazz to historic heights with her show Wild Women of Song. And I mean that literally. Like some sort of younger and way more glam Doris Kearns Goodwin, she introduces nearly every one of her chosen female-written tunes with fact-filled vignettes about the composers, bringing her heroines to poignant, funny life with her stories of travail and triumph. (We knew Ms. Rose could sing, but she also tells a mean tale.) Then the prefaced melody begins, the band starts to swing, and you feel the tides of time sweeping along. It goes beyond a jazz show. It's a swinging honors course in womankind." - BRUCE KELLEY, EDITOR, SAN FRANCISCO MAGAZINE
So there you have it. Cut your hair in Philadelphia and to the alert agents of the TSA and the equally alert Philadelphia Police you are a potentially radicalized terrorist. (Geez, and I already went through that garbage back in the '60s, when my long hair used to routinely get me harassed by police. So I guess it's "long hair and beard = Commie" and "short hair and beard = Jihadi"). Carry language flash cards, or perhaps a book with an incendiary title, and you're a potential terrorist. Get the wrong TSA agent, and you may even end up having some terribly incriminating substance planted in your bag. And try to prove misbehavior or worse by the TSA and they'll casually destroy the evidence.
Aspartame has been renamed and is now being marketed as a natural sweetener
In response to growing awareness about the dangers of artificial sweeteners, what does the manufacturer of one of the world's most notable artificial sweeteners do? Why, rename it and begin marketing it as natural, of course. This is precisely the strategy of Ajinomoto, maker of aspartame, which hopes to pull the wool over the eyes of the public with its rebranded version of aspartame, called "AminoSweet" (my em).
Blue Cross Arena Rochester N.Y. 12-20-2003
Broadcast on Friday, May 8, 1981 on ABC's comedy show Fridays, Jimmy Buffet and the Coral Reefer Band perform "Volcano" ... introduced by Nat E. Dred ... ya, ya ya!
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Republicans want Hawaiians to know that their 40 years of government-run health care will not work. (07:11)
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| The Apparent Trap | ||||
| ||||
...
Glenn Beck’s show in the United Kingdom has not run any commercials during the past three days (Tues-Thurs). Glenn Beck’s show in the UK used to run commercials. The shows that come on before and after Glenn Beck still run commercials. But, for the past three days, Mr. Beck hasn’t had any sponsors in the U.K. During the commercial break, instead of running ads, they cut away to Sky News updates or the weather. Perhaps they’re having trouble finding sponsors willing to subsidize Glenn Beck’s misinformation, vitriol, sexism and race-baiting?
...
Reporting from Jerusalem - The camera zooms in on the face of an actor portraying a captive Israeli soldier as he reads a prepared statement.
"My captors are treating me well," says the anxious young man, who is meant to remind viewers of Gilad Shalit, a soldier held by Islamist militants for more than three years. "They are letting me drink and giving me food." A rifle barrel slowly peeks into the picture frame, and he quickly adds, "Kosher food."
The camera pans back to reveal that the kidnappers are not Palestinian terrorists, but Orthodox Jewish settlers, who are holding the soldier until the government allows them to continue building homes in the West Bank.
Irreverent and fearless, "Eretz Nehederet," Hebrew for "It's a Wonderful Country," is a "Saturday Night Live"-style satire that takes on everything from politics to pop culture, forcing Israelis to look in the mirror and laugh, but also to think.
If the extremists of Israeli society are losing their cool over something, it's a sign we're doing our job well. It's not surprising that extreme right-wing circles are outraged by this freedom of expression. This is what makes them extremists. And we are supposed to do our part [to] preserve this freedom.
Missouri Lawmaker’s Argument Against Repealing DADT: It Would Be A ‘Cultural Affront’ To The Terrorists
At some point, Barack Obama has to, in a very public way, reassert his dominance in the political debate. He's got to do something that has an impact, something unilateral, something that doesn't involve talking about an issue or having a meeting that's open to the public or inviting anyone anywhere for a long walk. It's gotta be something that he can say to Congress, "See? Look at that. All that shit you wouldn't do? It's done. I did it by myself, assholes."
Right now, Republicans in the Senate (and Republicans in general) are relishing the role of agenda serial killer. It's like Obama's plans and policies are tied to a chair and Mitch McConnell's dancing around like Mr. Blonde with a razor. And when he slices an ear off or cuts a jugular, the rest of the GOP dance in the warm, sticky spray. Put the bodies in the garage freezer, motherfuckers, so we can cook 'em up later.
Fuck it. 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. Eisenhower did it with three Supreme Court Justices. Republicans aren't even really officially filibustering some nominees. They're using this bullshit "hold" that's a little like allowing each passenger on an airplane the power to determine when they land. At some point, the damn thing's gonna run out of gas.
So Obama should make a show of his strength, say, "Fuck you" to the Senate Republicans, and recess appoint every outstanding nominee awaiting confirmation. Not just a few. All of them. Dozens of people to fill positions that'll make the government work better. Take confirmation off the table as a negotiating tool. It's not like Richard Shelby's all of a sudden gonna start not filibustering legislation. And, by the way, the recess appointment is in the Constitution, Article II, Section 2. The hold is just a Senate practice to fuck with unanimous consent to proceed.
Obama has begged the GOP again and again to work with him. He started his term with a sign of good faith, by incorporating Republican ideas into the stimulus. That's the way it's supposed to work: the Democrats own game. If Republicans want to play, they have to play on the Democrats' board. But Republicans want to pull those razors again and force Democrats to hand over the game. Obama can use the recess appointment to show that the President has some power of his own to fuck with his opponents.
Calling the holds “unfair,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) took to the Senate floor last night to give a withering attack of Republican obstructionism and urge Obama to recess appoint “all” of his blocked nominees:
It seems there's a new third rail in American politics -- don't mess with the Tea Partiers -- and Marvel Comics has inadvertently grabbed it with both hands. And even though members of the Tea Party movement have extracted a half-hearted apology and a promised retraction from Marvel, their anger has barely abated.
In a recent issue of Captain America, the long-time superhero and his African-American partner The Falcon travel to Idaho to investigate a white supremacist militia group, the Watchdogs, who are long-time villains in the Marvel Universe. On the way, they pass an anti-tax rally where the protesters are holding up signs bearing familiar Tea Party slogans, such as "Stop the Socialists!" and "Tea Bag the Libs Before They Tea Bag You."
This implied mockery of the Tea Partiers quickly aroused a firestorm of indignation on conservative blogs and message boards, made even worse by the implied association between the protesters and the local racist militia.
One particularly angry blogger, Warner Todd Huston, wrote, "So, there you have it, America. Tea Party protesters just 'hate the government,' they are racists, they are all white folks, they are angry, and they associate with secretive white supremacist groups that want to over throw the U.S. government."
The real bone of contention in this controversy, however, may be not whether Marvel consciously intended to link the Tea Parties to extreme right-wing radicals but whether such an association has any validity. In the current issue of Newsweek, for example, conservative Jonathan Kay describes (Don't miss! - G) his attendance at the recent Tea Party Convention and concludes that "the tea-party movement is dominated by conspiracist kooks."
"Within a few hours in Nashville," Kay writes, "I could tell that what I was hearing wasn't just random rhetorical mortar fire being launched at Obama and his political allies: the salvos followed the established script of New World Order conspiracy theories, which have suffused the dubious right-wing fringes of American politics since the days of the John Birch Society."
Now we all agree with Hitlers' views,
Although he killed six million Jews.
It don't matter too much that he was a Fascist,
At least you can't say he was a Communist!
That's to say like if you got a cold you take a shot of malaria.
[...] An informed source said of the situation, “We were buried in an avalanche of shit.”
Now that Bloomberg, Kelly, and Schumer have withdrawn their support, the Justice Department is in retreat, and Holder is scrambling to find a venue for “the trial of the century.” Kate Martin, the Center for National Security Studies director, warns, “We can’t have a situation where political pressure forces the federal government to forgo criminal prosecution. That would mean the system is fundamentally broken.” Bill Martel, of Tufts, said, “When public fear coalesces, it generates forces that are almost uncontrollable by the political leadership."
[...] David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, said, “They can’t say military commissions are less legitimate, because they’re still using them. But if they tried K.S.M. in a military commission they’d lose any chance of having a conviction seen as legitimate by the rest of the world.”
...haven't these poor people yet realized they've named themselves after a nadsack on the chin?
Perspective is one of the items that is missing from the national conversation on race. It is the lack of interest in fully appreciating the African American point of view when it comes to racial issues that has so many Americans clamoring for a "post-racial America", where they can conveniently ignore or sidestep many of the truths that Americas history of discrimination contains.
Free indecent grope click here!
Every day, though, we're reminded that conservatives so idealize the past that they probably wish they could Superman the earth backwards and make the bathrooms re-segregated and the women re-tied to the domestic sphere. Of course, their taxes would be a hell of a lot higher, but, you know, that clouds the picture. Even the recent past is part of this strange, myopic vision of white utopia. For why else would Republicans right now be talking about privatizing Social Security? Or cutting taxes further? If the plunge in the stock market and the ratcheting up of the debt under George W. Bush didn't put those notions to sleep like the incontinent dogs they were, then nothing will. Christ, someone's even put up a billboard in Minnesota of the smiling bastard ex-president with the line "Miss Me Yet?" on it. That ain't nostalgia. It's psychosis.
Conservatives don't have much use for history because, time and again, it proves them wrong.
If you ever needed evidence that right-wingers have no boundaries -- in terms logic, ethics, or basic decency -- that they will not trample all over in the defense of conservative "values" and leaders, check out Pam "AtlasWanksShrugs" Geller earlier this week on the Joy Behar show (along with Stephanie Miller), trying to tell Ron Reagan Jr. that his father would have been a big fan of Sarah Palin:
...
... Most Americans understand what she says, but we are only voters. We don't have enough money to be noticed by our Senators.
...
Emanuel has presented himself as the all-powerful. He's led Obama's presidency into a tailspin (and Obama let him). While Emanuel hasn't worked in the Senate, his Deputy Chief of Staff, Jim Messina, is a long-time former Senate staffer. How Emanuel and his crew destroyed the Obama brand so quickly will be the subject of debate for years to come.
...
... You don't keep a nasty henchman who makes enemies of everyone and inspires loathing by his very presence if he can't even get the job done ...
... When you've finally got Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd throwing you under the bus, you've got problems with ever being taken seriously as a future presidential candidate ...
Mother Nature's wrath has forced the U.S. House to scrap its work week.
With Congress on a previously scheduled break next week for the Presidents' Day holiday, lawmakers won't be back in Washington until Feb. 22.
In a move that will further irritate his Democratic critics, Sen. Ben Nelson (D(INO- G)-Neb.) announced on Monday evening that he would not just oppose but also help filibuster President Barack Obama's nominee to a key labor relations agency.
It's a sad fact of America in the 21st-century that shallowness is a quality and depth makes you an out-of-touch elitist.
...
This bears out the pervasive "conservative" American ethos of "I've got mine, so screw you," so the problem is much bigger than health care reform. The idea that anyone could fall victim to negative circumstance or make a bad decision or just find themselves on the losing side of something is attributed to their own bad character --- or, perversely, to the government which has taken from you, the deserving citizen, and given it to someone else, thus unfairly placing you at a disadvantage. It's old style Calvinism mixed with adolescent Randism and it's a very serious problem for people who believe that social stability and economic justice are important.
President Obama isn't nearly as scared of the terrorists as Bush was — and that’s precisely why al Qaeda is falling apart.
Which brings us to Barack Obama’s “war on terror.” Conservatives keep saying that Obama doesn’t really believe we’re at war; that he sees terrorists as mere criminals, not the epic evil-doers that they really are. But here’s the irony: It’s precisely because he doesn’t see the terrorist threat as quite so epic that al Qaeda is falling apart.
To understand why, it helps to understand that al Qaeda is one of the weakest enemies America has ever faced. In their day, the Nazis and communists each ran a great power. (In the case of the communists, two). What’s more, during the Depression, vast numbers of people across the globe—including some of the most famous intellectuals in the United States and Europe—believed the fascists and communists could build societies that were more prosperous and dynamic than their democratic competitors. Barely anyone has ever believed that about al Qaeda. Not only have the jihadists never controlled a powerful country, but no one really believes that if they did it would be anything other than a basket case. To millions of people, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia once offered compelling visions of modernity; Taliban Afghanistan never did.
The dirty little secret of the “war on terror” is that America is winning. We began winning during George W. Bush’s second term, when al Qaeda’s violence began corroding its support among Muslims, and we’re doing even better under Barack Obama, because the U.S. now presents a less menacing face. The best chance al Qaeda has is another American overreaction of the kind the GOP demands: reckless military attacks by the United States or Israel, mass profiling of Muslims, a return to torture. Perhaps Obama’s Republican critics do take the terrorist threat more seriously than he does. I’d rather take it less seriously, and win.
I'm only guessing, but a major problem with being president has to be people around you being more likely to stick their face in a cast iron oscillating fan than tell you the truth. Let's say you slip and fall and rip a hole in your pants down to your ankle while spilling hot coffee on a little blind girl in a wheelchair in front of a nationally televised audience. The worst you could expect to hear from a staffer is "Well, that could have gone better."
First thing. Don't worry so much about the Republicans. They're going to do what they're going to do. You don't even enter into the equation. [...]
It's your so-called friends you need to watch out for. The ones who smile and nod and laugh at your jokes to cover the slip of a shiv between your third and fourth ribs on the left side. Trust me, with friends like these, you don't need Richard Shelby. Unfortunately, most of your buddies are Democrats. Which is a lot like saying most of a general's fighting force is terra cotta. The difference being terra cotta soldiers don't cut and run so fast they leave little puffs of cartoon smoke.
The second thing is, you need to develop an "or else." Work with you, or what? Or Joe Biden sits next to you in the Congressional dining room and cuts your meat every day for a week? Lyndon Johnson plucked at the horsehair holding up the sword of Damocles for his "or else." Walk the line or find yourself whisked back to your home district as a clerk in Park and Rec's lost and found. His idea of compromise was letting you use his pen to sign your vow of allegiance.
Finally, your people have lost all sense of urgency. You got to fire somebody. You know -- ax. Can. Dump. Sack. Pink slip. Terminate with extreme prejudice. Discharge. Unassign. 86. Downsize. Furlough. Ease out. Make redundant. Perform a bum's rush. Give the boot. Hand someone their marching orders. Assist in an accelerated career-development shift. Impose a synergy-related headcount restructuring. Heave a ho.
Super Bowl advertisements were a little bit bolder, a lot weirder and definitely featured more pantsless men than previous years. Pantsless men in the workplace. Pantsless men striding purposefully down fields of gold. Pantsless men facing sumo wrestlers.
[...] It's a sad fact of America in the 21st-century that shallowness is a quality and depth makes you an out-of-touch elitist.
The Rude Pundit watched Palin's speech Saturday night at the Tea Party Convention at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. He saw all of it, her hair fixed perfectly to look like she had just finished fucking Andrew Breitbart (who introduced her), her practiced folksy nasality that has become a parody of a parody, her ludicrous call to revolution, which apparently means slightly lower taxes on small businesses and war with Iran. Somewhere in heaven, James Madison said, "Tell you what, bitch, you risk getting executed by the British for a cut in the marginal tax rate on your fishing boats and we'll talk."
Her speech was nonsense, a bowl of bullshit and lies that she digested and vomited out into the hungry mouths of the hatchlings in attendance, who gobbled it down like they had never tasted something so sweet. [...]
She's fucking retarded. As in stupid. As in she shouldn't be trusted to hand out carts at a Wal-Mart. That's this elitist's opinion. What backs him up? Two quotes:
We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.
What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic.
What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland.
A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.
Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.
A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.
Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.
In the past, holds were used sparingly. That’s because, as a Congressional Research Service report on the practice says, the Senate used to be ruled by “traditions of comity, courtesy, reciprocity, and accommodation.” But that was then. Rules that used to be workable have become crippling now that one of the nation’s major political parties has descended into nihilism, seeing no harm — in fact, political dividends — in making the nation ungovernable.
How bad is it? It’s so bad that I miss Newt Gingrich.
And with the national G.O.P. having abdicated any responsibility for making things work, it’s only natural that individual senators should feel free to take the nation hostage until they get their pet projects funded.
After the dissolution of Poland, a Polish officer serving under Napoleon penned a song that eventually — after the country’s post-World War I resurrection — became the country’s national anthem. It begins, “Poland is not yet lost.”
Well, America is not yet lost. But the Senate is working on it.
Christians claim hate crimes law an effort to ‘eradicate’ their beliefs
Top Generals: Drop “Don't Ask, Don't Tell”
Replace it with: “You Are! Who Knew?”
Study: Drivers Who Text 6 Times More Likely to Crash
But friends can participate in final thoughts: “OMG, crsh!!!”
Poll: Fox Most Trusted Name in News
Glenn Beck most trusted man in America.
A funny thing happened after Adm. Mike Mullen called for gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military: A curious silence befell much of the right. If this were a Sherlock Holmes story, it would be the case of the attack dogs that did not bark.
[...] Recalcitrant Congressional Republicans will have to explain why their perennial knee-jerk deference to “whatever the commanders want” extends to Gen. David Petraeus and Gen. Stanley McChrystal on troop surges but not to Mullen, who outranks them, on civil rights.
The more bigotry pushed out of the closet for all voters to see, the more likely it is that Americans will be moved to grant overdue full citizenship to gay Americans. It won’t happen overnight, any more than full civil rights for African-Americans immediately followed Truman’s desegregation of the armed forces. But there can be no doubt that Mike Mullen’s powerful act of conscience last week, just as we marked the 50th anniversary of the Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter sit-in, pushed history forward. The revealing silence that followed from so many of the usual suspects was pretty golden too.
Elefantentreffen Arcitc-Nudes (0°C), Mud-Hillclimb & Boxer-Pirouette
Fortsetzung folgt!!!
I think Obama's main obstacle in affecting real change is the culture of DC. To them, erosion is a radical concept.
Sen. Al Franken ripped into White House senior adviser David Axelrod this week during a tense, closed-door session with Senate Democrats.
...
The sources said Franken was the most outspoken senator in the meeting, which followed President Barack Obama’s question-and-answer session with Senate Democrats at the Newseum on Wednesday. But they also said the Minnesotan wasn’t the only angry Democrat in the room.
...
The New York attorney general yesterday accused Bank of America Corp. and its former chief executive, Kenneth Lewis, of deceiving shareholders and manipulating US officials during the company’s $50 billion purchase of Merrill Lynch.
...
The civil fraud charges against Lewis, Price, and the company itself concern a series of rapidly unfolding events from September 2008, when the financial industry pitched into crisis, to January 2009, when Bank of America ultimately received $20 billion in government money to cover Merrill’s losses. Bank of America had previously received $25 billion from the government.
...
Giant Humboldt squid taking Southland anglers by storm
Anglers from all over Southern California are crowding area landings for a chance to fish for the giant squid, which are reportedly a lot of fun to catch and put up quite a fight when boated, usually dousing those nearby with gallons of cold seawater and/or ink.
"The fishing was squidtastic!" said Michael Gannon, of San Clemente, who was aboard the Clemente out of Dana Wharf on Sunday. "My arms are about to fall off because the squid are so huge and put up such a fight."
Also called jumbo squid, they were once found primarily off South America and have slowly expanded their territory.
TOKYO (The Borowitz Report) – Embattled automaker Toyota today said that despite problems with accelerators and brakes, the cup holders on its most popular car models were "perfectly safe to use."
But Mr. Kyosuke's upbeat comments about Toyota's cup holders were undercut somewhat later in the day by congressional testimony from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
"You should only feel safe to use your cup holder if your Toyota is parked in your driveway," Mr. LaHood said. "At 80 miles per hour, the cup holder becomes a rocket launcher."
His right-wing admirers don't seem to mind that O’Keefe's short but storied career has been defined by a series of political stunts shot through with racial resentment. [...]
According to One People's Project founder Daryle Jenkins, O'Keefe was manning the literature table at the gathering that brought together anti-Semites, professional racists and proponents of Aryanism. OPP covered the event at the time, sending a freelance photographer to document the gathering. Jenkins told me the table was filled with tracts from the white supremacist right, including two pseudo-academic publications that have called blacks and Latinos genetically inferior to whites: American Renaissance and the Occidental Quarterly. The leading speaker was Jared Taylor, founder of the white nationalist group American Renaissance. "We can say for certain that James O'Keefe was at the 2006 meeting with Jared Taylor. He has absolutely no way of denying that," Jenkins said. [...]
By O’Keefe’s own account, his racial troubles became acute when he entered the multicultural atmosphere of Rutgers University’s dormitory system. In an online diary that has since been scrubbed from the Web (but not before being captured on Daily Kos), he wrote that he was forced to live on an all-black dormitory floor after refusing to live with the gay roommate he was initially assigned. O’Keefe claimed his next roommate was “an Indian midget ... who smelled like shit.” The roommate left, however, and was replaced by “a greek kid.” The new roommate complained to a residential administrator that O’Keefe had called his neighbors “niggers,” prompting the school to expel him from the dorm. [...]
Meanwhile, O’Keefe lost his job at the Leadership Institute in 2008 for a prank call he made to an Ohio-based Planned Parenthood clinic. During the call, O’Keefe offered a donation to the clinic on the condition that it would be earmarked to pay for aborting African-American fetuses. “Because there's definitely way too many black people in Ohio,” O’Keefe remarked to the receptionist. “So, I'm just trying to do my part.”
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Le mot du jour seems to be making the rounds in the "more politically correct than thou" circles.
Did she really just call for Rahm Emanuel to be fired because he allegedly used the term "fucking retarded" to refer to fellow Democrats in a private meeting? Last summer? Did she really?
I don't like the term myself. I think it is offensive. I think Rahm Emanuel is offensive. But at least he's real. And he has now apologized. And at least he used the term metaphorically.
The medical term for Down Syndrome is Trisomy-21 or Trisomy-g. It is often shortened in medical slang to Tri-g.
...this whole pseudo-controversy is retarded.
Saying the GOP is the party of no is one thing – and technically correct – but more so it’s the party of antediluvian cluelessness
[...] Claiming Emanuel’s regrettable remarks gave him permission, hate radio talker Rush Limbaugh endorsed the language and said the liberal activists truly are “retards”:
Palin has called into Limbaugh’s show at least twice. Will she now call on him to apologize for his slur?
... And there is only one way to stop it. When the guy at the top takes the fall for it along with those approving the deals, then you would see due diligence. But I am just dreaming again.
...
Since the galling announcement a year would be lost withdrawing totally—more or less—according to plan the American corporate propaganda has studiously ignored Iraq, that’s very much part of the denial plan, ignoring Iraq won’t make it go away but at least keeps those awful conversations of imprisoning Bush and Cheney out of the news. Right? Anyway, it’s been relative easy because Iraq has been so blessedly quiet, things have gone fairly well to the glacial withdrawal plan, praise baby Jesus.
...
Underneath the glowing sheen of rationality given to the most despicable of beliefs, there is always irrational fear. Implicit in the language of the men who want to leave in place the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy regarding gays and lesbians in the military is this fear: "Gay guys might rape my ass." The proper response to that is, "Oh, get over yourself, Mary."
It's as if there's a group of predatory queers out there jonesing for some Marine ass and are willing to sign away a few years of their life to get it. It's as if the notion of openly gay service members (yeah, yeah, ha, ha, "members") will stop all the straight dudes from hanging out nude with other straight dudes, an image that, in any context, is totally gay (as in "homosexual"). Seriously, if you wanna walk around, dangling your junk in front of other guys, there's probably something you need to ask and tell yourself.
Junk-dangling soldiers aside, it's not really as if the straight guys are the models of sexual decorum here. "According to several studies of the US military funded by the Department of Veteran Affairs, 30% of military women are raped while serving, 71% are sexually assaulted, and 90% are sexually harassed," says a BBC report from last year, with an estimate that "some 90% of military sexual assaults are never reported." It's pretty damn likely that the vast majority of those assaults were not committed by lesbians.
Tony Perkins, whose Family Research Council (motto: "Why doesn't Jesus stop us from going bankrupt?") has a petition against the repeal of DADT, says, "Forcing soldiers to cohabit with people who view them as sexual objects would inevitably lead to increased sexual tension, sexual harassment, and even sexual assault." Or, in other words, the straight dudes might be treated like they treat women. Or, in other words, please don't rape our asses, Mr. Gay Guy.
Indeed, by the right's own logic, the military should ban heterosexual men.
All things considered, one senator suggested today, the accused terrorists housed at the military-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are better off than they might be at a state prison in Illinois that the Obama administration wants to buy for them.
If the terrorists view Guantanamo as a rallying cry for recruitment of new terrorists, he suggested, wait until they see Thomson.
"It's pretty nice compared to Illinois -- the place in Illinois where they want to put them," Hatch said in the committee hearing. "It'd be nice and cold in the winter time and... all I can say is that I imagine there'll be a hue and a cry that we're not fair by bringing them here."
FEMA has put the notorious Katrina Trailers, some 100,000 of them, up for auction; and the bidding has apparently driven down prices for the new models. Hence, lobbyists for the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association have suggested sending empty Katrina trailers to Haiti as a 'humanitarian gesture.' [...]
Even the official reasons given by the police for the stops are laughably bogus. People are stopped for allegedly making “furtive movements,” for wearing clothes “commonly used in a crime,” and, of course, for the “suspicious bulge.” My wallet, my notebook and my cellphone would all apply.
But as the company moved, shepherds whistled in the darkness, passing warning of the Americans’ approach. Dogs barked themselves hoarse. The din rose in every direction, enveloping the column in noise. And then, as the Marines became visible in the bluish twilight, a minivan rumbled out of one compound. Its driver steered ahead of the company, honking the van’s horn, spreading the alarm. Spotters appeared on roofs.
On the morning of the sweep, made by Weapons Company, Third Battalion, First Marines, a large communications antenna that rose from one compound vanished before the Marines could reach it. The man inside insisted that he had seen nothing. And when the Marines moved within the compounds’ walls, people in nearby houses released white pigeons, revealing the Americans’ locations to anyone watching from afar.
The Taliban and their supporters use other signals besides car horns and pigeons, including kites flown near American movements and dense puffs of smoke released from chimneys near where a unit patrols.
Behold, our beloved mechanisms of fear and desire, doom and delight! How they dance and sing in ways that make us giggle like obese children at the county fair, like drunken bears let loose at the campground. How they make us so very happy, horny, powerful like gods, and then turn right around and kill us dead. Ain't it a bitch?
Throughout history, the same. Not 48 hours after Alex Bell invented the very first telephone, his mistress rang him up for a fine Victorian booty call at 2 a.m., and his wife answered and she freaked the hell out and killed the cheating bastard in his sleep. True story! You can Google it!
Witness, won't you, the great and bizarre era of the great and bizarre Facebook. It has become terribly real. It has moved from silly novel dorky sorority-girl hookup bubblegum pop, into something darker, harder edged, lethal.
Like the iPod, like basketball shoes, like God, Facebook has changed cultural position, not because 15 million people use it to post bad poetry or talk about their love of "Mad Men" and Lady Gaga, but because Facebook -- and its brethren MySpace and Twitter (and email and SMS and etc) have become one of those mechanisms, a means and mode of true love, deep pain, and yes, very real death.
I thought only torture, and sacrificing all of our beliefs, got these guys to talk:... The information Abdulmuttalab is sharing has been described by other officials as fresh and actionable.
...
Porcine scumbag’s flailathon at Miss America pageant Saturday may have been responsible for earthquakes that shook globe this weekend:
...
...
For the right, it is no longer 2004 and anyone who doesn’t march in lockstep with U.S. military is no longer a fifth columnist.
...
More importantly than that, the tax increases on the $250,00+ set are marginal tax increases which only apply to...money in excess of $250,000. People making, say, $300,000 aren't going to see their tax bill increase by very much.
...
It would seem that O'Hanlon's [of course - F] dreamy "18-year-old, old-fashioned, testosterone-laden men in the military who are tough guys" are actually very unlikely to hate gays. He's just going to have to figure out how to think about those young warriors in a way which doesn't require them to be straight and homophobic.
...
Over the weekend, Sen. Susan Collins released a five-minute video in which she sounded as though she were possessed by the angriest, most unhinged version of Dick Cheney. Collins recklessly accused the Obama administration of putting us all in serious danger by failing to wage War against the Terrorists. Most of what she said was just standard right-wing boilerplate, but there was one claim in particular that deserves serious attention, as it has become one of the most pervasive myths in our political discourse: namely, that the U.S. Constitution protects only American citizens, and not any dreaded foreigners. Focusing on the DOJ's decision to charge the alleged attempted Christmas Day bomber with crimes, Mirandize him and provide him with counsel, Collins railed: "Once afforded the protection our Constitution guarantees American citizens, this foreign terrorist 'lawyered up' and stopped talking" (h/t). This notion that the protections of the Bill of Rights specifically and the Constitution generally apply only to the Government's treatment of American citizens is blatantly, undeniably false -- for multiple reasons -- yet this myth is growing, as a result of being centrally featured in "War on Terror" propaganda.
But this right-wing demagoguery (coming from both Republicans and some Democrats) has nothing to do with those debates. For one thing, the accused Christmas Day bomber was captured and is being held inside the U.S. (right-wing fear-mongerers have long argued that we should not bring GITMO detainees to the U.S. because, once inside the U.S., they would then enjoy full Constitutional protections). But more important, the standard rhetorical formulation being used -- "extending rights to foreign Terrorists which the Constitution reserves for U.S. citizens" -- suggests that Constitutional rights are for American citizens only. That is blatantly false, and anyone making that claim -- as Susan Collins and so many others have -- is either extremely ignorant or extremely dishonest.
Then we fell over the cliff.
A bullet through the skull replaced Kennedy with Nixon. We shall overcome was replaced with the vicious "Southern Strategy;" the Cold War exploded in hot jungles; then came the idiot wasteland of the regimes of Ford and Carter and Reagan and Clinton and Bushes, a degenerative march as the machine of America rusted and died.
And here we are today, begging for spare parts from China and my daughter glued to YouTube videos of Lady Ga-Ga's crotch, and my son slicing off a cop's head in Grand Theft Auto and a President, telegenic and painfully hollow, playing the lost and ineffectual shepherd over an electorate divided between the terrified and the greedy. In place of prophets, we are offered a caravan of kvetching clowns piling out of the Volkswagen on MSNBC.
There's no way to wipe the fuck off this smeared planet. I'm supposed to try. I'm an investigative reporter, meaning I have a professional commitment to the childish belief that if I shout loud enough, I can warn people away from the cliff's edge.
You stand on the cliff edge and there's no one left to catch.
...
So the next President (well, Republican President) who wants to have somebody murdered -- preferably a foreigner -- and gets some Justice Department hack to say he can do it -- by the logic of this precedent, it's just "poor judgment" but nothing too untoward.
...
Here's a tip: When your party's too crazy for MICHELLE BACHMANN, it's time to take the lampshade off your head.
...
Internal documents and e-mails show that Navy officials unfavorably doctored a psychiatrist’s performance record after he blew the whistle on what he said was dangerously inept management of care for Marines suffering combat stress at Camp Lejeune, N.C. The internal correspondence, obtained by Salon, also includes an order to delete earlier records praising the work of the psychiatrist, Dr. Kernan Manion, who was fired last September after lodging his complaints.
...
[...] So while the Rude Pundit's weary of trying to figure out what the fuck Obama is up to (getting rid of NASA programs? Really?) he wants to make one observation that may not have been explored in the mass orgasm on the left over Obama handing Republicans their asses and telling them to smell their own farts.
What Obama did was to show the GOP House members a respect that they have failed to show him. He treated them like grown-ups, not the worthless obstructionist bags of shit they are. In essence, he gave them a shot, on their terms, at trying to take him down. And they couldn't do it. In simple terms, he was rubber, and they were glue, motherfuckers.
By the time Obama got to talking about spending on infrastructure and how dozens of the gathered Republicans had "gone to appear at ribbon-cuttings for the same projects that you voted against," it was over. In war terms, all that was left was for Obama to walk among the bodies and see who still was moaning or moving before shooting them between the eyes. He worked with Republicans, again and again, gave them things they wanted, and they still chose to vote against the Recovery Act because it was something Obama wanted.
Really, he could have spent the rest of the time answering every question with, "That would be a valid complaint if you guys weren't such enormous douchebags." And when he started mocking the rhetoric Republicans use against him, John Boehner actually lost color in his face and Eric Cantor had shit himself, as if thinking, "We've made a terrible mistake."
If one could actually read tea leaves with this president, it would seem like he is laying the groundwork for abandoning working with Republicans. There's only so many times a dog can bite your hand before you muzzle that fucker. And what did he get for his trouble? By Sunday, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner had already stated that Obama can shove his bipartisanship up his ass.
Oregon: Voters Approve Measure to Tax Rich
Narrowly reject measure to eat them.
Schwarzenegger Discovers Something He Can Export to Mexico
Prison inmates.
Zsa Zsa Gabor's Husband Running for Governor of California
Prince Frederic von Anhalt, who claimed he fathered Anna Nicole Smith's daughter and was once found naked and handcuffed to the steering wheel of a 2006 Rolls Royce, leads in the polls.
??? ~ News Quiz ~ ???
Which of the following questions, mailed by the GOP in an official looking envelope with the warning, “Official Document, Do Not Destroy,” and labeled “2010 Congressional District Census” does not appear in the enclosed document?
A ) Do you think the record trillion dollar federal deficit the Democrats are creating with their out-of-control spending is going to have disastrous consequences for our nation?
B ) Do you worry that the Obama administration is committed to greatly expanding the government's role in your life?
C ) Is there nothing the GOP will not do to mislead voters?
Hint: You have to ask?
The Department of Justice has whitewashed a report on war criminals John Yoo and Jay Bybee, downgrading the admonition from "violated professional responsibilities" to "exercised poor judgment." The difference is start, in that the former finding could get them disbarred and that latter is a literal slap on the wrist with a wet noodle.
...
A Baptist church in Idaho said on Sunday that its members, who were among 10 people detained for trying to take 33 children out of Haiti, were “falsely arrested” and that the church was trying “to clear up the misunderstanding.”
Haitian officials detained the church members out of concern the children might be susceptible to trafficking and said some of the children might have parents. The officials also said the team lacked proper documents to take the children, who range in age from 2 months to 12 years.
...
