"I have seldom felt helpless in my life. I hold to the hillbilly standard that there is no situation so hopeless that, through perseverance, I cannot make worse."
"No We Can't Not a new observation, but I do continue to be amazed that in the greatest fucking country in the history of the universe our elite classes have basically decided that things suck and there's nothing to be done.
"Elite Fail Unemployment is at 9.1% and everybody in Washington is desperately trying to figure out how to increase taxes and cut spending. Maybe it's opposite year and somebody forgot to tell me.
And, yes, in normal times there are tax increases I'd get behind and I'm sure reasonable spending cuts exist (though whether they're being considered is another question), but the point is that the fact that we're having this conversation at all is insane. Jobs bill jobs bill jobs bill jobs bill jobs bill...."
_______
This is what we dirty fucking hippies have been pointing out for 30 years...
"The neo-conservative is willing to leave those problems to be coped with by liberal interregnums. He wants to shape the future, and will leave it up to his opponents to tidy up afterwards. (emphasis added)
And the GOP has been pulling this scam ever since. As Bloomberg News reported even before Obama had won the election, the bond markets were poised to start insisting on cuts to social spending in order to protect the bond traders themselves. This, of course, was just a repeat of the scam that was pulled on Bill Clinton when he took office:"
_______
This is what we dirty fucking hippies have been pointing...
"The president’s failure to demand a reckoning from the moneyed interests who brought the economy down has cursed his first term, and could prevent a second."
________
It isn't pragmatic to parrot and propagate the Republican bullshit puke machine. Obama is pushing every Republican policy and talking point out there.
Think about it. We'll go an entire term without a single Democratic/Liberal/Progressive piece of legislation being passed.
"Yep, the false government-family equivalence, the myth of expansionary austerity, and the confidence fairy, all in just two sentences.
Read this and this to see why he’s wrong. This is truly a tragedy: the great progressive hope (well, I did warn people) is falling all over himself to endorse right-wing economic fallacies."
"'We have to tell them to come back the next day and most of the time they never come back,' Jacoby said. 'Most of the time it happens around holidays — St. Patrick's Day or Gay Pride.'"
"Bachus, however, apparently neglected to mention that he and other Republicans in Alabama's Congressional delegation voted against funding for satellites that are critical for accurate storm forecasting. The Web site climateprogress.org reports that Bachus and his fellow Alabama Republicans--Martha Roby, Mo Brooks, Robert Aderholt, Mike Rogers, and Jo Bonner--voted against a bill that would replace aging satellites that are the heart of America's weather-forecasting system."
Therefore, who's really at fault? The asshole politicians or the dumb-asses who elect them. This we know for sure: An ass is involved in the process at all points.
_______
Oh, Matt Taibbi. How many nails must you crush on the head...
"'According to bin Laden, the goal of Al Qaeda was to bleed America to the point of bankruptcy. That was his grand strategy' (6:35 in the clip).
She titles her report 'On Our Terms, Not His'. On his terms, we lost, right? After all, isn't that what the Reagan of our myths did to the old Soviet Union — get them to spend themselves into bankruptcy?
Food for thought, though I don't hold out hope for our digesting it. The real predators feeding on our decline — the military-security industry — are feasting. They're unlikely to allow the process of decay to stop until the last drinkable drop has passed their lips. And we're unlikely to stop them."
Once upon a time my granddad was friends with Chi Chi. Played golf with him in PR. Use to get xmas cards from him and his wife. Hope both are doing well after this nasty scare.
"A student in the class described the lesson: 'He was talking about angles and said, 'If you're in this building, you would need to take this angle to shoot the president.''
The district superintendent told the News that the unnamed teacher will not be disciplined."
"An Alabama teacher who used the assassination of President Obama as an example in a high-school geometry class has been placed on administrative leave.
Gregory Harrison is on paid leave and faces possible termination, Jefferson County School Superintendent Phil Hammonds said. Hammonds originally said Harrison would not be fired and would face no disciplinary action other than a 'long conversation.'
Hammonds apparently changed his mind after phone calls flooded his office yesterday, coming from as far away as New York, California, and Wisconsin."
"All the evidence pointing to monster Republican House gains this fall—the Scott Brown upset win in Massachusetts, the scary polling numbers in once-safely Democratic districts, the ever-rising number of Democratic seats thought to be in jeopardy—was contradicted Tuesday.
In the only House race that really mattered to both parties—the special election to replace the late Democratic Rep. John Murtha in Pennsylvania’s 12th District—Republicans failed spectacularly, losing on a level playing field where, in this favorable environment, they should have run roughshod over the opposition."
"But I think folks are missing the real news in what Steele said. The RNC chairman also appeared to acknowledge that the GOP has had a race-based “southern strategy” for four decades, which is decidedly not a historical interpretation many Republicans agree with."
“They told my husband, ‘You’ve got a job to do and you’re gonna do it,’” said the wife of one Massey miner, referring to the funerals he’s missed this month for friends who died in the blast. “What else are we gonna do?”"
Where's the competition. How can a worker tell Massey to go frack himself and then take his/her talents to the competition?
Virginia, where coal is the only real industry, and Massey is king of the hill. Indeed, in certain areas there’s simply no queen.
“The bad thing here is that Massey owns [the Upper Big Branch] mine, and they’ve got a lot of subsidiaries — little tiny outfits just all down the river,” said Denny Tyler, an electrician who has contracted with Massey and now runs a website advocating for the end to mountaintop removal. “If you get fired from one, you’re not working anywhere on Coal River. … Its a fear thing
There were 15,000 people at a cannabis and hemp expo in SF last week, but Hannity didn't host that one though it was 3 times as large as any bagger cross burning.
Hell, a dog poop protest in SF draws more participants.
"'We had two recent Tea Party demonstrations in Washington. One a week before the health care vote, drew about 1,000 people. The tax day rally by the organizers' own estimate was 1,500 people,' explained the governor.
'If I organized a rally for stronger laws to protect puppies, I would get 100,000 people to Washington. So, I think the media has blown the Tea Party themselves out of proportion,' said Rendell."
"The Food and Drug Administration is planning an unprecedented effort to gradually reduce the salt consumed each day by Americans, saying that less sodium in everything from soup to nuts would prevent thousands of deaths from hypertension and heart disease. The initiative, to be launched this year, would eventually lead to the first legal limits on the amount of salt allowed in food products."
"WASHINGTON (AFP) – Osama bin Laden was 'within the grasp' of US forces in late 2001 but escaped because then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejected calls for reinforcements, a hard-hitting US Senate report says
And, further, in news of 'No-Shit, we've stated that this was the reason from the get-go'....
But, dirty fucking hippies can only be right after the fact... when it is too damn late to do anything about it.
"'Look what happened with regard to our invasion into Afghanistan, how we apparently intentionally let bin Laden get away. How we intentionally did not follow the Taliban and al-Qaeda as they were escaping,' Hinchey said. 'That was done by the previous administration because they knew very well that if they would capture al-Qaeda, there would be no justification for an invasion in Iraq.'"
"According to a recent Fox news poll, her backing for the GOP nomination has swelled to 70 percent among party voters, anchor Byron Harlan said.
According to the poll, the other top candidates for a 2012 bid on the Republican ticket are Mike Huckabee, with 63 percent and Mitt Romney with 60 percent."
"Sarah Palin's 'Going Rogue' bus has logged thousands of miles as it crosses the country, promoting her memoir. But Palin herself has been traveling by private jet, using the bus only for brief stops and media appearances."
"A top adviser on Hispanic issues to John McCain’s presidential campaign said Sunday that a joint interview with McCain and Sarah Palin planned for Univision last fall had to be canceled because Palin was unprepared to discuss Latin America policy.
“She did not feel comfortable speaking about issues regarding Hispanics and Latin America,” GOP consultant Ana Navarro told Univision anchor Jorge Ramos in an interview. “Those are not topics that come up frequently in Alaska. So she asked to cancel the interview and, unfortunately, you were already there.”"
"Is the media out to get Sarah Palin? It seems like most of the letters I get are insisting that I admit it. “Surely you can’t deny,” writes one woman from Florida, “that no political figure in American history has had to put up with what Sarah Palin has had to put up with from the mainstream media.”
Now, this is the part of this red-blue schtick where I’m supposed to strike back without thinking and re-hash the history of, say, the Monica Lewinsky scandal in rebuttal and then, as the argument progresses, do the whole “I know you are but what am I?” thing until the end of time. I’ve decided from now on that I’m just not going to go there with any of this culture-war bullshit. It’s exhausting. I mean, hell, if you want to argue over who’s more justified in wallowing in media victimhood, that’s not a fight I mind losing. Mazel tov!
I would, however, like to point out a few things, none of which really involve taking sides in this particular cat-fight. In no particular order:"
_______
It really sucks that Alabama sucks so freakin' hard.
"Can't remember where you put your keys? Here's a tip for you: record the sound of your jingling keys and put it into your iPod. Then get someone to play it to you at night, while you are deep asleep. Chances are it'll help you remember."
"WASHINGTON — Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were intended to silence their criticism and buy their support after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according to former company officials."
_______
We have a problem. We really, really do.
Wonder if any tall, skinny, white military types have been chased and smashed with a tire iron b/c they were mistaken for Timothy McVeigh.
"Alabama Republicans, predictably, have tried to discredit GOP gubernatorial candidate Bill Johnson after his statements late last week that current governor Bob Riley received millions of dollars in campaign funds from Mississippi gambling interests in 2002.
A Riley spokesman said Johnson, a former member of Riley's cabinet, never was involved in campaign fund-raising and therefore could not know about such matters. The chairman of the Alabama Republican Party called Johnson's claims 'a joke.'
But the Riley defenders forget one inconvenient truth: This story hardly originated with Bill Johnson."
_______
I read all of these tweets at least once a week. Never gets old. Let's see how badly CBS eff's it up, though.
Here is my high school history teacher, Mr. Wallace lecturing about the Forks of Cypress is Buttholeville. Mr. Wallace remains one of the best teachers I've ever had. He turned a lot of folks into lifetime history buffs.
One thing not mentioned in the video is that a horse track was once on the land surronding the house. Some of the first Kentucky Derby winners came from the Forks.
Bill Clinton takes a trip to Korea and returns with two AZN chicks?!?
Hillary is going to be pissed.
But, seriously, folks. This cost the U.S., what, 50,000 grand total? And we didn't have to blow any shit up... specially our men and women in uniform?!?
"North Korea announced Tuesday that it had pardoned two detained American journalists, hours after former president Bill Clinton met in Pyongyang with reclusive dictator Kim Jong Il as part of an unannounced and highly unusual diplomatic mission to win their freedom."
_______
Shit the pool. That's all Republicans know how to do.
"This mob, sent by the local Republican and Libertarian parties, did not come just to be heard, but to deny others the right to be heard. And this appears to be part of a coordinated, nationwide effort. What could be more appropriate for the “party of no” than having its stalwarts drowning out the voices of their neighbors by screaming “just say no!” Their fanatical insistence on repealing Social Security and Medicare is not just about halting health care reform but rolling back 75 years of progress. I am more committed than ever to win approval of legislation to offer more individual choice to access affordable health care. An effective public plan is essential to achieve that goal."
_______
Amazing that the traditional media is picking up on this thuggery.
Maddow does a great job reporting on the ThuGOP Life.
"Corporate lobbyist are organizing far-right hooligan tactics to disrupt civic meetings about health care reform"
_______
And damn glad Dems are pushing back hard. Check out some of the push back in this DK diary:
"This is the kind of pushback we need to hear from all Democrats.
And kudos to the reporters who have recognized what has been happening and are asking questions about it. But of course the question is, will they aggressively report on it or will they follow the lead of the New York Times and CNN's Candy Crowley and either ignore or dismiss it?"
_______
Interesting. In America politicians trust prostitutes more than their wives... and constituents for that matter.
"WASHINGTON — The Associated Press has learned that President Barack Obama has chosen a well-known Alabama family physician, Dr. Regina Benjamin, to be the next surgeon general.
An administration official said Obama will announce the nomination later Monday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity so as not to upstage the official announcement.
Benjamin was the first black woman to head a state medical society, received the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights and just last fall received a MacArthur Foundation 'genius grant.' But she made headlines in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, with her determination to rebuild her rural health clinic Bayou La Batre, Ala., which serves 4,400 patients who would be hard-pressed to find care elsewhere."
_______
The Alabama 'Bad' and 'Ugly'.
Like Jefferson has any clue what 'mainstream' is.
Priceless watching this bigoted fuck wring his hands over our Wise Latina.
"'I think philosophically her statements indicate an approach to judging that is outside the mainstream,' Sen. Jeff Sessions, senior Judiciary Committee Republican, said in a nationally broadcast interview."
"The story of how a child of the post-war era came to doubt, and then reject, conventional wisdom about the horrors of the 'devil weed' parallels the story about how the rest of America has gradually rethought its views of marijuana. The transformation has been intertwined with the rise of the Baby Boom generation and its successors, the societal upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, and a generational shift that chipped away at long-held assumptions about trust and authority.
Today the potent smell of marijuana legalization is in the air. States including California and New Mexico -- and, as of mid-June, Rhode Island -- already permit marijuana's use for medicinal purposes. The success of those initiatives, coupled with an economic downturn, a president who did inhale and governors who are willing to discuss complete legalization, make it seem possible that legal bans on recreational use of marijuana will, in the not-so-distant future, go up in smoke."
"BOSTON — Families crowded around black-and-white television sets in 1969 to watch Neil Armstrong take man's first steps on the moon.
Now, they'll be able to watch the Apollo 11 mission recreated in real time on the Web, follow Twitter feeds of transmissions between Mission Control and the spacecraft, and even get an e-mail alert when the lunar module touches down. Those features are part of a new Web site from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum commemorating the moon mission and Kennedy's push to land Americans there first."
_______
Shouldn't say 'fuck' no you shouldn't say 'fuck', fuck no!
"Peggy Loper doesn’t know why, but she’s sure that the rapid hissed repetition of her favorite expletive somehow dulls the pain when she’s hammered her thumb rather than the nail she’d aimed for.
“Generally I start swearing even before the pain actually registers,” says the 48-year-old student from Salem, N.J. “And usually, the ouch-ouch dance, where I’m hopping from foot to foot, goes along with it. People have told me that I should try deep breathing, but I personally prefer to swear.” The F-bomb is her curse word of choice; that hard consonant at the end is particularly satisfying, she explains."
"For most people, the sight of a 12-year-old boy in tears at the prospect of his mother being deported halfway around the world would invoke some sympathy. Unmoved, however, was Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, ranking minority member of the Committee and the only Republican to bother to attend the hearing. At the sight of the weeping boy, according to a Senate staffer who was at the hearing, Sessions leaned towards one of his aides and sighed, 'Enough with the histrionics.' Sessions's press secretary did not return a call seeking comment."
_______
Let's see how Alabama's most populous county reacts to all of these 'socialist' programs disappearing.
Not gonna be funny when maw-maw can't get fed or driven to the hospital.
"June 5 (Bloomberg) -- Alabama’s most populous county is preparing to stop road maintenance, close courthouses and shutter services for the elderly after a court struck down taxes that pay for about 35 percent of its budget."
"Corporate interests posing as a grassroots conservative group are behind attacks on President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee pick, a RAW STORY investigation has found.
The Committee for Justice (CFJ), an astroturf group established by big business in July 2002 to create an appearance of popular support for President Bush’s judicial nominees, is now leading the effort to oppose the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the US Supreme Court."
"The University of Florida is the number two selling brand of university athletic apparel in the country, behind only the University of Texas, and its value keeps increasing. In the last four years the Gators won two national championships in basketball and two national championships in football. Going into the 2009-2010 season the Gator football team is the consensus pre-season #1 and is led by the Heisman favorite, Tim Tebow. Gators also have the top-ranked outdoor mens track team, are still in the running for the men's College World Series, and just lost in the championship series of women's softball (congratulations Washington Huskies).
The University of Florida just cut its ties to Russell Athletics, revoking its license to sell Gator apparel. Union busters, you see, are Gator Bait."
_______
Change 'job creation' with 'enslavement' then you'll have an accurate article.
"This is a big week for viewing the effects of humanity on Earth from above -- in addition to a documentary film coming out this Friday, Wired has used NASA Earth Observatory images to created time-lapse videos of the Earth being de-Earthed.
You can see deforestation in the Amazon, draining of the Aral Sea, urbanization of Dubai and more over at Wired Science."
"When scientists set out to trace the roots of human laughter, some chimps and gorillas were just tickled to help. Literally. More News
That's how researchers made a variety of apes and some human babies laugh. After analyzing the sounds, they concluded that people and great apes inherited laughter from a shared ancestor that lived more than 10 million years ago.
Experts praised the work. It gives very strong evidence that ape and human laughter are related through evolution, said Frans de Waal of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center at Emory University in Atlanta."\
Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, making a guest appearance on ABC’s The View, gave co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck a lesson or two about the torture technique known as waterboarding.
Ventura, who underwent a barrage of torture techniques at the military Survival, Evade, Resist and Escape (SERE) school, confirmed for Hasselbeck that waterboarding is torture and not just an “enhanced interrogation technique.”
“If waterboarding is okay, why don’t we let our police do it to suspects to learn what they know?” he asked to a chorus of applause.
“That’s an interesting question,” Hasselbeck said. “I understand that question.”
“If waterboarding is okay, why didn’t we waterboard [Timothy] McVeigh and [Terry] Nichols, the Oklahoma City bombers, to find out if there were more people involved? What’s your answer to that?” he asked. “We only seem to waterboard Muslims.”
“That’s an extremist statement,” said Hasselbeck.”
“Aha!” cheered Ventura. “Have we waterboarded anybody else? Name me someone else we’ve waterboarded.”
She could not, instead shifting focus to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who has been criticized by Republicans for a seeming contradiction in disclosing what she knew about then-President Bush’s torture program, and when.
“They want her out because she lied?” asked Ventura. “Why didn’t they ask for Bush and Cheney to go out when they lied about why we went into Iraq.”
"The decline and fall of the Republican Party in recent years has been so widespread that the party has lost support among nearly every major demographic subgroup of likely voters across the country, according to a new Gallup poll.
The party lost support among a broad swath of Americans, from conservative to liberal, low-income to high-income, married to unmarried, and elderly to young.
The only subgroup in which the party saw a slight increase in support from 2001 to 2009 was frequent churchgoers."
_______
Methinks thou (Republicans) doth Pelosi too much.
My only issue is that Pelosi doesn't have the balls to stick to her guns.
The CIA lies. That's what they do. That's the very nature of their existence.
President's use the CIA to lie.
The CIA deserves to be attacked. Republicans can clutch their pearls till the cows come home. Fuck 'em.
I still can't wrap my head around the "Pelosi new about the torture thus it is all her fault and not the fault of Cheney/Bush who created the torture program". ???
Hopefully America has moved on from buying such loads of crap.
"There's no sign that Pelosi or anyone else is backing off the truth-commission idea. And, indeed, by suggesting that Pelosi could be a target of an investigation, conservatives have helped cleanse the idea of the odor of victor's justice. The question of CIA briefings of congressional leaders would, after all, be a legitimate subject of inquiry. And it's very possible that, done rigorously, Pelosi and other Democrats, such as Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), could wind up getting a black eye or two. But however bad an investigation might make the members of Congress who were supposed to be preventing illegal conduct look, the people actually doing the misdeeds are going to look even worse. Today, the congressional Republicans look extremely clever. But in a few months' time, we'll look back on this as yet another example of a conservative tactical victory that winds up backfiring. After all, selecting Sarah Palin looked brilliant for a week or two. And the anathematization of Obama's stimulus proposal seemed like an unexpected coup until it wound up pushing Arlen Specter into the arms of the Democrats. Gamesmanship, in short, can only get you so far. But conservatives sure are good at it."
_______
The largest fraud perpetrated in any state of the Union.
"Mark Fuller, the federal judge who oversaw the Don Siegelman trial, committed fraud on the court by failing to disclose his bias against the former Alabama governor. That means the judgment against Siegelman and codefendant Richard Scrushy should be vacated, says an attorney who has conducted extensive research on Fuller's legal and business activities.
'The evidence is clear to me that Judge Fuller failed to disclose his bias in the Siegelman case and committed fraud on the court,' said Paul Benton Weeks, an attorney in Springfield, Missouri. 'It is an example of what the Supreme Court has called an 'inexcusable' failure of a judge to remove himself from a case.'"
_______
Speaking of shitty judges....
Nobody could have predicted... except all of us who did.
"As President Barack Obama prepares to make his first appointment to the Supreme Court, the influence of Chief Justice John Roberts is coming under increased scrutiny.
In an article for the New Yorker, legal analyst and former assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Toobin describes Roberts as “the Supreme Court’s stealth hard-liner” and finds reason for dismay.
According to Toobin, despite Roberts’ disarming intelligence, charm, and wit, his actions on the bench have been those of a “doctrinaire conservative.”
“The first Democratic nominee to the Court in fifteen years will confront what is now, increasingly, John Roberts’s Court,” Toobin writes. “The majority of the Court is moving right as the rest of the country — or, at least, the rest of the federal government — is moving left. … Roberts’s service on the Court, which is, of course, likely to continue for decades, offers an enduring and faithful reflection of the Bush Presidency.”
Toobin explains that although Roberts sees himself as a strict constructionist and a “judicial restraint” conservative, “according to Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, ‘The Chief Justice talks the talk of moderation while walking the walk of extreme conservatism.’"
"Were you surprised at how quickly your family became part of the cultural iconography?
You know, the nice thing is that, partly because of temperament, partly because of Michelle's unbelievable parenting skills, I've just got some happy, normal kids. And all that stuff that's going on around them, they just kind of miss. We have not seen any effects, any fishbowl effects, yet on them. Now, I worry about them when they're teenagers where, you know, you're already embarrassed about your parents and even more embarrassed on TV all the time. And dating I think will be an issue because I have men with guns surrounding them at all times [laughter], which I'm perfectly happy with, but they may feel differently about it."
Love is in the air — Air New Zealand, that is. The Kiwi carrier has launched Matchmaking Flight to bring lonely travelers together. After all, what better way to get to know The One than sharing a 13-hour flight on your first date?
If you aren’t up for a blind date, you can try meeting that special someone on the airline’s Matchmaking Flight website, a social networking where passenger can meet and interact in the safety of cyberspace before meeting at the terminal. That could keep you from getting matched with that sketchy guy in Seat 35B who keeps mentioning the mile-high club."
"President Barack Obama wants to end $26 billion in oil and gas industry tax breaks, calling them 'unjustifiable loopholes' in the tax system that other companies do not get."
_______
Golf has been a big part of my life. As a youth I got pretty serious about the game. My granddad was a big golfer and was friends with Chi-Chi Rodriguez. I grew up playing with Stewart Cink.
I thoroughly enjoy the game, playing and watching on TV.
Feherty needs a little self-reflection time away from work.
I love the game but I hate how it is dominated by conservative fucks.
"(CBS) Consumers seeking a healthy lifestyle these days are increasingly cutting out the supermarket and going straight to the farmer for fresh fruits and vegetables. CBS News correspondent Kelly Cobiella reports that community-supported agriculture is a growing trend.
On a small farm in Palm Beach County, Fla., it's harvesting season. They're picking and packing. Only this bounty isn't headed for a big warehouse or grocery store.
It's going from Nancy Roe's fields straight to Florida kitchens. From field to table. No stops in between.
It's called community supported agriculture or CSA - part of the 'buy local' movement. Customers pay Roe directly, and she sends them a box of fresh produce every week of the growing season."
"UPDATE 2: The Democratic leader in the Senate promised Sen. Arlen Specter he would retain his seniority when he jumped from the Republican to the Democratic party, Specter told CNN Wednesday, but faced “pushback” from other Democratic senators.
“Sen. (Harry) Reid said that I would maintain my committee assignments and that my seniority would be established as if I’d been elected in 1980 as a Democrat,” the long-serving Pennsylvania senator told CNN’s Dana Bash.
The full Senate voted Tuesday to strip Specter of his seniority, dropping him to the bottom of the pile on every committee he sits on."
_______
I guess a 'myth' wouldn't mind my foot in his ass, then, would he.
"Former White House adviser Karl Rove admitted during a debate about “the partisan divide” in Washington on Monday that the atmosphere is “poisonous,” but he refused to take any personal responsibility for the situation.
“The atmosphere in Washington D.C. is too poisonous and has been for the last 16 years,” Rove stated. However, when asked about his own role in creating this divisiveness, he responded, “I’m a myth.”"
_______
More shitty Democrats.
I mean, really. Your kid shouldn't be watching TV anyway.
"WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former presidential candidate Robert Dole made headlines as a pitchman for Viagra, and now a decade later a Virginia congressman wants to limit the time when ads for this and similar products can air.
Last month, Democratic Rep. Jim Moran introduced the 'Families for ED Advertising Decency Act,' which prevents erectile dysfunction and male enhancement ads from appearing on radio and television between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m.
'This [the advertisements] is an intrusion into our daily lives that I believe has become inappropriate.' Moran said in an interview with CNN. 'There is a saturation of the television airwaves with these E.D. ads, and they have gotten more pervasive, more blunt, and less subtle.'"
"New research shows young Americans are dramatically less likely to go to church -- or to participate in any form of organized religion -- than their parents and grandparents."
There is a common misperception in the workplace that effective and productive people fit into the go-getter, proactive, or highly organized mold. While it may be true that these people are often rewarded for their seemingly productive ways, their productivity levels are actually well below those of the effective slacker.
Go-getters are always busy but they only focus on tasks that get noticed by executives. These tasks are usually highly visible but rarely important to the success of the company.
Proactive types are also always busy but their proactiveness leads to an eventual interference of completing higher priority work.
Highly organized employees waste their lives away inside Microsoft Project and their FranklinCovey weekly planner.
On the other hand, the effective slacker quietly performs all the duties required of him perfectly and quickly. An effective slacker always delivers on time, usually because they had it done months ago and made sure no one else was aware. Regardless, the effective slacker is the invisible engine of Fortune 500 corporations. Without them, large organizations are just a large stack of cards waiting to crumble.
_______
And speaking of slacking....
Though it is a Zogby poll which mean these numbers could be totally pulled out of John Zogby's ass.
"A majority of Americans, in a poll released Wednesday, say it 'makes sense to tax and regulate' marijuana. The Zogby poll, commissioned by the conservative-leaning O'Leary Report, surveyed 3,937 voters and found 52 percent in favor of legalization. Only 37 percent opposed."
"Without any assurance of seniority, Specter loses a major weapon in his campaign to win reelection in 2010: the ability to claim that his nearly 30 years of Senate service places him in key positions to benefit his constituents.
Tonight's committee resolution, quickly read on the Senate floor by Reid himself, contradicts Specter's assertion last Tuesday when he publicly announced his move from the Republican side of the aisle. He told reporters that he retained his seniority both in the overall chamber and in the committees on which he serves. Specter said that becoming chairman of the Appropriations Committee was a personal goal of his, one that would be within reach if he were granted his seniority on the panel and placed as the third-most senior Democrat there"
_______
Jesus loves him some hypocrites.
"Gay marriage is morally wrong... hey, look at my tits and ass"!
The California beauty queen who blamed her national loss in the Miss USA pageant on comments she made about gays apparently has a stash of racy, topless photos of herself. TheDirty.com released the first of six topless photos of Carrie Prejean.
And there are more, apparently.
“I can assure you, they were quite inappropriate and certainly not photos befitting a beauty queen,” said KVBC’s Alicia Jacobs reports. “After first claiming that the pics were taken when she was 17, overnight Prejean put out a statement saying, ‘I am a Christian and I am a model. Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a… website that openly mocks me for my Christian faith. I am not perfect, nor do I claim to be.”"
"BERLIN – German police said an elderly man was so annoyed at hearing the same serenade over and over that he called authorities to report his neighbors — only to discover the culprit was a musical greeting card on his own windowsill. Police said Tuesday the 82-year-old from Goslar in central Germany told officers he was sick of the music, which would come at irregular intervals and at all hours.
Upon further investigation, police found the musical greeting card on his windowsill, where occasional breezes opened the card just enough to play an irritating tune.
Police said the retiree was happy to find out his neighbors weren't trying to annoy him."
"Less than a week into his tenure as a Democrat and Sen. Arlen Specter is already stepping sharply on the toes of party elders. Key Democratic figures warned on Monday that their newly minted colleague, despite having the backing of the White House, could face a tough primary challenge should he continue to oppose key tenets of the party's agenda.
'I'm pleased that he saw the light and decided he would be a better fit for the Democratic Party and I think you have to allow for his political views to evolve,' said former DNC chairman Howard Dean in an interview with the Huffington Post. 'But he won't win the Democratic primary by taking the position that you should not have [the Employee Free Choice Act] or a public option for health insurance... If he takes these kinds of views, of course there is going to be a Democratic primary.'"
_______
OK, so Neil Young was right about assholes like Sessions. Fucking embarrassment.
"Sessions' dismal record on race -- including a black former assistant U.S. attorney's testimony that Sessions once said he 'used to think they [the Klan] were OK' until he found out some of them were 'pot smokers' -- was chronicled in a 2002 article in The New Republic."
_______
Aren't the leaders of the modern Republican party, like, super-cute?
"Almost 20 years after its dedication, the text has yet to be fully deciphered. A bleary-eyed global community of self-styled cryptanalysts—along with some of the agency's own staffers—has seen three of its four sections solved, revealing evocative prose that only makes the puzzle more confusing. Still uncracked are the 97 characters of the fourth part (known as K4 in Kryptos-speak). And the longer the deadlock continues, the crazier people get." .......
"Whether or not our top spooks intended it, the persistent opaqueness of Kryptos subversively embodies the nature of the CIA itself—and serves as a reminder of why secrecy and subterfuge so fascinate us. 'The whole thing is about the power of secrecy,' Sanborn tells me when I visit his studio, a barnlike structure on Jimmy Island in Chesapeake Bay (population: 2). He is 6'7', bearded, and looks a bit younger than his 63 years. Looming behind him is his latest work in progress, a 28-foot-high re-creation of the world's first particle accelerator, surrounded by some of the original hardware from the Manhattan Project. The atomic gear fits nicely with the thrust of Sanborn's oeuvre, which centers on what he calls invisible forces."
"An April 7 report by the Department of Homeland Security is causing waves of indignation among conservatives for labeling 'rightwing extremism' the 'most dangerous domestic terrorism threat in the United States.'"
"Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) told a gathering in Trussville, Ala. on Apr. 9 that there were 17 socialists in Congress. 'Some of the men and women I work with in Congress are socialists,' said Bachus, the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee.
But pressed to name the 17, he's only been able to come up with one. And that senator, self-professed 'Democratic socialist' Bernie Sanders (D-VT) wants to know the rest.
Sanders joined the chorus of reporters and lawmakers Tuesday pushing Bachus to make good on his claim that 17 socialists reside in Congress.
'Has Spencer released his list yet?' Sanders asked Politico. 'Everybody's waiting with bated breath.'
“I think at the very least he has to tell people what his definition of socialism is,' he added. 'And I think he should tell us who he was referring to, who’s on the list.”"
_______
More funny from across the pond:
_______
Atta-boy.
But his daughter is 37, so, not as bad as it sounds.
"He is a typical man of age - a few white hairs cover his round head and he wears dentures.
But 75-year-old Shigeo Tokuda sat on a movie set on Monday wearing just a silk kimono and loin cloth about to have sex on film with a woman who is younger than his daughter."
"Having realized too late that 'teabagging' - the unfortunate gerund that Conservatives chose to brand their spittle-lipped protest of whatever amorphous terror they're currently ginning up so as not to go the way of the Whigs - has a... well... second, sexualized meaning, Republicans have quickly and deftly announced that April 15th 2009 will be renamed, henceforth to be known as... NATIONAL FISTING DAY!"
"Despite these attempts to make the “movement” appear organic, the principle organizers of the local events are actually the lobbyist-run think tanks Americans for Prosperity and Freedom Works. The two groups are heavily staffed and well funded, and are providing all the logistical and public relations work necessary for planning coast-to-coast protests:"
"Now that activist legislators are legislating from their legislatures to legalize gay marriage, activists are turning up the volume on anti-gay marriage rhetoric.
There's just one, ahem, kink.
In an unintentional but hilarious nod to gay sex chatters everywhere, the National Organization for Marriage has dubbed their campaign '2 Million for Marriage'. Or 2M4M. Whoops."
_______
Another dumb ass from Alabama wanting to be McCarthy Jr.
"Since January, Media Matters for America has documented numerous examples of conservatives in the media warning of socialism, fascism, communism, Nazism, McCarthyism, and Marxism, or using such language to describe President Obama or other Democrats."
If a space alien unfamiliar with our politics and customs were to visit the United States and acquaint itself with our recent history, it would be astonished, no doubt, upon witnessing the seeming insanity that has gripped the opinion leaders of the more conservative wing of our political divide. It would surely pity and find ill-used a long-suffering American public forced to waste their time with increasingly insane drivel unbecoming the attention of a great nation.
That a popular new president just three months into his term, desperately trying (whether one agrees with his particular choice of solutions or not) to undo the damage unquestionably caused by his predecessors and a clearly failed ideology of deregulatory bellicose fervor--that such a president should be given a reasonable space of time in which to attempt to solve the problems set before him would seem to be common sense. Certainly, our hypothetical space alien would point to the years of forbearance given to the previous President after 9/11/01, and wonder that a similar unanimous embrace of bipartisan good feeling should not have emerged during an economic crisis of centennial proportions.
Instead, the conservative wing of our nation embarrasses humanity itself before our space alien by subjecting us to hysteria the likes of which have rarely been seen since 1950s McCarthyism.
_______
Contradiction? We don't need no stinking contradiction.
"KRUGMAN: What’s so wonderful is watching Republican congressmen saying, “But this will cost jobs!” The very same Republican congressmen who were denouncing the stimulus, saying government spending never creates jobs, but cutting defense spending costs jobs. It’s wonderful."
_______
"I see your true colors shining through"
Alabama has some stupid politicians, but Texas.... ah Texas.
"“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.
Brown later told Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”"
"Fusion centers are intelligence databases spread out across the country that collect data on ordinary citizens and synchronize national intelligence collection with local police. There are currently more than 40 fusion centers in the country."
"After more than a decade of work and an investment of $3.5 billion, scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory say they have created a super laser that will enable them to build a miniature sun within the lab in the next two years."
