News, Views, and Miscellany
Politics, Policy, and People

August 10, 2011
This is Perfectly Legal

Corporate Personhood leads to things like this (recieved via e-mail):

June 27, 2011
The Perfect Conservative Vacation Destination

May 30, 2011
Theocracy Now!

in a May 19th interview with Greta van Susteren of Fox News Sarah Palin said -- over and over again -- that she has a "fire in her belly" for a presidential run in 2012. Her repeated and enthusiastic use of this somewhat coarse expression attracted a lot of media attention. But as it turns out, the fire in her belly may be religious rather than political. Sarah Jones of Politicususa.com fills in the blanks:

I’ve been saying for a while now that the mainstream media doesn’t “get” Sarah Palin. Last week, when the astute Lawrence O’Donnell equated her with Trump, I understood his reasoning, but disagreed with the premise. Sarah Palin isn’t Donald Trump, and when she speaks of a “fire in her belly” she’s not using that term politically, but religiously. She means she has a fire of God in her belly to lead the country to Jesus. She means she is anointed to lead us.

Most social conservatives Like Sarah Palin (and Art Robinson) believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. These "Christian Dominionists" believe that over that last two hundred years United States has strayed from its Christian roots. They advocate a return to what they believe was the founder's original intent: a nation governed on Christian principles. They cling to this belief in spite of all evidence to the contrary including the historic context of the founding of the United States and the words of the Constitution itself.

The following video, which is part of a series of libertarian-oriented videos* on the U.S. Constitution, addressed the concept of the "wall of separation between church and state." While it may go to far when it asserts that laws shouldn't provide reasonable accommodation for religious belief, it provides a good overview of the historical context of the principle of separation of church and state and directly addresses some of the more common Dominionist arguments opposing church-state seperation..

* Democrats disagree with libertarians on many economic issues, but we're mostly on the same page when it comes to religious freedom.

May 31, 2011 - Update
We recall this video from 2005 when Sarah Palin was running for governor of Alaska. Palin, who appears at about 7:10 into the video, receives a blessing for protection against witchcraft and to "bring finances her way."

May 21, 2011
Clerical Error Gives America's Schools Enough Money to Educate Students

The Onion, America's finest news source, reports that a massive clerical error took $80 billion from defense and gave it to America's schools allowing students to receive a proper education for the first time in decades.

According to bewildered and contrite legislators, a major budgetary mix-up this week inadvertently provided the nation's public schools with enough funding and resources to properly educate students.

Sources in the Congressional Budget Office reported that as a result of a clerical error, $80 billion earmarked for national defense was accidentally sent to the Department of Education, furnishing schools with the necessary funds to buy new textbooks, offer more academic resources, hire better teachers, promote student achievement, and foster educational excellence—an oversight that apologetic officials called a "huge mistake."

...

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), expressing remorse for the error. "I want to apologize to the American people. The last thing we wanted was for schools to upgrade their technology and lower student-to-teacher ratios in hopes of raising a generation of well-educated, ambitious, and skilled young Americans."

Yes, we know this is satire.

May 12, 2011
Fair and Balanced? We Report, You Decide.

Doing what it does best, Fox News decides to create a controversy around the rapper Common's appearance at a White House poetry reading. Hypocrisy ensues.

Comedy Central ...

and ...

MSNBC ...

Draw you own conclusions.

May12, 2011 - Update
Fox News called him "vile" and a "thug." Click HERE to see the "vile thug" performing a poetry reading at the White House.

May 17, 2011 - Update
Jon Stewart debates Fox's Bill O'Rilley on the Fox News' hybocracy in the manufactured "Common" scandal

May 7, 2011
Think of the Children!

May 7, 2011
Obama Hates America No. 57412

Did you hear that President Obama ordered the American flag to be taken down before his visit to Ground Zero. It must be true because it's all over the right-wing internets, and Obama is a socialist Islamofascist Muslim Christian radical who hates America. Just ask any of your conservative Republican friends.

Here's a typical post from the right-wing internet tubes by the blogger Doug Ross:

WTF at WTC? Obama Has American Flag Removed From Ground Zero Site Moments Before Photo Shoot!

...

This administration and, by extension, the Democrat Party are now so thoroughly divorced from the history, traditions and morals of America that we might as well admit the Marxist left has executed a successful coup d'état on this Republic.

Except it's not true. Not a bit. But to the right wingers that's not important. Because Obama is a socialist Islamofascist Muslim Christian radical who hates America.

Media Matters had the details.

One problem. It isn't true. Multiple photos show that the flag was on full display when Obama arrived at Ground Zero. Tapper's tweet was posted at 6:30 pm -- hours after the President had left. In all likelihood, Tapper was saying that the flag was being removed before his live shot for ABC World News when he made his tweet.

Later most of the right-wingers who disseminated this misinformation admitted that it wasn't exactly technically true, but as Doug Ross later wrote, that's not the point. President Obama is still a socialist Islamofascist Muslim Christian radical who hates America, and that's more important than actual facts. And besides that, "leftists" are idiots.

But I'm sticking by my "Marxist coup d'état" comment.

Update III: Why the Leftists commenting here are idiots: (a) the next retraction one of the Left-leaning media sources makes will be their first (e.g., "Terror Wiretaps plus Invasion of Iraq plus Rendition plus Waterboarding Led to Bin Laden"); (b) Obama's on-again/off-again flag-pin patriotism; (c) and his well-documented failures to show respect to the flag -- all make it clear that Tapper's tweet would be utterly believable in the original context.

How gracious of Ross to admit his error.

April 30, 2011
President Obama at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner

Click HERE to watch Seth Meyers at the 2011 Correspondents' Dinner.

April 18, 2011
"Not intended to be a factual statement"

April 18, 2011
Carl Rove Calls Birthers the "Nutty Right"

Carl Rove, George W. Bush's chief political strategist (also known as "the architect" or "Bush's brain"), has a low opinion of birthers. In an interview on Fox News he was asked about Donald Trump's recent statements questioning President Obama's citizenship. He responded by dismissing the birther's conspiracy theories and calling birthers the "nutty right," even though more than  half of Republican voters are birthers.

Rove thinks the White House is deliberately encouraging birthers to discredit Republicans.

April 16, 2011
Rush Limbaugh: Obama supporters are "... vile ... walking human debris ... savages ..."

April 14, 2011

March 27, 2011
Can Ian Murphy Has Congress?

March 25, 2011
Joh Stuart to Fox News Anchor Bret Baire: "I was not aware that ratings equaled quality."

March 4, 2011
Fox News, Hypocrisy On Display

January 12, 2011
A Conversation About Violent Political Rhetoric

November 5, 2010
Rachel Maddow: "An alternate self-contained right-wing media universe"

October 4, 2010
Republicans Can't Name Any Spending They Want to Cut (Again and Again)
UPDATE - October 18, 2010
UPDATE - November 3, 2010
UPDATE - November 4, 2010
UPDATE - November 5, 2010
UPDATE - November 7, 2010
UPDATE - November 10, 2010
Happy New Year!
UPDATE - January 6, 2011

Republicans love the idea of cutting government, but they can't name any specific programs that they would cut. They know that cuts that are large enough to make a difference will affect extremely popular programs like the Department of Defense, Social Security, and  Medicare, and will be unpopular with voters. So they speak in broad generalities and hope no one notices. That doesn't always work:

Speakers in order of appearance are: Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), Rep. John Shadegg (R-AZ), California GOP Senate nominee Carly Fiorina, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Rep. John Boozman (R-AR), Gregg, and Sen. John Cornyn (R-AZ). Via Crooks and Liars.

UPDATE - October 18, 2010
Even Chris Wallace of Fox News can't get a straight answer on what programs should be cut. Here he challenges Carly Fiorina. Surprise, he never gets an answer.

UPDATE - November 3, 2010
House minority whip won't answer "The Question":

UPDATE - November 3, 2010
More ...

UPDATE - November 4, 2010
Anderson Cooper asks Michelle Bachmann "The Question." Rather than answering, she tries to change the subject by bringing up the completely false claim that President Obama's upcoming 10 day trip to India will cost $200M per day. When Cooper challenges Bachmann on the cost of the trip she can only say that "it was reported in the press." What she didn't say it that the press consists of the right wing media, and the claim has no basis in fact.* When Cooper presses her again about the programs she would cut, she of course can't answer. All she can say is that there needs to be "across-the-board" spending cuts.

* After the interview CNN checked into the $200 million per day figure and verfied that it's a completely flase.

UPDATE - November 5, 2010
Apparently Anderson Cooper wasn't at all happy that Michelle Backman (R-MN) tried to use his show to spread a Republican lie about the cost of Preskdent Obama's trip to India. He addresses it in detail in a segment titled "The $200M Myth." Too bad it wasn't tltled "The $200M Lie."

UPDATE - November 7, 2010
Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) won't answer The Question at all. Senator elect Rand Paul (R-KY), when pressed, said he wants to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees and raise the retirement age, cut federal employee's pay by 10 percent, repeal health care reform (that the non-partisan Congressional Budget office estimates will save $140 billion over 10 years), and cut defense spending.  But he refuses to even consider raising taxes on the wealthy:

By the way, DeMint's and Paul's statements that federal workers are paid twice as much as equivalent workers in the private sector is a flasehood that we hear repeated over and over again from the right.

UPDATE - November 10, 2010
Senator elect Rand Paul (R-KY) is back on the hot seat. When pressed by Eliot Spitzer to say that programs he would cut and how much he would cut them, Paul bobs and weaves around the question and tries to run out the clock by filibustering the discussion. At the end he gets huffy and says he's through with the interview.

UPDATE - January 6, 2006
Now that the Republicans have control of the budget process you would think that they would be willing to name some specific cuts that they would like to make.

Think again.

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