And They're Kicking Our A** Over There?

This is just too funny, no wonder we can’t get them trained enough to actual secure their own country….thanks to Balloon-Juice for pointing it out;

Welcome Home John!!

Because Home is where the heart and soul are!!!

I think John will be just one of many over the next 12 months to see the light:

Long story short, I got up there to register as an independent, said “F**k it,” and now I am a Democrat. I certainly don’t agree with all their positions, but they are not bat-shit crazy like the GOP. That has to count for something. Additionally, I no longer have to read posts by the 24% crowd calling me a “true conservative” with quotes o’sarcasm (you know who they are). Not any more, bitches. I repudiate you, your party, and whatever the f**k it is you are currently pretending is “conservatism.” It isn’t.

Can the Neocons make up their minds

The neocons are saying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is another Hitler. I thought Saddam Hussein was another Hitler? Can't Ahmadinejad be another Mussolini?


Will Durst

NASA Caves To The Pressure - Will Let Us Have The Data We Paid For

From MSNBC:

NASA boss promises to reveal safety poll results - Administrator feared data would upset travelers, hurt airline profits

Abandoning its secrecy claims, NASA promised Congress on Wednesday it will reveal results of an unprecedented federal aviation survey which found that aircraft near collisions, runway interference and other safety problems occur far more often than previously recognized.

Joe Tells It Like It Is

Crooks and Liars has the Video

Biden: “…And the irony is, Rudy Giuliani, probably the most under qualified person since George Bush to seek the presidency, is here - talking about any of the people here. Rudy Giuliani. I mean think about it, Rudy Giuliani, there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence — a noun and a verb and 9/11 and I mean, there’s nothing else. There’s nothing else.”

Rudy is a cocky little shit with absolutely no qualifications to be President, who runs around like Chicken Little squawking 9/11, 9/11, in between stuff he just makes up and declares as facts.

Paul We Miss You

Paul, you and Sheila are missed. You tried to tell us what was coming.

Republic-Rats Leaving The Sinking Ship

For Retiring Republicans, Several Explanations

Deborah Pryce said she was fed up with ugly politics and being separated from her 5-year-old daughter. David L. Hobson is reaching the end of his time at the top of a powerful subcommittee. Ralph Regula will turn 83 in December, and he said he wanted to pass on his political wisdom to students and drive the flashy Thunderbird he had just bought.

None of these senior Republicans from Ohio, all of whom have announced plans not to seek another term in the House next year, cite their reduced status in the minority as a major factor in deciding to join the exodus of their ?arty members from Congress. Nor do they mention the bleak prospect that running for re-election could mean spending millions of dollars and toughing out a difficult campaign, only to lose anyway.

 

The Man Just Does Not Get It - No Wait, He Gets It, He's Just A Fascist Lackey

Mukasey Unsure About Legality of Waterboarding

In an effort to quell growing doubts in the Senate about his nomination as attorney general, Michael B. Mukasey on Tuesday declared that waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques “seem over the line or, on a personal basis, repugnant to me” and promised to review the legality of all such techniques if confirmed.

But Mr. Mukasey told Senate Democrats he could not offer an opinion on whether waterboarding, which simulates drowning, is illegal torture because he has not been briefed on the details of the classified technique and does not want to suggest that Central Intelligence Agency officers who have used such techniques may be in “personal legal jeopardy.”

They're Messing WithThe Boss - The Bastards

Bruce: Magic Refused Radio Play

Bruce Springsteen should be very happy. He has the No. 1 album, a possible Grammy for Best Album of the Year for "Magic," an album full of singles and a sold-out concert tour.

Alas, there’s a hitch: Radio will not play "Magic." In fact, sources tell me that Clear Channel has sent an edict to its classic rock stations not to play tracks from "Magic." But it’s OK to play old Springsteen tracks such as "Dancing in the Dark," "Born to Run" and "Born in the USA."

Just no new songs by Springsteen, even though it’s likely many radio listeners already own the album and would like to hear it mixed in with the junk offered on radio.

Now they went and did it…Clear Channel pissed me off enough I had to link to one of the few rational thought found on FixedNews.com

Clear Channel is also hanging John Fogerty. Annie Lennox and others out to dry

It’s not just Springsteen. There is no sign at major radio stations of new albums by John Fogerty or Annie Lennox, either. The same stations that should be playing Santana’s new singles with Chad Kroeger or Tina Turner are avoiding them, too.

Like Springsteen, these "older" artists have been relegated to something called Triple A format stations — i.e. either college radio or small artsy stations such as WFUV in the Bronx, N.Y., which are immune from the Clear Channel virus of pre-programming and where the number of plays per song is a fraction of what it is on commercial radio.

That’s Why I listen to NPR on the way to and from the office and get my real Rock on my Ipod

Theocracy Now!

Max Blumenthal| has a great video called Theocracy Now!

Watch it on the Huffington Post:

On October 20 and 21st, I attended the Value Voters Summit, a massive gathering hosted by the Colorado-based Christian right mega-ministry, Focus on the Family, and its Washington lobbying arm, the Family Research Council. With the pro-choice Rudy Giuliani leading in the race for the Republican nomination and the threat of another Clinton presidency looming, the stakes for the Christian right were high.
At the Summit, I witnessed all of the major Republican presidential candidates compete for the affection of so-called value voters. Rudy Giuliani, the current frontrunner, sought to assuage movement leaders' concerns about his multiple marriages, pro-choice politics, and penchant for cross-dressing. Mitt Romney pledged to fight for a Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, hoping his newfound conservatism would somehow lessen evangelical resentment of his Mormon faith.

They Just Keep Piling Sh*t Higher

The AP reports we have let the Blackwater thugs off the hook;    

The State Department promised Blackwater USA bodyguards immunity from prosecution in its investigation of last month's deadly shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians, The Associated Press has learned.

As a result, it will likely be months before the United States can — if ever — bring criminal charges in the case that has infuriated the Iraqi government.

"Once you give immunity, you can't take it away," said a senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.

Does this Administration have no soul?

 

Come on John, show us you mean what you say!

On ”This Week” Stephanopoulos challenged McCain on waterboarding and the AG nominee;

McCain begins with a statement that clearly would preclude him from voting for Mukasey,

“Anybody who does not know if waterboarding is torture or not has no experience in the conduct warfare and national security.”

Then he obfuscates;

Stephanopoulos : “You obviously feel strongly about this. Will Mr. Mukasey have to say clearly that waterboarding is torture to get your vote for attorney general?”

McCain: “ I can’t be that absolute. But I want to know his answer. I want to know his answer. Obviously, you judge a candidate for office or nominee for office on the entire record. But this is a very important issue to me.”

John if you really are the straight shooter you claim to be this is a no-brainer.

It's All About Controlling The Information Flow

How Putin Giuliani tried to control his NYC legacy:

Shortly before Rudy Giuliani left the New York mayor's office in 2001, close associates worked out an unprecedented and controversial deal to transfer his mayoral papers from City Hall to a private, tax-exempt foundation, the Rudolph W. Giuliani Center for Urban Affairs.

Billed as a leadership think tank, the center served as a conduit for Giuliani to copy and archive 2,100 boxes of documents from his time as mayor before returning the originals to the city.

That record, which includes the months after the Sept. 11 attacks when he was anointed as "America's mayor," serves as the foundation of Giuliani's presidential campaign today. Because he moved his papers through a private organization led by his political supporters, however, the integrity of that record has been called into question.

It followed a pattern of tight control over information that the often combative Giuliani practiced as mayor, a pattern that included more than 100 legal challenges from one New York newspaper alone.

While no evidence has surfaced that the record was compromised, the city of New York nonetheless changed its laws to prevent another mayor from doing what Giuliani did. A coalition of archivists, historians and other city officials also raised questions about whether the documents would be sanitized, but the Giuliani Center was allowed to finish archiving the records.

Anyone who thinks it is safe to put this man in charge of anything, let alone our Government, is nuts!

The Evangelical Crackup

The New York Times has a great piece this Sunday on the Religious Right and The Republic Party cu?rent struggles.

Sitting with his wife in a quiet living room with teddy bears on the bookshelves, Carlson, who is 70, told me he is one member of the movement’s founding generation who has had second thoughts. He said he still considers abortion evil. He called the anti-abortion protests “prophetic,” in the sense of the Old Testament prophets who warned of God’s wrath. But Carlson was blunt about the results. “It didn’t really change abortion,” he said.

“I thought in my enthusiasm,” he told me with a smile, “that somehow we could band together and change things politically and everything will be fine.” But the closing of Dr. Tiller’s clinic was fleeting. Electing Christian politicians never seemed to change much. “When you mix politics and religion,” Carlson said, “you get politics.”

In more recent battles, Carlson has hung back. On the Sunday before the referendum on a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, Carlson reminded his congregation that homosexuality was hardly the only form of sex the Bible condemned. Any extramarital sex is a sin, he told his congregation, so they should not point fingers.

The thing the “Religious Right” forgot is that the separation of Church and State was never meant to protect the Government from Religion, but protect Religion from Government and the corrupting influence of political power.

A Soliders View 'I Don't Think This Place Is Worth Another Soldier's Life'

The Washington Post:

"When we first got here, all the shops were open. There were women and children walking out on the street," Alarcon said this week. "The women were in Western clothing. It was our favorite street to go down because of all the hot chicks."

That was 14 long months ago, when the soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division, arrived in southwestern Baghdad. It was before their partners in the Iraqi National Police became their enemies and before Shiite militiamen, aligned with the police, attempted to exterminate a neighborhood of middle-class Sunni families.

Next month, the U.S. soldiers will complete their tour in Iraq. Their experience in Sadiyah has left many of them deeply discouraged, by both the unabated hatred between rival sectarian fighters and the questionable will of the Iraqi government to work toward peaceful solutions.

Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice -- 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad -- Alarcon said no: "I don't think this place is worth another soldier's life."

While top U.S. commanders say the statistics of violence have registered a steep drop in Baghdad and elsewhere, the soldiers' experience in Sadiyah shows that numbers alone do not describe the sense of aborted normalcy -- the fear, the disrupted lives -- that still hangs over the city.

We have made it so much better there, NOT !

It's Time For A 3rd Party

The Republic Party is Evil and the Democrat Party is a bunch of Morons:

TPMMuckraker has this little bit on the idiots running the House Judiciary Committee:

This summer the House Judiciary Committee launched an effort to collect tips from would-be whistleblowers in the Justice Department. The U.S. attorney firings scandal had shown that much was amiss in the Department, and with the danger of retaliation very real, the committee had set up a form on the committee's website for people to blow the whistle privately about abuses there. Although the panel said it would not accept anonymous tips, it assured those who came forward that their identity would be held in the "strictest confidence."

But in an email sent out today, the committee inadvertently sent the email addresses of all the would-be whistleblowers to everyone who had written in to the tipline. The committee email was sent to tipsters who had used the website form, including presumably whistleblowers themselves, and all of the recipients of the email were accidentally included in the "to:" field -- instead of concealing those addresses with a so-called blind carbon copy or "bcc:".

Minnesota's Mini-Mitch

This clown has reinvented himself more times then Mitch Romney, based on the political winds of the moment.

The Strib reports : Coleman did Woodstock, but says no to federal money

Sen. Norm Coleman attended Woodstock and even did a video for a planned museum commemorating the famous music festival. But the Minnesota Republican voted against spending $1 million to help with the effort, saying government has better things to do with its money.

Yeah that’s it, our cultural history doesn’t mean shit if it takes money away from building our arsenal back up for the upcoming air campaign in Iran. We’re Thinking about you Paul!!

You Didn't See Anything........

The Washington post reports

From CIA Jails, Inmates Fade Into Obscurity
Dozens of 'Ghost Prisoners' Not Publicly Accounted For

On Sept. 6, 2006, President Bush announced that the CIA's overseas secret prisons had been temporarily emptied and 14 al-Qaeda leaders taken to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But since then, there has been no official accounting of what happened to about 30 other "ghost prisoners" who spent extended time in the custody of the CIA.

Some have been secretly transferred to their home countries, where they remain in detention and out of public view, according to interviews in Pakistan and Europe with government officials, human rights groups and lawyers for the detainees. Others have disappeared without a trace and may or may not still be under CIA control.

The bulk of the ghost prisoners were captured in Pakistan, where they scattered after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

So much of what this administration does is so beyond the pale to be almost comical if it wasn’t so truly evil.

All I can think of is the Penguins in the movie Madagascar trying to break out of the zoo and Skipper saying “You didn’t see anything”

The Republic Party - White Male Menopause?

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post has a brilliant piece on Republican Hot Flashes;

The latest was the Senate vote Wednesday in which Republicans, supported by a handful of red-state Democrats, narrowly scuttled the Dream Act, a bill that would have provided a path to citizenship for some young undocumented immigrants -- but only those who did everything this country once found worthy and admirable in pursuit of the American dream.

Under the proposal, men and women who fulfilled several conditions -- they had to be under 30, had to have been brought into the country illegally before they were 16, had to have been in the United States for at least five years and had to be graduates of U.S. high schools -- would have been given conditional legal status. If they went on to complete two years of college or two years of military service, they would have been eligible for permanent residency.

Let's see. Here was a way to encourage a bunch of kids to go to college rather than melt into the shadows as off-the-books day laborers -- or maybe even gang members. And here was a way to boost enlistment in our overtaxed armed forces. Aren't education and global competitiveness supposed to be vital issues? Aren't we fighting open-ended war? in Iraq and Afghanistan?

The vote against the Dream Act was so irrational, so counterproductive, that it seemed the product of some sort of hormonal imbalance.

1984 - 2007 Hey Orwell was only off by 23 years or so

Big Brother is here, it just gets sicker every day;

The Washington Post reports on the latest Orwellian tactic by the Bushies:

FEMA has truly learned the lessons of Katrina. Even its handling of the media has im?roved dramatically. For example, as the California wildfires raged Tuesday, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the deputy administrator, had a 1 p.m. news briefing.

Reporters were given only 15 minutes' notice of the briefing, making it unlikely many could show up at FEMA's Southwest D.C. offices.

They were given an 800 number to call in, though it was a "listen only" line, the notice said -- no questions. Parts of the briefing were carried live on Fox News (see the Fox News video of the news conference carried on the Think Progress Web site), MSNBC and other outlets.

Johnson stood behind a lectern and began with an overview before saying he would take a few questions. The first questions were about the "commodities" being shipped to Southern California and how officials are dealing with people who refuse to evacuate. He responded eloquently.

He was apparently quite familiar with the reporters -- in one case, he appears to say "Mike" and points to a reporter -- and was asked an oddly in-house question about "what it means to have an emergency declaration as opposed to a major disaster declaration" signed by the president. He once again explained smoothly.

FEMA press secretary Aaron Walker interrupted at one point to caution he'd allow just "two more questions." Later, he called for a "last question."

"Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?" a reporter asked. Another asked about "lessons learned from Katrina."

"I'm very happy with FEMA's response so far," Johnson said, hailing "a very smoothly, very efficiently performing team."

"And so I think what you're really seeing here is the benefit of experience, the benefit of good leadership and?the benefit of good partnership," Johnson said, "none of which were present in Katrina." (Wasn't Michael Chertoff DHS chief then?) Very smooth, very professional. But something didn't seem right. The reporters were lobbing too many softballs. No one asked about trailers with formaldehyde for those made homeless by the fires. And the media seemed to be giving Johnson all day to wax on and on about FEMA's greatness.

Of course, that could be because the questions were asked by FEMA staffers playing reporters. We're told the questions were asked by Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of external affairs, and by "Mike" Widomski, the deputy director of public affairs. Director of External Affairs John "Pat" Philbin asked a question, and another came, we understand, from someone who sounds like press aide Ali Kirin.

Rudy's Revisionist Resume

Crook’s and liars has the MSNBC video

He just makes the shit up…..it's time he gets called on it!!!

It has changed the world

The YouTube generation will have an impact …….check it out

FEMA to the Rescue

The good news is FEMA showed up in California. The bad news is they came to fix the levees.

Will Durst

Bush Administration- More Orwellian Behavior

White House Slashed CDC Warming Report

The White House significantly edited testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on the impact of climate change on health, deleting key portions citing diseases that could flourish in a warmer climate, documents obtained by The Associated Press showed Wednesday.

The White House on Wednesday denied that it had "watered down" the congressional testimony that Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, had given the day before to the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

When will it end???

***Update: Science Progress has the original uncut statement

2.4 Frickin' Trillion Dollars

Iraq, Afghan wars could cost 2.4 Trillion by 2017 – report

The total cost, including debt servicing, of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach 2.4 trln usd by 2017, a report by the Congressional Budget Office found. The report, by the body which provides non-partisan budget analysis for Congress, said higher estimates for total spending for the wars could top out at 1.7 trln usd by 2017.

What on earth are we doing there…………..Paulie W told us this would be so cheap and easy.

Bush Admin too busy screwing up Iraq to take care of things at home

Gov't Auditors Warned Bush Administration About Poor Firefighting Plans

The Government Accountability Office, Congress's nonpartisan auditor, issued stark warnings earlier this year on shortcomings in the administration's plans to fight fires.

In a June report, the GAO report faulted the U.S. Forest Service, Department of Agriculture, and other agencies for failing to accomplish the "fundamental step" of planning out what assets and resources were needed to prepare for approaching fire seasons. Meanwhile, disaster response problems that have become all too familiar in recent years were also identified: administration officials placing resources where they were politically expedient, and using poorly performing contractors to accomplish critical national tasks.

The Orange County Register today appeared to show how these warnings manifested. The paper faulted federal planners for erecting red tape that prevented the use of more DC-10 airplanes to drop flame retardant on areas that were on fire.

"It would be nice to have more such planes available, don't you think?" an editor?al in the paper asked. "If the federal government had had its way, even this one almost certainly wouldn't be flying this week....One can understand a certain amount of caution from the Forest Service, but this is bureaucratic overkill."

 

Bush ordered Torture himself

 US uses 'methods of the most tyrannical regimes'

More than 100,000 pages of newly released government documents demonstrate how US military interrogators "abused, tortured or killed" scores of prisoners rounded up since Sept. 11, 2001, including some who were not even suspected of having terrorist ties, according to a just-published book.

In Administration of Torture, two American Civil Liberties Union attorneys detail the findings of a years-long investigation and court battle with the administration that resulted in the release of massive amounts of data on prisoner treatment and the deaths of US-held prisoners.

"[T]he documents show unambiguously that the administration has adopted some of the methods of the most tyrannical regimes. Documents from Guantanamo describe prisoners shackled in excruciating 'stress positions,' held in freezing-cold cells, forcibly stripped, hooded, terrorized with military dogs, and deprived of human contact for months."

Most of the documents on which Administration of Torture is based were obtained as a result of ongoing legal fights over a Freedom of Information Act request filed in October 2003 by the ACLU and other human rights and anti-war groups, the ACLU said in a news release.

President Bush gave "marching orders" to Gen. Michael Dunlavey, who asked the Pentagon to approve harsher interrogation methods at Guantanamo, the general claims in documents reported in the book.

 

More biting tongue - getting painful

Companies Seeking Immunity Donate to Senator

Executives at the two biggest phone companies contributed more than $42,000 in political donations to Senator John D. Rockefeller IV this year while seeking his support for legal immunity for businesses participating in National Security Agency eavesdropping.

The surge in contributions came from a Who’s Who of executives at the companies, AT&T and Verizon, starting with the chief executives and including at least 50 executives and lawyers at the two utilities, according to campaign finance reports.

The money came primarily from a fund-raiser that Verizon held for Mr. Rockefeller in March in New York and another that AT&T sponsored for him in May in San Antonio.

Mr. Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, emerged last week as the most important supporter of immunity in devising a compromise plan with Senate Republicans and the Bush administration.

This Administration is so Orwellian it just boggles the mind

NASA refuses to disclose air safety survey

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, ?hrough telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly.

Just last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers……….

The AP sought to obtain the survey data over 14 months under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

"Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey," Luedtke wrote in a final denial letter to the AP

How can we believe anything that this Administration says on any topic….they lied about the cost of plan D, about WMD in Iraq, staying the course, the cost of the war, domestic spying, the Katrina Levees, running a deficit, mercury poisoning, about Race and Health Care……..and so on and so forth

How to be a Right Wing Blogger

Half of America thinks we are in a recession

Jack Cafferty looks at a new CNN poll that tells us what we already know. A lot of people believe that we’re in a recession.

Rush Mocks 12 year old

It seems he Rush was at it again last night on FOXNews’ Hannity & Colmes, where he not only denied attacking Graeme Frost, but went on to mock his voice — Graeme has a paralyzed vocal cord.

Bush Administration Carries Out Politically-Motivated Immigration Raid

This is just insane……

WASHINGTON — Three days after a 24-year-old college graduate spoke out on her immigration plight in USA TODAY, U.S. agents arrested her family — including her father, a Vietnamese man who once was confined to a "re-education" camp in his home country for anti-communist activities.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., who chairs the House immigration subcommittee, on Tuesday accused federal officials of "witness intimidation" for staging a pre-dawn raid on the home of Tuan Ngoc Tran.

The agents arrested Tran, his wife and son, charging them with being fugitives from justice even though the family's attorneys said the Trans have been reporting to immigration officials annually to obtain work permits.

Lofgren said she believes the family was targeted because Tran's eldest child, Tam Tran, testified before Lofgren's panel earlier this spring in support of legislation that would help the children of illegal immigrants. On Oct. 8, Tam Tran was quoted in USA TODAY. Her parents and brother were taken into custody Thursday. The family was released to house arrest after Lofgren intervened.

"Would she and her family have been arrested if she hadn't spoken out?" Lofgren said of Tran, who was not at home for the raid but has been asked to report to Immigration and Customs officials next week. "I don't think so."

The depth that the political hacks that Bush has allowed to destroy our Government will sink is beyond belief. Each and every day I am more amazed at just how evil these people are.

Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the Tran family's arrest "absolutely, unequivocally had nothing to do" with Tam Tran's advocacy.

Not a chance this was just a coincidence, this was plan old retribution and intimidation from a political hack.

Julie Myers is an unqualified hack(even rightwing nut job Malkin thinks so) who needs to be dragged in front of Congress and forced to explain just how this decision was made, and like all the other Bushies she will lie……but like Gonzales and Doan it will make for some great you tube videos

Representative Steve King, of Iowa's 5th District: Supports Al Qaeda.

It says so on the Internet….so it must be true?

Representative King as an American Tax Payer I demand you prove you are not a supporter of Al Qaeda.

If you can not immediately prove you are not a support of Al Qaeda, I demand your immediate resignation.

Faux News - Can it get any stranger

Pravda Fox Business News had one of the nation’s leading experts on FISA on last night to discuss the pending congressional action. News Hounds has the details:

Today (October 17, 2007), Fox brought on country music singer Charlie Daniels as an expert on FISA and eavesdropping.

Cavuto introduced Daniels over a very carefully worded chyron: "House Bill Would Restrict Government Terror Surveillance," as he explained that the House is, "set to vote on a bill that would make it tougher for the government to eavesdrop on potential terrorists. The proposal could impact telecommunications companies in a big way. [Cavuto's ridiculous attempt to make this sound like business news.] The president already threatening a veto. My next guest says yeah, you'd better veto it; that Democrats and civil libertarians are making it more dangerous for the rest of us."

Daniels said he travels all around the country and people, "don't feel like they're very represented." "I mean, these guys, they sit down there and you know, draw up things against talk show hosts?! Is that all they got to do?"

Cavuto wondered whether he was,"saying they're risking our security?"

Daniels said. "I'm absolutely saying..."

Cavuto interrupted: "They're saying they're trying to protect the Charlie Daniels of the world from being snooped on."

Daniels: "Well, I understand and it's a shame we have to go that far to take care of business," but, "we either gotta protect the country or we're not going to have a country to protect and if it means eavesdroppin', we have to eavesdrop. If it means, you know, lookin' at people's email, we have to look at people's email."

Can it get any more bizarre at Faux News then this?

 

Shocked and Awed.....H.R. 2102

I fully expected to be writing comments blasting my two least favorite congressional Republicans, for being nothing but Bush sycophants when I saw only 21 votes against H.R. 2102 (press shield).

Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 - Prohibits a federal entity (an entity or employee of the judicial or executive branch or an administrative agency) from compelling a covered person (a person engaged in journalism, including their supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate) to testify or produce any document unless a court makes specified determinations by a preponderance of the evidence.

Requires the content of compelled testimony or documents to be limited and narrowly tailored. Exempts certain commercial or financial information.

Applies this Act to communications service providers with regard to testimony or any record, information, or other communication that relates to a business transaction between such providers and covered persons. Sets forth notice requirements. Permits a court to delay notice to a covered person upon determining that such notice would pose a substantial threat to the integrity of a criminal investigation.

But I was shocked and awed when I looked up the votes and saw Michele Bachmann (MN-6), and Gina Brown-Waite (FL-5) in the “aye” column.

Despite the threatened Veto, they both actually came down on the side of our Constitution. I had planned to write the post had they voted “nay” hence l feel obligated to thank them for being on the right side of such an important issue.

Why my two least favorites, I was born and raised in the 6^th congressional of Minnesota (8^th back then), I am raising my family in Florida’s 5^th today.

Republic party donors being tight fisted

The Washing Post reports:

More than a third of the top fundraisers who helped elect George W. Bush president remain on the sidelines in 2008, contributing to a gaping financial disparity between the GOP candidates and their Democratic counterparts.

Scores of Bush Pioneers and Rangers are not working for any Republican candidate, citing discontent with the war in Iraq, anger at the performance of Republicans in Congress and a general lack of enthusiasm. More than two dozen have actually made contributions to Democrats.

So what’s this all about:

 

1. Maybe Carville’s right and they are all waiting for Jeb to ride to the rescue      or
2. The big money donors have big money because they don’t throw money into lost causes?

Rudy you phony little shit...........

Greg Sargent of Talking Points Memo found this little tidbit…….Rudy you are such a fake

"Well, I'm a Republican mayor, but I"m really not. I'm the mayor of New York City. I ran as a Republican, I ran as a Liberal — which really confuses all kinds of people — and I ran as an Independent, as part of the Independent Party, which actually is now the party that's supporting Ross Perot. So I ran a fusion candidacy, like my predecessor Fiorello LaGuardia. So I'm not the most partisan of Republicans."

More bad news for the Republic party....

Warner is a lock if he runs, and with a million already in the bank, it looks likely

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and former governor Mark R. Warner are dominating the race for campaign cash as the two Democrats step up efforts to take from Republicans the General Assembly this fall and a U.S. Senate seat next year.

In campaign finance reports filed Monday, Kaine and Warner reported that they each had more than $1 million in the bank, which political observers said was another sign that the state's Democratic Party is on the rebound.

 

This could be fun....can the left wing bloggers get as nutty as the right on this one?

Procurement Official Questioned About No-Work Deal Found Dead

The Air Force's second-highest-ranking procurement official was found dead Sunday night at his Virginia home in an apparent suicide, an internal Air Force memo said.

Charles D. Riechers, 47, principal deputy assistant secretary for acquisitions, "was found deceased in his home, cause of death appears to be suicide, time of death is unknown," according to the memo, sent late Sunday by the Air Force Operations Center in the Pentagon.

Now if this were during the Clinton administration, boy, oh boy would the right wing nut jobs like Malkin and Limbaugh be spinning the conspiracy theories

 

I am biting my tongue.......very hard

Verizon Says It Turned Over Data Without Court Orders

Firm's Letter to Lawmakers Details Government Requests

 

In an Oct. 12 letter replying to Democratic lawmakers, Verizon offered a rare glimpse into the way telecommunications companies cooperate with government requests for information on U.S. citizens.

Verizon also disclosed that the FBI, using administrative subpoenas, sought information identifying not just a person making a call, but all the people that customer called, as well as the people those people called. Verizon does not keep data on this "two-generation community of interest" for customers, but the request highlights the broad reach of the government's quest for data….

From January 2005 to September 2007, Verizon provided data to federal authorities on an emergency basis 720 times, it said in the letter. The records included Internet protocol addresses as well as phone data. In that period, Verizon turned over information a total of 94,000 times to federal authorities armed with a subpoena or court order, the letter said. The information was used for a range of criminal investigations, including kidnapping and child-predator cases and counter-terrorism investigations.

 

Insurance Giants at it again

This is truly ridiculous, this is capitalism run amok……………

Companies including Allstate, State Farm and Liberty Mutual have “nonrenewed” policies not only in hurricane-battered places like Florida and Louisiana, but in New York and other Northern states that have not seen hurricanes in years. Since last year, those three companies and others have turned down all new homeowners’ insurance business in New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts and the eight downstate counties of New York.

An independent insurance agents’ group puts the Grays among about 50,000 residents of the New York metropolitan area — and about one million homeowners in the Mid-Atlantic and New England states — whose policies have been canceled since 2004. While most homeowners have been able to find coverage with other major insurers, or with smaller companies, in most cases it is at higher rates and with larger deductibles.

The day you go to work for an insurance company is the day you check your soul at the front door.

Imagine that, our Government abusing civil liberties, again.

Raw Story has the story:

Pentagon acted with little oversight in spying on Americans, documents show

The Department of Defense has conspired with the FBI to "circumvent the law" in accessing hundreds of Americans' telephone, e-mail and financial records, say two civil liberties groups that released reams of new documents obtained in a contested public records request.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has challenged the Bush Administration's post-Sept. 11 spying authority, says the Pentagon has issued 455 National Security Letters in concert with the FBI to obtain Americans' private information it is not entitled to receive.

"The documents make clear that the Department of Defense may have secretly and illegally conducted surveillance beyond the powers it was granted by Congress," ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said. "It also appears as if the FBI is serving as a lackey for the DoD in misusing the Patriot Act powers. At the very least, it certainly looks like the FBI and DoD are conspiring to evade limits placed on the Department of Defense's surveillance powers."

Bet he talks a good game......

...but in reality we are replacing one fascist in charge of "Justice" with another

Detentions to Be Top Topic for Mukasey

As the chief federal trial judge in Manhattan, Michael Mukasey approved secret warrants allowing government roundups of Muslims in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Six years later, the man President Bush wants to be attorney general acknowledged that the law authorizing those warrants "has its perils" in terrorism cases and urged Congress to "fix a strained and mismatched legal system."

Mukasey's caution about the material witness law probably will please Democrats who control the Senate Judiciary Committee. At confirmation hearings set to begin Wednesday, they plan to press the retired federal judge about the Bush administration's terrorist detention policy.

I just don't get it - Are Congressional Dems Stupid or what!!

Why, oh why do we believe we have the moral authority to make historical declarations of genocide?

When there is current genocide happening in Darfur, that we are doing nothing about and we have genocide in our own history that we have as a nation yet to recognize or apologized for? Yes, I know the Coulters and Limbaughs of the day called it Manifest Destiny (and yes I know the Democrats of the day were the culprits, it is not the party stupid it’s what they stand for at any given point in time) , but face it, it was genocide plain and simple.

Thus, according to Ward Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, the reduction of the North American Indian population from an estimated 12 million in 1500 to barely 237,000 in 1900 represents a "vast genocide . . . , the most sustained on record." By the end of the 19th century, writes David E. Stannard, a historian at the University of Hawaii, native Americans had undergone the "worst human holocaust the world had ever witnessed, roaring across two continents non-stop for four centuries and consuming the lives of countless tens of millions of people." In the judgment of Lenore A. Stiffarm and Phil Lane, Jr., "there can be no more monumental example of sustained genocide—certainly none involving a 'race' of people as broad and complex as this—anywhere in the annals of human history."

When we have this type of baggage in our own past why are Democratic Congressional leaders allowing this to be such a distraction to the real issues we need to deal with.

Was the World War I-era killings of Armenians genocide? YES.

Does it make any sense to pass a congressional resolution on the topic ? NO.

This is a total distraction that we do not need!!

On Faux News this morning Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said the measure was "irresponsible."

"Listen, there's no question that the suffering of the Armenian people some 90 years ago was extreme. But what happened 90 years ago ought to be a subject for historians to sort out, not politicians here in Washington."

Now you went and did it, you went and made me agree with John Boehner on a topic, and that pains me, not because he is a Republican, but because he is an Ass.

GOP losing the hearts and minds of our Youth

Exit polls from recent elections and survey research show the nation's young people are less likely to embrace the Republican Party than any generation since the '60s.

Pravda for Business to commence

Pravda for Business

A contrast in two leaders

“Gore, even without the presidency, used all the modern tools of communication, the Internet, video and globalization to reach out and galvanize a global movement,” Mr. Rothkopf said. “Bush took the greatest platform in the world and dug himself a policy grave.”

Lost and Confused - George at his best

He thinks it’s a friggin’ joke:

If Impeachment wouldn’t just make it worse…….but really the man is just a moron.

Oh how wish I could comment but......

Due to my personal occupation as Telecom Manager for a major corporation it just wouldn’t be prudent (as GHWB would say)…..

So I will have to let others……

Think Progress
Daily KOS
The Body Politik

Plus I would hate to have them kill my Internet connection

Deadbeat Dads - get a small fraction of what should be coming to them

Mary T. Wagner’s essay for the Washington Post “Corralling Deadbeat Dads” gets to the heart of the matter…..or rather the lack of heart.

Statistics on the Web site of the federal Administration for Children and Families show that the federal and state partnership governing child support enforcement carried a caseload of 15.9 million families in fiscal 2005. Those numbers reflect the mandatory inclusion of parents who have custody and receive some kind of government benefits, and other custodial parents who voluntarily seek state help in getting their child-support orders enforced.

During that fiscal year, more than 11 million of those cases were listed as having some kind of child support arrears due -- and only a little more than half of those were listed as having payments coming in toward the arrears in child support. That's a lot of money not sent or spent on shoes, school supplies, haircuts or summer camp.

How, just how do these guys walk away from their children’s welfare like that.

I’m sorry but 2 and half years is not enough. Any man who walks away from supporting his children should be chemically castrated to ensure he never reproduces again…and you all thought I was a bleeding heart liberal…then put to work in a forced labor camp where every cent earned goes to catch up back support.

I have a 7 year old daughter who is the joy of my life, and no matter what negative thing could ever happen between my wife and I (and I pray everyday nothing ever does), I could never walk away from her emotionally or financially and live with myself.

I am not talking about those who choose to put their child up for adoption, just the opposite, I believe those individuals made the ultimate sacrifice to do what they truly felt was best for their child at heart wrenching personal expense.

I am talking about those who have chosen to walk away from clear moral and legal obligations they have to the welfare of their child(ren). I have no sympathy for them.

Yet there is a large group of Dads who I do have sympathy for, the ones who are up to date on support and do make every effort to be a part of their child(ren)'s life, yet they have to deal an ex-(wife-gf-lover etc) who uses the children as a weapon .... and yes I will stick my neck out and and say this is done by women much, much more often then it is ever done by the men.....they withhold visitation, they create every obstacle possible to the father being in their child's life.

So there now I have successfully pissed off everyone......could there be anything more pragmatic?

Was Qwest CEO Punished for refusing NSA

That’s the question Raw Story asks:

A former CEO who stood up to the Bush administration's demands that he assist in the warrantless surveillance of Americans suggests in court documents that the National Security Agency withdrew a lucrative contract in retaliation for his refusal.

USA Today revealed last year that Qwest was the only phone company not to comply with the NSA's request to compile phone records into a massive computer database, which it said was instituted only after 9/11.

Stern said at the time that Nacchio had asked the NSA whether "a warrant or other legal process had been secured." Stern said Nacchio learned there was a "disinclination on the part of the authorities to use any legal process" and concluded that "the requests violated the privacy requirements of the Telecommunications Act."

....and I unfortunately can not comment

Time for Prolifers to start acting like it

They claim to be pro-life yet they vote against health care for poor and lower middle class kids, they claim to be pro-life yet they support the death penalty (which all studies show is unequally applied by race), They claim to be pro-life yet support the indiscriminate massacre of untold thousands during the bombing of Iraq when they posed no threat to us.

Now they have chance to actually do something pro-life.

A new study shows that making abortion illegal does nothing to lower the abortion rate, it just increases the death rate of the mothers.

A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.

Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. Globally, abortion accounts for 13 percent of women’s deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and there are 31 abortions for every 100 live births, the study said.

It is time that pro-lifers to start truly trying to reduce the need for abortion. This study shows that millions have been wasted in trying to make abortions illegal in this country. Just think what that money could have done to actually reduce the need for abortions, by educating our kids about safe sex instead of these namby-pamby abstinence only classes that have shown to have no impact.

Sexual Behaviors—Six evaluations measured short-term changes in sexual behavior.

• Three of six programs had no impact on sexual behavior (California, Maryland, and Missouri).
• Two of six programs reported increases in sexual behavior from pre- to posttest (Florida and Iowa). It was unclear whether the increases were due to youth's maturation or to a program's effect, as none of these evaluations included a comparison group.
• One of the six programs showed mixed results (Pennsylvania).

Income inequality worst since 1920s, according to IRS data

Boy we know what happened then………….Raw Story reminds us:

The superrich are gobbling up an ever larger piece of the economic pie, and the poor are seeing their share of earnings shrink: new IRS data shows the top 1 percent of Americans are claiming a larger share of national income than at any time since before the Great Depression.

Moral Crisis on the Right - Who Woulda Thunk it DOH!!!!

PAUL KRUGMAN of the NY Times brings us more on the bashing that the rightwing nut jobs have trying to do on the Graeme Frost 12 year old.

All in all, the Graeme Frost case is a perfect illustration of the modern right-wing political machine at work, and in particular its routine reliance on character assassination in place of honest debate. If service members oppose a Republican war, they’re “phony soldiers”; if Michael J. Fox opposes Bush policy on stem cells, he’s faking his Parkinson’s symptoms; if an injured 12-year-old child makes the case for a government health insurance program, he’s a fraud.

Meanwhile, leading conservative politicians, far from trying to distance themselves from these smears, rush to embrace them. And some people in the news media are still willing to be used as patsies.

Study reveals stressed out 7-11 year-olds

Boy and we here in Florida require 9^th graders to choose a “Major”…… I would guess the kids in Britain are not much different then here in the good ol’ USofA …….the fascists in charge here are not letting go of national testing either.

The Guardian has a round up on a Cambridge study:

Today's Cambridge University report, Community Soundings, says national tests leave most children stressed and some middle class parents paying for a "parallel" education system employing tutors to get children through their exams even before the age of 11.

Some pupils said the tests were "scary" and made them nervous.

"These findings do build up to a sense that important changes are needed within the primary sector," said Robin Alexander, a fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge, and a former professor of education at Leeds and Warwick, who is heading the Primary Review. Today's research will feed into the review, which reports in a year's time and is expected to have a significant influence on education policy.

He said: "The surprise is that although we made considerable efforts to tap a wide range of opinions inside and outside of schools ... there was a large degree of consensus on what are the big issues."

Many adults questioned for the study voiced concerns over the influence of the media on children and pressures of consumerism while more suggested that they believed that there is a break down in family life and community.

"The responses reveal a pervasive anxiety about the current educational and social contexts ... and a deeper pessimism about the world in which today's children are growing up," the report says.

Pupils feared the world outside their school gate - those in urban areas were particularly worried about violent crime although parents' biggest fear for their children was traffic accidents.

Researchers found that pupils in schools which tackled the problems they worried about, such as those with eco-clubs and recycling schemes to teach children about environmental problems, were happier.

"Where schools had started engaging children with global and local realities as aspects of their education they were noticeably more upbeat. In several schools children were involved in environmental projects and the sense that 'we can do something about it' seemed to make all the difference," they write.

School staff told the researchers that some parents were not involved enough, while others were too "pushy" and demanding of their children academically. The General Teaching Council for England opposes national tests for seven, 11 and 14-year-olds, the results of which are published in league tables and scrutinized by parents when choosing a school. Wales has scrapped them. Ministers in England are adamant that they will remain.

Did Ann finally have her "Imus" moment

Will the MSM news channels finally quit giving her the forum to spew her venom?

The Raw Story among others has more

Host Donny Deutsch asked Coulter what her ideal picture of America looked like and she recalled the 2004 Republican convention in New York City.

 "People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America," she said.

Deutsch asked, "It would be better if we were all Christian?"

Coulter replied "yes," and reiterated her declaration again later in the interview, although she denied wanting to wipe all Jews off the map.

"We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say," Coulter said.

 

Redneck Rash!!!!!

This is the best ever!!!

House aides visiting racetracks advised to get immunized

NASCAR fans might seem rabid, but are they actually contagious?

Getting a hepatitis shot is standard procedure for travelers to parts of Africa and Asia, but some congressional aides were instructed to get immunized before going to Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord and the racetrack in Talladega, Ala.

The House Homeland Security Committee planned a fact-finding trip about public health preparedness at mass gatherings and decided to conduct the research at two of the nation's most heavily attended sporting events, NASCAR's Bank of America 500 event this weekend and the UAW-Ford 500 last weekend.

Republic party is starting to panic over all the retirements

Jim Ramstad is being begged by national party leaders to reenter the race, as they fear a major blow out in ‘08

Political observers note that while Ramstad's third congressional district in the Twin Cities' western suburbs has historically leaned Republican, a Ramstad decision to postpone his retirement could save the cash-strapped GOP campaign committee as much as $1 million to defend the seat, a factor that could be huge in a tough presidential election year.

"With Jim Ramstad out of the race, it will be a competitive district, and probably a seven-figure race on each side," said former Minnesota Congressman Vin Weber, a prominent GOP strategist and lobbyist in Washington. "With Jim in it, it's a put-down hand for the Republicans."

These guys amaze me, they spend the last 12 years marginalizing a quality moderate like Ramstad and when he finally says “enough is enough” they start begging him to stay…..they are in a world of hurt in ‘08

 

About-face: Tutu gets St. Thomas invite

After having caved to a small number vocal critics of Bishop Tutu and refusing a department request to invite him to speak, St. Thomas' president, the Rev. Dennis Dease, change his mind. On Wednesday. Due only to the pressure brought by the blogosphere after the City Pages pointed it out.

The Reverend attempts a Mea Culpa:

"I have wrestled with what is the right thing to do in this situation, and I have concluded that I made the wrong decision earlier this year not to invite the archbishop," Dease wrote. "Although well-intentioned, I did not have all of the facts and points of view, but now I do."

But it is tough to explain this away when this is the same guy who approved an Ann Coulter visit to campus 2 years ago,

Let’s hope Bishop Tutu blows them off and speaks at Metropolitan State University instead.

Pres. Carter: US tortures prisoners, 'I know it'

The Raw Story has a great story & the video on the CNN Wolf Blitzer interview with President Carter:

Former president Jimmy Carter isn't just suspicious that the US is using torture to extract intelligence from detainees -- he's absolutely convinced.

Asked by CNN's Wolf Blitzer if, by Carter's definition of the word, the United States had used torture during the Bush administration, the Nobel Peace Prize winner was adamant:"I don't think it, I know it," he said.

"Certainly."Pressed by Blitzer on whether that meant that President Bush was lying, Carter was equally clear."The president is self-defining what we have done and authorized in the torture of prisoners," said Carter."Yes."

Jimmy kicks Cheney’s Ass too:

Carter was equally outspoken in a Wednesday interview with the BBC, calling Vice President Dick Cheney a "disaster," according to Reuters.

"He's a militant who avoided any service of his own in the military," he said of Cheney, adding that the vice president "has been most forceful in the last 10 years or more in fulfilling some of his more ancient commitments that the United States has a right to inject its power through military means in other parts of the world."

Bush's torturers follow where the Nazis led

Andrew Sullivan points out that the Bushies have everything but the goose step down:

George Orwell would have been impressed by the phrase “enhanced interrogation technique”. By relying on it, the White House spokesman last week was able to say with a straight face that the administration strongly opposed torture and that “any procedures they use are tough, safe, necessary and lawful”.

So is “enhanced interrogation” torture? One way to answer this question is to examine history. The phrase has a lineage. Verschärfte Verneh-mung, enhanced or intensified interrogation, was the exact term innovated by the Gestapo to describe what became known as the “third degree”. It left no marks. It included hypothermia, stress positions and long-time sleep deprivation.

Old George Orwell had it right, just 25 years off on the date. (Although in all fairness Reagan set the whole thing in motion with phrases like “peace keeper missiles”.

The last of our moral high ground - Gone!!

It is gone, we have lost the last piece of moral high ground we had.

When our Government can kidnap an innocent man from a foreign country…render him for torture in a third country and simply wash our hands of it with no redress available to the victim, it’s over , we have become what we claim to be fighting against, and the right-wing nut jobs that run this government just don’t see it.

Top Iraqis Pull Back From Key U.S. Goal

Reconciliation Seen Unattainable Amid Struggle for Power

Washington Post
Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services.

"I don't think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such," said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd. "To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power."

So just as Dick predicted back in 1992………we’re stuck there.

God's Only Party

God’s Only Party
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071007_gods_only_party/
Posted on Oct 7, 2007
By Will Durst
Earlier this week, a clandestine cadre of controlling conservative Christian captains (bunch of right wing religious nut jobs is what I’m getting at), threatened to run from the GOP like ducks from an alligator the size of a Buick if any infidel they don’t anoint is nominated for president. And yes, specific former New York City Mayors were mentioned. Funny you should ask.
At a meeting in Salt Lake City, (where else- you thought Vegas maybe?) Heaven’s Soldiers, collectively decided they would rather support a burned- beyond- recognition, duck- billed- platypus with wire- coat- hanger hands than a certain Mr. Rudolph Giuliani. Apparently the Mayor of 9/11 is not the answer to their prayers.
Oh, they have their reasons. Mr Giuliani’s serial inclination to appear at fundraisers in drag, resulting in his being photographed wearing a dress more often than Hillary Clinton, could be one. His brazen courting of the pro choice, pro gay rights, pro gun control wing of the Republican Party might be another. The fact that the Rudy clan, including both ex wives, (two too many) are campaigning for other people, doesn’t help much either. A bit of a sticky wicket that: trying to swing Independents with your Family Value bonafides, when your own family hates you. With megaphones.
The zealot heads went so far as to talk out loud about forming their very own party if Giuliani does weasel his way to the top of the ticket. And since white Protestant Evangelicals make up a third of the electorate in the early primary states of Iowa and South Carolina, they believe the threat of mass defection is too big of a bluff for the GOP leadership to call. Because, as we all know, a Republican Party without Christian conservatives is like a snake handler with no snake. A scorpion minus the stinger. Hell without dental surgery.
You might think this is one of those cut off your nose to spite your face kind of deals, because, well, it is. But evangelicals are sick and tired of being taken for granted, and count on party bigwigs to remember how Ross Perot threw the 92 & 96 elections to Bill Clinton. Which in those kinds of Kool- Aid circle jerks is like handing the keys of your children’s soul to Satan for a bucket of deep fried Twinkies. But let’s leave Bush’s fiscal policy out of this.
Not only are some dogmatic noses severely out of joint from having the door of implemented policy change slammed in their apostolistic faces, but they also have a few canonistic bones to pick with some of their recent higher profile disciples like Mark Foley, David Vitter, Larry Craig and the Creator’s own personal mouthpiece, Ted Haggard. Guys whose newsreels feature more extra curricular sexual footage than you’d run into at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch during an after hours party for the Adult Video Awards.
Of course, if they do form a third party, the big question is what to call it? “The Holier Than Thou Party,” is a bit put offish. “God’s Only Party” would be confusing, especially if the media tried to acronym it. “The Everyone Has to Live Like We Think They Should Live Party” is probably too long. I did come up with the perfect name, but unfortunately, “The Taliban,” is already taken.

MPR - Select a Candidate

Select a Candidate

The first one I have seen for 2008

This one is a simple 14 item quiz from the folks at Minnesota Public Radio to see which candidate best reflects your views on issues facing us today.

I will be keeping an eye out for additional candidate selectors as they come online.

Here's another one

And don’t forget the old stand by Political Compass, if you just want to see where you are on the political compass compared to friends, family or the current batch the egomaniacs who want to be President.

You show me yours, I will show you mine J

NeoCon Gold - So True, Yet So Scary

Blimptv.com has an absolutely hilarious parody of the classic TV record pitch called NeoCon Gold

It reminds me of my favorite Drew Carey show of all time – Whose line is it, anyway?

Thanks to Crooks and Liars for pointing it out this morning

Surtax on war is sacrifice we can all make ? right?

Surtax on war is sacrifice we can all make, right?
Would conservatives and Republicans support the war in Iraq if they had to pay for it?

This is the immensely useful question that Rep. David Obey, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, put on the table this week by calling for a temporary war tax to cover President Bush's request for $145 billion in supplemental spending for Iraq.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/5192545.html

O'Reilly's losing it and Snow smacks down Republic party

O’Reilly and Snow had an interesting conversation the other night

O’Reilly Lets Loose: Says WH Reporters Need To Be ‘Wiped Out,’ Calls CNN ‘The Pagan Throne’

Even the good folks at Think Progress missed the real story in this O’Reilly/Snow exchange. Now that Tony is no longer the Bush bunches’ talking head he took a major shot at the Republic party.

“SNOW: You know, again, I’ll have to figure it out. I’m more interested right now talking about things that I think are important . In many ways, the Republican party’s falling off the rails. It’s forgotten about.

O’REILLY: Tell me about it.

SNOW: It’s forget about fiscal discipline. It’s forgotten about the importance of liberty.”

Tony it’s about time you came to your senses…but just like Colin Powell before you, you should have spoken up when you were there instead of playing “Bush’s Baghdad Bob” for 3 years

 

G.O.P. Contenders Endorse Health Insurance Veto

The New York Times pins the Republic party candidates down on SCHIP

“The four leading Republican presidential candidates have aligned themselves with President Bush’s veto on Wednesday of an expanded health insurance program for children, once again testing the political risk of appearing in lock step with a president who has low approval ratings and some critics of the veto within their party.”

Someone get video, because the flopping will start the day after the nomination is sewn up.

A pictures is worth a thousand words

Or in this case a comic strip

The Boss Kicks Some Ass

Bruce Springsteen Unpatriotic? The Boss Kicks Some Ass

“Rocker Bruce Springsteen answers critics who call his anti-war sentiments unpatriotic by saying the real sin against patriotism is saying nothing while your country is being harmed.”

 

Don’t take any shit Bruce !!!

The man is an Idiot

The State Children's Health Care Insurance Program (SCHIP) is a successful federal-state partnership that currently provides health insurance to about 6 million children whose parents make too much to qualify for health coverage under Medicaid, yet cannot afford private insurance.

Both the House and the Senate recently voted to expand the program's eligibility requirements and cover an additional 5.8 million kids; the expansion will be paid for by raising cigarette taxes.

Yesterday, President Bush vetoed this legislation.

Who's going to side with sick children to help override Bush's veto and obtain health insurance coverage for millions of kids?

Use this form to tell your rep in Congress - vote to expand SCHIP.

Or this form.

This must be a major issue in ’08, we need to get to get the Republic candidates on the record…Now, while they are sucking up to the neo-fascist base.

Ann Yaps Again

So my least favorite right wing zealot strikes again:

Ann Yaps

“If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

“It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it’s the party of women and ‘We’ll pay for health care and tuition and day care — and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?’”

Ann Coulter should be a permanent fixture in Democratic ads in ‘08

*been meaning to fix that typo for a year

Getting Started - Blogging

It's all about taking that first step.....creating "the blog"

Well here goes.....first we will get it working, then decide what we do with it