From Krazy King George to Looney St. John - We Could Be In Trouble

First he sang a us a song, then told us The United States military could stay in Iraq for "maybe a hundred years" and that "would be fine with me," , then told us U.S. troops could be in Iraq for "a thousand years" or "a million years," as far as he was concerned, now he tells us there will be more wars to come.

John It’s time for a reality check bro’.

Suicides among active-duty soldiers in 2007 reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records in 1980, according to a draft internal study obtained by The Washington Post. Last year, 121 soldiers took their own lives, nearly 20 percent more than in 2006.

At the same time, the number of attempted suicides or self-inflicted injuries in the Army has jumped sixfold since the Iraq war began. Last year, about 2,100 soldiers injured themselves or attempted suicide, compared with about 350 in 2002, according to the U.S. Army Medical Command Suicide Prevention Action Plan.

The Army was unprepared for the high number of suicides and cases of post-traumatic stress disorder among its troops, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have continued far longer than anticipated...

The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have placed severe stress on the Army, caused in part by repeated and lengthened deployments. Historically, suicide rates tend to decrease when soldiers are in conflicts overseas, but that trend has reversed in recent years. From a suicide rate of 9.8 per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001 -- the lowest rate on record -- the Army reached an all-time high of 17.5 suicides per 100,000 active-duty soldiers in 2006.

New Bush Coins

This is way too funny, and way too close to the truth!

Thanks to the wife for pointing it out!

Norm What Did You Think This Year?

* 2004 SOTU -
George W. Bush, January 20, 2004 Coleman press release - January 20th, 2004

* 2005 - SOTU
George W. Bush, February 2, 2005 Coleman press release - February 2nd, 2005

* 2006 SOTU
George W. Bush, January 31, 2006 Coleman press release - January 31st, 2006

* 2007 SOTU
George W. Bush, January 23, 2007 Coleman press release - January 23rd, 2007

* 2008 SOTU
George W. Bush, January 28, 2008 Coleman press release - TBD

So nearly 24 hours later and no press release on the Coleman website.

So is Norm delaying his normal glowing report on "W" ramblings ? Wonder
why??

Could it be that pesky 29% approval rating George has?

Nothing on the campaign site either.

***Update - it posted last night on the 30th, but got back dated to the 28th, boy it sure takes a different tone then the past 4 SOTU reactions from Norm. Ya think a tough reelection ahead with George at 29% might have something to do with that.

SOTU - What Will Norm Say This Year?

For my friends back home in the northwoods a few notes from "Norm" on past SOTU addresses.

After Years of Glowing Praise, Will He Still Support Bush’s Failed
Foreign, Domestic Policies?
When George Bush delivers his final State of the Union address on Monday, Minnesotans will be listening carefully to both the president’s speech and Norm Coleman’s reaction. In years past, Coleman has praised Bush’s addresses, speaking glowingly of the foreign and domestic policies that have today resulted in U.S. troops caught in a civil war abroad and a slowing economy and a growing housing crisis at home.

“For years, Norm Coleman applauded as Bush announced policies that have led to foreign policy disasters abroad and a slowing economy at home,” DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said. “When Bush lays out his plans for his final year in office, Minnesotans will be watching Norm Coleman to see if he continues to endorse Bush’s failed policies or if he will finally start listening to them instead.”

FLASHBACK:
2004: Coleman Said Bush Was “Right On Target” in State Of The Union. After President Bush’s 2004 State of the Union address, Norm Coleman said, “The
President's message was right on target…The war in Iraq was necessary to get rid
of Saddam. The tax cuts were necessary to pull us out of recession. Now we need
to dedicate ourselves to the hard work and patience of seizing the opportunities
those bold steps made possible.” [Coleman Press Release, 1/20/04]

2005: Coleman Said Bush’s State of the Union Was Bold and Aggressive, Added That Iraq Was “Democratized.” In response to President Bush’s 2005 State of the Union address, Norm Coleman said, “The President has been very bold in laying out an aggressive agenda for his second term, and tonight he presented us with a blueprint. In his address tonight, required each year by our Constitution, President Bush reaffirmed his already proven steadfast commitment to fighting a relentless war on terror in the newly democratized Iraq and anywhere else terrorists lurk around the globe. He also reminded us that our work in Iraq is far from over.” [Coleman Press Release, 2/2/05]

2006: Coleman Said State Of The Union “Candid and Optimistic.” After President Bush’s 2006 State of the Union speech in 2006, Norm Coleman said, “Tonight the President clearly communicated a candid and optimistic State of the Union address that addressed the concerns and aspirations of all Minnesotans. I agree with the President: We live in historic times. We are gaining the advantage in the War on Terror, we are experiencing a healthy and robust economy, and we have continued to meet unprecedented national challenges with characteristic resiliency and strength.” [Coleman Press Release, 1/31/06]

2007: Coleman Said Bush Laid Out A “Robust Domestic Agenda” State Of The Union. In response to President Bush’s 2007 State of the Union speech, Norm Coleman said, “The president’s speech laid out a robust domestic agenda that addresses concerns on the minds of many Americans.” [Coleman Press Release, 1/23/07]

Our Police State -Cuff 'em & Stuff 'em

Even if they are only 5 years old.

5-year-old boy handcuffed in school, taken to hospital for misbehaving

A 5-year-old boy was handcuffed and hauled off to a psych ward for misbehaving in kindergarten - but the tot's parents say NYPD school safety agents are the ones who need their heads examined.

"He's 5 years old. He was scared to death," Dennis Rivera's mother, Jasmina Vasquez, told the Daily News. "You cannot imagine what it's done to him."

Dennis - who suffers from speech problems, asthma and attention deficit disorder - never went back to class at Public School 81 in Queens after the traumatic incident.

His mom and a school source said Dennis threw a tantrum inside the Ridgewood school at 11 a.m. on Jan. 17.

This is insane, there is no situation where you can justify handcuffing a 5 year old, whatever happened to “protect and serve”. If an officer can not get a situation uncontrolled involving a 5 year old they are in the wrong line of work.

GOP - Short Lived Civilty

Republican Candidates Trade Attacks in Florida

Sen. John McCain of Arizona accused former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney of having once supported a U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, sparking an angry demand for an apology from Romney, who called the statement "dishonest."

Both Republicans abandoned all pretense of civility as they campaigned across central Florida in advance of the state's primary Tuesday. Recent polls show a dead heat between McCain and Romney, and the winner here would gain a huge boost as the nomination fight moves to 21 states a week later.

Stumping in Fort Myers on Saturday, McCain went on the attack first, linking Romney with Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.): "If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher."

All the folks in the MSM and especially the folks at faux news could talk about all week was how civil the GOP debate was and how the Clinton/Obama flare up was ripping the Democratic party apart. So will we hear the same line from Sean Hannity about the GOP now?

Oh just for the record; McCain is right Mitt flopped on this one too and I always wondered just how do you have a secret timetable for withdrawal? The bad guys will just wake up one morning and 150,000 US troops will have disappeared overnight?…….not that ST McCain is any better.

Question: Do you believe that there should be a timetable in withdrawing
the troops?"

Romney: "Well, there's no question that the President and Prime Minister
al-Maliki have to have a series of timetables and milestones that they speak
about."

Big Brother - WTH 1.4 Million For A Butt Shot?

From the Huffpost:

After a brief lull, the Federal Communications Commission recommenced its battle against provocative television shows late Friday, proposing a $1.43 million fine against the ABC and its affiliates for a February 2003 episode of "NYPD Blue."

The agency proposed the highest fine possible for the broadcast, which briefly showed the side and back of a naked woman getting into a shower.

"Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense," the FCC said in its complaint.

Some 52 ABC stations in the Central Standard Time and Mountain Standard Time zones were assessed a $27,500 fine for broadcasting the show. ABC's East and West coast affiliates were not charged fines because they aired the broadcast at 10 p.m., which falls outside the 6 a.m to 10 p.m. period in which the FCC can fine stations for broadcasting nudity, overly suggestive scenes and obscene words.

Although almost five years in the making, the FCC fine is notable for its size and because it could signal the beginning of a new round of indecency fines that may soon emanate from the agency. Complaints have been piling up at the FCC in recent years, as the agency has paused from issuing new fines while defending previous decisions in federal appeals courts.

You have got to be kidding, folks 1984 is here, they will decide what you watch, what you read and what you are allowed to think.

Straight Shooter? NOT

Oh by the way John, 45 US soldiers died in Somalia, 0 US soldiers died in Haiti.

3932 (and counting) US soldiers have died in Iraq.

McCain wants us to stay there forever or he'll call the troops losers and the terrorists winners.

Big Brother - Give 'em The Old Razzle Dazzle

On New Years Eve 2007, Krazy King George signed The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, toughening the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The legislation was unanimously passed by the House and Senate and designed ensure federal agencies to respond more quickly to records requests.

Krazy King George gave a fairly luke warm reception to the bill when signing it:

For example, the bill holds members of the Senate and Executive Branch employees to a much higher standard of conduct than members of the House. The specific bill language is confusing, and I believe these increased restrictions would have a negative impact on recruitment and retention of federal employees. I urge the Congress to make these standards more uniform and less confusing and to do so in a way that will not discourage public service.

In addition, this bill would have the effect of unreasonably burdening sitting President's and Vice President's reelection campaigns. I look forward to working with Congress to amend these provisions to provide a reasonable process for allocating the cost of Presidential and Vice Presidential campaign travel that is consistent with security needs.

I am pleased that the Congress has begun to make progress in bringing greater transparency to the earmarking process. However, this bill falls far short of the reform that American taxpayers deserve. I am concerned that there are potential loopholes in some of the earmark reforms included in this bill that would allow earmarks to escape sufficient scrutiny. This legislation also does not address other earmark reforms I have called on Congress to implement, such as ending the practice of putting earmarks in report language.

I thank Members of both parties who worked on this legislation, and look forward to working with the Congress to further advance ethics, lobbying, and earmark reform.

Well, King George really didn’t like it, but decided in the face of a certain veto override he would just go ahead and sign it, since he would just neuter it later anyhow.

Let’s move the funds for the Office of Government Information Services  to the Department of Justice”, removing it from the National Archives. Oh and then we will just forget to actually establish the new office at DOJ.

            Congress Daly reports:

“But by shifting the funding to the Justice Department, OMB would effectively eliminate the office, because it appears no similar operation would be created there,” according to an aide to Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT). […]

National Archives officials are relatively independent of political pressure, the staffer explained, “but DOJ is different.” Government transparency advocates consider the department hostile to efforts to improve FOIA responsiveness, in part because it represents agencies sued by FOIA requesters.

The Robert's Supreme Court Taking Care of "Business"

Is anyone really surprised?

Topped off by last week's decision in Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific Atlanta, which sharply restricted the ability of shareholders to sue entities that abet corporate fraud, recent winners before the Supreme Court have included Enron and the banks that facilitated its scam; payday lenders; investment banks that engage in price fixing; and tobacco companies, among others. Losers have been small investors, poor, black school children, working-class women paid less than men—and one kid who was paralyzed after a police officer rammed his car because he was speeding.

Not only are "the people" losing at a rapid clip when they come before the court, but it has gotten much, much harder for the average person to even get into court in the first place. Over the past two decades, Supreme Court decisions have quietly prevented a wide swath of the American population from even reaching the courthouse, much less prevailing there when they've challenged better-funded and more powerful interests. Lee Epstein, a professor at Northwestern law school, says that the court is "shutting down access to plaintiffs in all sorts of ways. The court seems to be saying 'stay out.'"

In the last term, the court ruled, for instance, that taxpayers had no right to challenge the federal government's use of tax dollars to pay for religious-based social services. The case overturned years of precedent giving people a say in how their money is spent if it seems to mix too much church with state business. In a complicated anti-trust case, the court basically rewrote the rules for filing a civil lawsuit, making it harder for plaintiffs to even get into a courtroom under the guise of protecting business from allegedly frivolous lawsuits.

Rudy We Hardly Knew Ya!

St. Pete Times Poll: Bye-bye Rudy?
It’s Mitt Romney vs. John McCain in the final stretch of Florida’s crucial Republican primary.

A new St. Petersburg Times poll shows the former Massachusetts governor and Arizona senator neck and neck among Florida Republicans, while Rudy Giuliani’s Florida-or-bust strategy has been a bust.

Among Florida voters likely to vote in Tuesday’s primary, 25 percent are backing McCain and 23 percent Romney, a statistical tie, while Giuliani and Mike Huckabee were tied for third place with 15 percent each.

Rudy your brilliance is shining through......what a political genius! Even with the MSM media claiming you skipped the early states you still can;t get it done.

Stupid Video Day

Sometimes ya just gotta laugh!

Big Brother - The Thought Police Are Real

Robert Mitchell of Computer World reports on some scary stuff:

 

Big Brother Really Is Watching

Homeland Security is bankrolling futuristic profiling technology to nab terrorists before they strike.

As soon as you walk into the airport, the machines are watching. Are you a tourist -- or a terrorist posing as one?

As you answer a few questions at the security checkpoint, the systems begin sizing you up. An array of sensors -- video, audio, laser, infrared -- feeds a stream of real-time data about you to a computer that uses specially developed algorithms to spot suspicious people.

The system interprets your gestures and facial expressions, analyzes your voice and virtually probes your body to determine your temperature, heart rate, respiration rate and other physiological characteristics -- all in an effort to determine whether you are trying to deceive.

Fail the test, and you'll be pulled aside for a more aggressive interrogation and searches.

That scenario may sound like science fiction, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is deadly serious about making it a reality.

 

This just about takes the cake, when we criminalize thought we are done as a society

Our Police State - Criminalizing Being A Kid

Police in Florida sometimes go beyond their legal authority when interrogating suspects while they are in school

Florida police frequently skirt state and federal laws, or violate them outright, when questioning children at school, a St. Petersburg Times investigation has found.

Often police question juvenile suspects first, and leave the Miranda warning for later. In some cases they question kids at school and take them to jail without notifying the principal. Or they interrogate them as suspects before trying to notify their parents, in violation of state law.

Even when police don't cut legal corners, experts say the push to station officers in most middle and high schools has brought a raft of unintended consequences: blurred roles, unclear legal authority and a sharp increase in school arrests for minor infractions that could be handled out of court.

Principals, the last line of defense for kids jeopardized by police misconduct, rarely challenge resource officers or other police who enter school to interrogate students.

And children are saddled with criminal records that can follow them for a lifetime.

"They won't be able to get a job, they won't be able to go to college," said Judge Robert Evans of the 9th Judicial Circuit. "They're screwed for life."

 ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Public defenders say schoolhouse confessions are common, and judges often encourage kids to waive their right to a lawyer and plead guilty.

"We run into that quite frequently," said Bob Dillinger, chief public defender in Pinellas and Pasco counties. "It's a systemic problem."

Half of all juveniles went without a lawyer in Pasco and Pinellas counties in 2005, as did three-quarters of those in Sarasota, Manatee and De Soto counties, according to the Florida Supreme Court.

In both Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, an unusually high number of kids were arrested at school and referred to court, according to the Department of Juvenile Justice. Hillsborough sent students at a rate of 21 per 1,000, while Pinellas sent 24, compared to a state average of 17.

Those counties were singled out in a report that year by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and other groups, which charged that students of color were arrested out of proportion to their numbers in schools. Black students accounted for 22 percent of the student population, but they made up 47 percent of all school referrals to court, according to state figures.

In a recent study, the National Juvenile Defender Center described Florida's juvenile system as dangerously dysfunctional, with courts overloaded by low-bore school referrals.

"We saw, in courtroom after courtroom, hundreds of school-based cases that had no business being there," said Patricia Puritz, the center's executive director. "There was no place where these kids were not being dumped into the juvenile court setting."

* * *

I would have never gotten to college, gotten a great job and been the very productive individual I am today if the basic behavior of teenage kids was treated in the 70’s like it is today(and that’s just the stuff I got caught doing).

All we are accomplishing with the insane amount of criminalization smallest juvenile infractions is creating a generation of minimum wage workers, but wait, that’s what the neo-cons are after fodder for the everlasting war on terror.

Record Democratic Turnout In Neveda

The NY Times Reports Huge Dem Turn out:

The contest in Nevada drew record turnout among Democratic caucusgoers, a reflection of the intensity of the race. In hundreds of precinct caucuses, including nine casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, about 116,000 voters took part in the first Western contest in the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, 10 times the amount in the 2004 caucuses here.With 98 percent of the precincts reporting on Saturday night, Mrs. Clinton, of New York, had 51 percent of the vote and Mr. Obama, of Illinois, had 45 percent. Mr. Edwards, of North Carolina, came in with 4 percent, a surprisingly poor showing given the attention he had devoted to Nevada.

 

While the GOP had a surprising large turnout, only 11% of registered Republicans showed up compared to 28% of  registered Democrats, wow, which party looks energized?

 

AP:

About 116,000 Democrats, 28 percent of all Nevada's registered Democrats, showed up at 520 precincts around the state. The previous record for a Democratic caucus was nearly 9,000 who turned out for the 2004 presidential race.

More than 44,000 Republicans, 11 percent of registered GOP voters, were on hand at 113 precincts. The most the Nevada GOP had drawn to a presidential caucus before was 2,000 to 3,000 voters, according to party officials.

Ya think having a caucus that actually is held before a de facto nominee is already selected might have a bit to do with the huge increase both parties saw?  To quote the immortal Homer “dooh!”

The GOP Must Be Seeing Blue

Even deep in the “evangelical” south, the winds of change are blowing. South Carolina results are not looking good for big red.

In 2000 McCain’s second place finish got him 237,888 votes in South Carolina. This year he has just over half those number of votes with 138,812. Republican primary turnout will be way below where it was in 2000. Nearly 150,000 votes less.

	2008				2000
John	McCain	138812		George W	Bush	301050
Mike	Huckabee	125175		John	McCain	237888
	Thompson	65840		Alan	Keyes	25510
Mitt	Romney	63026		others		1256
Ron	Paul	15373				565704
Rudy	Giuliani	8575
Duncan	Hunter	1002
Tom	Tancredo	111
John	Cox	81
Hugh	Cort	55
Cap	Fendig	23
	Total	418073

A Trip Down Memory Lane - For Those Gipper Fans

For those Republic party candidates and Barak Obama, who are falling all over themselves to grab the mantel of Ronald Reagan , here’s a reminder of just what went through the Gipper’s little brain:

The Genius of Ronald Reagan: Direct Quotes from the Gipper Himself

"Trees cause more pollution than automobiles do." -- Ronald Reagan, 1981

"A tree is a tree. How many more do you have to look at?" -- Ronald Reagan, 1966, opposing expansion of Redwood National Park as governor of California

"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born. "

"I have flown twice over Mt St. Helens out on our west coast. I'm not a scientist and I don't know the figures, but I have a suspicion that that one little mountain has probably released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere of the world than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving or things of that kind that people are so concerned about." -- Ronald Reagan, 1980. (Actually, Mount St. Helens, at its peak activity, emitted about 2,000 tons of sulfur dioxide per day, compared with 81,000 tons per day by cars.)

"Facts are stupid things." -- Ronald Reagan, 1988, a misquote of John Adams, "Facts are stubborn things."

"We think there is a parallel between federal involvement in education and the decline in profit over recent years." -- Ronald Reagan, 1983. (It's always good to run the Department of Education to make money.)

"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal." Ronald Reagan, 1976, on his failed campaign for the Republican nomination. (Moron.)

"The best minds are not in government." -- Ronald Reagan. (Not in his government anyway.)

 "You can't help those who simply will not be helped. One problem that we've had, even in the best of times, is people who are sleeping on the grates, the homeless who are homeless, you might say, by choice." -- President Reagan, 1/31/84, on Good Morning America, defending his administration against charges of callousness.

On 8/24/85 President Reagan tells an interviewer that the "reformist administration" of South African president P.W. Botha has made significant progress on the racial front. "They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country," says the President, "the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated - that has all been eliminated." (In response to questions a few days later as to whether President Reagan actually thought racial segregation has been eliminated in South Africa, Larry Speakes said "Not totally, no.")

"The American Petroleum Institute filed suit against the EPA [and] charged that the agency was suppressing a scientific study for fear it might be misinterpreted... The suppressed study reveals that 80 percent of air pollution comes not from chimneys and auto exhaust pipes, but from plants and trees." Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, in 1979. (There is no scientific data to support this assertion.)

"You know, if I listened to him long enough, I would be convinced that we're in an economic downturn, and that people are homeless, and people are going without food and medical attention, and that we've got to do something about the unemployed." -- President Reagan, 6/8/88, accusing Michael Dukakis of misleading campaign rhetoric.

 

Canada Groups US With Syria And Others That Torture

Foreign Affairs suspects U.S. tortures prisoners

Published: Thursday, January 17, 2008

OTTAWA - A Foreign Affairs document has identified the United States and Israel as countries it suspects of practicing torture.

The document also defines such U.S. interrogation techniques as blindfolding and forced nudity as torture.

The emergence of the document - a Power Point presentation meant to instruct Canadian diplomats on how to recognize torture cases abroad - is bound to strain relations with the two countries that Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sought to strengthen during his two years in power.

If there was any doubt left that rest of the free world has lost all respect for the United States, this should close the case.

Osama and the terrorist have won, they have turned us into shadow of our former selves. We have lost the high moral ground we had before 9/11 and have squandered the opportunity to truly change the world we were presented following 9/11.

Romney Melts Down When "Bullshit" Is Called

Handled that well now didn’t he?

Have We Really Forgotten How Evil Reagan Really Was?

This is unbelievable, has the revisionist history gotten so bad that democratic presidential candidates are comparing themselves to Ronald Reagan?

I Am Speechless!

Think Progress

Today, Rep. Eric Cantor (VA), the chief deputy Republican whip in the House, unveiled his proposal to stimulate the economy. His legislation - the so-called Middle Class Job Protection Act - does nothing for the middle class. Instead, it reduces the corporate tax rate by 25 percent.

At a press conference today unveiling the stimulus proposal, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) justified the conservative plan to give tax breaks to corporations - instead of working Americans - by arguing that people actually like working long hours:

“I am so proud to be from the state of Minnesota. We’re the workingest state in the country, and the reason why we are, we have more people that are working longer hours, we have people that are working two jobs.”

Bachmann’s version of the American Dream is apparently working two full-time jobs and struggling to get by.

I am absolutely taken aback, what on earth is going through this woman’s small little demented mind. If the 6^th district of Minnesota reelects this sick woman they deserve what they get. I see another visit to the "worst person in the world" list.

****Update - Michele was only able to pull a bronze from Olberman

America's Mayor - Winning The Race For Obscurity

Talking Points Memo Reports:

With so much going on tonight, I'd overlooked another key battle tonight that TPM Reader DK has just brought up.

With 99% of the precincts in, in a rare cross-party primary match up, we can now report that Rudy Giuliani will beat Dennis Kucinich's vote total this evening.

Kucinich currently has the votes of 21,715 Michiganders while Rudy is pulling in 24,708, thus topping Kucinich by just shy of three thousand votes.

I thought all the Democrats but Hillary pulled their names off the ballot, if that’s the case Rudy beat Kucinich by less the three thousand votes and Kucinich’s votes were all write in votes, ouch!

 

Brilliant strategy there Rudy, at this point Rudy will be lucky to win two states on Super Tuesday.

The Huckster - Theocracy Or Bust

This is beyond the pale. The man wants to scrap 200+ years of constitutional democracy for a theocracy that meets his vision of what scriptures says. This is one scary individual. Huckabee's colors were on display this morning.

Damn, First Good Reason I Have Ever Heard To Be A Republican

Poll: U.S. sexual divide not so wide

CHICAGO, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Fifty-five percent of Republicans have sex at least once a week, compared with 43 percent of Democrats, a U.S. survey found.

The survey by pollster Frank Luntz, conducted exclusively for Playboy magazine, found 25 percent of all Republicans and 35 percent of all Democrats have had more than 10 sexual partners in their lifetime.

The survey of 900 registered U.S. voters between the ages of 18 and 65, all of whom are very likely to vote in the 2008 presidential election, also found, on average, Republicans say they were 18.4 years old when they first had sex, Independents say 17.6 and Democrats say 17.5, the survey said.

Fifty-five percent of people who attend church every week consider themselves to be "sexually adventurous," while 51 percent of Republicans and 67 percent of Democrats have watched pornography with their sexual partners.

Americans belonging to both parties say they are more turned on by intelligence than by physical appearance, yet 23 percent of all Republicans and 24 percent of all Democrats would "definitely" or "probably" say yes to a one-night stand in the oval office with a president they found physically and sexually attractive.

So maybe this explains why all the leading candidates for the republic nomination (the party of family values) are all on wife number 2, 3 or 4 (expect the guy who's religion is actually ok with that).

The Obama Fairy Tale @ Fixed News

Take a few minutes to watch (courtesy of ScarceTV )the entire context of President Bill Clinton’s remarks regarding Senator Obama’s position on Iraq(as provided on an ABC news feed), is Bill pissed off about the free ride on the topic and unwillingness of the press to critically challenge Senator Obama, yes, are his remarks even remotely racist, no.

Now let’s watch a little Hannity & Colmes from fixed news. (you’ll notice the sudden cut at 45 seconds from Bill’s remarks and of course no showing of the question asked)…thanks NewsHound for the clip

Just what you would expect from fixed news, oh and of course Colmes fails to even mention the out of context nature of the clip in his defense of Clinton, followed by Juan William’s mock indignation later in the segment that was totally a joke.

So this is SOP for fixed news, but I was terribly disappointed to see the good folks at Talking Point Memo doing the same type of editing.

Chris Matthews - Yep He's Ass Alright

Media Matters Jamison Foser Goes After Chris Matthews

……And, in the midst of his years-long assault on Hillary Clinton, much of it either directly based on her gender or on a sexist double standard, Matthews has the audacity to accuse Clinton of being "anti-male" and to insist that "she should just lighten up on this gender -- 'the boys are coming to get me' routine."

None of this should surprise us. Chris Matthews acknowledged his feelings about Hillary Clinton long ago: "I hate her. I hate her. All that she stands for." And "she drives some of us [guys] absolutely nuts."

But Matthews' questionable treatment of women extends beyond Hillary Clinton.

Matthews has described House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as "scary" and suggested she would "castrate" House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. And he has wondered how she could disagree with President Bush "without screaming? How does she do it without becoming grating?"

Just this week, Matthews claimed there isn't a plausible female presidential candidate "on the horizon" because there aren't any "big-state women governors" -- but Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Connecticut Gov. Jodi Rell, and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius all run states with populations comparable to male governors who have recently run for president, including Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and Bill Richardson. How large a state does a woman have to run before she qualifies as a plausible presidential candidate to Chris Matthews? One that is twice as large as Mitt Romney's Massachusetts? Three times as large?

Last October, Matthews mused aloud about a hypothetical couple trying to decide who to support for president. In Matthews' mind, the wife just wants to see "the first woman president." According to Matthews, the husband has to explain the math to his wife: "[T]he husband says, 'You know, dear, you know, this is going to kill our tax bracket. You know that tuition thing we pay every couple of years for the kids, every year, we can't do that if we get a higher tax bracket. We have to pay more money.' "

After the Des Moines Register endorsed Hillary Clinton earlier this year, Matthews suggested that the paper's "female editors and publisher" succumbed to "lobbying" by Bill Clinton.

Matthews has repeatedly focused on the physical characteristics of his female guests. He recently began an interview with conservative radio host and author Laura Ingraham by telling her, "I'm not allowed to say this, but I'll say it -- ?ou're beautiful and you're smart." He ended the interview by saying: "I get in trouble for this, but you're great looking, obviously. You're one of the gods' gifts to men in this country. But also, you are a hell of a writer." Note that Matthews said Ingraham is also a good writer -- apparently, to Chris Matthews, there is no reason for men to care about whether a woman can write, only about how she looks……..

And he nails it, I have found Matthews more and more annoying, but man , now I know why.

Not Understanding What An Evangelical Is

Jim Wallis gets it right at the HuffPost

For example, the exit polls in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary have asked departing Republican voters if they are "evangelicals," but they don't ask the same question of exiting Democrats--therefore assuming there aren't any evangelicals voting for Democrats, an assumption that is demonstrably not true. The leading Democrats in the race--Obama, Clinton, and Edwards--speak explicitly and articulately as Christians and their campaigns have reached out as much to faith communities as the Republicans have.

The media experts on religion then go on to explain to us that evangelicals care mostly or only about abortion and gay marriage, and not about other issues. That is even more mistaken. The issues that most concern evangelicals today, especially a younger generation, include poverty, the environment and climate change, human rights, and the morality of a foreign policy where war is the first resort. This year those issues are drawing a growing number of evangelicals to consider the Democratic candidates.

My biggest problem with so called Evangelicals is the zero sum politics that have been played with them by the republic party, Evangelical Christians have never been as homogenous a group as the GOP nor the media have made them out be. And it is beginning to show.

 

 

Exit Poll Shenanigans - @ Fixed News

Fox News at 8:01:20pmET last night.

Brit Hume: "We do not think as of this hour that there was the chance there seemed to be earlier of an Obama

A network insider tells TVNewser the exit polls actually were right on. Here are the final exit poll numbers for the Democratic primary:
• Clinton — 39%, Obama — 37%, Edwards — 18%.

The final vote totals were:
• Clinton — 39.16% , Obama — 36.44%, Edwards — 16.93%

There is something terribly wrong here, team “fair and balanced” apparently fudged the numbers.

I got so sick hearing about “Hanover” from these yahoos last night, they were in complete denial, and even waited for Obama’s concession speech to call the win for Clinton.

Something that hasn't been seen in the US media

What has happened to the media in the US, why do I have to find this out from a news source across the pond??????????????????

Recession in the US 'has arrived'
The feared recession in the US economy has already arrived, according to a report from Merrill Lynch.

It said that Friday's employment report, which sent shares tumbling worldwide, confirmed that the US is in the first month of a recession.

Its view is controversial, with banks such as Lehman Brothers disagreeing.
But a reserve member of the committee that sets US rates warned that it could do little about the below-trend growth expected in the next six months.

"I am concerned that developments on the inflation front will make the Fed's policy decisions more difficult in 2008," Charles Plosser, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia said.

He was referring to the problems faced by the US Federal Reserve, which might want to cut interest rates to avoid a recession, but is worried about inflationary factors such as $100-a-barrel oil.

New Hampshire The Big Winner - Howard Dean

Clinton 110,550 39% Winner
Obama 102,883 37%
Edwards 47,803 17%
Richardson 12,987 5%
Kucinich 3,845 1%
Biden 616 0%
Gravel 397 0%
Dodd 195 0%
279,276 54.9%

McCain 86,802 37% Winner
Romney 73,806 32%
Huckabee 26,035 11%
Giuliani 20,054 9%
Paul 17,831 8%
Thompson 2,808 1%
Hunter 1,195 0%

228,531 45%

96% reporting

The Independents went Democratic in a state Kerry barely won (50.3) with 2
Republic Senators and NH favorite McCain on the ballot, the Democrats pull
55% of the vote. John Sununu best be freshening up the resume.

I told you Iowa does not matter.

This Is Wrong I Tell You, Just Plain Wrong!

Woman Booted From Army for Having Breast Implants

A woman has been kicked out of army training because she has silicone breast implants.

Alessija Dorfmann, 23, said: “I am devastated. It has always been my dream to be a soldier and have a great figure.

“Now my fake boobs have cost me my job.”

She has appealed against the ruling by top brass in Hamburg, Germany, who said implants increased risk of injury.

What is a matter with our military, a young soldier saves her earnings up to try and improve herself and what do they do, kick her out. I just don’t get it.

 

But really folks notice where this came from, this is what passes for news at fixednews.com  

The world according to George W Bush

I think that this pretty much sums up George's view of how the world should be. I can hardly wait until Jan 20th, 2009.

Everything I Know I Learned Since Jan. 20, 2001

by Neal Starkman

Being a Christian is the best. It's not really OK to be a Jew unless you live in Israel, the Promised Land. Mormons should learn how to be more Christian. Everyone else should convert or die.

The U.S. does well when huge corporations are allowed to do whatever they want. The more we can make rich people richer, the better it will be for everybody:

Rich people hire everyone else to work for them, making our economy robust.

Rich people got rich because of the free market system and their own individual efforts, for which they should be rewarded. Those people who aren't rich have only themselves to blame.

People in high office -- like the president and the vice-president -- have difficult, complicated jobs. If they forget to do stuff, or if they cut corners here and there, or if they tell a white lie now and then, that's OK, because the important thing is for them to protect us not only from bad things but also from thinking about bad things, unless they feel we need to. The only thing a president shouldn't do is to have sex with someone who's not his wife -- because that's a betrayal of the American people's trust.

Scientists' opinions are neither better nor worse than anyone else's.

Just because someone doesn't use big words or make sense a lot of the time doesn't mean that that someone isn't smart and kind and doesn't have our best interests at heart.

If people disagree with you, the only reasonable explanation for their behavior is that they're traitors. Sometimes they know this and sometimes they don't.

If you have nothing to hide, it shouldn't matter who listens to your phone calls or looks at your bank statements or follows you around the block in a van that says "ClearTone Cell Phones" or talks to your neighbors about who's been visiting you on Tuesday evenings under the guise of "playing poker." Only criminals would object to any of those things.

If you live in an area that's prone to a natural disaster like a fire or a flood or an earthquake or a hurricane, you shouldn't expect the federal government to take care of you when your neighborhood gets destroyed. Next time you'll think more carefully about where you're going to settle down.

Some people in the world are envious of everything we have -- computers and cable TV and cool-looking clothes and the Super Bowl and especially our freedoms. They'll do anything to destroy us, because if they can't have those things, they believe that no one should. These people are ?robably dark-skinned. That doesn't mean we should be suspicious of everyone who's dark-skinned. Still.

The immigration problem is the most critical issue facing Americans today, except maybe for those terrorists who are envious of us -- unless they're both illegal immigrants and terrorists, which is more common than most people think.

The fall of communism is the best evidence that providing everyone in this country with free health care is doomed and in any case gives drug addicts and slugabeds free handouts and no motivation to succeed on their own merits.

Democrats block progress at every turn, either by spending beyond our means, taxing beyond our means, preventing the administration from doing what's right, or just kind of being obnoxious. They should go away and let Republicans fulfill their mandate.

God speaks to the president, which is really fortunate, because otherwise people might have stronger arguments against what he does.

Megaman vs Polish immigrant - Good Political Discourse? Or Tasteless?

Raw Story has an Interview with the creator :

The creator of a controversial new YouTube video, which draws on the classic 'Mega Man' video game to criticize Canadian authorities' involvment in the Taser-related death of a Polish immigrant, told RAW STORY he was simply looking to prompt a closer look at the incident.

"Renewing a conversation via some controversy was my original intent," said Vancouver resident Mike Greenway in an email, "but I had no idea it would balloon to the scale it is now."?lt;/o:p>

Polish-born Robert Dziekanski died last October after being restrained and Tasered by Canadian police at a Vancouver airport. Authorities had taken action after an agitated Dziekanski, who spoke no English, went on a rampage that damaged airport property.

Greenway resets the incident in a Mega Man-style incarnation of the airport, opening with an unseen player selecting a level entitled "Polish Immigrant." Mega Man soon encounters a mock-up of Dziekanski, and a menu appears with three weapons options: Use restraint, call a translator or "tazer mercilessly (sic)."

Mega Man proceeds to blast the Dziekanski character repeatedly.

Greenway's video has sparked outrage from some in Canada's Polish community, but the creator told RAW STORY he had aimed to increase public focus on the "bad judgment" he says Canadian police demonstrated in resorting to a use of force.

"I am certain the memory of my video will fade quickly in the coming weeks," he said, "but the hope is that people don't let the actual [Vancouver airport] incident completely fade from memory."

Nevertheless, a spokeswoman for the Canadian Polish Congress told the CanWest News Service this week that Dziekanski's death was not appropriate for video game treatment.

"This tragedy should not have been portrayed as a game." she said. "It is disrespectful to the victim, his family and the Polish community."

A spokesman for the Canadian police also had harsh words for the video.

"Any right-thinking person who would look at the video would be offended by that," Staff Sgt. John Ward told CanWest. "A gentlemen lost his life and it is in extremely poor taste."

Greenway says his creation isn't making light of Dziekanski's death, but rather pointed to security policies he says are in desperate need of reform.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does?

BlueTexan at firedoglake does a great job of conservative bashing, and I am such a huge Mills fan that anytime you can bash the likes of Jonah Goldberg and use Mills to do it, you’re getting my kudos;

I've been developing this theory for some time now that conservatives are really, really stupid. But, disappointingly, the response on the right has been vapid and intellectually unsatisfying.

I started thinking about this phenomenon when I came across John Stuart Mill's quote about how most stupid people are conservative. Then I saw this scientific study which demonstrated that liberals are smarter than conservatives. I also observed that conservatives don't understand modern science, think Saddam planned 9/11, and don't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was. And I noticed that the Republicans' leader, aside from being unable to string together two grammatical sentences, thinks Jesus is a "political philosopher" and didn't know that Iraq had Sunnis and Shiites. Finally, I discovered Jonah Goldberg's new book contains this on the jacket cover:

The quintessential liberal fascist isn’t an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade-school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.

So it's pretty clear that conservatives are really, really stupid. I've made this point in good faith, but no serious commentators on the right will offer a sustained argument against it. I'm really interested in what Jonah has to say about my thesis and hope he takes the time to carefully consider my arguments.

Is There Hope? Maybe If Voters Get A Clue

I had been planning on writing the previous post for a few days now and planning to follow up with this one (as this made me think back to some data we saw this spring from Pew Research), asking how could we be moving in the direction our candidates seem to be moving (Up and Right on the political compass), when polling data shows the public moving in a different direction.

When yesterday lo' and Behold an article in the Washington Post explains it all, it's all about controlling the network dynamics, which is what the Republic party has done so well.

Let's start here, we should be seeing a major political shift as the American Public's moderating political views and the Republic party's continued drift to th right and toward authoritarianism come into conflict.
As Pew points out;

Increased public support for the social safety net, signs of growing public
concern about income inequality, and a diminished appetite for assertive
national security policies have improved the political landscape for the
Democrats as the 2008 presidential campaign gets underway.

At the same time, many of the key trends that nurtured the Republican
resurgence in the mid-1990s have moderated, according to Pew's longitudinal
measures of the public's basic political, social and economic values. The
proportion of Americans who support traditional social values has edged
downward since 1994, while the proportion of Americans expressing strong
personal religious commitment also has declined modestly.

Even more striking than the changes in some core political and social values
is the dramatic shift in party identification that has occurred during the
past five years. In 2002, the country was equally divided along partisan
lines: 43% identified with the Republican Party or leaned to the GOP, while
an identical proportion said they were Democrats. Today, half of the public
(50%) either identifies as a Democrat or says they lean to the Democratic
Party, compared with 35% who align with the GOP.

And even some pretty graphs to:

Clearly the general public as a whole and the republic party core are moving
in opposite directions, yet as Pew also pointed out;

Yet the Democrats' growing advantage in party identification is tempered by
the fact that the Democratic Party's overall standing with the public is no
better than it was when President Bush was first inaugurated in 2001.
Instead, it is the Republican Party that has rapidly lost public support,
particularly among political independents. Faced with an unpopular president
who is waging an increasingly unpopular war, the proportion of Americans who
hold a favorable view of the Republican Party stands at 41%, down 15 points
since January 2001. But during that same period, the proportion expressing a
positive view of Democrats has declined by six points, to 54%.

So how is it that with Bush tanking and public support of traditional
Democratic principles increasing, we still see decline in the approval
ratings of Democrats?

Well Shankar Vedantam of the Washington Post takes a look at a study on Network Dynamics, which used music for testing, and extrapolates it to the Iowa Caucuses;

The experiment, published in Science, suggests that when large networks of
people evaluate something together -- and it does not matter whether we are
talking about songs or "American Idol" contestants or presidential
candidates -- their conclusions are not only powerfully shaped by the views
of others, but by the network that binds them together. The Iowa caucuses,
which involve people watching one another and moving from one candidate's
camp to another, have different network properties than a primary where
voters don't have such real-time feedback.

Watts, a sociologist at Columbia University, said his research challenges
central beliefs we have about why some musicians become stars and s?me
politicians become presidents. Quality matters, but when voters intensely
watch one another, the success of candidates depends at least as much on
network dynamics as it does on the quality of the candidates themselves.
Because network dynamics are not governed by intuitively simple rules of
cause and effect -- depending on where they are in a network, people with
strong opinions might end up with little influence, while the weak opinions
of others get greatly magnified -- networks regularly produce outcomes that
are partly arbitrary. Each of the eight music "universes" started out the
same, but for no good reason, each went off in its own direction.

But clearly these dynamics work on the grand scale of a national election
and as Shankar notes;

Seeing a presidential election in those terms, however, is troubling: It
means that, every four years, we entrust our future to a roll of the dice.

So even though there clearly is a widening gap between the principles of the
republic party and where America stands, as long as we are unwilling as
individuals to critically analyze the candidates and their party's
positions, rather than relying on sound bites, talking heads and 30 second
attack ads to determine our electoral preferences we will get the government
we deserve.

1984 - As We Creep Ever Closer To Fascist Totalitarianism

A while back I mentioned , the Political Compass and just how surprised you might all be if you took the test. Well I was?poking around a few days ago and noticed they posted the relative positions of the 2008 yahoos running for President.



Kinda scary when you look at it, even scarier
put into historical context;





Down right terrifying when you see how much more Authoritarian the current crop of Republic party candidates are then even Bush was in 2004

.

I wish I had the time to see what public opinion polls there are on each of the questions asked, just to see where we as an aggregate come in.

Myself, well that's pretty easy, I hang with the Dalhi Lama and Gandhi, "so, I got that going for me ". :)

1984 - As We Creep Ever Closer To Fascist Totalitarianism

A while back I mentioned , the Political Compass and just how surprised you might all be if you took the test. Well I was?poking around a few days ago and noticed they posted the relative positions of the 2008 yahoos running for President.



Kinda scary when you look at it, even scarier
put into historical context;





Down right terrifying when you see how much more Authoritarian the current crop of Republic party candidates are then even Bush was in 2004

.

I wish I had the time to see what public opinion polls there are on each of the questions asked, just to see where we as an aggregate come in.

Myself, well that's pretty easy, I hang with the Dalhi Lama and Gandhi, "so, I got that going for me ". :)