Who Hijacked Our Country

Friday, March 30, 2012

Karl Rove: Obama “a Double Agent for Russia”

Karl Rove’s “independent” group, American Crossroads, has released a new video portraying  President Obama is a double agent for Russia, secretly working from within to weaken America’s defenses.

Everyone knew the Far Right would jump all over Obama’s open-mic gaffe, where he was heard telling Dmitry Medvedev that he’d have more flexibility on missile defense after the election.  And with Pavlovian predictability, this is what Rove’s new video is based on.

The video is a James Bond spoof, starring Obama as “President Flexible.”  Medvedev is “Dr. Transmitkov,” combining villains from James Bond and Austin Powers movies.  And Vladimir Putin stars as “Himself.”

A voice says:

“Your mission is simple, Mr Obama:  Win one last election to gain unchecked flexibility, weaken our defenses, and fundamentally transform the world.”

The video also shows images of missiles and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Obama — and every other Democratic candidate — will have to get used to these slanderous attacks financed by unknown shadowy creatures.  These hit pieces will be getting hotter and heavier and thicker and more vicious between now and November.  In most cases the public won’t even know who designed these attacks or who is paying for them.

But this works both ways.  An unknown opposition researcher has turned up some unflattering information about Karl Rove.  For instance, did you know:

Karl Rove likes to hang around public restrooms and lure little boys to his secret hideaway.  Once he gets them there, he ties them up and ejaculates all over them while they’re being forced to watch graphic child porn videos.  In the next room, kittens and puppies are being tortured, and Rove’s child victims have to listen to all the pitiful wailing and screeching.

The previous paragraph was brought to you by Concerned Christians for a Better America.



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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Big Business: “We’re Paying Our Prostitutes MILLIONS of Dollars, and They’re NOT performing!!!”

Corporate conglomerates and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent megabazillions of dollars to “elect” their Republican prostitutes to the House of Representatives.  And now they’re suffering from buyer’s remorse.

For one thing, they’ve suddenly noticed a huge gap between corporate interests and the Tea Party.  What about that famous Republican lockstep march, where the entire party does everything in unison?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is strongly in favor of a transportation bill which is crucial for the construction industry.  Teabaggers keep derailing the bill.

And the U.S. Export-Import Bank, which has been financing exports since the 1930s, is in jeopardy.  The bank might shut down completely by the end of May.  (See Teabaggers, previous paragraph.)

A vice president of an airplane manufacturing firm said:

“There’s not a bank in the United States that’s going to loan money to that customer of mine in Argentina to buy my airplane.  There is not a free-market system that operates like that. It does not exist. We need the Ex-Im Bank, period.”

The National Association of Manufacturers is also adamant about the importance of the U.S. Export-Import Bank.

Teabaggers are also derailing a lot of routine business tax breaks by insisting that these tax breaks have to be paid for by spending cuts elsewhere.

Whatever these teatards think of Corporate America, that’s who bought them their seats in Congress.  Wasn’t there something about “dance with them that brung you,” or whatever it was Molly Ivins used to say.

A spokesman for Club For Growth said:  “Free market is not always the same as pro-business.”

Let the rift begin.  Let it get wider and wider.  It’s time for these lockstep marchers to break ranks and start scattering every which way.



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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

“Mitt Romney has changed positions more often than a pornographic movie queen”

Now now, former senator Arlen Specter didn’t mean to insult any hardworking actresses by comparing them to Mitt Romney.

He said:

“The Republican Party has moved so far to the right, you can’t recognize Mitt Romney.  What Mitt Romney will appear in October?  Mitt Romney has changed positions more often than a pornographic movie queen.”

And:

“If you think women have no place in the workforce, if you’re against contraception, if you think John Kennedy’s speech in Houston separating church and state was wrong, you are too far out of the mainstream to be president.”

President of Iran maybe.  Oh that’s right, Romney wants to bomb them.

And if — Heaven Forbid! — Mitt Romney is actually able to flipflop his way into the White House, what will he say to the Russians the first time he meets with them?

“Hey, you didn’t think I was serious, when I was saying you guys are ‘without question our number one geopolitical foe,’ did you?  Aw come on, I was willing to say ANYTHING to get elected.  See, watch this, I’m shaking the Etch-A-Sketch — all gone.  Give me five!”



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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Jane Fonda to play Nancy Reagan

Zing!  This oughtta get a rise out of conservatives.  “Hanoi Jane” — yup, the rightwads are still calling her that forty years later — will be playing America’s favorite holier-than-thou “Just Say No” ice queen.

The movie is The Butler, directed by Lee Daniels (“Precious”).  The movie is a historical drama based on the life of Eugene Allen — White House butler from 1952 to 1986.  Forest Whitaker will star as Eugene Allen.

Oprah Winfrey, Liam Neeson and Hugh Jackman are also in the movie.  Jane Fonda’s role will be relatively minor since Eugene Allen only had to deal with Nancy Reagan during the last five years of his 34-year career.

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

President Obama Speaks More Bluntly Than Ever

Whoa!  Don’t get him started!

I’m not sure who the President was referring to — probably the red states — when he said:

“It is like you are in a time warp.  It is like you are looking across 50 years into a country that has missed 40 years or 50 years of progress.”

OOOOHHHH!!!!  A little harsh, but if the shoe fits…

After that — presumably talking about the medieval nightmare that awaits this country if we don’t make some changes soon — he said:

“If a country can’t feed its people effectively, if it can’t make anything of any use to anybody, if it has no exports other than weapons…If it can’t deliver on any indicators of well-being… for its people… then you’d think you’d want to try something different.  There are certain things that just don’t work and what they are doing doesn’t work.”

OUCH!!!  But hey, it needed to be said.  If we are ever going to bring ourselves out of this downward spiral, it’ll take this kind of brutal self-assessment to get us motivated.  This is a good beginning.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Utah to Federal Government: “Give Us Back Our Land”

This oughtta be interesting.  If you like the red states’ lawsuit against Obama’s Affordable Care Act, you’ll love the state of Utah suing the federal government to get their land back.  Who knows, it might even start a chain reaction of red states suing to get “their” land back.

Utah Governor Gary Herbert has signed a bill which demands that the federal government return Utah’s federally-owned public lands back to the state.  That’s about thirty million acres.  This land will have to be returned to Utah by 2015 Or Else.

In 1896, Utah surrendered these lands to the federal government in return for being admitted as a state.  Now stop right there — I know what you’re thinking and the answer is NO.  Utah will NOT secede from the union in return for getting its land back.

Damn it.

The governor has been warned that he has no legal grounds to stand on, but he insists this is “a fight worth having.”  He said:

“The Bureau of Land Management has more control over our state than the governor.”

Who needs a bunch of sissy national parks and wildlife preserves when that land could be used for something productive?  There are minerals to mine, golf courses to build; there’s oil to be drilled, natural gas to be fracked, trees to be cut down.  That land is just sitting there, doing nothing, and we want to USE it for something.

As somebody commented at the end of the linked article, this land used to belong to the Indians; maybe Utah should give it back to them.

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Friday, March 23, 2012

Employers Who Require Job Applicants’ Facebook Passwords

It’s not illegal to be an asshole, but it CAN put you at the business end of a huge lawsuit.  Facebook is threatening legal action against the growing number of sickfuck nosy employers who have too much time on their hands.

More and more employers are demanding that employees and job applicants provide their Facebook login IDs and passwords.  Or in less extreme cases, they’re told to log on to Facebook — without revealing their password — and then allow a supervisor to pore over their Facebook page.

Get a life!  Were these stupid shits getting bored watching paint dry or pulling the wings off of flies?  Don’t they have some real work to do?

Facebook’s chief privacy officer, Erin Egan, has posted a note on Facebook’s privacy page.  The note says Facebook will “take action to protect the privacy and security of our users.”

It also says:

“This practice undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user’s friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability.”

And:

“Facebook takes your privacy seriously. We’ll take action to protect the privacy and security of our users, whether by engaging policymakers or, where appropriate, by initiating legal action, including by shutting down applications that abuse their privileges.”

It’s too bad these Peeping Toms needed to be told to grow up and find something constructive to do.  Hopefully they’ll heed the warning.

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Thursday, March 22, 2012

“High gasoline prices are probably here to stay” — Mitt Romney, 2006

Etch-A-Sketch “Mitt” Romney has already done more flipflops than a gymnast; changed direction more often than the wind at Cape Cod.  His most famous flipflop is the fact that he invented “Romneycare,” and now he’s on the campaign trail vilifying the identical “Obamacare.”

And now, while he’s blaming President Obama for high gas prices, trying to gut most of our environmental protections and aligning himself with the “Dril Babee Dril” inbreds — another skeleton has poked its head out of Romney’s closet.

When Romney was governor of Massachusetts, he was in favor of Smart Growth.  In case that’s not enough to chill the hearts of teabaggers and Kochsuckers everywhere, Romney also came out against a Republican proposal to suspend the state gas tax during a spike in prices.  In 2006 he said:

“I don’t think that now is the time, and I’m not sure there will be the right time, for us to encourage the use of more gasoline. I’m very much in favor of people recognizing that these high gasoline prices are probably here to stay.”

Busted!

Let’s make sure this Romney quote is played over and over and over until November.

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Wednesday, March 21, 2012

The Million Hoodies March

A Million Hoodies March was held in New York City today to protest George Zimmerman’s murder of Trayvon Martin.  National outrage has gone through the roof since Trayvon Martin was murdered on February 26th.  The murder has gone from a barely-reported local news item to nonstop nationwide news coverage.  There have been nearly a million signatures to a Change.org petition demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman.

As you know, Trayvon Martin was wearing a hoodie as he walked from a convenience store back to his father’s house in a gated community near Sanford, FL.  George Zimmerman, a 250-pound neighborhood watch captain, shot him because he looked suspicious and because “these assholes always get away.”

Trayvon’s mother spoke to the crowd of protestors (all wearing hoodies):

“Our son is your son.  This is not about a black and white thing. This is about a wrong and right thing.”

Trayvon’s father said:

“Zimmerman took Trayvon's life profiling him. My son did not deserve to die.  There is nothing we can say to bring him back but I'm here to ensure that justice is served so that no parents have to go through this again.”

Some of the hoodie-wearing demonstrators took turns shouting out “Do I look suspicious?”

I don’t know the details of Florida’s Stand Your Ground law, but there’s no fuckin’ way this law says you can follow a person, chase him, back him into a corner and start a fight with him, and then — Presto!  “It was self defense.”

And who ever heard of a 28-year-old 250-pound cop wannabe — with a criminal record, it turns out — serving as a neighborhood watch captain?  Maybe it’s just a stereotype, but whenever I see those “Neighborhood Watch” signs I always picture some old lady peeking cautiously through the curtains.

Not George Zimmerman.  Cute little fellow, isn’t he?  Smart too.  He looks like somebody asked him “how much is two plus two” a few minutes ago and he’s still working on it.

How would you like to be walking home, minding your own business, and see that giant lunkhead following you and badgering you?

Arrest the cocksucker already.

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Tuesday, March 20, 2012

FCC allows Hundreds of New Low-Power FM stations

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) made a decision yesterday which paves the way for hundreds of new community radio stations to start broadcasting on low-power FM signals.  This is excellent news.  More stations, more competition, more jobs — right?

A few giant broadcasting conglomerates — e.g. Clear Channel — have been strangling the “public” airwaves for years, with the same five songs played over and over and over and the same talk radio inbreds spewing their bilge in every square inch of the country.  In a lot of non-urban areas, radio listeners’ “choices” come down to just one or two mega-corporate stations.  You can listen to either Rush Limbaugh OR Laura Ingraham — your cup runneth over.

And now, finally, listeners will have some REAL choices.  The Prometheus Radio Project has been pushing for this FCC ruling, and now it’s a reality.  The Prometheus Radio Project’s policy director said:

“These new, low power stations can only be licensed to non-profit organizations, and you can only have one per customer.  That way we won’t have these big corporate chains and media networks that are taking over the rest of the media landscape moving in on low power FM service. These stations have to be local, and they have to be independent. This clears the way for a real transformation of the FM dial.”

Works for me.

And there’s more good news from the FCC:  This isn’t a done deal yet, but the FCC is planning to create a website that will publicize TV stations’ records of which political groups purchased ads on each station and how much they paid.   Rep. John Dingell said:

“We desperately need openness.  We’ve got a bunch of billionaires and millionaires who are pouring millions of dollars into the elections of this country, and to these super-PACs, with nobody having the vaguest idea of who they are, what they’re up to, what they want or what would be the consequences of it.’’

A spokesperson for the Campaign Legal Center said providing this information online would “reveal the true interests behind the purchases.”

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Monday, March 19, 2012

Fewer College Graduates Seeking Wall Street Careers

It’s about time.  This trend won’t show any immediate results, but ultimately this can only be a good thing.

There have been countless articles describing America’s brain drain.  Until a few years ago, the best and brightest would gravitate to a career in science, medicine, inventing something, building something, providing a service.  In a word, something useful.

There have been other articles warning us that when the financial sector — i.e. playing with other people’s money — has become a country’s largest industry, it’s a screaming red flag for that country.

And now — finally! — this dangerous trend is reversing.  This has been simmering for awhile, but it came to a boil with the recent New York Times column by Greg Smith, formerly of Goldman Sachs.  His public resignation letter / op-ed piece included: “I knew it was time to leave when I realized I could no longer look students in the eye and tell them what a great place this was to work.”

As Kevin Roose writes in the linked article:

“College students who were once attracted to prestigious banks like moths to bonfires are increasingly turning to other industries in search of success.”

An anthropology professor who has studied the Wall Street culture said:

“Everything from Occupy Wall Street to larger critical discourses of ‘fat cats,’ all of that has had some trickle-down effect to young people.”

At this year’s SXSW in Austin, there was a panel titled “Keeping Kids off the Street: Wall St. vs. Start-ups.”

In 2008 — before the Wall Street meltdown — 28% of Harvard’s graduating class went into finance.  Last year that number fell to 17%.

This sentiment was articulated by a business student at the University of Texas at Austin:

“I have no interest in working at Goldman.  I want to build something. I don’t want to be working in an industry that effectively leeches off other industries.  It’s not creative enough for me.”

Perhaps the most telling of all:  In a survey of 6,700 young professionals, respondents ranked Google, Apple and Facebook as the companies they’d most like to work for.  The highest-ranking bank — JPMorgan Chase — came in at #41.

Crash and burn, Motherfuckers.

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Sunday, March 18, 2012

Unions and Watchdog Groups to Shine Light on Corporate Cockroaches

Maybe cockroaches aren’t a good comparison. Unlike the six-legged variety, it’s not enough to turn on the lights and send the corporate cockroach scurrying back into the walls.

Corporate cockroaches — i.e. corporations and organizations that make secret undisclosed bribes and “campaign contributions” — need to be yanked out of their hiding places and revealed to the public. Voters have a right to know the identities of these anonymous cowards who are purchasing elections right out from under them.

Common Cause, Public Citizen, the SEIU and the Occupy Movement are teaming up for Operation Lift Up the Rock and See What’s Crawling Underneath It.

Super-PACs are required to disclose their donors’ identities. But the 501(c) non-profit groups that are affiliated with super-PACs are NOT required to disclose this information. There’s the rub.

Americans United for Change has offered $25,000 to the first whistleblower who proves that a company has donated to a 501(c) without disclosing it. Let’s hope this isn’t a one-time offer. Come on, smoke out the vermin.

Public advocate Bill de Blasio said:

“We’re going to challenge those donations. We’re going to challenge efforts to hide donations through (c)4s and (c)6s.”

He also referred to a 2010 boycott against Target for making secret donations:

“What happened to Target was child’s play compared to the strength that all of these organizations can bring to bear against companies that decide they’re going against the people’s will and involve themselves unduly in the political process.”

The executive director of Health Care for America Now said companies that make secret contributions are endangering their own reputation, their brand:

“If corporations want to use corporate dollars to influence elections, we will expose them. They will do so at their own risk. The groups represented in our coalition … all have different programs that will inflict economic damage on offending companies.”

Common Cause will be organizing rallies against secret donations at upcoming shareholder meetings of Target, 3M and Bank of America.

Common Cause and Public Citizen are also urging the Securities and Exchange Commission to require that all publicly traded companies disclose all of their political donations.

Go get ‘em! Or as the Teabaggers say, “We’re taking back our country!”

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Friday, March 16, 2012

Mass Honeybee Die-off — Colony Collapse Disorder — Caused by Insecticides

For years, authorities have been dumbfounded (or were they?) by the mass die-off of millions of bees.  What could be causing this?

And now the results are in:  Insecticides have been linked to colony collapse disorder.  Specifically it’s the Neonicotinoid Insecticides that are used on corn.  The seeds are sprayed with these insecticides before being planted.

This information is from a study titled “Assessment of the Environmental Exposure of Honeybees to Particulate Matter Containing Neonicotinoid Insecticides Coming from Corn Coated Seeds” and has been published by the American Chemical Society.

OK, so now that we have this information, what are we going to do?  Which will be the higher priority:  Saving the ecosystems and food supplies that are dependent on honeybees?  Or making sure that Big Ag doesn’t have to suffer any inconvenience?

Perhaps Big Ag — via their prostitutes in Congress — will demand further study before making any rash decisions.  Some new corporate front groups might start orchestrating huge spontaneous demonstrations on behalf of the “family farm.”

There could be a massive smear campaign against bee-huggers and those nefarious socialists who want to take over America’s agriculture.

Or maybe our leaders will do the right thing.  (Riiight.)

In any case, we have the information now.  What will we do with it?

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Thursday, March 15, 2012

President Romney Will Self-Destruct in 5, 4, 3...

The Mitt Romneybot must have short-circuited yesterday during a Fox News interview.  So much for Fox News being a “shill” for Romney.

Megyn Kelly was asking Romney some “unusually combative questions” about his numerous flipflops on Obomneycare and his trouble connecting with conservatives and non-millionaires.  At one point Romney couldn’t handle it any longer and sputtered:  “Megyn, guess what? I made a lot of money… I'm not going to apologize for that.”

Whoa!  Have you ever heard such a stirring speech?  Move over JFK and FDR.

(The linked article has some YouTube excerpts of Romney’s interview.)

One journalist said:  “Now we know what it looks like when a robot initiates a self-destruct sequence.”

Somebody else commented:  “Why on Earth does he save his worst performances for the network most watched by Republican voters he's trying to court?”

And my favorite description:  “Should Romney win the GOP nomination, Obama's campaign should just play this video on a loop for the rest of the year.”

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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Bill Donohue to Rape Victims: “Bend Over Again. And LIKE it.”

According to Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, the world’s most pressing issue is the jillions of sexual abuse cases by Catholic priests.  No, not the abuse itself — that’s no biggie.

The REAL problem is those sniveling victims who were assaulted by priests, and the huge settlements the Catholic Church has had to pay.

Donohue told the New York Times that the church “has been too quick to write a check” to these victims, and that the church should fight all of these cases “one by one.”

He also said Catholic bishops should “toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough” in the fight against their victims.

Bill Donohue’s current mission is to go after the victims’ advocacy group Survivor Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).  Donohue’s lawyers — YOUR tax dollars at work — are demanding “more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.”

These subpoenas are calculated to sabotage SNAP’s advocacy work, and possibly bankrupt the organization.  Donohue describes SNAP as “a menace to the Catholic church.”

A reporter was hoping to get an interview with Bill Donohue, but several young boys had just been escorted into Donohue’s office a few minutes earlier, and Donohue was temporarily, uhh, unavailable for comment.

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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Natural Resources vs. Resourceful People

It’s official:  There really IS an inverse ratio between a country’s abundance of natural resources (more specifically, that country’s dependence on drilling/mining every last drop of those resources) and the inventiveness, resourcefulness of the people in that country.

At one end of the spectrum you have Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, Finland, South Korea, Israel and Hong Kong.  Each one of these countries has few (in some cases, zero) natural resources, a highly educated population and a booming economy.

Qatar and Kazakhstan are at the opposite end of the spectrum:  tons of oil and pisspoor test scores.

As Thomas Friedman says about Taiwan:

“Rather than digging in the ground and mining whatever comes up, Taiwan has mined its 23 million people, their talent, energy and intelligence.”

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has completed a study of sixty-five countries.  They’ve found a solid correlation between each country’s  15-year-old students’ test scores in math, science and reading comprehension — and the percentage of that country’s G.D.P. that comes from natural resource extraction.

According to Andreas Schleicher, who oversaw the study, the results indicate:

“…a significant negative relationship between the money countries extract from natural resources and the knowledge and skills of their high school population…Today’s learning outcomes at school are a powerful predictor for the wealth and social outcomes that countries will reap in the long run.”

And:

“In countries with little in the way of natural resources — Finland, Singapore or Japan — education has strong outcomes and a high status, at least in part because the public at large has understood that the country must live by its knowledge and skills and that these depend on the quality of education. ... Every parent and child in these countries knows that skills will decide the life chances of the child and nothing else is going to rescue them, so they build a whole culture and education system around it.”

Well, let’s be grateful that at least some of the world is on the right track.

Meanwhile, here we are, closing libraries and cutting education funding down to the marrow.

Ready now:  one, two, three…Dril Heer Dril Now.

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Monday, March 12, 2012

Peter Bergman — Firesign Theater

Peter Bergman, one of the founding members of Firesign Theater, passed away this past Friday.

I never knew the names of any of the members of Firesign Theater.  But their records were just a total mindfuck.  Their skits were a rapidfire barrage of puns, puns within puns, puns segueing into further puns, non sequiturs and obscure references that would have you laughing yourself into a knot and simultaneously going “Huh?  What was that?  Wait, what?”

If Cheech and Chong were “hard rock comedy” (as rock critics described them back then), Firesign Theater were avant-garde jazz comedy; stream-of-consciousness comedy.  Or something.

The only album of theirs I had was “I think we’re all Bozos on this Bus.”  I could practically lip-synch along with it from playing it so many times.

Their other works included “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?” and “Everything You Know is Wrong.”

R.I.P.

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Sunday, March 11, 2012

Finally! A Practical Solution to the “Voter Fraud” Problem

The Minnesota state legislature is about to pass another assembly-line Voter ID law.  Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie are opposed to this law.  They’ve come up with their own idea instead — a simple method that would eliminate voter fraud WITHOUT disenfranchising anyone.

Polling places would have access to an electronic poll book.  Voters who don’t have an ID card could have their information pulled up from state computers.  Poll workers could easily verify whether or not the person actually is who he says he/she is.  The voter’s driver’s license would be scanned in, or any other ID card with a picture.  If someone has no picture ID whatsoever, they could take this person’s photo right there at the polling booth and scan that in.

Mark Ritchie said this procedure would be a lot less expensive than the Voter ID laws that are being passed in lockstep throughout the red states, as well as not disenfranchising anyone.  He said:

“We would not be disenfranchising anybody and we would not be breaking the bank.”

Presto!  Solomon himself couldn’t have come up with a more sensible solution.  We now have a simple pragmatic way to eliminate voter fraud and simultaneously make sure no eligible voters are denied the right to vote.

Isn’t this great?!?!?!?!?

Surely, Republicans are in favor of this.  After all, their stated reason for their Voter ID fixation has been their genuine fear that an ineligible voter might be able to vote.

And now — problem solved.  It’s a Win Win.

So, the GOP is on board with this, right?  Right???  I mean, they certainly wouldn’t have some sort of hidden unstated reason for pushing these Voter ID laws.

Would they????


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Saturday, March 10, 2012

Join Lawsuit Against Obamacare, Then Go Bankrupt from Medical Expenses

OUCH!  Talk about taking one for the team.

Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida resident, became the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

According to a spokesperson:

“She doesn't have insurance. She doesn't want to pay for it. And she doesn't want the government to tell her she has to have it.”

First things first — why spend money on health insurance when you can spend it on an exciting high-profile lawsuit instead?

Last Fall Mary Brown and her husband filed for bankruptcy.  They have $4,500 in unpaid medical bills.

Jane Perkins, a health law expert in North Carolina, said:

“This is so ironic.  It just shows that all Americans inevitably have a need for health care. Somebody has paid for her health care costs. And she is now among the 62% whose personal bankruptcy was attributable in part to medical bills.”

It's not nice to point out someone's personal problems just to make a political point, but...

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Friday, March 09, 2012

Who’s Watching the Watcher?

Who do you call for help when the gang members are wearing blue?

Since 2003, the Oakland Police Department has been under close watch by a federal judge, Thelton Henderson.  In 2003 the City of Oakland agreed to implement fifty-one police reforms.  These reforms included stopping racial profiling, and changing the way the Police Department investigates and disciplines rogue officers.

Now, after nine years, Judge Thelton Henderson is laying the groundwork for staging the first-ever court takeover of a city police department.  He sees the Oakland Police Department as “a force unto itself that defies civilian management.”

Or as a local attorney said:  “Every department has bad cops. It's what you do with those bad cops.”

Judge Henderson’s latest step has been to increase the authority of his police monitor, Robert Warshaw.  Warshaw is now able to petition the court to countermand specific orders from the Oakland police chief.

If this isn’t enough, let the court takeover begin.

And speaking of racial profiling, rogue cops and court takeovers:  Who ever thought you could get gunned down in the mean streets of a gated community in Florida?

A 17-year-old black male, Trayvon Martin, had been visiting his father and stepmother in The Retreat at Twin Lakes, a gated community near Orlando.  He was walking back to the house after going to a nearby convenience store.  While he was walking back, the gated community’s Neighborhood Watch captain, George Zimmerman, called 911 to report a suspicious person.

George Zimmerman then got in his car, drove up to where Trayvon Martin was walking and got out of his car to confront him.  By the time police arrived, Trayvon Martin had been shot to death by Zimmerman.

The only “weapons” Martin had were a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona Iced Tea.

The article ends with “Zimmerman could not be reached for comment.”

WTF???  So this is how The Retreat at Twin Lakes cracks down on murderous rogue cops?  Nice work if you can get it — shoot somebody in cold blood and then sit at home and be unavailable for comment.

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Thursday, March 08, 2012

Wisconsin GOP Investigates Judge Who Made “Wrong” Decision

Newt Gingrich has been blubbering for years about having judges impeached and disbarred (or worse) for making an “incorrect” ruling.  And now the Wisconsin Republican Party is actually putting Plan Gingrich into action.

Dane County (WI) Judge David Flanagan has temporarily barred the enforcement of Wisconsin’s Voter ID law.  His injunction will temporarily prevent the new “extremely broad and largely needless” law from taking effect.  And there’s an election coming up on April 3rd.

Most people would react to a court ruling they don’t like by appealing the case to a higher court.  That is, people whose parents aren’t first cousins and whose IQs are higher than their shoe sizes.  Republicans, on the other hand, have reacted by doing what Republicans do best:  Going for the jugular.  Why bother with those boring legal channels when it’s so much easier to just smear and “investigate” the judge whose ruling you disagree with.

Here’s the funniest (but not ha ha) part of the Wisconsin GOP’s “reasoning” — Judge Flanagan was “unqualified” to make a ruling in this case because he signed the recall petition against Scott Walker.

WTF???  Let’s see, Justice Antonin Scalia and Dick Cheney can go on a hunting trip together, just a few weeks before Scalia issues a ruling in Cheney’s favor; and that’s just hunky dory.  Clarence Thomas’ wife is active in all kinds of teabagger organizations, and this has absolutely NOTHING to do with Clarence Thomas’ conservative rulings.

And there have been countless cases of high ranking judges who get wined and dined and pampered by VIPs from powerful industries, and then make judicial rulings that just happen to be favorable to that industry.  Nope, nothing improper going on.  Move along, nothing to see here.

And now, on top of all that, a Wisconsin judge should have recused himself from a case because he signed a petition?!?!?!?

God I hate stupid people.

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Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Mossad to Mitt Romney: “Shut the Fuck Up”

Just what we need, another loudmouth chickenhawk trying to incite war in the Middle East. 

Mitt Romney wrote a column in the Washington Post saying Iran is “racing to build a nuclear bomb.”  Americans of the non-chickenhawk persuasion aren’t the only people who are alarmed by Romney’s saber-rattling.

Efraim Halevy, former Mossad director, said Romney’s warmongering rhetoric could become a self-fulfilling prophecy by spurring the Iranians to hurry up and develop those nuclear weapons they supposedly have, in order to deter an attack in case Romney gets elected.

Efraim Halevy said:

“If I’m sitting here in the month of March 2012 reading this, and I’m an Iranian leader, what do I understand? I have nine more months to run as fast as I can because this is going to be terrible if the other guys get in.”

He also said:  “In the effort to demolish the president, Romney is making the situation worse.”

How many American soldiers are Republican politicians willing to murder, just to make Obama a one-term president?

Funny how “inciting a riot” is a felony, but relentless demagoguery that incites a war — costing thousands of lives and billions of dollars — is perfectly legal.

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Tuesday, March 06, 2012

I Stand With Rush



Rush Limbaugh deserves to be praised — worshipped! — for speaking Truth to the Liberal Media.  He called some birth control pill-swilling floozie exactly what she is — a slut.  Even worse, she’s a Parasite AND a slut, since she wants taxpayers to pay for her endless round of sex orgies.

Well, God Damn it, America has had it up to HERE with these uppity women and militant minorities.  When Rush Limbaugh called that Femi-Nazi a skanky twat, He was speaking for millions of Real Americans.

We knew the Liberal Media would try to crucify Him.  But what about Rush’s fellow conservatives who are deserting him in droves???  Thirty-five (and counting) advertisers have gone scampering off with their tails between their legs because the Big Bad Political Correctness Police might get them.  And what’s with Rush’s fellow (supposedly) conservatives, those turncoat politicians and columnists who have turned Judas and stabbed Him in the back?

Et Tu George Will and John Boehner and all the rest of you weak-kneed sissies — fuck all of you RINO pussies and the whores you rode in on.

But that’s OK.  Rush still has his loyal friends, and I know I can count on YOU to stand by Him in His hour of need.  I know that YOU, my loyal reader, are longing to bring America back to her Golden Age — the 1950s — when women and Nigras knew their place, and poor people were “occupying” a job instead of the public square.  I earned my money the old fashioned way — I inherited it.  If YOU are as disgusted as I am with Femi-Nazis, swarthy minorities and shabbily-dressed poor people desecrating our sidewalks, please visit my website and sign the following pledge:

I, (your name here), stand with Rush Limbaugh.  And I will bow my head in awe whenever His name is mentioned.  I pledge to vote that skinny ghetto crackhead — Barack Hussein Osama — out of the White House.  America will once again be a great country when all them uppity womenfolk come back to the house, get in the kitchen, take their shoes off and stop worrying their pretty little heads about man stuff.

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Rick Santorum: COMMUNIST

The truth has been revealed, and just in time for Super Tuesday.  Fellow teabirthers, do NOT be tricked into voting for Rick Santorum.  He is NOT a Patriot or a Real American.

Rick Santorum is a bleeding heart, big-government nanny state Socialist.  Check out some of the treasonous statements he made in 1993.  Rick Santorum:  you’re BUSTED.

In 1993, when Republicans were derailing Bill (and Hillary) Clinton’s health reform plans, Santorum — then a congressman — was a lot more moderate.  He was against Clinton’s plan, but he said Republicans were wrong to just step back and let the marketplace dictate how health care works.  He said government should play a proactive role in shaping the health care marketplace to make it work better.

During a 1993 interview, Rick Santorum described his voting record in Congress as “pretty much in the middle.”  I KNEW that side-windin’ yellow-belly was a RINO.

He described his voting record as being similar to those of Arlen Specter and the late John Heinz — both moderate Republicans.

When asked about the health care debate, Santorum said Republicans had “dropped the ball” on the issue:

“I even said it to President Bush when he came to Pittsburgh to campaign for Dick Thornburgh [then running for US Senate] in 1991, that health care was gonna be the big issue and that we had to take responsibility for trying to solve this problem.  We can't continue to ignore it and say, 'Oh well, you know, it will work itself out in the marketplace.' That's wrong.”

He continued:

“The government helps set the marketplace up, so we have some responsibility to alter that marketplace to make it work better…I take a much more proactive position in government in solving problems than most Republicans, because I believe government has a role. A lot of folks believe, 'Well, just keep government out of it.' I don't believe that.  I think government has a role in making sure that there is equal opportunity.”

Oh.  My.  God.

Aren’t there any Real Americans out there?  Who will save us from this encroaching collectivist monster that’s ruining America???

Rick Santorum — you’ve stabbed your fellow teajadists in the back!

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Monday, March 05, 2012

Oil Speculators Drive Up Gas Prices

I’ve posted on this a few times already.  But with the message wars heating up, bloggers who aren’t affiliated with Wall Street or the Koch Brothers will need to keep stressing these points relentlessly.  “Drill Here Drill Now” will be echoing louder and louder between now and November.

Bernie Sanders has written a letter — co-signed by sixty-seven other congressmen — which is based on a report by the St. Louis Federal Reserve titled “Speculation in the oil market.”  The letter is urging the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to install caps that would prevent Wall Street’s largest  traders from establishing too much control in the oil futures trading market.

If you get your “news” from Fox or talk radio, the preceding sentence would translate to “strangling the economy with too many cumbersome regulations.”

The report cites “global demand shocks” — e.g. tensions in the Middle East — and speculation as the two largest causes of surging oil prices.

Bernie Sanders said:

“If the St. Louis Federal Reserve, a conservative institution, is saying speculation is contributing significantly to the high price of oil and gas at the pump, then I think that is clearly what the case is.”

The letter says the CFTC has failed to enact position limits on oil futures traders, even though the CFTC is required under existing law to create and enforce these limits.  The letter states in part:

“As the cost for American people to fill their gas tanks continues to skyrocket, the CFTC continues to drag its feet on imposing strict speculation limits to eliminate, prevent, or diminish excessive oil speculation as required by the Dodd-Frank Act.  Although the CFTC has adopted initial position limits, they are not strong enough and not yet in force owing to industry opposition, delays in swaps oversight and data collection. This is simply unacceptable and must change.”

As glacial as the CFTC’s pace has been, the agency is being sued by two Wall Street lobbying organizations:  the International Swaps and Derivatives Association and the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association.

We’ll find out who has more political clout:  Wall Street or hundreds of millions of American motorists.

(It was a rhetorical question.)

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Sunday, March 04, 2012

“Sandra Fluke is Owed an Apology — and so is Sarah Palin”

That’s the title of this column.

Really? Seriously?

(This column was written before Rush Limbaugh’s “apology.”)

The author apparently thinks Sandra Fluke and Sarah Palin are both in the same category, since they’ve both been called vile names.

Why yes, of course they’re in the same category. After all, they’re both career politicians who will say and do ANYTHING to destroy their political opponents. They’ve both earned millions of dollars on their all-expenses-paid speaking tours. And they both have a long history of making extremely obnoxious mean-spirited comments, for the sole purpose of generating as much public fury as possible.

[sigh]

In other news: George Will lashed out at the GOP’s tepid response to Rush Limbaugh. John Boehner had called Limbaugh’s comments “inappropriate,” to which George Will replied:

“Using a salad fork for your entree, that’s inappropriate.”

He also zinged the GOP presidential candidates with:

“They want to bomb Iran, but they’re afraid of Rush Limbaugh.”

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Saturday, March 03, 2012

Justice Department Cracking Down on Florida Voter Suppression

Finally.

Florida’s voter suppression law goes way beyond the assembly-line Voter I.D. laws that are being passed in lockstep by the red states.  At least with these Voter I.D. laws, conservatives can pretend they’re cracking down on the non-existent problem of “voter fraud.”

But according to Florida’s teatard legislature and governor, voter registration drives are the REAL threat to America.  Oh, and early voting too.  How could registering voters — and giving voters a chance to vote early — possibly encourage voter fraud???

If you listen to rightwing demagogues, there’s apparently no greater threat to America’s moral fiber than the League of Women Voters.  Under Florida’s “Don’t Let the Peons Vote” law, anyone conducting a voter registration drive is required to:  1) get permission from the state; and 2) turn in each voter registration card within 48 hours after the voter has filled it out.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but what are some of the dangers to our democracy if a voter registration card isn’t turned in within 48 hours?  The League of Women Voters has stopped their voter registration drives, out of fear of being fined for “violations.”

The Colbert Report was joking about Florida’s “Stop The Vote” law the other night.

The League of Women Voters, the Brennan Center and Rock The Vote are all fighting this law in court.  The president of Rock The Vote said the law would “prevent organizations like Rock the Vote from educating and engaging young people in our political process and go against the very principles our country was founded on.”

Come on Justice Department — don’t let Florida turn the clock back to the 1950s.

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Friday, March 02, 2012

News Bulletin: Andrew Breitbart was Murdered by Obama’s Thugs

Just before Andrew Breitbart’s death, he was on the verge of releasing some devastating information about President Obama.  Before he had a chance to release these smoking gun videos, he died.  Coincidence?

InfoWars.com wrote:  “In a stunning coincidence, it appears Andrew Breitbart suffered his untimely death just hours before he was set to release damning video footage that could have sunk Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign.”

Damn it!  And now we’re stuck with that Kenyan Muslim for five more years.

And according to Sinclair News, Breitbart had been saying “wait ‘til they see what happens March 1st.”

We’re still working on this story, but so far this is what we’ve got:  Breitbart had a video clip of Barack Obama — in his native Kenya — discussing his evil plans to concoct a fake Hawaiian birth certificate.

And that’s not all:  Breitbart also had an old film of Barack Obama’s father — a militant tribalist who hated white people — discussing some devious plans with Mao Tse-tung and Nikita Khrushchev.  Some of the dialogue is muffled, but towards the end of the film, the three of them are heard chortling “We will bury them!”

[shudder]  Well, we’ll never know.  Andrew Breitbart forgot to tell his Significant Other — James O’Keefe — where the secret videos were hidden.

The coroner hasn’t yet come up with an official cause of Breitbart’s death.  So far the two leading theories are:  a) one of Obama’s hit men poisoned him; and b) one of Obama’s hit men “accidentally” brushed against him on February 29th and zapped him with a Dim Mak death touch.

Again, this story is still in progress.  Stay tuned.

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Thursday, March 01, 2012

Nancy Pelosi Dignifies Rush Limbaugh by Responding to him

Nancy Pelosi and some other House Democrats have lashed back at Rush Limbaugh for his latest shitburst.  This is probably the exact response it wanted.  It’s like that sign at so many blog comment pages:  Don’t feed the trolls.

You couldn’t possibly insult a cesspool like Rush Limbaugh.  You could tell him the most vulgar unprintable things about his mother, and he’d probably bask in it.  “Aww shucks, somebody noticed me.”

Here’s the background:  As you probably know, last week a House committee invited ten elderly men to testify about birth control and other women’s health issues.  House Democrats held a hearing of their own on the same subject, and one of the people who testified was Sandra Fluke, a law student.  She talked about some of the medical uses of birth control pills OTHER THAN contraception — of which there are many (Google it).

Rush Limbaugh responded to her testimony by calling her a “slut” and a “prostitute.”

Limbaugh already has a bunch of gene pool rejects who listen to him and hang on his every word.  As a standup comedian once said (in a different context):  “Ten thousand people, six teeth.”

The last thing Rush Limbaugh deserves is more troll-feeding from House Democrats.

If you want to laugh, scream, kick the computer and hurl all at the same time, check out some of the comments at the end of the “Hill” article (linked above).  I’m surprised some of these neckdrooling inbreds actually figured out how to log on and type a comment.

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