Why Joe Wilson did what he did (other than he's stoopid!)

From Alex Koppelman at Salon's War Room. Watch it all the way through for a dead-on James Carville SNL bit.

Rachel Maddow - Gale Norton focus of corruption probe

Crooks and Liars posts the following:

From the L.A. Times--Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton is focus of corruption probe:

The Justice Department investigation centers on a 2006 decision to award oil shale leases in Colorado to a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary. Months later, the oil giant hired Norton as a legal counsel.

Reporting from Washington - The Justice Department is investigating whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to benefit Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company that later hired her, according to officials in federal law enforcement and the Interior Department.

Could we finally see the Justice Department coming down on a member of Bush administration?

Maddow: Ken Salazar inherited responsibility for about 500 million acres of the Earth when President Obama appointed him secretary of the interior. Yesterday, as we reported, he announced that he would shut down the Interior Department office known during the Bush administration as the place where department staffers snorted meth off of toaster ovens.

The inspector general reported that in addition to the toaster oven meth-snorting, employees of one middle management office had sex with, did drugs with, and took embarrassingly small bribes from people in the oil and gas industry they were supposed to be regulating.

Now, the secretary of the interior during the time of the toaster oven, meth-snorting, what‘s known as the department‘s orgy era, was a person named Gale Norton. During the orgy era at her department, Gale—at her department—Gale Norton awarded Shell Oil a bunch of extremely lucrative leases to squeeze some oil out of federal lands.

Two months after the big present for Shell Oil was announced, Gale Norton quit the Department of the Interior. Where did she go to work after that? You guessed it. Shell Oil.

Dear Miss Norton, thank you for submitting your resume.

If then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton discussed her future employment with Shell while she was making the decision to award the company those lucrative leases, she will have broken the law. An internal investigation was launched of this while George W. Bush was still in office.

And “The Los Angeles Times” reports today that it has now been turned over to the Justice Department in a formal criminal referral. That makes Gale Norton the first Bush cabinet secretary to be the subject of a formal corruption investigation. She, of course, is also the first to have multiple results show up when you goggle her name along with the words meth, toaster oven and snorting.

My note: Couldn't happen to nicer person.

Shana Tova!

Life is unfair, but happy new year anyway!

h/t to Bob Poris

Lou Dobbs - Worst Person in the World - via Keith Olbermann

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I do solemnly swear ... getting the goverment off your back - a satire

I do solemnly swear...

Here's something to send to all the people who tell you that they want government out of their lives.

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

• Social Security

• Medicare/Medicaid

• State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
• Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
• US Postal Service
• Roads and Highways
• Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
• The US Railway System
• Public Subways and Metro Systems
• Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
• Rest Areas on Highways
• Sidewalks
• All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., seeIowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)
• Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
• Public and State Universities and Colleges
• Public Primary and Secondary Schools
• Sesame Street
• Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
• Public Museums
• Libraries
• Public Parks and Beaches
• State and National Parks
• Public Zoos
• Unemployment Insurance
• Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
• Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
• Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
• Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
• Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
• Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies
• Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies

If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:

• Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History
• The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments
• The government-operated Statue of Liberty
• The Grand Canyon
• The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials
• The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
• All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC

I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.

I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.

I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.

Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.

_____________ _________________________

Signed Printed Name/Town and State

h/t to Bob Poris

Birthday suit

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Keith Olbermann - Racism from the right? Not a stretch.

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The "Culture War" by Leonard Pitts, Jr.

Something new is in the air. It's foul, and it stinks. Joe Wilson is an example of that stink, but there are people worse than he is.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., in a Miami Herald column, refers to "a new report from the Intelligence Project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremist groups. 'Terror From The Right' is a listing of bombers, killers, would-be assassins and insurrectionists motivated by anger over abortion, gays, taxes, blacks, Muslims and illegal immigrants."

I think they forgot the Jews!

Pitts details some of the hatred expressed and violence taken, and then says this:

"That's not dissent. It is howl of the unhinged and the entitled. The same folks who were complacent as President Bush spent surplus into deficit, wasted $600 billion and 4,000 American lives on the wrong war and watched a major American city drown are morally outraged because the new guy wants to reform health care?"


Think about that a minute. It's breathtaking. The morons are out in force led by the evil Glenn Beck, the stupid Michele Bachmann, the bastard with the sewer mouth, Rush Limbaugh, and other uncivil, irresponsible traitors to the American Constitution.

Pitts goes on to call much of this dissent what it is - racism. Speaking of the unhinged, he says "many of them, I think - not all - [...] find it hard to accept that the new guy is liberal ... and black."

Yup.

The dissenters are no longer in control. "The president is black, the secretary of state is a woman, the new Supreme Court justice is Hispanic, the nation is changing, becoming vastly more inclusive."

Some, says Pitts, see that "as an embodiment of threat."

You think?

What bothers me most, however, is that the Repugnican Party, becoming ever more repugnant, has given aid and comfort to the enemies of our fair land. Hell, in many cases, they have joined the enemy! They sit in Congress and yell "You lie!" at the president! They didn't do that when Bush told lie after lie after lie after lie! Any 12-year old who could read knew Bush was lying. So why did they shut their mouths and sit on their hands then?

Bush wasn't black and he was one of them!

The Repugnican Party has become the party of lies. There is no leader in the Repugnican Party with the inclination or the guts to tell the truth; to call the liars in their midst to account; to reject the unhinged, the insane, the dissemblers, the subversives. That's because all the aforementioned have become the base of the Repugnican Party.

Thus, the culture war heats up, it's flames fanned by the honchos who swore to protect the United States from harm!

Which means that any turmoil that ensues, any violence that is perpetrated, any further erosion of the Constitution must fall directly and heavily and eternally on their sloping, very weak shoulders!


Read more of Pitts here.

Wilson rebuked. Now, throw the bum out!

Rep. Flip Wilson, er, I mean Joe Wilson, the latter not being a comedian, was rebuked by the U.S. House of Representatives for being resembling the south end of a horse going north. Wilson, as the whole world knows, yelled "You lie!" at the President while he was making a speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress.

The vote was 240-179, and as expected, pretty much along party lines, although 12 stupid Democrats were opposed and another five voted "present." I'll bet everyone of them were "blue dogs" who spend their off hours counting blood money from the healthcare insurance and drug companies!

Poor Joe whined that he would not apologize to the House, that he'd already said he was sorry (which, as subsequent events showed clearly he was not!). It's true that he's a sorry excuse for a human being, but he wasn't sorry for his outburst and in fact has repeated the falsehood that illegals will receive health care under Obama's plan, and has further used this incident to try to increase donations to his upcoming campaign.

It's not big deal, a lot of people say, because there's no teeth in the House rebuke, and Wilson wasn't punished. And that's true to an extent. Personally, I think he should have been stripped of all committee memberships and sent back to a novice's spot in the House. Hell, I would have kicked him out of the House, if possible.

The reason being that he is another crank on the right who is drumming up racist opposition to the president, lying through his teeth, creating nothing of worth, but only more division and hatred among the people of South Carolina and the American people as a whole.

He will, however, have to live forever with the stigma that in the 220 year history of the House of Representatives, no other member has been so rebuked. He holds the title of Asshole Extraordinaire!

And that, my friends, will be the legacy printed in the history books. Hah!

Evangelical Christian insanity - Rachel Maddow Show

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Virginia Foxx - Worst person in the World

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Morons and their mouths - Rachel Maddow on "A sudden rash of blurts"

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Glenn Beck, the subversive, is getting rich dividing the country

This, from Crooks and Liars:

David Shuster subbing for Keith Olbermann gives us a lovely dose of the hate mongering and openly racist protests that were Glenn Beck's 9-12 rally in Washington DC, and some clips of Republican politicians who thought fomenting this hatred by participating was a good idea.

Howard Fineman weighed in and said that there are a lot of Republicans who don't like what's going on because it's going to lose them independent voters that they need to win elections, but are afraid to say so in public. So much for any of them standing up for the courage of their convictions.

Shuster: Howard, the Republicans are not merely condoning the behavior of the fringe element of their party but embracing it. A message of intolerance helps the Republican Party how exactly?

Fineman: Well it doesn’t help them. And they’re not all embracing it but I’m sorry to say they’re afraid to say so on the record. I talked to numerous Republicans today. A lot of them are very upset that for example Joe Wilson, the Congressman from South Carolina, a lot of them don’t think someone like Glenn Beck is doing the Republican Party any good. The Republicans need not just their core voters to thrive in the 2010 elections, which they indeed may. They need independent voters in the middle and there’s a tug of war going on David between the desire of independents to support the Republicans over issues like the debt and the deficit and the way some of the Republicans are behaving that repels those very independents.

Shuster: Well speaking of Sen. DeMint told the crowd on Saturday and repeated today that the protesters were informed. Given what some of those signs had to say about the President, wouldn’t that be fomenting hatred, if not violence?

Fineman: Well, at the very least it’s looking the other way and they’re looking at the glass of tolerance half full when in many cases there isn’t even a glass David. But what the Republicans I talked to today said was this. These people are there because of big government. They’re there because of fears about the debt and the deficit. And I think to some extent that’s true. I’ve been to Tea Parties. I’ve been to town hall meetings. I can sense that.

But there’s something deeper and darker that’s also there and we may as well look straight at it. There are racial fears. There are religious fears. There are regional fears. There are ethnic fears. These are coming to the surface. Like depth charges our politics has now brought all this to the surface and that’s also what we saw out there on the Mall. There’s no question about it. And there are not enough Republicans who are willing to say that on the record.

Shuster: Glenn Beck’s stated goal of wanting to move this country back to where it was on 9-12-2001 when the country was united, how did that work out for him?

Fineman: Well, he can pretend to cry all he wants on the stage and call himself a televangelist. He’s not into uniting the country from everything I’ve seen. He’s making a boatload of money dividing the country. When you say with no real evidence whatsoever that the President of the United States hates white people, you aren’t behaving in the spirit of 9-12. You’re behaving in a spirit that we thought we gotten rid of in the end of the Civil War and at the end of the second Civil Rights movement. So, you know, he can cry crocodile tears all he wants. That doesn’t seem to be what he’s actually doing.

Teabaggers can't handle a little dissent

When it comes to patriotism, the tea baggers don't know the meaning of the word. True patriots live by the Constitution which provides for freedom of speech. They really hate that, unless it is their speech!



h/t to BSAlert

The antidote to rally rage - Rachel Maddow

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Helping Jesus out

Internal subversives

The rightwhitewingnuts who claim to be the "real" patriots are anything but. In fact, these people are more dangerous to the United States than al Qaeda or the Taliban!

Frank Schaeffer, a former leader of the Religious Right, has a new article on the Huffington Post, titled "Glenn Beck and The 9/12 Marchers: Subversives From Within," in which he details exactly why Beck and his cohorts are not patriotic at all, but are actually working to subvert and destroy the country we love.

We know Glenn Beck, but who are the other subversives? Schaeffer claims, rightly, they are the heirs of the "ideology of earlier firebrands such as John Calhoun ... [who] embraced slavery, states' rights, limited government, and said that Americans should secede from the union if it went against their wishes."

Through the efforts of people like James Dobson and Francis Schaeffer (Frank's father), going back to the 1950s, millions of people of the "evangelical right," having concluded that American society had become so pagan there was no saving it, decided to "decamp to not just another country but to another planet:. In other words virtually unnoticed by the media and mainstream political operatives, a big chunk of American society seceded from the union in all but name."

Schaeffer puts a large part of the blame on the "home school and Christian school movement":

"What they did is turn the white race-based [...] 'Christian school' movement of the 1950s into a countercultural phenomena. As tens of thousands of new Christian schools opened, it was no longer just about 'protecting' white kids from minorities and African-Americans. It was about protecting your children from Satan in other words the United States government's long reach through the public school system."

The home school and Christian school movement taught, among other things, that physical discipline is ordained of God, that slavery was a good thing, that "'secular America' [was] downright evil. Hating the USA became next to godliness."

Schaeffer, is again right when he notes that:

"We are now several generations into this experiment of holier-than-thou withdrawal from our American mainstream culture. If you wonder who it is that's both running and underwriting organizations such as the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Freedom Works and other organizers of the 9/12 March and who are the most faithful followers [of] the likes of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh or viewers of Fox News your answer is: it's the home school/Christian school generation of men and women now hitting their thirties and even forties who might as well have been raised on a different planet."

Schaeffer points to a quote from a man who writes home school curricula:

"The political question is this: By what biblical standard is the pagan to be granted the right to bring political sanctions against God's people? We recognize that unbelievers are not to vote in Church elections. Why should they be allowed to vote in civil elections in a covenanted Christian nation? Which judicial standards will they impose? By what other standard than the Bible."

And there in a nutshell you have a formulating creed for the Christian Taliban in this country!

Here's another quote, from David Barton, considered one of the founders of the theocratic movement and a man so highly regarded by public school leaders in Texas he has a voice on the Texas State Board of Education!

"The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God's law."

Actually, Barton and his ilk wouldn't know Jesus if their "Lord" snuck up and bit them on their respective asses!


Schaeffer has a lot more to say, all of it worthwhile and of great importance to those who believe in the United States of America. Beck, Limbaugh, Barton, Dobson and all the rest of these fanatical theocrats are not patriots; they are subversives working constantly with every means at their disposal, to bring out nation down.

This fact needs to be shouted loudly and clearly across the land!


Read Schaeffer's entire article here.

You will find additional, related articles by Mr. Schaeffer at the Huffington Post.

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Theocrats want control of Floridians' sex lives

This from Pam's House Blend.

They call themselves "Personhood Florida," but they are part of a national anti-abortion group. Two days ago, they set about on a campaign "to outlaw all abortions and certain types of birth control, including oral contraceptives and the morning-after pill" in the state of Florida.

These theocratic monkeys, christianist fundamentalists, want to control the sex lives of the people of Florida. Actually, they want to control every American's sex life, but they are currently active in my state and it really pisses me off!

The way they're going about this is by attempting to amend the Florida constitution in such a manner that that constitution would "define conception ... at the 'biological beginnings' ... when the sperm meets the egg."

The amendment also outlaws all abortions. Rape and incest? Yup. No abortions whatsoever. They would "criminalize" oral contraceptives and the morning-after pill.


Now, it doesn't appear likely that these moronic christianist goofballs will get their way. It's tough to amend the Florida constitution - requiring a 60% majority. They tried a similar gambit in Colorado, but the voters said "no way" by a three-to-one margin.

Still, the idea that fruitcakes like this are wandering around Florida and other states seeking to impose their godforsaken religious beliefs on the rest of the people is frightening. But it does go to show that just because someone claims Jesus as his/her savior means absolutely nothing when it comes to being a decent human being and respecting the rights of others!

The word is "Racism"!

Perhaps no one exemplifies Southern racism and its public resurgence more than does Joe Wilson, the liar, from South Carolina. It's somehow appropriate that he comes from the state that fired the shot that started the Civil War!

Mark Karlin, editor of BuzzFlash, has written an important article dealing with the racist underpinnings of the rightwhitewingnut opposition to President Obama. He notes that "white racists will not accept a 'black boy' as their boss, particularly one who is smarter than they are."

Karlin continues:

" ... the South and whites who need blacks as scapegoats have never conceded the Civil War. Heck, they haven't even accepted the Civil Rights laws of the '60s.

"It's important to remember that a little more than 50 years ago, segregation was still the reality of Southern life, and that our military was only desegregated in the Korean War."

But here's where I think he nails it:

" [...] There is no greater and unjust privilege in the world than claiming power and authority merely because one is born a certain skin color. For whites who have seen their incomes decline and jobs lost because of global corporations shifting jobs to below-poverty wage nations, the Siren song of right wing hate radio -- financed by the very corporations fleecing the economically stretched white person of limited education and means -- is alluring."

There's much more, which you can read here.


It is time I think that progressives, Democrats and Republicans alike, begin telling it like it is. There is nothing that President Obama can ever do to ameliorate the hatred of Joe Wilson and his ilk for they are not merely deluded nogoodniks, they are racists through and through. A black man will never be "legitimate" in their hate-filled, racist eyes!

L'Shana Tova - Happy New Year

Here's a bit of satire for everyone, Jewish or not. Happy Rosh Hoshana!



h/t to Bob Poris