Obama's grade/accomplishments

[Photo from the National Post]


This was sent to me by a friend and I think it is an important piece, especially in light of the vile, hostile, premeditated attempts by Republicans and the right-wing media to "bring him down" and make him "fail."





Robert P. Watson, Ph.D. Coordinator of American Studies
Lynn University "
Email: rwatson@lynn.edu


I am always being asked to grade Obama's presidency. In place of offering him a grade, I put together a list of his accomplishments thus far.

I think you would agree that it is very impressive. His first six months have been even more active than FDRs or LBJs the two standards for such assessments. Yet, there is little media attention given to much of what he has done. Of late, the media is focusing almost exclusively on Obama's critics, without holding them responsible for the uncivil, unconstructive tone of their disagreements or without holding the previous administration responsible for getting us in such a deep hole. The misinformation and venom that now passes for political reporting and civic debate is beyond description.

As such, there is a need to set the record straight. What most impresses me is the fact that Obama has accomplished so much not from a heavy-handed or top-down approach but from a style that has institutionalized efforts to reach across the aisle, encourage vigorous debate, and utilize town halls and panels of experts in the policy-making process. Beyond the accomplishments, the process is good for democracy and our democratic processes have been battered and bruised in recent years.

Let me know if I missed anything in the list (surely I did).

1. Ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending
2. Ordered a review of all federal operations to identify and cut wasteful spending and practices
3. Instituted enforcement for equal pay for women
4. Beginning the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq
5. Families of fallen soldiers have expenses covered to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover AFB
6. Ended media blackout on war casualties; reporting full information
7. Ended media blackout on covering the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB; the media is now permitted to do so pending adherence to respectful rules and approval of fallen soldier's family
8. The White House and federal government are respecting the Freedom of Information Act
9. Instructed all federal agencies to promote openness and transparency as much as possible
10. Limits on lobbyist's access to the White House
11. Limits on White House aides working for lobbyists after their tenure in the administration
12. Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date
13. Phasing out the expensive F-22 war plane and other outdated weapons systems, which weren't even used or needed in Iraq/Afghanistan
14. Removed restrictions on embryonic stem-cell research
15. Federal support for stem-cell and new biomedical research
16. New federal funding for science and research labs
17. States are permitted to enact federal fuel efficiency standards above federal standards
18. Increased infrastructure spending (roads, bridges, power plants) after years of neglect
19. Funds for high-speed, broadband Internet access to K-12 schools
20. New funds for school construction
21. The prison at Guantanamo Bay is being phased out
22. US Auto industry rescue plan
23. Housing rescue plan
24. $789 billion economic stimulus plan
25. The public can meet with federal housing insurers to refinance (the new plan can be completed in one day) a mortgage if they are having trouble paying
26. US financial and banking rescue plan
27. The secret detention facilities in Eastern Europe and elsewhere are being closed
28. Ended the previous policy; the US now has a no torture policy and is in compliance with the Geneva Convention standards
29. Better body armor is now being provided to our troops
30. The missile defense program is being cut by $1.4 billion in 2010
31. Restarted the nuclear nonproliferation talks and building back up the nuclear inspection infrastructure/protocols
32. Reengaged in the treaties/agreements to protect the Antarctic
33. Reengaged in the agreements/talks on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions
34. Visited more countries and met with more world leaders than any president in his first six months in office
35. Successful release of US captain held by Somali pirates; authorized the SEALS to do their job
36. US Navy increasing patrols off Somali coast
37. Attractive tax write-offs for those who buy hybrid automobiles
38. Cash for clunkers program offers vouchers to trade in fuel inefficient, polluting old cars for new cars; stimulated auto sales
39. Announced plans to purchase fuel efficient American-made fleet for the federal government
40. Expanded the SCHIP program to cover health care for 4 million more children
41. Signed national service legislation; expanded national youth service program
42. Instituted a new policy on Cuba , allowing Cuban families to return home to visit loved ones
43. Ended the previous policy of not regulating and labeling carbon dioxide emissions
44. Expanding vaccination programs
45. Immediate and efficient response to the floods in North Dakota and other natural disasters
46. Closed offshore tax safe havens
47. Negotiated deal with Swiss banks to permit US government to gain access to records of tax evaders and criminals
48. Ended the previous policy of offering tax benefits to corporations who outsource American jobs; the new policy is to promote in-sourcing to bring jobs back
49.. Ended the previous practice of protecting credit card companies; in place of it are new consumer protections from credit card industry's predatory practices
50. Energy producing plants must begin preparing to produce 15% of their energy from renewable sources
51. Lower drug costs for seniors
52. Ended the previous practice of forbidding Medicare from negotiating with drug manufacturers for cheaper drugs; the federal government is now realizing hundreds of millions in savings
53. Increasing pay and benefits for military personnel
54. Improved housing for military personnel
55. Initiating a new policy to promote federal hiring of military spouses
56. Improved conditions at Walter Reed Military Hospital and other military hospitals
57. Increasing student loans
58. Increasing opportunities in AmeriCorps program
59. Sent envoys to Middle East and other parts of the world that had been neglected for years; reengaging in multilateral and bilateral talks and diplomacy
60. Established a new cyber security office
61. Beginning the process of reforming and restructuring the military 20 years after the Cold War to a more modern fighting force; this includes new procurement policies, increasing size of military, new technology and cyber units and operations, etc.
62. Ended previous policy of awarding no-bid defense contracts
63. Ordered a review of hurricane and natural disaster preparedness
64. Established a National Performance Officer charged with saving the federal government money and making federal operations more efficient
65. Students struggling to make college loan payments can have their loans refinanced
66. Improving benefits for veterans
67. Many more press conferences and town halls and much more media access than previous administration
68. Instituted a new focus on mortgage fraud
69. The FDA is now regulating tobacco
70. Ended previous policy of cutting the FDA and circumventing FDA rules
71. Ended previous practice of having White House aides rewrite scientific and environmental rules, regulations, and reports
72. Authorized discussions with North Korea and private mission by Pres. Bill Clinton to secure the release of two Americans held in prisons
73. Authorized discussions with Myanmar and mission by Sen. Jim Webb to secure the release of an American held captive
74. Making more loans available to small businesses
75. Established independent commission to make recommendations on slowing the costs of Medicare
76. Appointment of first Latina to the Supreme Court
77. Authorized construction/opening of additional health centers to care for veterans
78. Limited salaries of senior White House aides; cut to $100,000
79. Renewed loan guarantees for Israel
80. Changed the failing/status quo military command in Afghanistan
81. Deployed additional troops to Afghanistan
82. New Afghan War policy that limits aerial bombing and prioritizes aid, development of infrastructure, diplomacy, and good government practices by Afghans
83. Announced the long-term development of a national energy grid with renewable sources and cleaner, efficient energy production
84. Returned money authorized for refurbishment of White House offices and private living quarters
85. Paid for redecoration of White House living quarters out of his own pocket
86. Held first Seder in White House
87. Attempting to reform the nation's healthcare system which is the most expensive in the world yet leaves almost 50 million without health insurance and millions more under insured
88. Has put the ball in play for comprehensive immigration reform
89. Has announced his intention to push for energy reform
90. Has announced his intention to push for education reform

Oh, and he built a swing set for the girls outside the Oval Office

h/t to Bob Poris

Rachel Maddow - March 22: GOP seeks to take health care away from Americans

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Bring it on

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Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Jon Stewart - Conservative Libertarian

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Rachel Maddow - Hayworth: Another Look

This is a follow-up to a video posted earlier today.



Again, thanks to Crooks and Liars.

Franken: A Perversion of the Filibuster

Thanks for this to Crooks and Liars from which cometh the following:

From the Senate Democrats Sen. Franken speaks out on the GOP's continued abuse of the filibuster:

Freshmen and sophomore Democratic Senators today went to the Senate floor as a group to highlight the Republican obstructionism on nominations. As of this morning, there are 88 nominees on the Senate calendar, including posts at the National Labor Relations Board, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Commerce, the Department of Treasury and the Army. "This is a perversion of the filibuster and a perversion of the role of the Senate," said Sen. Al Franken. "It used to be that the filibuster was reserved for matters of great principle. Today it has become a way to play out the clock."

Creationists dig new grave

[Cartoon from here]

It's so hard being a creationist these days. You must avoid all things scientific - magazines, books, people; and if you can't miss the headline claiming "40,000-Year-Old Tools Found at Construction Site", you must immediately close your eyes, pray to the Lord God Almighty that this sight will be cleansed from your mind and that He will smite mightily those pagans who dared dig up some dirty old "tools" and then claim they were 40,000 years old for the sole purpose of denying the truth of the Bible!

On Australia's island of Tasmania, archaeologists have dug up thousands of items, including stone tools which have been estimated to be about 40,000 years. While the exact age has not been confirmed, initial estimates are expected to be correct. In fact, according to an AOL News article, "Human artifacts dating 40,000 to 50,000 years have been found in Australia north of Tasmania."

Such a problem! What's a good creationist to do? The Bible clearly states that God created everything that exists 6,000 years ago: Which is "proven" by the correct reading of the biblical book of Genesis!

Damn those Tasmanian devils, those scientists!

Ed Schultz on Michele Bachman

Michele Bachmann is breathtakingly stupid! What were voters in Minnesota drinking when they elected this christianist nogoodnik to public office?



From Crooks and Liars:

Michele Bachmann makes Ed Schultz's Psycho Talk segment for her latest round of crazy on the health care bill this week.

From The Uptake: Rep. Bachmann : "Some have called President Obama the first Post-American President.":

Mar 13 2010 : MN 06 Rep. Michele Bachmann speaks at her "Kill the Bill" Rally, to stop the Health Care Bill, on the St. Paul Minnesota State Capital steps. She compares Obama to Chavez, calls the Health Care Bill illegitimate, says you don't have to follow illegitimate bills.

"In their bill they have the IRS enforciing the Health Care Bill", said Bachmann. "We're not going to pay their taxes..." "We don't have to follow a bill that isn't law."

And from Think Progress: Bachmann: Americans ‘Have Standing To Sue’ If House Uses Self-Executing Rule To Pass Health Care:

Last week, Politico reported that House Democrats had discussed the possibility of avoiding a direct vote on Senate health care bill by using a “self-executing rule,” which would call for the Senate bill to be automatically attached to reconciliation legislation if the House votes to pass a package of fixes being negotiated between the two chambers.

[...]

On Friday, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) attacked the proposal as “breathtakingly unconstitutional,” telling right-wing Minnesota radio host Chris Baker that “it would destroy Article I, Section 7, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution.” “No one’s ever seen anything like this before,” said Bachmann.

When Baker suggested that someone should be “arrested” if a “self-executing rule” is used, Bachmann declared that the parliamentary procedure would give every American “standing to sue against this bill”.

Signs

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Rachel Maddow - J.D. Hayworth uses McCain's cover up of Abramoff scandal

The following is from Crooks and Liars:

Dennis G. at Balloon Juice wrote an excellent post explaining how John McCain covering up for J.D. Hayworth's involvement in the Abramoff scandal was coming back to bite him in the form of Hayworth as a primary challenger. Hayworth was asked about his involvement in the Jack Abramoff affair on The Rachel Maddow Show and he used the fact that McCain did not bring him up during his committee hearings as proof of his innocence in the matter.

Hayworth: I’ll be very happy to point out how this may apply to the upcoming Republican primary. Senator McCain has joined the chorus of those attempting to link me to someone by the name of Jack Abramoff. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that in any way I’m defending Mr. Abramoff. That’s not the case. I’m offering you a spirited defense of what I believe to be incorrect information that you have received.

But with reference to my immediate Republican opponent Sen. McCain, he chaired hearings you may recall of the Indian Affairs Committee and if memory serves I believe they were in the spring and summer of 2006. Never did my name come up in testimony. Never was I mentioned either during those hearings or in the committee’s final report. So the bottom line is this. I did nothing wrong and the people of Arizona will have a chance to decide that. As for John McCain, a man who says he’s a man of honor I think quite frankly he knows these charges to be incorrect and in desperation to keep his job, sadly he is now proving himself unfit for service in the United States Senate.

I highly recommend reading the whole thing since there is much, much more there, but here are some highlights of Dennis' post. The Grifter and the Coward…:

Both men are also linked to the Abramoff scandal. It will be fascinating to see if McCain will decide to release details about the Abramoff scandal that he has kept covered up for years in a desperate effort to hold onto his Senate seat. [...]

Hayworth went into debt to defend himself from possible charges related to the Abramoff scandal and he set-up the Freedom In Truth Trust to get others to help him retire this debt before he officially announced his run against McCain. Naturally, many of Jack’s other pals contributed to JD’s defense fund. I found Hayworth’s defense on the site to be laughable. Documents released so far in the Abramoff scandal prove him to be a liar. For example, JD says:

Here are the simple facts:

1. Abramoff contributed a grand total of $2,250 dollars to my political efforts. ($250 in 1996, $1,000 in 1998, and $1,000 to our leadership political action committee, TEAMPAC, in 1999.)
2. I never met with Abramoff concerning any legislation.
3. He never came to my office.
4. He never lobbied me directly on any issue.

The record proves him to be a liar on points 1 and 4. Point 2 is certainly a lie if you include a phone call as a “meeting”. There are numerous records citing direct discussions between Abramoff and Hayworth. It is unclear if these meetings/discussions took place in Hayworth’s “office”, so point 3 could technically be true, but only if you exclude meetings between Hayworth’s staff and Abramoff’s staff.

Only a small fraction of the millions of pages of emails, billing records and other evidence linking Abramoff to his co-conspirators has been released. Most of these documents are under wraps and that lets many of Jack’s old Congressional grifter buddies run for office again in 2010. In an ironic twist, a grifter like Hayworth can thank John McCain for the fact that he is out of jail and able to scam gullible voters once again. You see, John McCain had the goods on Hayworth but did not have the courage to put Country over Party or the integrity to let duty trump his ambitions.

[...]

McCain’s investigation of the Abramoff scandal collected over 750,000 pages of documents. He has sent these documents to the National Archives where they will sit under seal for the next twenty years—it is a great way to sweep the largest Congressional scandal in decades under the rug.

[...]

Too bad McCain didn’t keep his promise to “not stop until the complete truth is told” that he made back in 2004. If he had then Hayworth, Norquist, Reed and a host of other grifters would be in jail and/or discredited. Instead, McCain let his cowardice and ambition conceal crimes that he knew they had committed. McCain actively hid evidence of corruption from the American people, but it looks like he kept a copy of that evidence readily at hand just in case he ever needed it. This is most likely why Norquist is still supporting McCain—John has the goods on him. And now, McCain is suggesting that he’ll dig into these hidden documents to release selective attacks on JD Hayworth.

As I asked last month when Hayworth was on MSNBC attacking McCain for his lie about TARP, how's that cover up working out for you now McCain?

Rove is a liar

From Crooks and Liars:

Another day, another round of interviews with Karl Rove pushing his latest bit of revisionist history. Tom Brokaw asks Rove about the Bush administration's claims that the oil revenue would help pay for the war and Rove denies it.

ROVE: No, no. Tom with all due respect that was not the policy of our government that we were going to go into Iraq and take their resources in order to pay for the cost of the war. … [T]he suggestion that somehow or another the administration had as its policy, “We’re going to go in to Iraq and take their resource and pay for the war” is not accurate.

Think Progress noted, Rove is lying.

Rove’s claim is simply not true. In fact, days after the U.S. invasion, then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a congressional panel that Iraqi oil revenues would help pay for reconstructing the country, i.e. a cost of the war. “The oil revenue of that country could bring between 50 and 100 billion dollars over the course of the next two or three years. We’re dealing with a country that could really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon,” he said.

One month before the war, then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Iraq “is a rather wealthy country. … And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own reconstruction.”

Let us waterboard Karl Rove!

[If only this had happened! Photo from here.]

Karl Rove epitomizes the "bullies" I met in school many years ago. While full of bravado and bullshit, underneath they were cowards!

This "big" man who waged war from the sidelines, protected by presidents and flacks, and by the ignorance and stupidity of a large portion of the American population, he can pretend and preen without ever having to get his soft, lily-white hands dirty.

So, just the other day in a BBC interview, Karl the bully said he was "proud" of the fact that under his reign (Bush, you recall, more or less worked for him) the United States engaged in torturing other human beings.

"I'm proud what we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists."

Well, he's rewriting history, of course, with that "broke the will of these terrorists" bit. And the examples he gave in the interview have all been debunked. What waterboarding did give us was a bunch of useless information because when you torture a person he/she will eventually tell you what you want to hear, true or not.

(The really sad thing about all of this is that it is very likely the 9/11 attacks could have been avoided if the Bush administration under Rove's leadership had paid the slightest attention to the intelligence it had been provided in the summer of 2001 which warned of just such a thing!)


In the interview, Rove went on to say he didn't consider waterboarding to be torture. Furthermore, he said, when we utilized such procedures, the torturees were told that they would not drown and a doctor was present. Why would the latter be necessary if it wasn't torture?


If he really believes waterboarding is not torture, then it would behoove him to bend over backward, figuratively and literally, and allow himself to undergo that non-torture - to demonstrate to the whole world that it isn't really torture - you know, just to be sure.

It is too bad that Rove and Rumsfeld and Cheney and Bush and all the criminal gang that ran our government into the ground with their lies and dreams of empire and most importantly, their grasping for oil, have not been tried in a court of law. For some reason, politically inspired it seems, they have been given a free pass (so they can write books to try to justify their unlawful behavior).

The least anyone who says waterboarding is not torture could do is undergo the process himself. Step up to the plate, Mr. Rove! We're calling your bluff.

But, like most bullies, you will run and hide when push comes to shove!

Thank God for religion

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Fundys on the march in Texas

You can't say we weren't warned. Back some 30 years ago, at the inception of the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson and other right-wing religionists vowed that christianist conservatives would infiltrate every aspect of American life, from school boards, to city councils, to governor's offices, even the United States Congress and thereby transform the United States into a fundamentalist christianist state ruled by their version of biblical law and order.

Unfortunately, these christianist fundamentalists have been remarkably successful, as we have documented over and over again on this blog.

One of their latest victories was won in Texas, where the State Board of Education is comprised of a majority of christianist nogoodniks who have no educational qualifications for serving on an educational board, and who see the role of the schools in Texas, not to educate, but to indoctrinate children with fundamentalist christianist beliefs (which also happen to coincide in many cases with "conservative" Repugnican beliefs).

As an aside, these people love the word, "conservative," and use it to describe their philosophies and actions. But they are not conservative in any sense of the word. They are as radical as the Marxists they disavow, working to upset years of educational excellence with their own revisionist schemes, based not in reality, but in the Bible and their own pointy little heads.

The Texas SBOE has been ruled by these cretins for many years; cretins who have concluded Darwin's theory of evolution is all wrong because it seems, to them, to contradict their bibles - those ancient scribblings of scientific excellence! These cretins, also ignorant of American history, continue to perpetrate the nonsense that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation, and that our founding fathers did not intend any kind of separation of church and state.

In Texas, there are 120 pages of curriculum standards written by the cretinous SBOE. Over the past several years, about 100 amendments have been made to these standards, most all of which reflect the views of the non-intellectual misfits on the board.

One should note that as the amendments have been made, real historians, economists, sociologists or other experts were rarely, if ever, consulted!

Thus, Texas students will now be taught such things as:

- the concept of separation of church and state cannot be found in our founding documents

- the American revolution was essentially a religious revolution

- the importance of the "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association"

- '"the unintended consequences" of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation" as well as the notion that the internment of U.S. citizens who were of Japanese descent during WWII was not racially based because some Germans and Italians were also interned

- Joe McCarthy wasn't all that bad so the study of McCarthyism will include the notion that "the later release of the Verona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government"

- Economists Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek (free-market believers) were just as important as Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes

- that capitalism is not a good word and "free-enterprise system" should be used in its place

- "'the importance of personal responsibility for life choices" in a section on teenage suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders"


But there's more:

A female attorney from Richmond, Texas, who is convinced the U.S. was a Christian nation from its inception, "managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Acquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone." Never mind that John Calvin was a murdering bastard who killed people opposed to his religious views! And just which "revolution" was based on the writings of Tommy Acquinas?

Another amendment requires students to learn "how taxes and regulations restrict private enterprise, and that students analyze the importance of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. Gun rights were given the same importance as free speech rights."

In a U.S. history section, the SBOE included "references to 'laws of nature and nature's God' in a study requiring "students to explain major political ideas."


What is especially unfortunate in all of this is that when it comes to textbooks, it is often the case that "as Texas goes, so goes the nation." In other words, Texas sets the parameters for textbook publishers and schools across the country.

Isn't there some way we can help the State of Texas secede from the Union. Who needs it?

Texas Textbook Controversy - ABC Nightline

We've written about this moron before. But what you see here is just plain scary! Welcome to Texas, 2010. Maybe we could help the state secede?

The Colbert Report - Karl Rove's New Book

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Rachel Maddow - Bart Stupak's non-issue of abortion funding

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Stuff God Can't Do

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Rachel Maddow - Va Gov plays games with gay civil rights

Here's more on Pat Robertson's "gift" to the State of Virginia.

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What If God Disappeared?

Gary Herbert: Big Brother Repugnican in Utah

The party of fear and desperation has struck again. The party that proclaims it's abiding desire for small government, for personal freedom, for less interference in people's lives, has once more proven that it is the Grand Old Hypocritical Party.

Beginning with Reagan and through the Bush years, we've seen what happens when the GOHP gets the reins of government. First of all, the government expands exponentially despite the Gipper's stupid comment that "government is not the solution; government is the problem."

Secondly, we've seen a concerted effort, especially during the last Bush administration, to dismantle our Constitutional guarantees with regard to free speech and personal liberty. The GOHP speaks with forked tongue.


Today, in Utah, a state controlled by Mormon Repugnicans, a woman who is involved in an illegal abortion can be charged with homicide! Such a woman is now considered to have killed her unborn child.

The governor of Utah, Gary Herbert, a Mormon, signed the bill making this atrocity legal and was "extremely happy" to do so. Not only so, but he's hoping other states will enact legislation based on the Utah law.


Gary Herbert, a real estate broker turned politician, is a typical Repugnican. He not only thinks it's right to impose his religious views regarding abortion on everyone in Utah, but he is also a global warming denier.

But people like Gary Herbert should not be in politics. They don't seem to understand that they serve all the people, even those who hold views they might find abhorrent because of their particular religious views.

So many Repugnicans these days, believe God is on their side, and will stop at nothing to impose those religious views on their constituents, thereby denying those constituents their constitutional rights.

They are sick puppies and are leading our country down the primrose path of totalitarianism.

And the SOB's dare to call Obama a "Marxist"!

The Missionary

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Return to Earth

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Rush Limbargher to leave country?

Rush Limbargher, scumbag extraordinaire, has threatened to leave the good ol' US of A if Congress passes the health care reform bill! I don't think he said where he would go. It is possible that countries more refined with governments more sane than our own would refuse him entry. He may be able to return to the Dominican Republic, I suppose, where he's engaged in various shenanigans previously, or maybe he will disappear in a cloud of Oxycontin.

Whatever. This threat (or promise) of Limbargher is probably one of the most important reasons justifying the passage of health care reform.

Can you imagine a country free of this lying, nogoodnik bastard?

Repugnican Big Brother in Virginia

These are Repugnican principles: Hate is a virtue. Government has the right to decide sexual orientation and persecute those who don't conform. Welcome to the State of Virginia under Repugnican rule!

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God weighs in on the health care debate

This is from Salon. The cartoon and accompanying article, very well done and right on target is here.

Waiting for the perfect man

I laughed out loud when I saw this. Found here.

OMG

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

God is really pissed!

So what's next? What terrible calamity is coming next? I mean, God went after those non-believing no-good Haitians with a devastating earthquake to punish them for their terrible sins, such as refusing to be good slaves!

Now, God has hit Chile! So what did Chile do that was so bad? Oh, yeah, they got rid of their terrorist leader and are trying to be a good, decent country.

Not only so, but God caused panic throughout a large part of the world by threatening Hawaii and Japan and lots of other degenerate places that don't care about Jesus with a tsunami!

But the worst is yet to come! God is so damn angry with the United States for not putting him in its Constitution, and not teaching about Jesus in the public schools and not putting his ten commands in the courthouses, and allowing so many abortions and in some cases, authorizing gays to get married, and worst of all, electing a Marxist as president ... well, I've heard from the grapevine that God may not wait for Armageddon! I've heard he's got another horrible disaster in mind; one that will flay the nation with a terrible punishment (like bedbugs) for years; one from which the United States may never recover...

I've heard that God is considering making Sarah Palin president!

That'll show us!

Lester & Charlie: Last of the Last Straws

I'd not heard of Lester & Charlie ... until now. And just in time, too, 'cause if Palin is elected to anything, I'm moving to Canada!

So funny. Enjoy!



There's much more Lester & Charlie here.

Jim Bunning - Small man, big fraud

[Photo from Fox News]

One has to wonder why any sane person would vote for a Republican these days. The party of "No" just keeps getting worse. Jim Bunning, a Repugnican member of Congress from Kentucky, exemplifies the Grand Old Patch of hypocrites.

Joe Conason excoriates the nogoodnik in a recent article in Salon. Bunning has filibustered against extending unemployment insurance benefits which means that as of today, those benefits run out for hundreds of thousands of men, women and children living on the edge!

"Loutist, eccentric and mean, he [Bunning] says that his filibuster ... is spurred by his concern over the federal deficit." Of course, he had no problem running up the deficit to cut taxes for the rich or engage in an illegal war in Iraq!

That's bad enough, but Conason points out that Bunning is operating a "phony 'charitable' operation as a front for his business selling autographed balls. As this outfit's sole employee, working one hour a week, he has paid himself hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past 10 years -- considerably more than the amount donated to any actual charity.

"... Clearly Bunning is a man of low character, even for someone who belongs to what Twain described as 'our only distinctly native American criminal class.'"


There's much more and you can read it all here.

Jon Stewart - CPAC 2010 - Rage Within the Machine

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Rachel Maddow - Meet Iowa Congressman Steve King

Is it any wonder that Congress doesn't function very well with people like Steve King barking like a mad dog?

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Nonnews

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Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Keith Olbermann - Not Worst Person in the World

Heh, heh!

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Keith Olbermann - Gingrich bashes Obama

One has to wonder why anyone listens to Gingrich, a discredited flop and serial adulterer. And why does the christianist right give him any credence whatsoever. But he's become their darling!

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Arizona speed cameras and conservative principles

[Cartoon from here.]

Let's see now: under the regime of Georgi W. Bush, the United States grew rapidly into a more repressive society, what with the enactment of the unconstitutional so-called Patriot Act, the use of torture against its enemies and an incredible amount of undercover spying on its ordinary citizens, among other things.

The size of the government enlarged enormously as did the budget and the national deficit.

During this period of time, conservatives were inexplicably silent. Georgi's initiatives defied many of the "principles" upon which conservatives stand and about which they prattle on endlessly.


In Arizona, the conservative "principle" of less government interference in people's lives bit the dust a couple of years ago when the state installed speed cameras on state highways which take a picture of vehicles speeding 11 miles over the limit. Tickets are then sent to the homes of the offenders, said tickets demanding the payment of $181.50.

It's Big Brother time in the dusty, desert state, home of the reluctant warrior and Senate dissembler, Johnny McCain.

Some people don't much like these cameras. Perhaps they are the real conservatives. They've put silly string on them, covered them with post-it notes, and one guy took one down with a pick ax. One judge decided the cameras were unconstitutional and threw out 7,000 of the tickets.


Now the cameras came into existence at the behest and with the approval of the Arizona legislature, noted for its large group of ultra-conservative wingnuts. These are the same folks who praise God and conservative "principles," one of which is the unwarranted interference of government in the lives of ordinary citizens.


Is it hypocrisy? Yes. It this hypocrisy new? No. The conservatives in this country (which includes most of the Repugnican leadership in the states as well as in Washington) are noted for saying one thing and doing another. Their "principles" are abandoned whenever they get in the way of their tenure or financial well-being. Big government, for example, is just fine so long as they are in power and their corporate masters are being well-fed, the prime example in recent years being their revered dead leader, Ronnie Reagan, the B-grade movie actor, under which the government grew by leaps and bounds.

Thus, in Arizona, the ugly hand of Big Brother as represented by "conservatives" translates into speed cameras.

Now it seems enough folks are growing increasingly unhappy with this unconstitutional invasion of privacy. And so, unsurprisingly, "conservatives" in the Arizona legislature may again find the "principles" and do away with them.

Isn't this an amazing country in which we live?


By the way, Arizona is not the only state to have fun with speed cameras. Read more here.

Some of the material in this post came from Auto Blog.

Teach the controversy

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Suing the representatives of God

This was sent to me by a friend. Something to think about!


Be it established that:

1- God exists, as proven by Descartes and the Holy Bible as well as the testimony of the Apostles, the Fathers of the Christian church, and the Prophets of Judaism and the Prophet of Islam, known as the Messenger of Allah.

2- God is recognized as a legal person in the United States of America, which has declared that they are one nation, under Him.

3- The United States of America and its local jurisdictions recognize that the several churches of the organized religions are representatives of God for all purposes, and as such grants them tax exemptions and other special considerations.

4- God is recognized as, and known to be, the perpetrator of various criminal acts, including Hurricanes, Tsunamis, Lightning Strikes, Floods, Forest Fires, Tidal Waves and Earthquakes among others, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in property damage; these being collectively known, by universal agreement, as Acts of God.

Therefore, it must be legally possible to sue the churches, who are the recognized representatives of this malefactor, and in particular the Pope, who is his true Vicar on Earth by his own admission and the dogma of the Catholic Church, to recover damages, and to arrest them for conspiracy to commit murder, aiding and abetting, being accessories after the fact and other felonies, and to force them to reveal the location of God and the method by which He may be contacted and summoned to appear before a magistrate.


Amen!

Who's the deluded one?

The campout

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Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Stupidity will destroy the U.S.

[Photo of Mike Pitt from here.]

The Last Chance Democracy Cafe recently ran an article titled, "No, not fire nor even ice: stupidity will end the world!"

This was a pointed piece aimed at the numbnuts in our national legislature who, because of a couple snowstorms, claim there is no such thing as global warming.

"Global warming legislation isn't being killed by tea partiers, Rush Limbaugh or even Matt Drudge (although intelligent public discourse is). It's being killed by our elected representatives in Washington, a majority of whom fully understand the threat climate change poses, yet have chosen not to act."

This, says LCDC, is stupidity in spades!


I agree wholeheartedly. But stupidity rears its ugly head with regard to almost every other issue that has to do with the public welfare; our common good. The Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs and Ann Coulters of the world are doing their stupid best to bring down our country and our president for their own devious benefit, but throughout the legislatures of our land there are masses of numbnuts who are doing as much or more damage.

Here's an example. Mike Pitts is a Repugnican and a state representative in South Carolina. Now, I know that South Carolina's government is filled with just about as many assholes as is Texas' government, but Pitts stands with Jim DeMint on the same level of idiocy and chicanery.

Mr. Pitts introduced a law that would ban "the unconstitutional substitution of Federal Reserve Notes for silver and gold coin" in his home state. This means that in the "great" state of South Carolina, you'd have to use silver or gold to pay any debt you incurred. No more paper money with the Great Satan's (U.S. Government) seal on it!

Pitts claims that the U.S. economic system is going down in flames and he's just trying to get South Carolina ready to deal with such a catastrophe. He believes that because he's a nogoodnik Repugnican who somehow missed the massive deficit spending of Georgi Bush but blames the mess Bush made on our current elected leader, Mr. Obama.

Nothing racial, you understand.

Now, the bill is clearly unconstitutional from the start. Furthermore, as others have pointed out, silver and gold can't serve as currency because their value fluctuates.

Does that bother Pitts. Nah, he likes stuff he can hold in his hands. Real stuff, not paper money stuff.

Oh, this is also about states' rights. The feds have been intruding "on states' rights for eight years."

Hmmm. Isn't this why South Carolina started the Civil War?


Yep. Stupidity is gaining ground. The major threats to this country are not from without, but from within: from the Pitts, the DeMints, the Pawlentys, the Perrys, Repugnicans in general, FAUX News, and all their ilk.

Rachel Maddow - Republicans abandon principles to pander to the right

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Jon Stewart tears Beck a new one!

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National Prayer Campaign to save the U.S.

[Photo of Cindy Jacobs from here.]

On January 1, a national prayer campaign called "Root 52" began with a bunch of christianist numbnuts praying for our "national political leaders."

This so-called prayer campaign was organized by a couple of goofy religionists, Mike and Cindy Jacobs, who make money off the ignorant and gullible by pretending they know there is a god who really cares about the U.S. and will spare us from going down the tubes if we only abase ourselves before him, or her, as the case may be.

So, Mike and Cindy want people to pray that the U.S. will return to its "prophetic covenant roots," whatever that means, but suggests they really believe that the U.S. was/is a Christian nation founded by their Christian god.

This is a 52 week campaign and it's moving from state to state in the order they came into the union.

According to Mike and Cindy, "If we will take our place in repentance, bowing low before God in humility with fervent prayer and fasting, seeking God's face and his heart towards our nation, we believe that united with God and one another, a nation can be shifted."

Yup. Shifted from its secular nastiness, its drift toward "socialism," its tendency to treat gays like people, its refusal to allow christianists to impose their beliefs on the rest of us ... and won't that be fine? Just what their god wants! "...we will see the walls of deception, seduction, lies and rhetoric come down like those of Jericho."

Do you think they're talking about Glenn Beck and Ann Coulter and the other freaks that hang out at FAUX News trying to drag our nation down and make our president fail? Do you think they're talking about those morons that gathered at CPAC and spewed out "walls of deception, seduction, lies and rhetoric"?

Nah.

These are people who want to take control of our government and turn it into their christianist fiefdom from which they can run your life and mine!

They're sick puppies. Unfortunately, there are thousands, millions of people, perhaps, who follow them on this ungodly merry-go-round.

Fortunately, as we all know, prayer doesn't work. It is pissing in the wind. There isn't any god "up there" waiting for people to fall on their faces in "humility" with "fervent prayer and fasting."

Cindy and Mike like their mentor, C. Peter Wagner, are dominionist con artists who would destroy the very foundations of our country! If there are any people guilty of establishing "walls of deception, seduction, lies and rhetoric," it is the dominionists (of which Sarah Palin is one)! They are very dangerous!

Field work

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Why isn't Cheney in jail?

Thanks to Crooks & Liars.

The vision of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk

[Photo of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk from ipb-magazine.com]

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938) was the founder and first president of modern-day Turkey.

The following quote comes from the book, Ataturk, A Biography of Mustafa Kemal by Andrew Mango, p. 463 (courtesy of Robert Wolfe).


"I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow man."


Read more about Ataturk here.

h/t to Bob Poris

Rachel Maddow - Introducing Glenn Beck to his own show

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Wile E. Coyote finally gets the Road Runner

h/t to Dan Florien at Unreasonable Faith.

No Confessions

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Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Keith Olbermann - Who is the real Sarah Palin?

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Rick Santorum lies about Obama

[Photo of Rick Santorum from lawdork.net]

So, what's new?

Repugnicans and FAUX News commentators lie as a matter of course. The truth means nothing to them.

According to Media Matters, on the Feb. 12 edition of FAUX News' On The Record, hosted by Greta Van Susteren, Santorum said, in part:

"In fact, what we're doing is, in fact, not doing the other thing that we did in Poland and we did with the Soviet Union, which was to go out and condemn the regime for being evil and persecuting their people. Instead, what the president is doing is trying to engage them. Trying to talk to them. Trying to convince them to give up their weapons and instead -- their potential weapons -- instead of siding with the pro-democracy movement. He has not sided with them..."


In a statement on December 28, 2009, President Obama said:

"The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens."


Santorum is one of a number of Repugnican politicians who wear their religion on their sleeve, protest in the strongest terms their love for Jesus and their devotion to their god. Well, it's all bullshit. They lie as easy as they breathe. They have no integrity and no honor. Their religion is a sham, and their lives are built on hypocrisy!

We would say exactly the same thing about almost everyone of the people who work for FAUX News!


Read more here.