To be conservative requires no brains whatsoever. Cabbages, cows and conifers are conservatives, and are so stupid they don't even know it. All that is basically required is acceptance of what exists .
I'm an Ex-Conservative. You can call me XCon. I am no longer a Republican because that party is now under the control of some very shady, very unAmerican characters. Fiscal responsibility only when it works for them, these far, far, far right ultra fanantical haters. And "NO!"to big governement unless it greases their political coffers - is no way to be the Republican party of Barry Goldwater.
Warmongering and screwing with the simplicity and genius of our Constitution, mixed with intrusion into our personal lives and a fear of individual liberty, is no party I want any part of! So I'm tired of bitching and moaning and harping on my family and friends and am thinking I need to express these things and see if there are others who feel the same. "Confession is good for the soul," or so the saying goes.
If you disagree, fine, but get ready to defend yourself and your clinging to failed politix. Grow some cajones and help us take back our party! If you agree, I hope you will share your feelings and experiences.
I swore I could never vote for a Clinton and when this unknown Obama came along I said "No F'n Way" but I ended up voting for him and I'm glad I did. John McCain is a sad shadow of who he once was and when he tried that Palin-Crap, well that did it. OVER. End of the GOP. Let's remember... and begin again.
Thanks for reading. I've never blogged before, so welcome to my learning experience. And, thanks to all the bloggers and sites that inspire and feed me!
Isn't it weird that Mexico City is about to make gays and lesbians "equal" citizens" while California (to the North) rejects the concept of equal rights for all?While all of Mexico (as a country) is not opening the equality door, Mexico City is!Most Americans see California as the very left-most area of our nation and I guess that is not the case.The Mexicans in Mexico City are more progressive than our Commie-Socialist California?Wow.
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I think of Mexico as a Catholic country, where priests and bishops and archbishops "rule the roost," but I guess that is not the case these days.They can do what Americans can seem to not do: The Right Thing.
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We let our religions rule our common sense, don't we?Meanwhile, we all think of the Mexicans as "third-world" and beneath us, less advanced and hopelessly lost in their poverty.Seems like we need to become aware of what is going on in the section of our neighbor to the south where they have somehow separated religious dogma from decency, human rights, and the rule of law.
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We have much to learn and we need to "git over our bad selfs," and perhaps learn some humility and respect from the most important Jew of all, Jesus Christ, who would never have been as horrid to others as his followers these days!
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Merry Christmas to all and to all a safe and happy end of the decade.
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Cliff - The XCon
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Mexico City moves to legalize same-sex marriage
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Legislature passes a bill giving gay couples the right to marry, adopt children and enjoy the same status as heterosexual couples. The Catholic Church and conservatives speak out against it.
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Reporting from Mexico City - In a move that may put Mexico City at odds with the rest of the country, the local legislature approved a far-reaching gay rights bill Monday, voting to allow people of the same sex to marry and to adopt children.
The leftist-dominated legislature of this massive city of about 20 million people turned aside opposition from the influential Roman Catholic Church and ended lively debate to approve the measure by a 39-20 vote. Mayor Marcelo Ebrard is expected to sign the bill into law.
"Mexico City has put itself in the vanguard," said legislator Victor Hugo Romo. "This is a historic day."
Mexico City's initiative goes further than any other in Latin America by rewriting the law to redefine marriage as a "free union between two people," not only between a man and a woman. It gives homosexual couples the same rights as heterosexual pairs, including the right to adopt, inherit, obtain joint housing loans and share insurance policies.
Gay rights activist cheer after a session at the city's assembly in Mexico City,
Monday. Mexico City's assembly voted to extend gay couples full marriage
rights, on this same day, in a landmark law that is the first of its kind in Latin
America, a traditionally macho and Catholic region.
Daniel Aguilar/Reuters
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Mexico City move to allow gay marriage irks some residents
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Lawmakers approved a bill Monday to allow gay marriage, making Mexico City the vanguard of Latin America's coalescing gay rights movement. But the move angers many in the socially conservative Catholic country.
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In legalizing gay marriage, Mexico City is now the vanguard of the coalescing gay rights movement across Latin America.
With a vote of 39-to-20, legislators in the capital approved a bill that will make Mexico City the first city in Latin America to approve gay marriage – angering the Catholic Church and politicians from the nation´s conservative ruling party.
The bill redefines the definition of marriage, paving the way for same-sex couples to wed as early as February. Leftist mayor Marcelo Ebrard, from the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), now must sign the bill into law, which he is expected to do.
Members of Mexican President Felipe Calderón's National Action Party (PAN) have said they will fight the measure in court, as has happened in the US. The bill follows other controversial moves in left-leaning Mexico City, which also legalized abortion in a woman´s first trimester of pregnancy.
The House Republican caucus is getting a present in its Christmas stocking: A new member of the caucus, with freshman conservative Democratic Congressman Parker Griffith of Alabama switching parties.
Griffith's switch was first reported by Politico, and confirmed to TPM by a GOP source who requested anonymity so as not to pre-empt Griffith's official announcement later today.
Griffith, a medical doctor and former Alabama state legislator, was first elected to Congress in 2008, to an open seat previously held by retiring Blue Dog Democratic Rep. Bud Cramer. John McCain carried his district by 61%-38%, while Griffith defeated Republican opponent Wayne Parker by the slender margin of 51%-48%. Over this past summer, he told a local newspaper that he wouldn't support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker again, saying she was too divisive.
C-SPAN helps MSNBC show and prove hypocrisy by McCain
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The missing C-SPAN footage showing Sen. John McCain preventing a Democratic senator from getting an extra 30 seconds to finish a speech has been found.
The Republican senator from Arizona was outraged last week when Sen. Al Franken (D-MN), who was presiding over the Senate, prevented Sen. Joe Lieberman from getting extra time to finish his comments on the Senate floor.
"I've been around here twenty-some years, first time I've seen a member denied a minute or two to finish his remarks," McCain said. "And I must say that I don't know what's happening here in this body, but I think it's wrong."
With the inauguration of President Obama in 2009, Fox News transformed itself from a conservative media outlet into a partisan, right-wing political organization that openly viewed itself as the "voice of the opposition." Throughout the year, Fox News has declared war on the Obama administration, the Democratic Congress, and progressive organizations by, among other things, campaigning for the firing of various administration officials, partnering with conservative groups and politicians to oppose progressive policies, and even allowing its own contributors to fundraise on-air for conservative political causes.
Media Matters for America presents a look back at Fox News' year in political activism.
Meet the Press host David Gregory revealed his comedic side on The Tonight Show Monday—perhaps revealing a bit too much? Yes, the esteemed correspondent confessed that he sings along to Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" when he's not on air...trivia fans may be better off not knowing.
So, do we or don’t we have the possibility of some meaningful health care reform?The Senate supposedly has 60 votes to pass their bill, whatever the hell it contains!That it got bogged down in the abortion issue is a testament to just how screwed up things really are.It is a certainty that half the population will never, ever have an abortion because we just are unable to – as males – get pregnant.Then there are the females who are too old to get preggers, the gals who couldn’t get pregnant because of some physical problem, and the girls that are too young, and the percentage of us who have abortion as THE major issue in our lives is damned small.Yet we agonize over this decade after decade making it seem that it is the most important issue on the planet.Wake up you crazed people of either side:We have other issues that affect far more people than abortion.
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Personally, I see it as a woman’s issue as it is her body. I don’t happen to like or endorse abortion but who the hell am I to tell another of God’s children what they do with their body, when it has no effect on me personally?Still, old Ben Nelson and others would doom all of us to die while they seek to legislate one small issue, which is totally without respect for the health of the masses!
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I think it is time we began to authorize a new kind of abortion procedure:Retroactive Abortion, where we simply “abort” crazy fools like so many in Congress, who put their own personal religious and/or moral beliefs above the well being of the vast majority of us.Let’s make a list of candidates for the procedure, okay?
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Rush Scumbaugh, Miss Hell Bachmann, Man Coulter, Sen. Coburn, Gwennie Beck, Hannity (for the voice alone), Nancy Grace, Sen. Lieberman, Dickface Armey, Nalin’ Palin, most right-wing talk show hosts, and the list is already too long. Now that I think about it, if we give them enough time they will eventually abort each other and themselves because I always believe that good conquers evil and that right (not “the right”) will prevail. Imagine and picture such a world of peace and harmony – and when enough of us do that, it will happen.
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I’ve said it before:Frank Rich of the New York TIMES is a great writer and even better observer of life in these United States and being human on the planet Earth in the 21st century.His column Sunday that looked at the Tiger Woods news and the coverage of same, is well worth reading.He manages to bring in terrorism, which is pretty amazing.
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Cliff – The XCon
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Tiger Woods, Person of the Year
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By FRANK RICH
Op-Ed Columnist
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AS we say farewell to a dreadful year and decade, this much we can agree upon: The person of the year is not Ben Bernanke, no matter how insistently Time magazine tries to hype him into its pantheon. The Fed chairman was just as big a schnook as every other magical thinker in Washington and on Wall Street who believed that housing prices would go up in perpetuity to support an economy leveraged past the hilt. Unlike most of the others, it was Bernanke’s job to be ahead of the curve. Yet as recently as June of last year he could be found minimizing the possibility of a substantial economic downturn. And now we’re supposed to applaud him for putting his finger in the dike after disaster struck? This is defining American leadership down.
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If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled. The men who played us for suckers, whether at Citigroup or Fannie Mae, at the White House or Ted Haggard’s megachurch, are the real movers and shakers of this century’s history so far. That’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).
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As of Friday, the Tiger saga had appeared on 20 consecutive New York Post covers. For The Post, his calamity has become as big a story as 9/11. And the paper may well have it right. We’ve rarely questioned our assumption that 9/11, “the day that changed everything,” was the decade’s defining event. But in retrospect it may not have been. A con like Tiger’s may be more typical of our time than a one-off domestic terrorist attack, however devastating.
Flying over the waves of snow-covered mountains that make Afghanistan a natural fortress and a sinkhole for empires, it’s impossible not to think of Osama’s escaping from Tora Bora as one of the greatest bungled opportunities in history.
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Unlike the Bushies, who tried to play down Osama’s importance the longer he was on the lam, Gen. Stanley McChrystal acknowledged in recent Congressional hearings that “he is an iconic figure.”
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“It would not defeat Al Qaeda to have him captured or killed,” he said, “but I don’t think that we can finally defeat Al Qaeda until he is captured or killed.”
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I asked Bob Gates, as we flew over the notorious terrain, if he had any insights into why such a bellicose team as W., Cheney and Rummy flinched at the very moment they could have captured our mortal enemy. Gates, who said there hasn’t been any good intelligence on Osama’s whereabouts in years, said “it’s just hard to find somebody who has a sympathetic network and local support.”
WE end this extraordinary financial year with news that the Treasury is in discussions with American International Group about selling the taxpayers’ 80 percent ownership stake in that company. The government recently permitted several banks to break free of its potential oversight by repaying loans made during the rescue. But with respect to A.I.G., the Treasury should not move so fast. There is one job left to do.
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A.I.G. was at the center of the web of bad business judgments, opaque financial derivatives, failed economics and questionable political relationships that set off the economic cataclysm of the past two years. When A.I.G.’s financial products division collapsed — ultimately requiring a federal bailout of $180 billion — those who had been prospering from A.I.G.’s schemes scurried for taxpayer cover. Yet, more than a year after the rescue began, crucial questions remain unanswered. Who knew what, and when? Who benefited, and by exactly how much? Would A.I.G.’s counterparties have failed without taxpayer support?
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The three of us, as experienced investigators and prosecutors of financial fraud, cannot answer these questions now. But we know where the answers are. They are in the trove of e-mail messages still backed up on A.I.G. servers, as well as in the key internal accounting documents and financial models generated by A.I.G. during the past decade. Before releasing its regulatory clutches, the government should insist that the company immediately make these materials public. By putting the evidence online, the government could establish a new form of “open source” investigation.
IF I were still a United States senator, I would not only vote yes on the current health care reform bill, I would do so with the sure knowledge that I was casting one of the most historic votes of my 36 years in the Senate. I would vote yes knowing that the bill represents the culmination of a struggle begun by Theodore Roosevelt nearly a century ago to make health care reform a reality. And while it does not contain every measure President Obama and I wanted, I would vote yes for this bill certain that it includes the fundamental, essential change that opponents of reform have resisted for generations.
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We have been here before. In the past, as the moment of decision drew nearer, criticism from both the left and the right grew louder. Compromises were derided. The perfect became the enemy of the good.
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Most recently, in 1993, Democrats had a chance to forge a compromise with Senator John Chafee, Republican of Rhode Island, on a health care reform bill. Congress’s failure to pass health care reform that year led to 16 years of inaction — and 16 years of exploding health care costs and rising numbers of uninsured Americans.
McCain critiques Palin’s visor choice, David Axelrod rethinks calling Howard Dean “insane,” and did Joe Lieberman actually save health-care? That and more in our Sunday roundup.
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Howard Dean: Nothing Personal, But Your Bill’s Still Crazy
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The big conflict over the Senate health bill between David Axelrod and Howard Dean didn’t exactly escalate into much of a throwdown Sunday. Both appeared on Meet the Press—although not at the same time—but with both sides softening a bit on the intra-party tension. Dean—whom Axelrod implied was “insane” but then denied—says his opposition to the bill is nothing “personal.” It probably doesn’t seem that way in the White House.
Feingold: Obama Responsible For Loss Of Public Option
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Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) formally announced on Sunday that he would support the Senate's final version of health care reform. But in doing so he cast blame for the loss of a public option for insurance coverage partially on the president's shoulders and urged House and Senate negotiators to re-insert the government-run plan back into the legislation during conference committee.
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From the Wisconsin Democrat's press office came the following statement:
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I've been fighting all year for a strong public option to compete with the insurance industry and bring health care spending down. I continued that fight during recent negotiations, and I refused to sign onto a deal to drop the public option from the Senate bill. Unfortunately, the lack of support from the administration made keeping the public option in the bill an uphill struggle. Removing the public option from the Senate bill is the wrong move, and eliminates $25 billion in savings. I will be urging members of the House and Senate who draft the final bill to make sure this essential provision is included.
‘People Ought To Pray’ That A Senator ‘Can’t Make The Vote Tonight’
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Evangelical church opens doors fully to gays
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DENVER – The auditorium lights turned low, the service begins with the familiar rhythms of church: children singing, hugs and handshakes of greeting, a plea for donations to fix the boiler.
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Then the 55-year-old pastor with spiked gray hair and blue jeans launches into his weekly welcome, a poem-like litany that includes the line "queer or straight here, there's no hate here."
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The Rev. Mark Tidd initially used the word "gay." But he changed it to "queer" because it's the preferred term of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people invited to participate fully at Highlands Church.
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Tidd is an outlaw pastor of sorts. His community, less than a year old, is an evangelical Christian church guided both by the Apostle's Creed and the belief that gay people can embrace their sexual orientation as God-given and seek fulfillment in committed same-sex relationships.
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Disagreements over homosexuality and the Bible have divided mainline Protestant churches for years. In evangelical churches, though, the majority view has held firm — the Bible clearly condemns homosexual acts. The common refrain at evangelical churches: "love the sinner, hate the sin."
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But with younger evangelicals and broader society showing greater acceptance of homosexuality, many evangelical churches can expect, at the least, a deeper exploration of the issue.
LOS ANGELES — James Cameron launched his science-fiction epic "Avatar" into a safe orbit as the costly film soared to No. 1 with $73 million domestically and $159.2 million overseas, for a $232.2 million worldwide total.
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With that big a start, distributor 20th Century Fox was quick to proclaim it made a good investment with the estimated $400 million spent to make and market the film, which is Cameron's first narrative feature since 1997's "Titanic," the king of modern blockbusters.
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"Absolutely. No question," said Chris Aronson, head of distribution for the studio, which reported stellar reaction in exit polls from audiences after seeing "Avatar." "The word of mouth is something that I don't know I've ever seen in this business before."
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"Avatar" was a test case for the future of digital 3-D projection, which until now has been a hit with audiences mainly on animated family films.
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The film fell short of the record for December debuts of $77.2 million set two years ago by Will Smith's "I Am Legend." But it did break the record for a film opening in 3-D, previously held by last summer's "Up" with $68.1 million.
Gravity-defying mountains: Pandora's majestic floating ranges dwarf a massive gunship.
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Saddle up: A Na'vi warrior races into battle on a Thanator, a fearsome panther-like creature
native to Pandora. By WETA, 20th Century Fox
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Flip through this rough guide to Cameron's 'Avatar'-land
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Don't worry if you saw Avatarand couldn't take it all in. Says filmmaker James Cameron: "I don't think they'll be able to explain what they just saw. And that's great. Hopefully they'll turn right around and see it again." Even so, here's a guide to this land of his imagination:
Cameron's world
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The film centers on the moon Pandora, located 4.37 light-years from Earth, according to the 200-page "survivor's guide" Cameron is releasing with the movie. Pandora is part of the Alpha Centauri system, the closest to our planet. While Pandora is lush and Earth-like, its atmosphere is poisonous to humans.
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ALL THINGS 'AVATAR': Review, video, more
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Behind the scenes: Look for the other planets and moons in the distance of Cameron's wide-angle shots of the moon. He hopes to use those worlds for other films if he can franchise Avatar.
A new report says the golf star may enter an Arizona rehab clinic for “sexual compulsion.” Abby Ellin on the science behind a controversial disorder—and why there’s little chance he’ll be cured.
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After weeks of predictions, it finally happened: Tiger Woods has reportedly decided to check into rehab for sex addiction. But to treat a real disorder, or just his fractured image? Sex addiction is the diagnosis du jour for male public figures caught cheating or gawking at porn: David Duchovny, Eliot Spitzer, and Christie Brinkley’s ex-husband Peter Cook, and ESPN’s Steve Phillips have all done their time on the couch.
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Sex addiction isn’t in the DSM-IV, the bible of psychological medicine, but neither are many disorders that therapists routinely treat. And the team of doctors currently revising the guide are considering adding sex addiction to the new version.
It seems that the mere mention of “reconciliation” in the Senate is close to an act of treason, so being a curious person, I did some snooping around and Gadzooks! – it is not all that crazy nor is it all that unusual.It has been used a lot and most times, by the Republicskum Party, formerly the Grand Old Party, to get things done.Today, the righties vilify reconciliation and lie about the previous usage of it.
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Fifty-one (51) votes would solve lots of problems.Screw this 60 bullshit and let’s get busy and put the lying liars of the right there they belong:Oblivion.
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From Wikipedia, here is the definition and a list of actual bills that passed because of Reconciliation.Gee, many were in the Reagan years, lots in the Bush years, even those evil Clinton years.Remember, the truth will set you free!Read on...
Reconciliation is a legislative process of the United States Senate intended to allow a contentious budget bill to be considered without being subject to filibuster. Because reconciliation limits debate and amendment, the process empowers the majority party. Reconciliation also applies in the United States House of Representatives, but since the House regularly passes rules that constrain debate and amendment, the reconciliation process represented less of a change in that body.
Pretty cool beans, huh?To hear old Mitch “Sumbitch” McChinless and the other freaks cry on, one might think the thought of Reconciliation would bring the USA to a rapid end.Quite the contrary.Sumbitch Mitch and Rush and Beck and all the rest are desperate liars and will say and do anything to advance the fascist agenda of the corporate right!Beware of all of them for they are pure evil.
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Cliff – The XCon
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Fox News: Ben Nelson Opposes
Health Reform Because He ‘Understands
The True Meaning Of Christmas’
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Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) is still refusing to support Senate health care reform legislation, with his main objection being that the bill doesn’t restrict women’s rights enough by severely limiting access to abortions. Today on Fox News, host Steve Doocy and analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. lauded Nelson for his “moral” stance. But they then went even further, arguing that Nelson is obstructing progress because he “understands the true meaning of Christmas” — unlike all the immoral people who want to make sure that Americans have access to quality, affordable health care as soon as possible
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DOOCY: Democrat senator from Nebraska Ben Nelson, the holdout on health care reform right now on the Democrat side. The sticking point? Abortion, which could push lawmakers up right until Christmas. But could it be because he understands the true meaning of Christmas? [...]
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JOHNSON: So what you have is an interesting, almost Christmas pageant. On one hand, we have this political or secular rush for the Democratic Party: “We must get this done by Christmas,” and if you don’t it done, you’re going to be there on Christmas Eve, you’re going to be there on the day after Christmas, and you’re going to get this done.
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But on the other hand, I was thinking, perhaps there is a greater moral or ethical imperative from Sen. Ben Nelson, conservative Democrat from Nebraska, who has a lot of experience in the insurance industry and was a very successful governor in that state. He’s saying, implicitly, the true meaning of Christmas is that you don’t destroy babies. You don’t destroy children. And that the federal government should not be part and parcel of that in terms of funding it.
A message to progressives: By all means, hang Senator Joe Lieberman in effigy. Declare that you’re disappointed in and/or disgusted with President Obama. Demand a change in Senate rules that, combined with the Republican strategy of total obstructionism, are in the process of making America ungovernable.
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But meanwhile, pass the health care bill.
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Yes, the filibuster-imposed need to get votes from “centrist” senators has led to a bill that falls a long way short of ideal. Worse, some of those senators seem motivated largely by a desire to protect the interests of insurance companies — with the possible exception of Mr. Lieberman, who seems motivated by sheer spite.
The first reason to support the Senate health care bill is that it would provide insurance to 30 million more Americans.
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The second reason to support the bill is that its authors took the deficit issue seriously. Compared with, say, the prescription drug benefit from a few years ago, this bill is a model of fiscal rectitude. It spends a lot of money to cover the uninsured, but to help pay for it, it also includes serious Medicare cuts and whopping tax increases — the tax on high-cost insurance plans alone will raise $1.3 trillion in the second decade.
The bill is not really deficit-neutral. It’s politically inconceivable that Congress will really make all the spending cuts that are there on paper. But the bill won’t explode the deficit, and that’s an accomplishment.
Senate Republicans failed early Friday in their bid to filibuster a massive Pentagon bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an unusual move designed to delay President Obama's health-care legislation.
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On a 63 to 33 vote, Democrats cleared a key hurdle that should allow them to approve the must-pass military spending bill Saturday and return to the health-care debate. After years of criticizing Democrats for not supporting the troops, just three Republicans supported the military funding.
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The maneuvering came as Democrats were still trying to secure a crucial vote on the health-care legislation. Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the last holdout in the Democratic caucus and the focus of an intense lobbying campaign by White House officials, rejected an abortion compromise aimed at bringing him on board. Nelson has said he would not support the package unless it explicitly bars use of federal money for abortion services.
‘You are a blind ideologue’ and a ‘Kool-Aid drinker.’
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Wednesday on Fox News, host Bill O’Reilly praised First Lady Michelle Obama, whom he had met at the White House holiday party the previous evening. “The President and First Lady were very gracious to me,” he said, adding that he was “impressed” with Michelle Obama. “She’s charismatic, articulate, and beautiful,” O’Reilly said of the First Lady. Last night on Fox, when right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham teased O’Reilly for “gushing” over Michelle Obama, O’Reilly called her a “blind ideologue“:
INGRAHAM: I’m gushing over your gushing last night about the Christmas party. I’m still trying to get over that.
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O’REILLY: Wait, a minute. I’m going to call you — I’m calling you out on this. [...] I thought she was very nice at the party. [...] You are a blind ideologue who even if somebody’s nice to you, won’t admit it because you’re talking about a Kool-aid drinker. [...] You have an IV attached to your arm on the Kool-aid.
For some lobbyists, 2009 was a year for huge wins.
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K Street was supposed to be flat on its back. A deep recession meant corporate belt-tightening, and lobbyists were shamed month after month by an administration determined to limit their access. The White House stiff-armed lobbyists on the $787 billion stimulus package, then sought to block K Street from serving on influential federal advisory panels.
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But if some doors shut, others opened as Democrats pursued a sweeping legislative agenda. Healthcare, energy and financial regulation kept lobbyists working the halls.
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The efforts promised new challenges, but some companies and trade groups emerged as clear winners.
RealClearPolitics obtained the following fake transcript of an utterly fictitous conference call between Barack Obama, Kim Jong-Il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chávez.
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[Begin Transcript]
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Barack Obama: Good morning. We have on the phone the Supreme Leader of the DPRK—
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Kim Jong-Il: Mr. President, Dear Leader is fine. And I received your letter last week. Thank you for including the Obama "change the world" t-shirt. I'm going to wear it in my latest film. It's about my epic life. I've kidnapped all the best talent in Asia for supporting cast. Did you know that a double rainbow and a bright star appeared over the mountaintop when I was born? I'm the sun of my nation.
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Obama: I've read that. Ok. Let's get started. Also on the line are President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela.
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Hugo Chávez: Hello Barack! Did you read the book I gave you?
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Obama: Not yet. But thank you. Ok gentlemen, it's late — 2:50 a.m.
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: It's only 2:50 in Washington. Imperialist. And that's not a big deal. I launch Sajjil-2 missiles with my eyes close at that time. Really, I did the other day. Closed my eyes.
"The modern right wing ... feels dispossessed: America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots, having as their most powerful agents not merely outsiders and foreigners as of old but major statesmen who are at the very centers of American power."
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The above passage could fittingly be used to describe the character of today's American right. One need only listen to Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) lash out at ACORN's corrupting influence on the census, or Rush Limbaugh claim that the "socialist" Obama is a "puppet" of the United Nations. It was, however, written in 1964 by historian Richard Hofstadter as part of his iconic essay for Harper's Magazine titled "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." Long before ACORN was founded, back when Bachmann and Limbaugh were still in grade school, the American right was practicing this "paranoid style" to great effect, discovering communist monsters hiding under every bed and linking American presidents and Cabinet officials to the great communist conspiracy.
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And though the Soviet Union has long since disintegrated, the paranoid style has endured. It found a new voice in talk radio and right-wing activism. It also found a new champion who, better than anyone else, emulates and outright replicates the conspiracy-laden rhetoric from 45 years ago -- Fox News' Glenn Beck. In his rapid rise from morning zoo DJ to the frantic Paul-Revere-meets-Don-Quixote voice of modern conservatism, Beck has crafted a rhetorical style that is every bit as conspiratorial and irrational as the '60s-era right-wing firebrands who inspired the political movement he now leads.
ABOUT 10 years ago, I was doing a weekend of Christmas concerts, accompanied by a fine regional symphony in California. The first night went well, I thought, with a program of holiday classics that seemed beyond reproach. The song choices were about as controversial as a Creamsicle.
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But I was wrong. Minutes before I walked onstage the second night, a nervous representative of the orchestra board appeared in my dressing room to tell me that my program was “too Jewish.” Wow, I thought, who knew that orchestra management played practical jokes on artists moments before their shows? My laughter turned to disbelief when the stuttering gentleman said that there had, in fact, been complaints.
Between numbers the night before, I had mentioned that almost all the most popular Christmas songs were written by Jews and then riffed on the idea that the Gentiles must have written mostly Hanukkah songs. The audience was enthusiastic, so I assumed it was somebody on the board who had been offended.
Tiger's lonely days of cereal, 'toons - and night golf
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After all that time cavorting with an endless stream of floozies, Tiger Woods is now just a sad lone wolf.
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The golf great has been spending his days in seclusion -- eating cereal and watching cartoons -- and his nights hitting golf balls to clear his head since his carefully crafted world unraveled following revelations of rampant womanizing that drove his wife out the door, it was reported yesterday.
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Woods has isolated himself from even his closest friends since wife Elin Nordegren learned of his philandering ways, leading those close to him to worry he might be "cracking up."
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"There is a real concern among his friends that he is dealing with the situation in a very unhealthy way," a source told the London Sun.
Former NBA star Charles Barkley -- a close Tiger friend -- said he had been reaching out to Woods but had no luck contacting him.
Remember the good old days when we had a total mental midget, unenlightened, and disconnected "scapegoat" to attack and vilify, to blame for all that was wrong with the known world?Ahhh, those were the days.And, not so long ago.It makes my skin crawl to even think about it, but George W. Bush was so convenient a target, so easy to hate, so idiotic and embarrassing.But, he was a wonderful bullseye wasn't he?(The song “Idiot Son Of An Asshole” comes to mind.)
.
The far right and the so-called "centrist democrats" have done their work well and made Barack Obama the new scapegoat.His bold initiatives and embrace of HOPE have been like water on a witch - as in The Wizard of Oz - and the disloyal opposition is grinding all hope and forward momentum to a halt.
If there was a Wizard of Oz, one with real powers, I’d ask him to turn all the rabid righties and testicular challenged "centrists" into pillars of salt, or better yet, bags of gold.Just picturing Glenn Beck turn to a bag of gold bullion - and never having to see or hear of him again - gives me pleasure.Rush, ditto.Hannity, ditto.Laura Ingraham, ditto.Coulter, O'Lielly, Lieberman, Ben Nelson, ditttttttttto.OK, I have to stop, as I'm getting aroused.
.
Creeps gone.Lots of gold.Hope returns.Life is better.Less whining.Faux Nooz goes legitimate.Health care for all.Gee, am I in Denmark or Norway or in my own special dream?
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Oh, and if you talk to Tiger, have him call Charles Barkley and Spike Lee, as they are worried about him, and he changed his phone number.Thanks.
.
Cliff - The XCon
.
.
.
.
The Democrats' Bush Nostalgia
By E.J. Dionne
.
WASHINGTON -- Here's what Democrats need to ponder: Can they prosper in the absence of George W. Bush?
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His presidency was a tonic for Democrats and led to a blossoming of political creativity on the center-left not seen since the 1930s. No tactic, no program, no leader ever did more to catalyze the party than the rage Bush inspired.
Dean: I won’t “vigorously” support Obama’s re-election
.
WASHINGTON -- Escalating his opposition to what remains of the health care legislation, former Gov. Howard Dean has taken more swipes at President Obama, after a contentious back-and-forth that led to Press Secretary Robert Gibbs publicly sniping at him on Wednesday.
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Dean, who outspokenly championed the public option and also supported the Medicare buy-in, said Thursday on MSNBC's Morning Joe that he won't "vigorously" support Obama's re-election in 2012.
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"I'm going to support President Obama when he runs for re-election," Dean, also a former DNC Chair, said. "Not vigorously.I'm going to vote for him."
The White House may have shot Howard Dean down Wednesday—after he dissed the Senate Democrats' health-care plan—but he isn't backing down. On Hardball, he sparred with Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, arguing (passionately, as always) that the president isn't delivering on his campaign promises.
.
.
.
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Debate Rages On Whether To Kill Health Care Bill... Keith Olbermann: 'This Is Not Health, This Is Not Care'... Paul Krugman: Even This Disappointing Bill Will Save Many Lives
.
SEIU Urges Changes In Senate Health Care Bill,
Calls Out Obama
.
A top labor leader urged Congress and the White House on Thursday to make major improvements to the Senate health care legislation, suggesting that the labor community could not support the current incarnation.
.
"I believe this is the moment when we must stand as one and say enough," Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern wrote in a letter to his fellow members.
.
While he stopped short of formally opposing the bill that is making its way through the Senate, he did express outrage over the concessions made to Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.). "The public option is declared impossible. Americans cannot purchase Medicare at an earlier age. The health insurance reform effort we have needed for a century is at risk," Stern wrote.
Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) is taking a thrashing from his former Democratic colleagues and liberal activists for forcing a Medicare expansion out of the health bill.
.
But in the end, Lieberman may have done President Barack Obama one of the biggest favors in the health care debate.
.
That’s because any bill with the Medicare buy-in would have drawn fierce opposition from doctors and hospitals, two groups Obama has worked hard to keep on board.
.
In effect, Lieberman spared Obama from having to make a difficult choice down the road – between liberal supporters who wanted the Medicare expansion and two big constituencies whose opposition could have scuttled a bill.
Last week, Politico featured a piece by right-wing pundit Pat Buchanan suggesting that rather than talking about a second stimulus package, tax credits, or public works projects, lawmakers should be seriously considering an immigration moratorium during these hard economic times. A few days later, former Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) authored an op-ed calling for a moratorium on legal immigration until “Americans are back on their feet.” ThinkProgress sat down with Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Hilda Solis yesterday to discuss what a ban on immigration, coupled with ramped up deportations, could mean for the U.S. as a whole:
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I think we’d have a big shortage of workers out there and I think as we move through this decade, we’re going to see people retiring from different types of jobs…so who is going to help fill those positions?
.
You would probably see towns shutting down, communities shutting down. You’d see second and third industries being affected – restaurant industries, service sectors industries where immigrants tend to work and be found. It would also impact the current ability to put food on your table because if you don’t have a certain number of people out there doing jobs that others wouldn’t want to do, then how are we going to provide the sustenance we need for all our American families?
Yesterday, Think Progress reported that Blue Shield of California has threatened its customers with revocation of their policies if they miss even a single payment. Today, following “tough questions” from its policyholders and the press, the massive Californian insurer reversed course and backed off its new cancellation policy:
.
San Francisco-based Blue Shield told its policyholders recently, if they paid their insurance premium late, they could lose their insurance. However, late Wednesday afternoon, after facing tough questions from ABC7 and policyholders, Blue Shield reversed that policy.
A seemingly well meaning poll aimed at raising awareness of a proposed Ugandan law that would subject gay men and women to execution found itself in the middle of reader ire after its wording raised questions about the underlying premise of the poll.
.
Posted on a BBC talkboard, the poll question read, ""Yes, we accept it is a stark and disturbing question, but this is the reality behind an anti-homosexuality bill being debated on Friday by the Ugandan parliament which would see some homosexual offences punishable by death. Has Uganda gone too far? Should there be any level of legislation against homosexuality? Should homosexuals be protected by legislation as they are in South Africa? What would be the consequences of this bill to you? How will homosexual 'offences' be monitored?"
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Reader responses included the expected commendations of the anti-gay law -- comments moderated by the BBC.
.
"Totally agree," replied one commenter, who drew 51 votes of support. "Ought to be imposed in the UK too, asap. Bring back some respectable family values. Why do we have to suffer 'gay pride' festivals? Would I be allowed to organise a 'straight pride' festival? No, thought as much!! If homosexuality is natural, as we are forced to believe, how can they sustain the species? I suggest all gays are put on a remote island somewhere and left for a generation - after which, theoretically there should be none left!"
A handout picture released by the St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church
in Auckland shows an apparently naked Virgin Mary and Joseph in bed
together. The billboard has sparked the ire of conservative Christians in
New Zealand. (AFP/HO/St Matthew-In-The-City)
.
Poster of naked Virgin Mary sparks unholy row
.
WELLINGTON — A church billboard showing an apparently naked Virgin Mary and Joseph in bed together has sparked the ire of conservative Christians in New Zealand.
.
On the poster a sad-looking Joseph lies next to Mary, whose face is turned heavenwards under the words: "Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow."
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The billboard was erected outside the progressive St Matthew-in-the-City Anglican church in Auckland on Thursday.
Justin Timberlake’s support for his favored charity is worth $9.3 million. Paris Hilton’s? $538. The Daily Beast crunches the numbers to find the real value 50 stars—from Madonna, Oprah, and Bono to Angelina, Bob Dylan, and Prince William—bring to their causes.
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For those to whom much is given, much is required. That explains why every celebrity from George Clooney to Jessica Simpson has a pet cause.
.
But how much is a celebrity’s affiliation really worth? How much impact, other than their own Q rating, do they have on the good causes they promote?
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin -- Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) onetime running mate -- was seen in Hawaii wearing a McCain campaign visor with the letters blacked out. Palin said she was simply trying not to be noticed. "Every shop on the beach sells visors for about $5.99," said ABC's Sam Champion.
The dinner-party gossip should have run its course, yet we keep coming back to Woods and his women. Tina Brown on why there’s no end in sight for the Tiger sex scandal.
.
Tiger Woods has broken another record. I'm not talking about his new accolade for being athlete of the decade. I am talking about the fact that your typical celebrity sex scandal will produce, at most, a 10-day sustained media barrage before the cool down begins. Yet here we are at the end of Week Two with the inexhaustible angles on Tiger’s troubles still derailing dinner-party conversations with no signs of abating.
In Cameron's movie Avatar, men work, combat and stomp through
Pandora's rainforest in armored exoskeletal vehicles. But how
realistic is that?
.
The Science Behind James Cameron's Avatar
.
By Adam Hadhazy
Popular Mechanics
.
James Cameron is known for taking the science in his flicks seriously. So how did he do in Avatar? We check with top researchers to see where artistic license and scientific plausibility meld.
.
It's the year 2154 and humankind has reached out to the stars in director James Cameron's new science-fiction epic Avatar. The movie takes us to an exotic jungle moon called Pandora where humans are the aliens and a clash is brewing with the natives.
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Cameron, who has served as an adviser to NASA to investigate a camera for a Mars mission, is known for taking the science in his flicks very seriously. So how did he do? Here we check on some of the movie's scientific bona fides with top researchers in their respective fields to see where artistic license and scientific plausibility meld.
SAG Awards Nominations Led By 'Up In The Air,' 'Precious'
'Inglourious Basterds,' '30 Rock' also score big nominations.
.
Thursday morning's nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards have confirmed what has become increasingly clear since the Golden Globe noms two days earlier: films like "Up in the Air" and "Precious" are the indisputable favorites heading into the peak of awards season.
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Both of those films, as well as Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds," racked up three nods each, followed by the likes of "The Hurt Locker" and "Nine," each with two. With just five motion picture categories — including an Outstanding Performance by a Cast in place of the more traditional recognition for best film — no one movie dominated the results.
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The films recognized for their casts are "An Education," "Hurt Locker," "Basterds," "Nine" and "Precious." Save for "Education," all of these films were recognized in a Best Motion Picture category at the Globes. James Cameron's "Avatar," meanwhile, which nabbed four Globe noms, was shut out entirely from the SAGs.
Imagine that!They found lots and lots of Bush administration emails that were not destroyed, just conveniently renamed and lost in the servers.Millions and millions of emails that could be a gold mine of information or just another Darth Cheney game to keep us all wondering and wandering through the desert of dearth, a dearth of truth and substance.
.
At one level, I'd like to just let it go and move along.But, on another level, I want to pursue the truth and make sure a record is kept of the crimes and lies of the Bush/Cheney rape of our country and our place in the world!The truth can set us free, can't it?
.
Lies, those or the fuel that feeds the right, engorges the dick that is called FuxNooz, and the nuclear energy of people like Man Coulter, Swill O'Liely, Gwenn Bleck, Shawn Hanratty, Tush Limbarf, and all the rest of the swill that came up from hell to turn punditry into lies, lies and more lies.I think there will be some examples to follow.
.
A Tiger poem?That, too, is ahead.
.
Rock on with yo' bad self.
.
Cliff - The XCon
.
.
Revealed: Bush officials e-mailed bogus rumor
blaming Gore for failure to kill Bin Laden
.
"Missing" Bush White House emails found
.
White House emails retrieved from Bush administration records reveal that top Bush Justice Department officials circulated a memo falsely blaming Al Gore for U.S. failure to get Osama bin Laden. The apocryphal Osama-Al Gore-Oliver North story, already debunked on snopes.com, was forwarded internally to administration personnel by David M. Israelite, Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft (pictured above right).
.
The existence of such politicized emails may help explain why millions of emails sent to and from the previous White House have gone missing despite rules for preserving presidential records. This particular email, spreading a bogus rumor, has not been reported before.
In an address to the conference just before high-level talks began in Copenhagen yesterday, former Vice President Al Gore asked Washington to pass climate legislation by April 22, 2010 — the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. After a decade of inaction which was also the hottest on record, the world cannot afford to wait. Furthermore, if the US does not act, Gore said, other nations will leave it behind in building the clean energy future:
.
As a citizen of the United States, and no more, I will ask those among my fellow citizens who share my sense of urgency to join in asking President Obama and the leadership of the United States Senate to set a deadline of April 22, 2010.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — one of the Obama administration’s staunchest opponents — is using “incentivized” web ads to get people involved in their campaign to fight health care reform. The incentive? A $150 gift card for Hooters. TPM Muckraker reports that pop-up ads offer readers the gift cards in exchange for completing surveys, one of which is sponsored by the Chamber and urges people to sign up for free emails about “how to protect your family’s future and bring common sense solutions to the health-care debate”
The story of the year was a weak economy that could have been much, much weaker. Thank the man who runs the Federal Reserve, our mild-mannered economic overlord
.
Ben Bernanke
.
A bald man with a gray beard and tired eyes is sitting in his oversize Washington office, talking about the economy. He doesn't have a commanding presence. He isn't a mesmerizing speaker. He has none of the look-at-me swagger or listen-to-me charisma so common among men with oversize Washington offices. His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. He's professorial, which makes sense, because he spent most of his career as a professor.
.
He is not, in other words, a typical Beltway power broker. He's shy. He doesn't do the D.C. dinner-party circuit; he prefers to eat at home with his wife, who still makes him do the dishes and take out the trash. Then they do crosswords or read. Because Ben Bernanke is a nerd.
Rachel Maddow was spotted talking to Fox News chief Roger Ailes at Tuesday night's White House Christmas party, but she's not saying what they talked about.
.
CNN political director Sam Feist spotted the two "engrossed in deep conversation," and even snapped a photo.
But when the Huffington Post asked Maddow what they discussed, she wouldn't dish.
.
"I've never been to a White House party before, so I'm not sure about protocol," she said, "but I'm guessing it's a breach of that protocol to kiss and tell."
.
.
.
The landmark election Saturday of America's first big-city
lesbian mayor in Houston represents more than just a
milestone in identity politics. Photo: AP
.
Houston election signals key trend
.
The landmark election Saturday of America's first big-city lesbian mayor in Houston represents more than just a milestone in identity politics.
.
It also signals an unmistakable evolutionary step in national politics, one that provides further evidence of a trend that helped make Barack Obama president: growth-oriented communities like the Texas metropolis, rather than aging big cities or nostalgia-inducing small towns, are setting the course of the country's political direction.
.
Houston is one of a set of fast-growing cities and expanding suburbs whose changing face and increasingly post-racial politics played a pivotal role in sending Obama to the White House. Their politics are defined by some of the same trends—notably, growing Hispanic and Asian populations and the rise of the service sector—that are shaping the nation as a whole.
Danny Glover, Jesse Jackson, and other activists talk to Lloyd Grove about disappointment in the African-American community with the president’s first year.
.
Danny Glover heaved a sigh when I asked him recently what he thought of President Obama’s performance so far.
.
It wasn’t a sigh of relief.
.
“I think the Obama administration has followed the same playbook, to a large extent, almost verbatim, as the Bush administration. I don’t see anything different,” the activist movie actor said of Obama’s policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. “On the domestic side, look here: What’s so clear is that this country from the outset is projecting the interests of wealth and property. Look at the bailout of Wall Street. Why not the bailout of Main Street?”
The public option is dead. Its successors are dead. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) as much yesterday afternoon. And yet still, there's lingering uncertainty about whether a). the votes are there to pass a health care bill, or, relatedly, b). the bill can pass by Christmas. Here's what would have to happen in the next 9 days to get that done.
.
Align the liberals and centrists
.
Reid's first order of business is to make sure that there are 60 votes committed to pulling this bill past a filibuster (actually, several filibusters, but we'll get to that). On the left flank of his party are three particularly disappointed Democrats: Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Roland Burris (D-IL), and Russ Feingold (D-WI).
FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2009, file photo, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.
is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, as President Barack Obama
delivered a speech on healthcare to a joint session of Congress.
The health care debate sparked two other quotes that made the
list: The shout of 'You lie!' by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., during
President Barack Obama's September speech on health care
and Sarah Palin's 'death panel' allegation.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
.
'You lie!' on Yale list of year's memorable quotes.
.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The fierce debate over health care hasn't led to a new law yet, but it's produced some of this year's top quotes, according to a YaleUniversity librarian.
.
Fred Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer in legal research at YaleLawSchool, is releasing his fourth annual list of The Yale Book of Quotations. His top quote: "Keep your government hands off my Medicare," by a speaker at a town hall meeting in South Carolina in July.
.
"That struck me as embodying the friction and polarization on the role of government," Shapiro said.
.
The original Yale Book of Quotations was published in 2006. Since then, Shapiro releases an annual list of the top 10 quotes, which he said will be incorporated into the next edition of the book in a few years.
.
Shapiro picks quotes that are famous, important or revealing of the spirit of the times. The quotes aren't necessarily the most eloquent or admirable.
Susan Boyle's first appearance on "Britain's Got Talent" tallied the most worldwide views on YouTube for 2009, the video site said Wednesday.
.
The video of the once-unknown singer captured more than 120 million views.
.
Her video was followed "David After Dentist" (37 million views), "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" (33 million views), "New Moon Movie Trailer" (31 million views), and "Evian Roller Babies" (27 million views).
Johnny Depp fits right in to director Tim Burton's mad world
.
Put on your best Cheshire grin, a second trailer for Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" has hit the web.
.
"There is a place like no place on earth," a disembodied voice intones as we see Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum picking their way through a colorful, otherworldly landscape.
.
"Some say to survive it, you need to be as mad as a hatter - which luckily, I am," the quavering voice continues as Johnny Depp's face, complete with orange hair and eyes almost as big as the aforementioned cat's, looms into view.
Dr. Anthony Galea, shown here in this Dec. 16, 1999 file photo, is having questioned
raised about why such high-profile athletes like Tiger Woods (below) go to him for treatments.
.
Questions surround Tony Galea's controversial techniques
involving Tiger Woods, other superstars
.
Sports medicine guru Tony Galea is the go-to guy for injured athletes seeking the quickest road to rehabilitation - and more multimillion-dollar deals.
.
The Toronoto-based doctor has treated embattled golfer Tiger Woods, swimmer Dara Torres, Mets Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes, gold-medal sprinter Donovan Bailey, quarterback Chris Simms - and dozens more in the U.S. and Canada.
.
Galea made house calls for Woods, applying his controversial "blood-spinning" techniques to the golfer last year in Florida.
.
The relationship has left some sports medicine experts wondering why an enormously wealthy athlete like Woods, who has access to the best doctors in the country, would turn to someone so far off the beaten path.
Imagine that!They found lots and lots of Bush administration emails that were not destroyed, just conveniently renamed and lost in the servers.Millions and millions of emails that could be a gold mine of information or just another Darth Cheney game to keep us all wondering and wandering through the desert of dearth, a dearth of truth and substance.
.
At one level, I'd like to just let it go and move along.But, on another level, I want to pursue the truth and make sure a record is kept of the crimes and lies of the Bush/Cheney rape of our country and our place in the world!The truth can set us free, can't it?
.
Lies, those or the fuel that feeds the right, engorges the dick that is called FuxNooz, and the nuclear energy of people like Man Coulter, Swill O'Liely, Gwenn Bleck, Shawn Hanratty, Tush Limbarf, and all the rest of the swill that came up from hell to turn punditry into lies, lies and more lies.I think there will be some examples to follow.
.
A Tiger poem?That, too, is ahead.
.
Rock on with yo' bad self.
.
Cliff - The XCon
.
.
Revealed: Bush officials e-mailed bogus rumor
blaming Gore for failure to kill Bin Laden
.
"Missing" Bush White House emails found
.
White House emails retrieved from Bush administration records reveal that top Bush Justice Department officials circulated a memo falsely blaming Al Gore for U.S. failure to get Osama bin Laden. The apocryphal Osama-Al Gore-Oliver North story, already debunked on snopes.com, was forwarded internally to administration personnel by David M. Israelite, Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft (pictured above right).
.
The existence of such politicized emails may help explain why millions of emails sent to and from the previous White House have gone missing despite rules for preserving presidential records. This particular email, spreading a bogus rumor, has not been reported before.
In an address to the conference just before high-level talks began in Copenhagen yesterday, former Vice President Al Gore asked Washington to pass climate legislation by April 22, 2010 — the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. After a decade of inaction which was also the hottest on record, the world cannot afford to wait. Furthermore, if the US does not act, Gore said, other nations will leave it behind in building the clean energy future:
.
As a citizen of the United States, and no more, I will ask those among my fellow citizens who share my sense of urgency to join in asking President Obama and the leadership of the United States Senate to set a deadline of April 22, 2010.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce — one of the Obama administration’s staunchest opponents — is using “incentivized” web ads to get people involved in their campaign to fight health care reform. The incentive? A $150 gift card for Hooters. TPM Muckraker reports that pop-up ads offer readers the gift cards in exchange for completing surveys, one of which is sponsored by the Chamber and urges people to sign up for free emails about “how to protect your family’s future and bring common sense solutions to the health-care debate”
The story of the year was a weak economy that could have been much, much weaker. Thank the man who runs the Federal Reserve, our mild-mannered economic overlord
.
Ben Bernanke
.
A bald man with a gray beard and tired eyes is sitting in his oversize Washington office, talking about the economy. He doesn't have a commanding presence. He isn't a mesmerizing speaker. He has none of the look-at-me swagger or listen-to-me charisma so common among men with oversize Washington offices. His arguments aren't partisan or ideological; they're methodical, grounded in data and the latest academic literature. When he doesn't know something, he doesn't bluster or bluff. He's professorial, which makes sense, because he spent most of his career as a professor.
.
He is not, in other words, a typical Beltway power broker. He's shy. He doesn't do the D.C. dinner-party circuit; he prefers to eat at home with his wife, who still makes him do the dishes and take out the trash. Then they do crosswords or read. Because Ben Bernanke is a nerd.
Rachel Maddow was spotted talking to Fox News chief Roger Ailes at Tuesday night's White House Christmas party, but she's not saying what they talked about.
.
CNN political director Sam Feist spotted the two "engrossed in deep conversation," and even snapped a photo.
But when the Huffington Post asked Maddow what they discussed, she wouldn't dish.
.
"I've never been to a White House party before, so I'm not sure about protocol," she said, "but I'm guessing it's a breach of that protocol to kiss and tell."
.
.
.
The landmark election Saturday of America's first big-city
lesbian mayor in Houston represents more than just a
milestone in identity politics. Photo: AP
.
Houston election signals key trend
.
The landmark election Saturday of America's first big-city lesbian mayor in Houston represents more than just a milestone in identity politics.
.
It also signals an unmistakable evolutionary step in national politics, one that provides further evidence of a trend that helped make Barack Obama president: growth-oriented communities like the Texas metropolis, rather than aging big cities or nostalgia-inducing small towns, are setting the course of the country's political direction.
.
Houston is one of a set of fast-growing cities and expanding suburbs whose changing face and increasingly post-racial politics played a pivotal role in sending Obama to the White House. Their politics are defined by some of the same trends—notably, growing Hispanic and Asian populations and the rise of the service sector—that are shaping the nation as a whole.
Danny Glover, Jesse Jackson, and other activists talk to Lloyd Grove about disappointment in the African-American community with the president’s first year.
.
Danny Glover heaved a sigh when I asked him recently what he thought of President Obama’s performance so far.
.
It wasn’t a sigh of relief.
.
“I think the Obama administration has followed the same playbook, to a large extent, almost verbatim, as the Bush administration. I don’t see anything different,” the activist movie actor said of Obama’s policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. “On the domestic side, look here: What’s so clear is that this country from the outset is projecting the interests of wealth and property. Look at the bailout of Wall Street. Why not the bailout of Main Street?”
The public option is dead. Its successors are dead. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) told Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) as much yesterday afternoon. And yet still, there's lingering uncertainty about whether a). the votes are there to pass a health care bill, or, relatedly, b). the bill can pass by Christmas. Here's what would have to happen in the next 9 days to get that done.
.
Align the liberals and centrists
.
Reid's first order of business is to make sure that there are 60 votes committed to pulling this bill past a filibuster (actually, several filibusters, but we'll get to that). On the left flank of his party are three particularly disappointed Democrats: Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Roland Burris (D-IL), and Russ Feingold (D-WI).
FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2009, file photo, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C.
is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, as President Barack Obama
delivered a speech on healthcare to a joint session of Congress.
The health care debate sparked two other quotes that made the
list: The shout of 'You lie!' by Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., during
President Barack Obama's September speech on health care
and Sarah Palin's 'death panel' allegation.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)
.
'You lie!' on Yale list of year's memorable quotes.
.
NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The fierce debate over health care hasn't led to a new law yet, but it's produced some of this year's top quotes, according to a YaleUniversity librarian.
.
Fred Shapiro, associate librarian and lecturer in legal research at YaleLawSchool, is releasing his fourth annual list of The Yale Book of Quotations. His top quote: "Keep your government hands off my Medicare," by a speaker at a town hall meeting in South Carolina in July.
.
"That struck me as embodying the friction and polarization on the role of government," Shapiro said.
.
The original Yale Book of Quotations was published in 2006. Since then, Shapiro releases an annual list of the top 10 quotes, which he said will be incorporated into the next edition of the book in a few years.
.
Shapiro picks quotes that are famous, important or revealing of the spirit of the times. The quotes aren't necessarily the most eloquent or admirable.
Susan Boyle's first appearance on "Britain's Got Talent" tallied the most worldwide views on YouTube for 2009, the video site said Wednesday.
.
The video of the once-unknown singer captured more than 120 million views.
.
Her video was followed "David After Dentist" (37 million views), "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" (33 million views), "New Moon Movie Trailer" (31 million views), and "Evian Roller Babies" (27 million views).
Johnny Depp fits right in to director Tim Burton's mad world
.
Put on your best Cheshire grin, a second trailer for Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" has hit the web.
.
"There is a place like no place on earth," a disembodied voice intones as we see Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum picking their way through a colorful, otherworldly landscape.
.
"Some say to survive it, you need to be as mad as a hatter - which luckily, I am," the quavering voice continues as Johnny Depp's face, complete with orange hair and eyes almost as big as the aforementioned cat's, looms into view.
Dr. Anthony Galea, shown here in this Dec. 16, 1999 file photo, is having questioned
raised about why such high-profile athletes like Tiger Woods (below) go to him for treatments.
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Questions surround Tony Galea's controversial techniques
involving Tiger Woods, other superstars
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Sports medicine guru Tony Galea is the go-to guy for injured athletes seeking the quickest road to rehabilitation - and more multimillion-dollar deals.
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The Toronoto-based doctor has treated embattled golfer Tiger Woods, swimmer Dara Torres, Mets Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes, gold-medal sprinter Donovan Bailey, quarterback Chris Simms - and dozens more in the U.S. and Canada.
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Galea made house calls for Woods, applying his controversial "blood-spinning" techniques to the golfer last year in Florida.
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The relationship has left some sports medicine experts wondering why an enormously wealthy athlete like Woods, who has access to the best doctors in the country, would turn to someone so far off the beaten path.
I surrender!I cave!Screw all the news that I think is important and valuable to us as citizens and humans, and let's just do like all the rest and commit to Tiger.Tiger this, Tiger that, until the end of time.
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But first, a personal opinion.The man is sick.Tiger Woods needs some serious therapy and perhaps electroshock to both his head and his dick.If even half of what I read and hear (how the hell do I miss it?) is correct, this guy is a sexual addict, morally adrift, and needs to be taken away to the funny farm until a panel of specialists can certify that he can keep his endowment (ample, we hear) in his drawers and keep his mind on his family.Oh, and for sports fans, he needs to keep his eye on the BALL, not his BALLS.
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Sick, sick, sick, and part of me would like to have him castrated in open divorce court, but then my "good Christian upbringing" guides me to helping him heal and regain his life.Hey, if Jesus can forgive, so can I.So, Tiger, you pervert, get well soon.
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Now back to the Tiger News.(farrrrrt!)
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Cliff - The XCon
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For Woods, it's a tough public course
More than four in 10 polled now have unfavorable view of golfer
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When consulting giant Accenture tied itself to Tiger Woods six years ago, there was perhaps no more reliable brand in sports. Now, in the wake of Woods's admission of infidelity and his subsequent leave from tournament golf, Accenture has dropped Woods as its spokesman and AT&T is evaluating its relationship with the world's best golfer, the clearest indications that corporations are being cautious regarding their links to Woods.
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It appears Woods's image has been damaged among the general public as well. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that more than four in 10 Americans hold an unfavorable view of Woods, whose mere appearance in tournaments has fundamentally changed the perception of the events since he first turned pro in 1996.
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The poll also shows that more than a third of Americans -- whether they count themselves as golf fans or not -- say they believe companies should not continue to use Woods to endorse their products and services.
Report: Tiger Woods 'On the Edge' As New Mistress Named
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Tiger Woods is on the brink.
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The shamed golfer is terrified that his wife is going to divorce him over his sexcapades and make his life miserable by moving to Sweden with their two young kids, a source close to Woods' camp told The Post yesterday.
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"He's only just coping -- he's on the edge," the well-placed source said. "He sees everything coming crashing down around him. His career, his family."
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FOX411: Tiger Woods and Rachel Uchitel Living Just Miles Apart.
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Woods' wife, Elin Nordegren, is refusing to speak to him, the source said -- and the two are now definitely living apart.
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The only thing that she said to her hubby was that he had better get into therapy -- or else, the source said.
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And, as if his current family woes weren't already enough, the superstar athlete also is afraid that at least two more mistresses will surface, the source said.
Tiger Woods' busty former-lingerie-model mistress yesterday detailed the steamy hotel trysts she had with the golfer during his wife's first pregnancy -- and tearfully apologized for the sex romps.
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"According to [Tiger], things were rough [with his wife], and they were going to separate. He said, 'We're on the outs,' but she was pregnant, and they had to get through that," Cori Rist, a 31-year-old single mom from Manhattan, told NBC's "Today" show.
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"I realized the things he was telling me were false," the stunning blonde said. "He has a way to make you believe that he is a very honest and good man
Thank God for that.Sadly, not good news and Joe Lieberman has not yet left the planet.Read on, if you can break the Tiger Habit.
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Window closing for healthcare reform: Biden
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If the U.S. Congress fails to agree on a healthcare bill soon, the opportunity for a sweeping overhaul of the $2.5 trillion system will be lost for a generation, Vice President Joe Biden warned on Tuesday.
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Biden was speaking just hours before Democratic lawmakers were to meet at the White House with President Barack Obama, who is pressing them to reach agreement and pass a bill on his signature domestic policy issue.
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Obama has invested much of his political capital in trying to get the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass a healthcare bill by the end of the year. The bill has been passed by the House of Representatives, but Democrats have struggled to win the 60 votes they need in the Senate.
We have always maintained that Joe Lieberman is petty, sanctimonious, childish, vindictive, thin-skinned, and monstrously self-impressed. But The New Republic's Jon Chait today explains that he is also stupid.
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It is kind of wonderful, actually, to see The New Republic—a supposedly "liberal" magazine whose fanatical racist publisher forced them to actually endorse Lieberman for president five short years ago—outright calling the Senator who most resembles Marty Peretz (in philosophy if not tone) stupid.
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More from Gawker?Click HERE.
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Understanding Joe Lieberman
By Jon Chiat
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I've been saying for a while that Joe Lieberman posed the greatest threat to health care reform. Unlike the rest of the party, he has no political interest in the passage of reform or a successful Obama presidency, and he seems to view the prospect of sticking it to the liberals who supported his Democratic opponent in 2006 as a goal potentially worth sacrificing the lives of tens of thousands of Americans to fulfill. (Of course, the irony is that Lieberman is actually vindicating his 2006 critics and undermining his own defense from that time, which revolved around him being a progressive Democrat on domestic policy issues.)
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Still, I feel that liberals are somewhat overreacting to Lieberman's turn against health care reform. It's true that Lieberman refused to take part in negotiations with Reid over the compromise, suggested he could support the bill presuming a positive CBO score, and then decided to stick in the knife. However, I don't think that health care reform is in peril. If Harry Reid decided to submit to Lieberman's demands, the health care bill would basically revert to what the Senate Finance Committee produced. That's still a major piece of legislation. Expectations among liberals have risen since then, so the come-down is understandable. But this isn't the end of reform.
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Read the rest of the article of dumb Joe Lieberman.Click Here.
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Illinois Prison to House Gitmo Detainees
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President Barack Obama has ordered the federal government to acquire a largely unused Thomson, Ill., prison to house about 100 prisoners from GuantanamoBay, an administration official said.
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The Thomson plan is another step in the administration's effort to close the offshore prison housing terror detainees.
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It will likely take several months before any prisoners make the move from Cuba to Illinois, because the prison is expected to undergo security improvements. The White House also still faces a general legal prohibition enacted by Congress against bringing Guantanamo detainees to the U.S. other than for trial.
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Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn and Sen. Richard Durbin (D., Ill.) are set to be briefed by administration officials at the White House on the decision later Tuesday, the official said. An announcement is expected later Tuesday.
Back in July, when a scheduled increase in the minimum wage from $6.55 to $7.25 per hour was about to take place, Fox News ran a segment examining how “the hike will hurt,” joining a media chorus about the supposed detrimental effect the increase would have on business hiring.
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Now, with its Republican-inspired “Where are the jobs?” campaign in full swing, Fox has gone “on the job hunt” with a “new” idea for increasing employment: cutting the minimum wage. Jumping off from an op-ed by Washington Post editorial board member Charles Lane, Fox yesterday ran a handful of segments on the same basic premise — cutting the minimum wage may be the answer to the jobs dilemma. Watch a compilation:
Franken Challenges Thune: 'We're Not Entitled to Our Own Facts'
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Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) challenged Sen. John Thune (R-SD) in a startlingly tense exchange yesterday, slamming Thune's apparent looseness with the truth by saying, "We're not entitled to our own facts."
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Yesterday afternoon Thune took to the Senate floor with a chart that tried to illustrate how the Senate health care reform bill supposedly proposes tax increases immediately while "many of the benefits don't start getting paid out for another 1,479 days."
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Franken was having none of it. Franken took issue with Thune's chart, rising to the floor minutes later to challenge its assertions. What followed was an unusually tense exchange between Thune -- fourth in the Senate GOP leadership -- and the freshman Franken.
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Here's video of the entire back and forth from TPM:
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Who's Killing the Soaps?
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With the cancellation of As the World Turns, a former soap-opera magazine editor dishes on daytime’s dwindling, insular world—and the daily insults soap actors face.
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Last week, after 54 years on the air, As the World Turns was canceled. This blow comes a few months after Guiding Light also came to an end. The daytime drama universe is down to six, almost half of what it was when I left it 10 years ago.
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Back then—10 years ago, that is—I was working at a small soap-opera magazine based in New Jersey. The shows I was responsible for covering were As the World Turns and Another World (this as a result of an editor who didn’t like me much, for these were the days without DVRs, and both shows aired simultaneously). I had just finished a degree in screenwriting and soon realized that there were no screenwriting jobs available in the pages of The New York Times’ Help Wanted section. This job, however, was: A news editor for soap operas—news! I’d had a campy lifelong relationship with soap operas: A bout with chicken pox in 7th grade that fell right in line with a really romantic storyline about Julia and Mason and Mason’s cowboy split-personality, Sonny Sprocket, on Santa Barbara; a college roommate who lured me into the daily drama of Marlena’s possession and Kristin’s pretend pregnancy on Days of Our Lives. This job would be a hoot. We could sit around poking fun at soaps all day, and then write about it. Hilarious!
It was an Obama weekend on the television.He was on 60 Minutes and then a Christmas a the White House special with Oprah, so he got some questions and some chances to say what he really thinks.All in all, it was nice to not have “All Tiger, All The Time” over the last couple of days.
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One of the serious highlights of the weekend was stumbling upon the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Concert at MadisonSquareGarden that was on HBO.What a great show!Over four hours of phenomenal music by so many greats.If you get HBO, find it and watch it.I suspect you’ll be left near breathless, and well, so impressed with a guy called Bono.
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Exploring the opposite of wonderful, time to talk Lieberman.What a schmuck old Joe is.I am embarrassed by the likes of him and his thieving wife.Perhaps the only good thing about W stealing the 2000 election from Al Gore is that the lying crook, Lieberman, did not become VP.Talk about a hollow victory...
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Let this week begin!
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Cliff – The XCon
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Obama's face was all over TV screens Sunday night, appearing not only on 60 Minutes, but also on the Oprah special Christmas at the White House. In his interview with Ms. Winfrey, the president gives himself "a solid B+" so far. But the real star of the special may be the First Dog, for his adorable high five skills.
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The GOP's New Health-Care Hoax
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Shame on John McCain—and every other Republican who says the Senate health deal would foist single-payer on the country.
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It’s no surprise that Republicans want to halt the march to historic health-care reform with any calumny they can muster. But their latest attack on the new Senate deal—the charge that allowing Americans aged 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare would lead the country to a single-payer system—is as laughable as it is misguided. It’s ironic that this shameful stone is being hurled by the nation’s most prominent life-long recipient of government-run health care: John McCain.
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McCain’s invocation of the single-payer libel is particularly galling, since he’s been on government-run health care practically his entire adult life.
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There’s only one thing you need to know to understand why the GOP single-payer charge is a hoax: The Democrats’ proposed health-care reform represents the biggest subsidized expansion of private-insurance coverage in American history. Let me repeat that: The Democrats’ proposed health-care reform represents the biggest subsidized expansion of private-insurance coverage in American history. This choice was made by Barack Obama at the start, when the president said we should build on what works in today’s system, plugging gaps in coverage while reining in costs. The Senate and House bills thus devote more than $400 billion over 10 years to subsidize the purchase of new private-insurance policies. Can the road to single-payer really be paved with massive new markets (and profits) for the insurance industry?
Lieberman wants most significant reforms stripped from health bill
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Sen. Joe Lieberman isn't backing down from his demand that health care reform not include a public option. But as he said on Sunday, there are now more items that must be removed before he will give his vote.
"I want to tell you, we could pass a health care reform bill this week with more than 60 votes and it would be bipartisan if we just took a few things out of the bill as it is today," Lieberman told CBS' Bob Schieffer during a Sunday broadcast.
"Give me the list of things that have to be taken out to pass," Schieffer prompted.
"From my point of view, no public option," the senator replied. "No Medicare buy-in. Class act, which will add to our debt in the future, ah, it doesn't take much more than that. You'd have a great bill left."
This video is from CBS' Face the Nation, broadcast Dec. 13, 2009.
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - President Barack Obama's decision to wish Jews around the world a happy Hanukkah in Hebrew has added more fuel to the movement of the so-called Birthers, who now claim that Mr. Obama was born in Israel.
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Orly Taitz, a leading Birther spokesperson, told CNN today that she had in her possession a birth certificate for Mr. Obama that was issued in Tel Aviv.
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"If you look at the birth certificate, you will see the name he was born with, Baruch Shmobama," she said.
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In other news, the President announced that he would clinch a second Nobel Peace Prize by invading Iran.
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Announcing the invasion in a televised address, the President told the nation, "Now comes the hard part: writing my acceptance speech."
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Mr. Obama said that if his quest for a second Nobel is successful, he would bomb North Korea.
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"I have just one word for you," he said."Three-peat."
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Elsewhere, singing sensation Susan Boyle stunned the world by revealing that she had a steamy affair with Tiger Woods.
Yes Virginia, there was a Sunday morning of shows.
Mayor-elect speaks candidly in first public appearance
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If her first public appearance after a night of celebration was any indication, Mayor-elect Annise Parker intends to be every bit the straight talker as mayor as she was on the campaign trail.
In a wide ranging press conference this afternoon, she said she plans to spend her first months in office answering “no” to most requests that people make as the city struggles through tight budgetary constraints.
Why are women rarely caught with their pants down? Rebecca Dana on the adultery gender divide. Plus, notable female affairs through history, from Princess Di to Ayn Rand.
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Just for a moment imagine: A powerful, successful, attractive 33-year-old woman—an athlete, say, or a politician—is stepping out on her husband, big time. There’s the gigolo in SouthBeach, the Arby’s cashier in the parking lot at the church where she got married, and at least eight other waxed young hunks with six-pack abs and artificial tans, scattered all around the world. A couple of them are even in porn!
Wanda Sykes Rips Lack of Racial Diversity At "Fox News" On "Wanda Sykes Show"
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Nev. brothel aims to offer 1st male prostitutes
By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer– 1 hr 50 mins ago
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LAS VEGAS – The owner of a brothel more than two hours' drive from Las Vegas said she hopes to hire Nevada's first legal male prostitutes within a month, now that state health officials have approved a method to test men for infectious diseases.
The world is ready for women, or even other men, to legally buy sex, said Shady Lady Ranch owner Bobbi Davis. Plus, being the first to offer male service could boost business in tough economic times, she said.
"With so many other male revues going on in Vegas, we thought it was time to give this a try," Davis told The Associated Press.
Until now, men have been effectively barred from legally plying the world's oldest profession in Nevada by the specificity of a state health law requiring prostitutes to undergo frequent cervical testing for sexually transmitted diseases.
The health board approved a regulation to allow urethral testing for men — a crucial rule change by the state agency with ultimate power over whether prostitutes can or can't work.
For more than 25 years, no licensed female prostitute in Nevada has contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, said George Flint, a Reno wedding chapel owner and longtime lobbyist for the Nevada Brothel Owners Association.
"My concern is that we continue to maintain that kind of record," he said.
Davis, Flint and Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo all acknowledged Friday that Davis still needs county approval to become the first of the state's 24 legal brothels to offer a lineup of men.
"We're going to look at it. We have some concerns," said DeMeo, who serves as a voting member of both a county health commission and a board that oversees alcohol, gambling and brothel licenses.
"The ramifications of this are going to be statewide," he said. "We're going to have to deal with it at our other six brothels in NyeCounty if they want to offer the same service. We want to make sure we protect customers and make sure the industry is regulated with clarity and understanding."
We've come to the moment in time when not just the Republicskums feel the need to attack Barack Obama.Time for all sorts of people to attempt to gnaw the flesh from his bones and slander his name all over the place.
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Criticism is a good thing, but when it becomes a feeding frenzy, it is not productive.An example of criticism gone wild might be anywhere that Michelle Bachmann speaks, any show done by Glenn Beck, any rant from Rush Pigbaugh, the mere sound of Hannity's voice, and any sound coming from Fux Nooz.All they do is raise the ambient noise level and add trash to whatever medium they are using.
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Before the last election and before he won the nomination, I said to many that I felt he would be better served by serving in the Senate awhile longer and gaining some real national and international experience.I still believe that, but we don't always get what we wish for do we?Obama is smart, is an excellent orator, and he is doing what a lot of our Presidents have done:Learning on the job.Besides, there really is no place to go and learn the fine points of Presidential service, is there?It used to be that the VP job was a good place to learn but then one only needs to think about Spiro T. Agnew, Dan Quayle, and Dickface Cheney to see where that went.
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Cut the man some slack.The job is f**ked and the world is all f**ked up and the previous administration f**ked up nearly everything they touched, so it is huge damned hole to dig out of.I like to analyze things by thinking of the opposite, so picture, if you will, that McCain had won.Things would be f**ked to the 1000th power.He's old, senile, twisted, angry, and willing to sell his soul for power.Yuck.
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Let's all take a Xanax and give the guy the time that is needed to do the job that we need done.
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Cliff - The XCon
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Hillary Was Right
by Reihan Salam
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Barack Obama wasn’t ready to be president, and he better figure out what he’s doing before it’s too late.
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As the first year of the Obama era draws to a close, the president is losing the battle for America's hearts and minds. It's hard not to feel some sympathy for him, given the disastrous state of the economy when he took office and the many smoldering international crises that keep flaring up. President Obama's predecessors deserve plenty of blame for his woes—as Obama and his advisers never tire of reminding us. But their not-so-subtle digs at President George W. Bush paper over their own unforced errors.
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The most glaring and consequential unforced error came in how the Obama administration framed the health-care reform debate. The mantra of "bending the cost curve" was tailor-made for conservative and moderate intellectuals who preach the gospel of entitlement reform. If passing health-care reform were fundamentally about winning over the think tanks, the green-eyeshade approach might have made sense. But of course the real goal was to overcome the fear of the large majority of Americans who are insured and who deeply, desperately, and sometimes irrationally oppose anything that would change the status quo. A large number of those Americans are elderly Medicare recipients, and they vote in large numbers.
Matt Taibbi is one of the few commentators in the mainstream media who is not worried about 'access' and has, therefore, been free to write much more critically about the economic crisis and reform efforts on Wall Street.
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His first piece was a polemic against Goldman Sachs, which triggered a backlash against the venerated Wall Street firm due to its incestuous relationship with Washington.Afterwards, he took on health care reform. Now, he is taking on the Obama Administration and its status quo bias. I have an excerpt below and a link to the full article. But, first, let me say a few words.
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As you probably know, I have been quite disappointed with this Administration's leadership on financial reform. While I think they 'get it,' it is plain they lack either the courage or conviction to put forward a set of ideas that gets at the heart of what caused this crisis.
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It was clear to many by this time last year that the President may not have been serious about reform when he picked Tim Geithner and Larry Summers as the leaders of his economic team.As smart and qualified as these two are, they are rightfully seen as allied with Wall Street and the anti-regulatory movement.
In 2007, an Iraqi traffic police officer inspected a destroyed car in a square in Baghdad,
where Blackwater guards killed 17 people in an incident that stirred outrage among Iraqis.
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Blackwater Guards Tied to Secret Raids by the C.I.A.
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WASHINGTON — Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities — clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employees and intelligence officials.
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The raids against suspects occurred on an almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency from 2004 to 2006, with Blackwater personnel playing central roles in what company insiders called “snatch and grab” operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence officers said.
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is "rooting against" economic recovery, the White House said Friday.
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In a shot at the GOP leader in response to Boehner's op-ed in today's Washington Post, White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the GOP leader's attacks on the president were "odd," and indicative of a Republican Party disinterested in cooperation.
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"The president has always said there is an open door for good ideas and when Congressman Boehner and Republicans in Congress are interested in being a part of a conversation about how to move forward instead of rooting against the path to economic recovery—we look forward to having a productive conversation," Preiffer wrote on the White House blog.
GE won't have to comply with new banking regulations, thanks to a friendly legislator with a Goldman Sachs history
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More legislative sausage-making, at its finest. In the Wall Street Journal, Damien Palleta reports that the monster banking regulatory bill currently moving through the House exempts particular corporations from compliance with key provisions.
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General Electric and Pitney Bowes, for example, receive get-out-of-regulation-free cards and will not be required to spin off their banking divisions to avoid supervision by the Fed.
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The administration wanted any company owning a financial arm to be regulated the same way. That means GE would either have to be regulated by the Fed, or spin off its finance arm.
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GE and Pitney Bowes won protections during a unanimous panel vote last month pushed by their home-state congressman, Rep. Jim Himes (D., Conn.).
According to the Hamilton Spectator, Sarah Palin has been contracted to speak at a fundraiser for the Juravinski Cancer Centre and St. Peter’s Hospital in Canada. “This is quite the coup,” said Gabe Macaluso, an organizer for the event.
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Palin might be surprised to learn that the hospital she is fundraising for runs counter to her professed beliefs:
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– St. Peter’s Hospital is a public hospital within the national Canadian healthcare system. In Palin’s worldview, universal, government-insured health care is “socialism.”
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– St. Peter’s Hospital performs abortions. Palin, a staunch anti-choice zealot, has protested outside of abortion clinics and has refused to denounce abortion clinic bombers as terrorists.
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– St. Peter’s Hospital, through its Centre for Studies in Aging, offers “advanced directives.” Palin tried to derail health reform earlier this year by falsely labeling advanced directive reimbursements as “death panels.”
Why Americans can't talk about religion and the Supreme Court.
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When Justice John Paul Stevens, who is 89, retires—and he's expected to in the next year or so—there will be no Protestant left on the highest court in the land. Will President Obama be pressured to appoint one? Popular opinion once held that even one Catholic was too many on the court. Today there are six. But would anyone even notice if Obama appointed a seventh to replace Stevens? Once upon a time, there was an outright religious litmus test for Supreme Court appointees. Today religion is almost irrelevant in appointing new justices.
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All of which raises a question: Are the days of caring about religious diversity on the high court behind us? Or is it merely that the days of talking about it openly are behind us?
Many Americans haunted by ghosts, look to astrology
By Ed Stoddard
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DALLAS (Reuters Life!) – Although most Americans are Christian and many are devout it hasn't stopped some members of the flock from believing in astrology, reincarnation or the ability of trees to trap spiritual energy.
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A poll by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows a surprising number of U.S. adults claim to have had supernatural experiences such as ghost sightings or hold beliefs associated with the New Age movement or Eastern religions.
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And some of them claim allegiance to more traditional faiths such as Catholicism or evangelical Protestantism.
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"American religious folks hold a variety of views and there is overlap among their beliefs and practices. Many do not fit into simple boxes," said Pew researcher Alan Cooperman.
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The poll released on Wednesday showed that three-in-ten Americans say they have felt in touch with a dead person and 18 percent say they have seen or been in the presence of a ghost.
is source for right-wing media attacks on Jennings
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Right-wing media outlets have relied on false or misleading claims by MassResistance, a Massachusetts-based anti-gay group, in advancing several recent attacks on Department of Education official Kevin Jennings. The founder of MassResistance -- a group the Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled a "hate group" -- reportedly denied that gays and lesbians were a target of the Holocaust and has compared the gay rights movement to the Nazis. The organization has also called on parents to keep their children home from school during an event promoting awareness of, and opposition to, anti-gay bullying and has stated that suicide prevention programs for gay and lesbian youth have no "legitimate medical or psychological basis."
In recent weeks, One Iowa, the state’s largest LGBT organization, has been pressuring Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to denounce the Anti-Homosexuality Bill currently being considered by the Ugandan parliament. A major reason for the emphasis on Grassley is his relationship with the The Family, an international Christian organization that has pushed extreme right-wing policies in Africa (as reported by author Jeff Sharlet).
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On Wednesday, Grassley finally responded to his constituents. However, he refused to condemn the legislation, saying he was too busy to be concerned about such matters:
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“I’ve got a fulltime job reading bills in Congress without reading the bills in another 190 countries,” Grassley said. “Surely nobody in Iowa expects me to keep up on issues that are in the parliaments of other countries. Besides I don’t know anything about it.”
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Grassley spokesperson Beth Levine also told the Iowa Independent that after inquiries from the press, their office “contacted the U.S. State Department to get more information” and was told “that the administration hasn’t made an official statement, but an assistant secretary has privately relayed concerns to the Ugandan president.”
Most Americans support legalizing marijuana, according to a national poll conducted by the polling agency Angus Reid.
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Fifty three percent support legalization, while 43 percent are opposed, according to a poll conducted Dec. 3 and Dec. 4 involving 1,004 voters.
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The poll's margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.
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Support for the legalization of other drugs -- including MDMA, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine --barely registered. Among other drugs, the most popular for legalization was MDMA, or ecstasy, and power cocaine, which registered support of 8 percent.
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The least favored for legalization was crack cocaine, at 5 percent.
AP review: Effects wow but story limps in `Avatar'
By JAKE COYLE (AP)
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When a film brashly asserts that it will change moviemaking forever, one feels the urge to either take its "king of the world" arrogance down a notch or hail it as the masterpiece it claims to be.
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But — and forgive us if this sounds too much like the dialogue in President Obama's war room — what if there's a third option?
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James Cameron's 3-D "Avatar" has all the smack of a Film Not To Miss — a movie whose effects are clearly revolutionary, a spectacle that millions will find adventure in. But it nevertheless feels unsatisfying and somehow lacks the pulse of a truly alive film.
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"Avatar" takes place in the year 2154 on the faraway moon of Pandora, where, befitting its mythological name, the ills of human life have been released. The Earth depleted, humans have arrived to mine an elusive mineral, wryly dubbed Unobtainium.
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The Resources Developmental Administration, a kind of military contractor, is running the operation. At the top of the chain of command is the CEO-like Carter Selfridge (an excellent, ruthless Giovanni Ribisi), who's hellbent on showing quarterly profits for shareholders. His muscle and head of security is the rock-jawed Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who curses Pandora's inhabitants (the Na'vi) as savages and considers the place worse than hell.
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In fact, it's a paradise. In Pandora, Cameron has fashioned a sensual, neon-colored, dreamlike world of lush jungle, gargantuan trees and floating mountains. Its splendor is easily the most wondrous aspect of "Avatar."
During the campaign I fully admit that I was not a fan of Mrs. Barack Obama who we now seem to lovingly refer to as “Michelle.”Like so many, I kept hearing all the swift-boat-types repeating over and over just how rabid a liberal she was, how “commie” her education was, and how horribly “black activist gone wild” she had been in college.
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You know how they are, those ultra-righties:Throw a lie out there enough and some people will start to take it as truth!It is the old “throw enough mud on the wall and some will stick” political trick and it works well with brain-dead right-wingers who want to believe every conspiracy theory, live in fear, all the while expecting GOD to somehow fix everything just for them, all the rest of us be damned.
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I’ve come to admire, respect, and appreciate the beauty, charm, brains, and values of Michelle Obama.Isn’t it great when you see someone as just another human being, just another soul trying to move forward in this world, and all you see is that soul, that good person and not have their color or gender or whatever being “top of mind?”
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Michelle is changing the world just by being herself, by living in faith, loving her family, and not getting all caught up in what those idiots on the right and the bigots have said and keep repeating.Her “family values” are like a beacon in the night and those who fear her and attack her need to accept that she is what they evidently can never be: real, classy, earthy, warm, smart, and well, damn impressive.Luckily, Ba-Ba Wa-Wa sees this, too.
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Cliff – The XCon
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Major Donor Says Finances Forced Cuts
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David Gelbaum, a wealthy investor in clean technology, confirmed on Wednesday that, because of financial constraints, he had been forced to sharply reduce his donations to the American Civil Liberties Union and two other organizations.
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Mr. Gelbaum, an intensely private philanthropist who has long insisted on anonymity in exchange for his gifts, said in a statement that he had made more than $380 million in donations over the last four years to the A.C.L.U. and two other organizations, the Sierra Club and the Iraq-Afghanistan Deployment Impact Fund of the California Community Foundation.
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“I am willing to be publicly named now because my investments in alternative, clean energy companies have placed me in a highly illiquid position as a result of the general credit crisis in the American and world financial systems,” Mr. Gelbaum said.
Nearly four months after Senator Kennedy’s death, his widow, Vicki, is taking the stage for a tribute to her husband. Lloyd Grove talks to Kennedy insiders about Vicki’s influence on Teddy and her next step.
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When Ted Kennedy’s widow takes the stage Thursday night at Manhattan’s 92nd Y, to sit with her stepson Ted Kennedy Jr. for a joint interview with Katie Couric about the late senator’s best-selling memoir True Compass, the former Victoria Reggie will be doing something against the grain: lingering in the spotlight.
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The 55-year-old Mrs. Kennedy—a banking and bankruptcy attorney, partner in a Chicago law firm, and the daughter of influential Louisiana Democrats and longtime Kennedy family political allies when she became the senator’s second wife in 1992—is no shrinking violet. A raven-haired Southern charmer with a quick wit and sharp mind (and “beautiful hazel eyes,” according to her husband’s memoir), she “is one tough cookie,” says an admiring family insider.
When another year winds down, we look back at what moved us, and death always enters the picture. Some of those who left the scene had the power to change our lives. Others informed us and entertained us. Some deaths were expected and others took our breath away. Here are some of the notable deaths of 2009.
Obama laughs after receiving his medal and diploma from Nobel committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony at City Hall in Oslo, Thursday.
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President Obama sits in front of framed photos of previous Nobel Peace Prize winners. | AP Photo
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Lying Pervert Rush Limbaugh forwards fisting smear, attacks Jennings as a "raging pervert"
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The Invisible Man
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He may be the hardest-working guy in show business, but Ryan Seacrest barely registers as a blip on the screen.
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As certain celebrities become more visible, they also become less noticeable, almost merging with the media landscape. Instead of taking center stage, they somehow manage to become the stage. They’re ubiquitous and anonymous at once.
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Take the increasingly inescapable yet strangely imperceptible Ryan Seacrest, whose peculiar ambition and accomplishment is to be both everywhere and nowhere. Though he is probably best known as the host of “American Idol,” the country’s top-rated television show, he can also be found on the radio, Monday through Friday, hosting “On-Air with Ryan Seacrest,” a program that mixes pop music, celebrity interviews and juicy tabloid banter. ( Paris Hilton called in when she got a D.U.I.) “On-Air” ’s home station is the Los Angeles-based KIIS-FM, but there is also a national version syndicated on more than 130 stations in 45 states and at least four countries. (One journalist, writing in the National Post, described the “bewildering experience” of driving through the United States and “hearing Seacrest in seemingly every town, no matter what time of day it was.”) On weekends, as the heir apparent to the radio legend Casey Kasem, he counts down the hits for “American Top 40 With Ryan Seacrest.”
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Meanwhile, back on television, between occasional stints filling in for Larry King on “Larry King Live,” he is a co-anchor of “E! News,” a half-hour celebrity gossip roundup that broadcasts seven nights a week, and somehow also finds time to lead the network’s red-carpet coverage of the Grammys, the Emmys, the Oscars and the Golden Globes. Finally, once a year, on New Year’s Eve, eight and a half million people tune in to see his breath fog up in Times Square as he welcomes the New Year alongside the longtime host Dick Clark. If that’s not enough, he also Twitters, constantly. (“Just wrapping up some work at e! I’m starving right now..trying to grab lunch oin [sic] the run. Send me a pic of ur dog..wanna see em.”)
Appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday night, the Florida Democrats used a colorful acronym to respond to Dick Cheney's criticisms of President Obama.
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"You know, on the internet there's an acronym that's used to apply to situations like this. It's called 'STFU.' I don't think I can say that on the air, but I think you know what that means," Grayson said.
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That acronym is short for "Shut the f**k up."
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Last night, Cheney had lashed out at President Obama's decision to give Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a civilian trial in federal court.
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"He'll be as important or more important than Osama bin Laden," Cheney said about the plotter of 9/11. "And we will have made it possible. We will have given him that platform, that opportunity, to come here and there is absolutely no need to do that."
