Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Headlines - Tuesday

841 soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Coalition Military Fatalities By Year

Year US UK Other Total
2001 12 0 0 12
2002 49 3 17 69
2003 48 0 9 57
2004 52 1 6 59
2005 99 1 31 131
2006 98 39 54 191
2007 117 42 73 232
2008 155 51 88 294
2009 211 80 72 363
Total 841 217 350 1408
 
211 have already died in 2009 and there are more than 3 months to go. 
 
Gen McChrystal wants ANOTHER 45,000 troops for Afghanistan 'or it will be a failure.' 
 
Speaking of failures, 4,346 soldiers have been killed in the illegal and immoral war in Iraq that President Obama promised to end.
 
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h/t Jeff - long and interesting read ...
 
Andrew Sullivan: Dear President Bush: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200910/bush-torture
 
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Hating the poor for their poverty
 
One of the many reasons that I'm not a Republican is because of their totally irrational attitude toward poverty and the poor. An example that always pops into my mind is one you've probably never heard of. It was a while ago and pretty damned local, so there's no reason why you should know it. In 1998, Republican Nancy Mistele was running for Wisconsin State Senate against Democrat Jon Erpenbach. She slipped up and said something that didn't really fly and I suppose the only reason I always think of it is that it seemed to me that it would've flown pretty much anywhere else.
 
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funny pictures of cats with captions
 
 
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Stay classy, John Edwards

Lovely:

Former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards talked a campaign aide into claiming he fathered a child born to Edwards' onetime mistress, sources familiar with the issue said Monday.

Andrew Young, former aide to Sen. John Edwards, claims Edwards knew all along his mistress was carrying his child.

Edwards admitted to his affair with Rielle Hunter in August 2008 after months of denials, but said he could not have been the father of Hunter's daughter, who was born the previous February. Former Edwards staffer Andrew Young has said he was the girl's father—but has recanted and says he made it because he believed in Edwards, lawyers and others familiar with the matter told CNN.

Young was married with children when he claimed to have fathered Hunter's child. He never signed any affidavits or legal papers, however, and reversed his claim after Edwards, as one of the sources put it, dropped Young "like a hot potato."

What married man would admit to an affair and a child to cover someone else's ass? This is crazy. At least I can say I thought Edwards was a phony and a fraud from day one.

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Cops taze wheelchair-bound double amputee.

Not an Onion story.

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At the Values Voter Summit on Friday, former Miss California Carrie Prejean said that conservatives needed to be "an example" of "tolerance, respect and just how to be civil." But her advice was ignored the next day when Young America's Foundation spokesman Jason Mattera addressed a breakout session called "Turning The Tide In Your Generation." In his comments, Mattera evoked the battle of David against Goliath as a metaphor for conservative college students who are 'persecuted' by the big bad liberals who control academia." While discussing that theme, Mattera took the opportunity to argue for the supremacy of conservatism by saying, "our women are hot":

During the panel, Mattera took the David and Goliath metaphor another perverse step: If conservatives (David) smite liberals (Goliath), they will be rewarded with the hot conservative women, just like King Saul promised his daughter to the warrior who slew the evil giant. "You know his daughter must have been beautiful because there's no guy whose gonna die for an ugly girl," Mattera chortled. "Our women are hot. We have Michelle Malkin. Who does the left have, Rachel Maddow? Sorry, I prefer that my women not look like dudes."

Reporting for CampusProgress, Sarah Posner points out that Mattera had even more problems with his David and Goliath metaphor: "'David has the righteous answer,' Mattera said, 'because he is taking pride in his Christian beliefs.' No matter that Mattera didn't accurately grasp David's biography or the biblical timeline. In conserva-land, David, a character from the Old Testament, was a Christian even before Christ was born."

Screaming shrill heartless skank Michelle Malkin:

Rachel Maddow, looking like a dude:

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Joe Biden laid it on the line today at a fundraising event in Arizona:

"It's not that Republicans are bad guys. This is just the bet they've made. They're going to put their chips on movement in the 35 seats in the House that have been traditionally Republican districts and trying to take them back. If they take them back, this is the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do. This is their one shot. If they don't break the back of our effort in this upcoming election, you're going to see the things we said we're for happen."

Note to Joe: They ARE bad guys. Why can't you just say it?

traitors.jpg image by chrisblask

Snatch amendment raises excise tax threshold 'for any state with a name that begins with the letter U

Members of the Senate Finance committee have submitted 534 amendments to Sen. Max Baucus' (D-MT) health care mark. Democrats introduced several amendments, including provisions re-instating the public insurance option, striking the network of consumer-driven cooperatives, expanding Medicare to Americans aged 54 to 65, and improving affordability standards.

And while Republicans have proposed several compromise amendments, most of their provisions seek to delay the mark-up process and undermine the bill. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), for instance, introduced an amendment (Hatch F7) to "add transition relief for the excise tax on high cost insurance plans for any State with a name the begins with the letter 'U.'" The amendment would increase the threshold at which high-cost insurance plans could be taxed.

Below are some of the other superfluous amendments introduced by Republicans:


Amendment/Sponsor Provision
Ensign 409 Transparency in Czars.
Hatch 511 Prohibits authorized or appropriated federal funds under the Mark from being distributed to or used by ACORN.
Ensign 543 Strike the word "fee" everywhere it appears in the bill and replace with the word "tax."
Roberts 137 To prevent Medicare payment policies which discourage physicians from fulfilling their Hippocratic Oath to maintain the good of their patients as their highest priority, and instead encourage the rationing of health care.
Roberts 144 To ensure that if people like the hometown hospital they have, they can keep it.

Hatch rationalizes his amendment by explaining that "the transition relief provided in the Chairman's mark for the 17 states with the least affordable health care is obviously arbitrary and unfair. What about the 18th state? This amendment would add further transition relief in another, but no less arbitrary way to certain states."

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The sooner corrupt ex-congressman Tom Delay is elected president of dance, the sooner he'll sit down 

How many times did you vote for Tom DeLay last night? Did you hit your quota of eight?? He will continue to do pelvic thrusts in thigh-hugging formica (?) bellbottoms until you do. Or until they rip, whichever comes first. … You should probably vote quickly. Anyway, the Troggs! Boss choice, dude. And YES, you, the other one, the one who appears to be nothing more than just a promiscuous taxidermy rug: YES. The Supreme Court of Dance ranked Tom & the one they call "Cheryl" as the fourth best dancers on the entire Earth. Politico

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Ha ha. They typed something incorrectly

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Earlier this week, a seriously ticked-off Judge Land dismissed tinfoiled nutjob Orly Taitz's ridiculous birther suit, warning her that if she filed any more "frivolous actions in this Court" she'd face sanctions. Yeah, about that:

Taitz, of course, didn't seem to listen. Instead, she filed an angry motion asking Land to reconsider his decision and stay [the chickenshit Army captain's] deployment.

In an order issued Friday, Land denied Taitz's request and announced that he was considering making good on his threat of sanctions. He ordered the attorney-slash-dentist "to show cause why the Court should not impose a monetary penalty of $10,000.00 upon Plaintiff's counsel for her misconduct," and gave her 14 days to do so.

Land also took a swipe at Taitz's performance as an attorney, writing at one point that "
competent counsel would have understood" one part of the law that was at issue. The implication was obvious.
Awesome.

And in a related Orly story...
 
Birther soldier basically fires Orly Taitz, who claims letter birther soldier wrote was forged. Huh?

Nancy Grace, space version

The latest escapade from "queen birther," the esteemed dentist-lawyer Orly Taitz, is moving forward quite rapidly and is hilarious and hopefully there will be no more updates during the writing of this post because HOLD UP ONE SECOND, PLEASE OKAY? OKAY? MORE »

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Backed into a corner, teary gpuke admits Obama is not a socialist

Meet the Press host David Gregory has it out with House WATB Leader John Boehner (R-uh rOH):

GREGORY: Do you really think the President is a socialist?

BOEHNER: Listen, when you begin to look at how much they want to grow government, you can call it whatever you want, but the fact is —

GREGORY: What do you call it though?

BOEHNER: This is unsustainable. We're broke.

GREGORY: Blah blah blah. That's fine. Do you think the President is a socialist?

BOEHNER: No! {sob!}

GREGORY: Okay. Because the head of the Republican Party is calling him that.

BOEHNER: Listen, I didn't call him that, and I'm not going to call him that. Unless by "the head of the Republican Party" you mean Rush. Or Glenn Beck.
Fact: Boehner's called him that.
 
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Fox leaks a memo about 'journalistic standards' after they get caught creating news: http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/09/is-fox-news-memo-pushing-journalistic-standards-a-joke/