For almost the entirety of the health care debate, the Obama Administration has relied on economist Jonathan Gruber to make the public case for its idea of reform - even the most unpopular parts. But as Firedoglake revealed on Friday, the Obama Administration has failed to disclose that it paid the same economist more than $780,000.
This is a huge ethical violation that undermines the entirety of health care reform. Sign our petition to President Obama:
Paying an economist $780,000 to push bad reforms without disclosing his conflicts of interest is no way to pass health care reform. The Obama Administration must come clean on its payoffs to Jonathan Gruber and any other undisclosed paid promoters.
Cuomo told reporters that he also wants to know how the size of the banks' bonus pool would have been affected if the banks hadn't received a taxpayer rescue at the height of the financial crisis in late 2008.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/11/cuomo-demands-bank-bonus-_n_418683.html
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Reason 489,560 I don't watch Fox News (sic)
Sarah Palin has signed on as a contributor to the Fox News Channel.
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Joe Conason: Why do we listen to Rudy? A big blunder today reinforces the sad fact: "America's mayor" now has badly tarnished cred
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"Ultimately, the buck stops with me. And when the system fails, it is my responsibility." Obama, acting like a man Link
"Hmm. I wish you had given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. Ahhh... I'm sure historians will look back and say gosh we could have done it better this way or that way. Ahhh. You know I just, ahhh, I'm sure something will pop into my head here...with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer but it hadn't yet...." - Bush in 2004, acting like Der Little Fuhrer Link
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"At some point maybe somebody in the government will wake up and say, "Hey, it's colder. It's not hotter." Maybe all this talk about global warming needs to be rethought." Scientist Ben Stein, saying the poles aren't melting Link
North Pole, 1909
North Pole, 2009
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Cremation Solutions is marketing a line of "personal urns", where the ashes of a family member is kept in an jar of his likeness, created using a photo of the deceased. I don't know why the president's image is used in their ads.
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Reid's just an idiot, not a racist
Of course, while Obama wasn't speaking publicly about the terrorist incident, he was directing an immediate federal response. Moreover, as Huffington Post's Sam Stein documented, President Bush didn't utter a single word about shoe bomber Richard Reid's terrorist attack for six days, whereupon he simply said that he was "grateful for the flight attendant's response, as I'm sure the passengers on that airplane." On ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos confronted Cheney about her hypocritical attack. "As many Democrats and others have pointed out, President Bush waited I think six days before doing much about Richard Reid, the shoe bomber," he noted. Cheney evaded the question entirely, pretending not to hear it. "The point of that ad," she said, "was this notion that you cannot win a war if you're treating it as sort of an inconvenient sidelight."
Classy. Inclusive. So 21st century. What more would you want from a shiny new site:
Tucker Carlson's new web site, The Daily Caller, launched today, featuring a column by The Weekly Standard's Matt Labash:
For those unfamiliar with me from my day job at The Weekly Standard, I'll give you a capsule bio by way of introduction: I have the gift of wisdom. Does that sound arrogant? I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention. I didn't choose wisdom. It chose me. If I had my druthers, I'd have chosen another gift, perhaps the untold riches of Lil' Wayne, whose teeth are made of actual diamonds, or to be the sexiest man alive, like Rachel Maddow. But wisdom is what they gave me, so wisdom is all I have to give back to you.
So according to this self-inflated, self-proclaimed sage, gay woman = man.
According to this blogger, Labash = Worthless.
Last month, the leaders of Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup blew off a meeting with the President because they couldn't make it all the way from New York City to Washington DC. Such hubris. Maybe they should have made the effort after all: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/business/economy/12bailout.html?hpw
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Wall Street firms aren't the only banks that had a banner year. The Federal Reserve made record profits in 2009, as its unconventional efforts to prop up the economy created a windfall for the government. It will return about $45 billion to the U.S. Treasury for 2009.
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Maru (of course):
Seeing his home-state poll numbers sink like Lindsey Graham on a Cub Scout, the principled and courageous Joe Lieberman turns around and defends President Obama.
Heh ...
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R.I.P. and thank you, Miep Gies.
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When the Troops Are in Harm's Way?
Rush Limbaugh today:
"We are at war with our own president, we are at war with our own government."
Really? At war with the commander-in-chief while troops are in harm's way? I thought wingnuts were opposed to such talk.
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Pam: Papa Ratzi's weekly bleating: gays are an 'attack on creation'
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Mock, Paper, Scissors: Great Expectations.
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Prop 8 is being sued today
The nation's first trial on same-sex couples' right to marry – and the voters' power to forbid those marriages – begins today in a San Francisco federal courtroom that will serve as a forum for two diametrically opposed worldviews.
It also is to be shown on a delayed basis on YouTube — youtube.com/usdccand
The US Supreme Court is blocking the procedings from being televised. At least for now.
Update: Ted Olson goes after right wing fearmongering on marriage equality. Ted Olson.
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The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq lacked legitimacy under international law, an independent commission probing Dutch political support for the still controversial action said Tuesday.
"There was insufficient legitimacy" for the invasion for which the Netherlands gave political but no military backing, commission chairman Willibrord Davids told journalists in The Hague.
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Human-steroid hybrid Mark McGwire admitted that he took illegal drugs that helped him hit more baseballs with a baseball bat. Wall Street Journal
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Oh boy
Tucker Carlson's pay-porn and conservative news website launches!
Check it out everyone, it's Tucker Carlson's Daily Caller the "Reason magazine of Huffington Posts." In otherwords BIG FREAKING TOP HEADLINE and then tons of other links all over the fucking place that may or may not redirect to outside sources. (Still, easier to navigate than the HuffPo.) And how lovely, an opening column from Andrew Breitbart. Yikes. Anyway, good luck, Tucker! [Daily Caller]
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Ummm, Mr. 91u1iani?
F**k you..
Terror attacks under der Chimpleton: 22
Deaths: 3010
Terror attacks under Obama: 6 (4 of which were by rightwingnuts or white supremacists)
Deaths: 15
More here.
