Headlines - Wednesday April 28

 

Republicons voted again yesterday to deliver for their Wall Street benefactors.

 

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Mexico just issued a travel advisory for its citizens who are thinking about visiting Arizona.

 

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                                  The Goldman Rule
                            No dough unto others; dough only to thyself.

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U.S. senator says "shitty deal" one million times. On C-SPAN.

 

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Jesus' General: God talks to Brother Beck.

 

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By unanimous vote, the California Assembly has repealed the archaic law requiring research into a "cure" for homosexuality.

 

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Mandatory ID papers for brown people? Vital to the security of the state!

Somewhat more secure ID cards for everyone? Jackbooted fascism!

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If Fox and Wingnut Daily say it's true it must be so.

 

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Media Matters grabbed snapshots of a ton of headlines from across the country blasting the GOP for filibustering financial reform, and yet: 

 

From Gallup: GOP is up by 20 points by those 'very enthusiastic about voting.'             

 

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Tourre's Syndrome

 

...is a psychological malady when banksters blurt out, to the astonishment of everyone within earshot, "We're not guilty!" and "I did not mislead!"

It's a sad condition, really, but wholly expected under the circumstances when Goldman Sachs executives get called before Congress every few months and get barked and growled at by toothless lawmakers on three inch-short leashes.

 

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Senastor Ben Nelson (D-NE), who has twice in the last two days voted against allowing the debate over financial regulatory reform to proceed to the floor of the Senate may have something of a conflict of interest. His constituent (when Warren Buffet lives in your state, and it happens to be a place where cows happen to outnumber people by orders of magnitude, you only have one constituent) would have to put up cash for his derivatives business if the law passes as written. But Nelson isn't just Buffet's Senator. He is an investor in Buffet's company, owning up to $6 million in Berkshire Hathaway stock.

 

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Teabaggers only care about the rights of white people

 

As Eugene Robinson has pointed out, in his column in today's WaPo, one might rationally expect that a law which demanded that people, American citizens, no less, carry ID with them and present it whenever a cop asks to see it should normally be expected to arouse the ire of the Teabaggers.

After all, the Teabaggers were the ones screaming about the Constitution and their rights and so on and so forth.

But when the rights to be trampled on are those of non-whites, the Teabaggers are conspicuously silent.

Curious, isn't it?

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Iowa: in the race for crazeeeeeeeee!

Remember last week when we reported about how Georgia was legislating against microchipping humans and some nutty lady in Georgia testified that the Department of Defense had put a beeper into her vaginal-anus area? Me neither!

So here's your vaginal-anus beeper update for today: Some wingnut in Iowa (The Mayonnaise state?) wants to microchip illegals so he can track 'em. It's part of Pat Bertroche's campaign platform as he runs for Congress:

"I think we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going. I actually support microchipping them. I can microchip my dog so I can find it. Why can't I microchip an illegal? That's not a popular thing to say, but it's a lot cheaper than building a fence they can tunnel under.

I wonder if Grandpa Walnuts will give this idea some thought in his campaign? I bet AZ will double-down for this! "Tag and release, boys!"

Take THAT, Georgia!

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Will the terrible Democrats please stop considering a long-overdue immigration bill, now that Lindsey Graham is upset? Mean old Harry Reid had pwomised him an energy bill (dead on arrival) first before pwomising him an immigwation bill! Then he switched it up! And now Lindsey Graham is so upset that he says they don't need to deal with immigration until 2012, it's no big deal. More here.

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Chutzpah - murdering your parents and then asking for leniency from the court because you're an orphan. *

Via Balloon Juice:

Arizona agency seeks federal help on immigration law

The Arizona agency tasked with training 15,000 law officers to enforce the state's controversial new illegal immigration law has asked federal authorities for assistance, but administration officials say it is unclear whether the government will help....

John Cole at Balloon Juice:

...How about this for an answer? NO.

You guys want a police state, pay for it yourself. You probably should have thought about this before you all passed the idiotic bill in the first place....

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As the world's biggest arms dealer - and one that sells to anybody who's got the cash - the U.S. is hardly in a position to criticize. "The US defence secretary has warned that Hezbollah now has more rockets and missiles than most governments. Robert Gates accused Syria and Iran of supplying weapons of "ever-increasing capability" to the military wing of the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement. "This is obviously destabilising for the whole region," he said following talks with his Israeli counterpart. But Mr Gates did not say if Syria was supplying Hezbollah with Scud ballistic missiles, as Israel has alleged. Hezbollah fought a 34-day conflict with Israel in 2006 during which more than 1,200 Lebanese people, mostly civilians, were killed. Some 160 Israeli people, most of whom were soldiers, also died. United Nations Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the conflict, included an arms embargo on Lebanon, except for transfers authorised by the Lebanese government or UN."

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Idyllic Pacific island paradise sacrificed to the questionable needs of the U.S. Military is nothing new - ask the former residents of Bikini Atoll.

Department of Defense squandering tens of billions of dollars on a dubious project is also nothing new.

Even American citizens getting bulldozed by uncaring bureaucrats is, tragically, still not new.

But hitting all three in one giant boondoggle? Now that's a hat trick.

Koohan Paik in The Nation explains.

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Seven animals being eaten to extinction.

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Coastguard considers setting fire to the oil spill in the Gulf.

The answer is clearly more drilling.