Gosh, I feel so much better knowing there are only 14,000 more disasters waiting to happen.
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In case you missed it: Maddow: The address the president should have given.
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REPUBLICAN Joe Barton is Big Oil's bitch - apologizes to BP. Watch him here.
"The American people support holding BP accountable — and we won't apologize for doing so." Add your name here.
Here's Rep. Barton (R – TexIdiot) demonstrating his firm grasp of the Erl Bidniz.
If there were a German word meaning "a face that cries out for a fist in it", Barton's photo would appear next to it in the dictionary. I'm sure Secretary Chu is enjoying the excellent Joe Barton Would Like to Apologize website.
My personal favorite, so far: ... Charles Manson, for that variety show he never got to do. I'm your biggest fan, Chuck!
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Update: Twitter from Robert Gibbs: Who would the GOP put in charge of overseeing the energy industry & Big Oil if they won control of Congress? Yup, u guessed it – JOE BARTON
A commentor at Wonkette added: "Before he entered Congress in 1989, Joe Barton was an executive with ARCO (Atlantic Richfield Company), which became a subsidiary of BP in 2000 and is now officially known as BP West Coast." That led me to investigate Barton's Wikipedia page ("The neutrality of the article is disputed…"), which is a treasure trove:
During his political career, the industries that have been Barton's largest contributors were oil and gas ($1.4 million donated), electric utilities ($1.3 million) and health professionals ($1.1 million)[32] He is ranked first among members of the House of Representatives for the most contributions received from the oil and gas industry, and number five among all members of Congress. His largest corporate contributor, Anadarko Petroleum, owns a 25 percent share in the Macondo Prospect, the site of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
And, yes, he is not only a global warming denalist, but probably the leader of the current Global Warming Denialist Caucus.
I still say that Joe Barton's strange, weasely apology to BP was only the second most ridiculous political apology of this era:
Update: Well that caused a firestorm of outrage and now Barton is apologizing for apologizing and he is trying to walk his first apology back.
Barton was shaken down by the leadership of the GOP which threatened to strip him of his plum committee job, the one that he uses to get hundreds of thousands of dollars in "campaign contributions" from the oil and gas industry.
Barton apologized so fast that one might have thought that either he was a Democrat or that he had said something less than nice about Oxycontin Radio Boy.
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"A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe - that the proper technology would be in place and the necessary precautions would be taken. That obviously was not the case on the Deepwater Horizon rig, and I want to know why." Obama Link
Maybe the answer is - you're the most naive Democratic president of my lifetime?
You seem to believe whatever you're told.
You seem to fall for the same trick over and over and over and over.
Did you really grow up on the mean streets of South Chicago?
What environment were you brought up in where everyone always tells the truth and their word is good because a man's word is his bond, blah, blah, blah?
We can't get confirmantion on this but I heard it again yesterday on CNN,
that you approved off-shore drilling (after promising us you wouldnt) because The Boner and The Bitch promised to help you with your environmental plans.
...and you believed them?
If that's the case, I'm worried about your ability to make intelligent decisions.
What will it take for you to learn these bastards can't be trusted?
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For nine hundred years these dead trees have been standing in a former desert oasis.
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Well, well, look who ....
crawled out of his crypt to weigh in on the oil spill.
Cheney told the audience he is currently writing his memoirs. He also touched on President Obama's performance in office.
He pointed to the President's lack of action in the Gulf oil leak. He said Obama doesn't have enough executive experience, or experience in Washington, to make things happen.
Y'know, the oil spill that might not have happened if Cheney and his cabal hadn't completely deregulated the oil industry to add to their coffers. Fuckhead.
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But it snowed in DC and Jim Ihhofe's grandkids built an igloo. And besides, Al Gore is fat separated from Tipper so there is no such thing as climate change. "The combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for May, March-May (Northern Hemisphere spring-Southern Hemisphere autumn), and the period January-May according to NOAA. Worldwide average land surface temperature for May and March-May was the warmest on record while the global ocean surface temperatures for both May and March-May were second warmest on record, behind 1998. ... The monthly analysis from NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, which is based on records going back to 1880, is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides government, business and community leaders so they can make informed decisions."
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Limbaugh mocks starving children
.A new report reveals another sad truth about poverty in the United States.
With the school year ending in communities across America, more than 16 million children face a summer of hunger.
While classes were in session, they relied on free or discount cafeteria meals subsidized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But they will not be reached by the patchwork summer food programs financed by the USDA, which feed fewer than one in five of the total number of kids poor enough to qualify.
The children caught in the gap will likely spend the next few months cadging leftovers from neighbors, chowing down on cheap junk, lining up with their families at food banks that are already overmatched or simply learning to live with a constant headache, growling stomach and chronic fatigue. When school rolls around again in the fall, they will be less healthy and less ready to learn than their peers.
Here's how Rush Limbaugh treated the story.
I think, you know what we're going to do here, we're going to start a feature on this program: "Where to find food." For young demographics, where to find food. Now that school is out, where to find food. We can have a daily feature on this. And this will take us all the way through the summer. Where to find food. And, of course, the first will be: "Try your house." It's a thing called the refrigerator. You probably already know about it. Try looking there. There are also things in what's called the kitchen of your house called cupboards. And in those cupboards, most likely you're going to find Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, Lays ridgy potato chips, all kinds of dip and maybe a can of corn that you don't want, but it will be there. If that doesn't work, try a Happy Meal at McDonald's. You know where McDonald's is. There's the Dollar Menu at McDonald's and if they don't have Chicken McNuggets, dial 911 and ask for Obama.
There's another place if none of these options work to find food; there's always the neighborhood dumpster. Now, you might find competition with homeless people there, but there are videos that have been produced to show you how to healthfully dine and how to dumpster dive and survive until school kicks back up in August. Can you imagine the benefit we would provide people?
This asshole has 20 million listeners and is pulling in a gazillion dollars a year. His baby is pushing buttons and then rubbing his pudgy, stinking hands in glee as he watches the liberal media flip out. Fine. It's one thing to smear the President and liberals with his brand of lies and twisted logic. But it's quite another to mock the poor and in particular innocent starving children. Where does one draw the line on what is acceptable in society? Where does corporate greed (his sponsors) end and compassion and decency begin?
It's time to take action. Back in January, the DailyKos printed a list of Limbaugh's sponsors. Pick out a couple of names from the list of corporations that pay this bastard's salary and give them a call. Let them know what you think of Limbaugh and their continued support of a man who smokes big fat cigars while debasing hungry children.
And send out this story to every person you know. Do something.
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Wisco: The Nightmare Scenario.
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Media Matters has been tracking Fox News' ongoing apologia for BP.
Pat Buchanan: Rep. Barton was very courageous in apologizing to BP.
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Alabama psychopath lost election, will now shoot everyone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GabMEHfCjT0&feature=player_embedded
The Senate voted to preserve corporate welfare for Big Oil yesterday.
Yesterday, the Senate voted down an amendment to its tax extenders bill, proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), that would have cut $35 billion in tax subsidies to Big Oil companies, redirecting $25 billion to reduce the deficit and $10 billion to energy-efficiency grants. The vote was 35-61.
In other words, 61 senators voted to preserve $35 billion in corporate welfare for oil companies. That includes 21 Democrats, by the way.
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Bob Cesca: Americans simply don't do sacrifice anymore.
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I'm not saying we'd necessarily beat the filibuster had Obama been stronger. I am saying that we lost the filibuster because Obama was weak. If the public understood that the deficit was a) mostly caused by Bush, and b) not nearly as important as staving off a Depression and creating jobs, the GOP would be facing far more pressure not to launch these filibusters at all.
JOHANNESBURG -- Police say a South African man who wanted to watch a World Cup match instead of a religious program was beaten to death by his family in the northeastern part of the country.
David Makoeya, a 61-year-old man from the small village of Makweya, Limpopo province, fought with his wife and two children for the remote control on Sunday because he wanted to watch Germany play Australia in the World Cup. The others, however, wanted to watch a gospel show.
...
Though the president used slightly less than four sentences per paragraph, his 19.8 words per sentence "added some difficulty for his target audience," Payack said.
"Chimpy, y'all unnerstand what that man on the teebee machine done said?"
"Yup, Pickles, Ah'm not as think as you dumb Ah am."
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ACORN leader says critics mounted 'McCarthy-era war against the poor' after report clears organization of wrongdoing.
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Obama is losing his Muslim base
Corporate Felon
Corporate Fellator
