A US Supreme Court case challenging Arizona's religious school funding program evolved into a debate over whether money from a tax credit is still the government's money even after it has been channeled by taxpayers into a private program.
It's called Karma, bitchez, and it's a mothafucker "Those who wanted Congress to reauthorize extended unemployment insurance this summer often assumed that Democrats who opposed the benefits were just posing as deficit hawks to impress voters during an election year. ... If that was their intention, it didn't work. Of the 11 Democrats who opposed reauthorizing benefits at the beginning of July, eight are goners. Reps. Brian Baird (Wash.) and Marion Berry (Ark.) retired, leaving their seats to the GOP; six others went down in Tuesday's epic wipeout. ... Sixteen Democrats joined Republicans in blocking extended jobless aid in a suspension vote the previous day. Thirteen of them will not be back next year, including Reps. Frank Kratovil (Md.), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (S.D.), John Adler (N.J.), Travis Childers (Miss.), and probably Melissa Bean (Ill.), who flipped their positions from one vote to the next. Those five lost Tuesday or are in imminent danger of losing. ... Alex Pareene at Salon savors the moment: "These brave politicians bucked their free-spending, ultra-liberal party, and cast votes in favor of fiscal responsibility. And for their willingness to oppose Barack Obama's liberal agenda, nearly all of them were rewarded with early (and ironic) retirement from public service.""
"Damn right."That's what former president George W. Bush told CIA officials when they came to ask him for permission to waterboard alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, according to a Washington Post report on the 43rd president's forthcoming book, "Decision Points."
And there you go. War crime.
How's that bipartisanship thing working out for ya?
Need more convincing on what the GOP plan for the next two years is all about?
At a Heritage Foundation speech later this morning, McConnell will reiterate his desire to see Obama unseated in 2012, and will pull back the veil on the next two years, which are poised to be mired in political theatrics and policy gridlock.
"Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office," McConnell will say. "But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things."
"On health care that means we can – and should – propose and vote on straight repeal, repeatedly," McConnell will add. "But we can't expect the president to sign it. So we'll also have to work, in the House, on denying funds for implementation, and, in the Senate, on votes against its most egregious provisions."
And yet the President speaks of compromise across the board. In GOP doublespeak, compromising means doing it their way…and even then the likelihood is that you'll fail because they'll reject that too. But even if President Obama did decide to play hardball, he'd need the cooperation of Dems in Congress. When members of his own party are running away from legislation they voted on a few short months ago, trying to convince the masses that you did the right thing becomes a near impossible task.
One of the more positive outcomes from Tuesday's election was the fact that of the 60 or so Dems who lost their seats, 29 were Blue Dogs. Good riddance.
"Over the past week, some have said it was indelicate of me to suggest that our top political priority over the next two years should be to deny President Obama a second term in office. But the fact is, if our primary legislative goals are to repeal and replace the health spending bill; to end the bailouts; cut spending; and shrink the size and scope of government, the only way to do all these things is to put someone in the White House who won't veto any of these things."
On a related note, President Carebear announced that GOP and Dim leaders have been invited to the White House to discuss potential areas of common ground. Maybe they can discuss the above quote from McConnell?
David Sirota says something I've been thinking for a while. It's really disorienting to hear career Democrats talk as if it's just some game — because to them, it is. They've blocked out a career path that requires them to think a certain way, dictated by the culture in which they operate. They think in strategies and policies, not emotion — and certainly not the effect these things have on real people and their actual lives. And, as Sirota points out, it can be really infuriating:
###The facts are painfully apparent. Though hundreds — if not thousands — of people in D.C. are professionally paid to pretend these facts require debate and analysis and parsing and speculation and press releases and pithy Tweets and Sunday Show roundtables and C-SPAN symposia and to-camera cable-TV rants and lengthy thousand-page books, they don't require any of that. The facts are simple. The facts are obvious. The facts are undeniable to anyone not paid fistfulls of sweaty money to lie or sensationalize:
1. The Democratic Party shit on its base with its policies, as noted above.
2. This demoralized the Democratic base, which responded by not turning out to vote. As CBS News notes, "Hispanics, African Americans, union members and young people were among the many core Democratic groups that turned out in large numbers in the 2008 elections (but) turnout among these groups dropped off substantially, even below their previous midterm levels."
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The damned-fool breeding-machine Palin can join any band of religious freaks she wants - but this one needs to lose its tax exempt status.
