Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Headlines - Tuesday December 14

 
 
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The Alton Development Company wants to build a strip mine next door to Bryce Canyon National Park. Tell Utah Governor Herbert that it's no place for a mine, especially because air pollution from the mine will damage one of our country's most beloved national parks.
 
Please sign and pass on the petition to Governor Herbert to stop the mine.
 
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Real quotes from Sarah Palin Facebook fans.
 
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"Obama has agreed to extend the Bush-era tax cuts. Because if there's anything we need, it's an extension of the Bush era." Letterman
 
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So a guy who pissed off the US government by embarrassing leaks is arrested on questionable charges within days.
Cuz' he didn't use a rubber when boinking some CIA honey pots. Roman Polanski, a convicted felon fleeing his
sentence on rape charges for thirty fucking years for drugging and butt raping a 13 year old girl can't manage an
extradition from any European country they guy has been filming openly for more than three decades.

What the hell is wrong with Americans? Where the hell is Osama bin Laden?
Why was Valerie Plame outed and the only guilty person was commuted when he wouldn't incriminate his superiors?

Our national budget and creditworthiness is being held hostage by President who wants to cut the funding for social security.

I'm madder than hell. Everyone in my government with any power to do anything is a corrupt liar. E.L. Deflagrante

I heard the pro-Assange case against rape charges.

They said his "crime" was a) having a condom break and b) refusing to wear a condom the second time they had sex.

...but when the government wants you in jail, they find an excuse.
 
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William Rivers Pitt: Back to Basics
 
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 Wisco: American Aristocrats.
 
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"Come on and cry me a river
Cry me a river
I cried a river over you
I cried a river over you
I cried a river...over you..."
 
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American Family Association: DADT Repeal Will Lead To Mandatory Cross-Dressing

"According to LifeSiteNews, sexually confused service members in Canada will be required to cross-dress as a matter of military policy. Yes, you read that right. Cross-dressing will not just be a privilege in the Canadian military, it will be an obligation.

"According to a just-issued mandate, military personnel must conform to the dress code and standards of their 'target' gender. So a man who believes he is a woman will be required to start dressing as a woman, despite carrying around fully functional male equipment. This is regardless of whether genital mutilation surgery has taken place or not. [snip]

"If you want to see where the overturning of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' will lead in the U.S., just take a glance at our neighbor to the north. It's not a pretty picture." - American Family Association radio host
Bryan Fischer.

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What's next? Death for all of us, eventually?
 
A Virginia federal district court judge appointed by Dubya has ruled that parts of President Obama's health care reform plan are unconstitutional. The lawsuit was brought by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. The teabaggers and homophobes are ecstatic.
 
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Christie Todd Whitman is asking for trouble:
"I don't think she'll win nationwide, but she certainly will -- when she went on the ticket with John McCain -- energize the base. But the base isn't big enough and Republicans should have learned that," Whitman said. "You've got to start competing for the center. And so far, I haven't seen a lot of outreach on the part of Sarah Palin for that. She's more concentrated on that base and energizing them. Which is fine, but it's not going to win you a general election."

I can only imagine the email she's getting today from the usual gaggle of weirdly horny baby boomer men with chemical erections.

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Rules are for small people, Boner will smoke wherever he pleases in the Capitol

art-boehner-smoke

Right-leaning Politico.com ran this item last week about incoming House Speaker John Boehner:

John Boehner isn't speaker yet, but he already seems to be playing by his own rules.

The Ohio Republican was spotted puffing on a cigarette in the Capitol on Thursday afternoon, smoke billowing around his head, as he presided over a GOP steering committee meeting in the Capitol Visitor Center.

That would be a violation of a House rule that prohibits smoking in public rooms in the building.

A profile of Boehner in the New Yorker suggests that the new speaker smokes around two packs of cigarettes a day. And based on his family history with smoking, it's unlikely Boehner will quit anytime soon:

[Boehner's parents] Earl and Mary Ann were both heavy smokers, as is John (reportedly two packs a day); Mary Ann, who died of pulmonary failure in 1998, smoked until the very end. "She was on oxygen and still smoked," [Boehner's brother Bob] recalls. "She'd take the oxygen off and smoke. And we'd come in and see her and she'd put the cigarette down, and the smoke would come up. And we'd say, 'Mom, if you're gonna smoke, you've gotta go in the other room.' She was hard-core."

I think we should refuse to pay his health insurance.
 
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What's the difference between the Vatican and the mafia? 
 
At least the Mafia doesn't tolerate baby-rapers in its ranks.

Otherwise, though, they're both shady organizations with very tightly closed ranks and a sense of privilege. It seems the Vatican is also suspected of criminal enterprises — it has its very own private, secretive bank that is accused of money laundering, and recently had about $30 million in assets seized.

I don't think the Vatican has any ties to grisly gangland murders, though…oh, wait.

Calvi headed the Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in 1982 after the disappearance of $1.3 billion in loans made to dummy companies in Latin America. The Vatican had provided letters of credit for the loans.

Calvi was found a short time later hanging from scaffolding on Blackfriars Bridge, his pockets loaded with 11 pounds of bricks and $11,700 in various currencies. After an initial ruling of suicide, murder charges were filed against five people, including a major Mafia figure, but all were acquitted after trial.

While denying wrongdoing, the Vatican Bank paid $250 million to Ambrosiano's creditors.

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political pictures - BLANK STARES
 
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This is exactly why we need tax cuts for the rich!
 
The growing chasm between rich and poor in America – Latest data shows that 500,000 people were added to the food assistance program in one month. 6 million Americans added over the last year. Those that buy diamonds versus those that barely have enough to buy soup.
 
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Preaching "change" and then failing to deliver isn't just a Democratic problem, apparently. In this case, the Tea Party politician has only been in office for barely one year. Coming soon to Washington, too.
Facing a huge budget deficit when he took office in January, Nassau County Executive Edward P. Mangano did not impose a hiring freeze. He did not stop borrowing to subsidize some of the richest school districts in the country. He did not eliminate the Police Department's beloved mounted unit.

Instead, Mr. Mangano, a Republican who won one of the first upsets of the Tea Party era, did what he had promised: He cut taxes, adding $40 million to the county's deficit, which has since reached nearly $350 million.

Now, with its bonds suddenly downgraded and a state oversight agency preparing to seize its checkbook and credit cards, Nassau is on the verge of a full-fledged fiscal crisis.
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One year after Obama announced the 30,000 troop surge, the White House will release the much-awaited progress report on the Afghanistan War Thursday. The president will hold a "final strategy session" with military and diplomatic officials today before the report is released nationwide, but according to the White House, Obama "feels confident we're on the right track."
 
I hope the report includes this:
 
As [Karzai] spoke, he grew agitated, then enraged. He told them that he now has three "main enemies" - the Taliban, the United States and the international community.

"If I had to choose sides today, I'd choose the Taliban," he fumed.
I hope we stay there forever, pouring billions into that shit hole so our military industrial complex and Karzai and his corrupt government can get rich.
 
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Haiti Braces For Disaster

YubaNet

PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI (The Borowitz Report) December 13, 2010 – Just when Haiti thought it had suffered every disaster imaginable, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin decided to visit.

In the disaster-torn nation's capital, a leading government minister warned citizens to "prepare for the worst."

"We have suffered earthquakes, flooding, and disease," said Minister of Disaster Jean-Claude Mansaray. "But it remains to be seen whether we can withstand a disaster of Sarah Palin's magnitude."

Across Haiti, citizens prepared themselves for the possible devastation Palin might cause, especially to their language and syntax.

"We have seen what she has done to English, and fear that she could do the same to French," Minister Mansaray said.

Upon her arrival, Gov. Palin seemed to get off on the wrong foot by repeatedly pronouncing the name of the country "Hades."

Minister Mansaray said that he and his countrymen were fearing the worst, but hoping for the best: "Our only hope is that she does what she did in Alaska: leaves early."

Good luck, Haiti. You guys are in deep merde with her there.
 
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The most deliberative body in the world listened to Bernie Sanders for close to two days, and then decided to completely and totally ignore him:

Forty-Five Senate Democrats supported the bill. I'm sure this won't stop people from magically thinking that there was some really progressive bill that would have not only not been blocked by the GOP but received enough support from the Democrats to pass cloture. At some point, people are going to realize that not only is the Senate broken procedurally, but that a lot of Senators talk out both sides of their mouth and hide behind those procedural rules to support the money party. And yet today, people are still insisting that the PO would pass. It's just delusional thinking. Folks- there is no bigger group of liars than members of the Senate, and they don't care if they pit you and me against each other, as long as they serve the folks who donate to them and who will hire them as "consultants" when they retire. See Daschle, Tom.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary.
 
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Can you imagine how Republican tongues would have wagged had this Speaker of the House of Representatives even once cried on national television?
 
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Jill: I don't know why they hate him so much, he's doing exactly what they want
 
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A worst-case scenario devised by US researchers shows that the American southwest could experience a 60-year stretch of heat and drought unseen since the 12th century.
 
I'm sure if you read the bible, you'll see this has happened before and it's just a normal cycle.
 
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Michael Moore offers his servers to host Wikileaks docs, posts $20,000 bail
 
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A page from Dubya's book on personal responsibility.
 
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Most Americans back tax cut deal most Americans hate

Yessir.

Most Americans think tax cuts for the rich should not expire, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. But also, according to a poll, one cited often by Democrats in the tax cut debate, most Americans think tax cuts for the rich should expire. So there you have it! Americans have no idea what is going on; they only respond to the questions they are asked by some pollster when they are trying to pour a Wendy's Frosty onto their microwave meatloaf family dinner, and those responses still have to be framed in some way to make a story. Somehow, only 11 percent of those polled in this Washington Post-ABC News deal agree with all four of "the deal's primary tax provisions." Yet 69 percent of Americans are said to "support" the plan. They have stood their ground, as Dana Milbank would say. READ MORE »

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Texas airport security insults India after wrongfully demanding to search UN envoy's turban

'Wrongfully' demands to search turban? Sorry, but if my genitals get examined when I walk thru a porn tube, then his turban can be searched.