Headlines - Monday February 28

Al Qaeda cyberattac​k takes down much of the internet.

 

###

 

Anonymous targeting Koch websites

And down goes Koch. The Teabagging site AmericansForProsperity.org is the first to go.

 

###

 

Michael Vick confronted by dog owner.

I'm hoping for karma in Vick's case. Karma for every one of those poor dogs.

 

###

 

More proof that addressing climate change is economically advantageous:

Increasing the EU's 2020 greenhouse gas reduction target from 20% to 30% could help boosting European investments from 18% to 22% of GDP, leading to a GDP increase of up to €620bn ($840bn) and the creation of up to 6 millions additional jobs. These are the key findings of a report launched today.

The report, A New Growth Path for Europe - Generating Growth and Jobs in the Low-Carbon Economy, was commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and conducted by an international consortium of researchers led by Professor Carlo C. Jaeger from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).

Traditional models assume a 'single stable equilibrium', where investments are determined by an assumption of business-as-usual economic trends. The financial crisis however has exposed the fact that different expectations can lead to different investment behaviors, turning those expectations into self-fulfilling prophecies. The new model highlights the importance of policy in shaping investors' expectations, leading to a virtuous circle of increased investments, faster 'learning by doing' in technology and manufacturing and enhanced expectations by investors in the market.

###

 

Welcome to your Democrat-free Sunday news talk shows. But don't worry, they make up for the oversight by booking union leaders to debate all the Republicans they've scheduled to talk about the burgeoning labor movement.

Oh wait, no they didn't.

### 

Just because the South Dakota legislature has shelved the bill to legalize murdering abortion doctors doesn't mean the forced birthers haven't stopped dreaming up ever more draconian ways to deprive women of their already nearly non-existent access to reproductive health care.

On Tuesday, the legislature passed HB 1217:

The warriors in the war on women insist they are acting out of concern for women. They say they just want to ensure women can make an informed choice. But the truth is, they don't want women to have a choice at all.

### 

 

This Week In Holy Crimes

Over the last seven days...

Virginia: Pastor Jason Bolton charged with stalking an underage girl. He has a previous arrest for statutory rape.
New York: Rabbi Nechemya Weberman arrested for molestation of 12 year-old girl.
Georgia: Pastor Albert Turnell charged with possession and distribution of child porn.
Alabama: Pastor Michael Wilkerson charged with writing a bad check to purchase $111K Mercedes. He previously served time in prison for defrauding the builders of his mansion.
Scotland: Sihk priest Surinder Singh convicted of child molestation.
Wisconsin: Father Thomas Marr sentenced to only nine months in jail for stealing over $600K from parishioners.
California: Christian college sued for knowingly placing a convicted child molester ministry student with a family whose children he then molested.
North Carolina: Pastor Greg Metcalf charged with assaulting his daughter and then denying her medical care.
Massachusetts: Father Franklin E. Huntress resigns in face of numerous molestation accusations.
Britain: Pastor Albert Odulele charged with indecent sexual assault on a child.
Arkansas: Pastor Shane Montgomery sentenced to one year in prison for sexual assault on a teenager.
Tennessee: Father William Casey to stand trial for child molestation.
California: Pastor Alonzo McGowan pleads guilty to stealing over $400K from an 87 year-old parishioner.
Ohio: Pastor Daniel Monk sentenced to six years in prison for sexual battery on an underage girl. Monk says he was out of his mind because he'd been fasting.
New York: Father Richard Nachajski charged with stealing $476K from his parish to finance luxury vacations to the Caribbean and Thailand.

This Week's Winner
Illinois: The Belleville Diocese of Southern Illinois is appealing a $5M molestation judgment, saying that they have zero responsibility to warn parishioners about known pedophile priests. In response, a local group of Catholic priests took the unprecedented step of denouncing the appeal as a "disastrous policy" that makes "no common moral sense." The judgment was ordered in the case of Father Raymond Kownacki, who has been sued numerous times for molestation, but has never been arrested due to the statute of limitations.

###

Speaker Boehner Promises to Start Praying for America as Soon as He Finishes the 18th Hole

 

###

 

An Important Anniversary - by digby

While I was waiting in vain for a story about the rallies in Madison and across the country yesterday on CNN, I did happen to catch this important story, as Heather at C&L did.

 

I didn't know that yesterday was the Tea Party's "birthday" but wasn't surprised to see that CNN celebrated it. It has, after all, been a big story for them over the past two years what with following them all over the country and reporting every gathering of more than four people as a national event. The rise of a real populist movement in America that isn't actually backed by major corporations and wealthy individuals is stale. Been there, done that and all that rot.

Fox, however, is following the Madison story closely and is working hard to set the narrative:

 
###

 

Two-time voter fraud suspect asnd harpy skank Ann Coulter appeared on Hannity last night (2/25/11) to discuss the 2012 election and her support for the supposedly non-running Chris Christie. As she and Sean Hannity ran through the various potential candidates, Coulter claimed to love Sarah Palin. Yes, Coulter really does. It's just that she knows Palin is so much better off without bothering her little money-grubbing head over "dull" information that presidents need to know. Continue reading »

###

From 2000: (CBS)  This is the story of a blood feud, a battle between brothers. As we told you when we first reported this story last November, the Koch family of Wichita, Kansas is among the richest in the United States, worth billions of dollars. Their oil company, Koch Industries, is bigger than Intel, Dupont or Prudential Insurance, and they own it lock stock and barrel. The trouble is a former employee says the brother who controls the company grew rich through fraud and theft, stealing from the taxpayers of the United States.

Unfortunately, for Koch Industries, that disgruntled former employee was Bill Koch, one of the Koch brothers. Blood and oil has destroyed more than one American family. The question is: Was Bill Koch a renegade out to ruin his brother, or did Koch industries really operate the way he says? http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/11/27/60II/main252545.shtml

###

Skippy's environmental health news Sunday.

###

Big Oil complains to Oscar.

###

Frank Rich does what he's doing a lot of lately; he weaves two columns into one.

###

Even worse, either could be punishable by death in the proposed bill. The GOP Rep. who has proposed the bill has been in the news earlier with his proposed Uterus Police. MotherJones:

It's only February, but this year has been a tough one for women's health and reproductive rights. There's a new bill on the block that may have reached the apex (I hope) of woman-hating craziness. Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin—who last year proposed making rape and domestic violence "victims" into "accusers"—has introduced a 10-page bill that would criminalize miscarriages and make abortion in Georgia completely illegal. Both miscarriages and abortions would be potentially punishable by death: any "prenatal murder" in the words of the bill, including "human involvement" in a miscarriage, would be a felony and carry a penalty of life in prison or death. Basically, it's everything an "pro-life" activist could want aside from making all women who've had abortions wear big red "A"s on their chests.

Lindsay Beyerstein's response.

 

###

 

Thank God that lady dropped the "F-bomb" at the Oscars last night, eh? Now you have a genuine reason to ignore the protests in Wisconsin; don't you, you fucking tools? When they write the history of the American Empire, you will, forever, be known as the ones who enabled its fall. Self-serving scumbags.

###

Robert Reich

You can't fight something with nothing. But as long as Democrats refuse to talk about the almost unprecedented buildup of income, wealth, and power at the top – and the refusal of the super-rich to pay their fair share of the nation's bills – Republicans will convince people it's all about government and unions.

The final truth is as income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power. The reason all of this is proving so difficult to get across is the super-rich, such as the Koch brothers, have been using their billions to corrupt politics, hoodwink the public, and enlarge and entrench their outsized fortunes. They're bankrolling Republicans who are mounting showdowns and threatening shutdowns, and who want the public to believe government spending is the problem.

They are behind the Republican shakedown.

These are the truths that Democrats must start telling, and soon. Otherwise the Republican shakedown may well succeed.

They're workin' their class war on us like it's a red-headed stepchild.

####

###

Regulation Lax as Gas Wells' Tainted Water Hits Rivers 

###

Jill: I guess Jesus has forgiven him for helping to drive the U.S. economy off a cliff.

 

###

 

Big business imposes its own taxes too

When you really get down to it, what is the difference between the legal compulsion to pay taxes that are used to pay the salaries of government workers (who use those wages to support their unions), and the practical necessity of paying people like Charles and David Koch $4.50 a gallon for gas because speculators organized by Goldman Sachs flexed their economic muscle to drive up the price of crude to $145 a barrel, as they did in the summer of 2008.

http://www.theygaveusarepublic.com/diary/7809/big-business-imposes-its-own-taxes-too

 

###

 

Now Anonymous is giving Glenn Beck an ultimatum "People of America we have heard your cries against the hate mongering and violent rhetoric of Glenn Beck and we stand with you. ... No longer will we tolerate his incessant conspiracy theories intended only to incite hate and violence in the uneducated. No longer will we sit idly by while he promotes racism, bigotry and xenophobia. No more will we be silent while he fends for the RichFags under the disguise of patriotism while pandering his books and the wares of his advertisers. ... Take heed Glenn Beck, if you do not immediately cease and desist your hate and fear mongering your broadcasts, websites and advertisers are in jeopardy. You must immediately broadcast a full appology to all the people you have attacked and offended. You must immediately end your hate rhetoric and fear mongering and use your position of power only to promote unity and peaceful resolutions from henceforth. The choice is yours."

 

###

 

Cool forensic anthropology news of the week "Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a child cremated in central Alaska about 11,500 years ago. They are the earliest known human remains from the North American Subarctic and Arctic region. ... The fragments were found in a fire pit in an ancient dwelling and provide new insight into the burial practices of ice-age people. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Science. ... Although only about 20 percent of the child's remains was recovered, leaving the sex unknown, the researchers discovered teeth that indicate the child was about 3 years old. ... The oval fire pit in the home also appears to have been a cooking hearth, based on remains of salmon and other small animals in the area. After the child died, he or she was placed face up in the pit and cremated. The pit and the home were most likely never used again.

 

###

 

ON A DAY WITH 100,000 DEMONSTRATORS IN A SNOWSTORM...

Not a flipping word about the world's biggest rectal orifice also being found in the governor's mansion in that state.

 

 

The Government are NOT about to force ‘gay marriage’ on the Church of England

Before this media-manufactured spat blows up into a full Church v State crisis – the likes of which Europe has seen quite regularly over two millennia, though increasingly less in England since the Erastian settlement by which the state has been supreme in matters ecclesiastical – His Grace would like to clarify a few things.

A few months before the 2010 General Election, David Cameron jumped in with both feet and presumed to lecture the Archbishop of Canterbury on gay rights. Mr Cameron said: “I don't want to get into a huge row with the Archbishop here, but the Church has to do some of the things that the Conservative Party has been through. Sorting this issue out and recognising that full equality is a bottom-line, full essential.”

And he didn’t get into a huge row with the Archbishop because the absoluteness of ‘full equality’ and the unequivocal ‘bottom line’ were quietly dropped after the election.

And yet, on the face of it, the Prime Minister appears fully to support ‘gay marriage’, for nothing else could be meant by ‘full equality’.

This, coupled with the (untrue) announcement a few weeks ago that the Government are intent on permitting ‘gay marriage’ to be performed in churches (and other religious buildings), has apparently led to some frantic meetings between MPs and bishops to find a typically Anglican via media solution to the issue.

Firstly, let us dispel the whole ‘gay marriage’ canard. The Government has made no proposals to redefine marriage. Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone is preparing a Bill to allow all religious venues – churches, synagogues, mandirs, gurdwaras and mosques to perform some kind of blessing upon homosexual unions if they wish, and to permit sacred scriptures and religious paraphernalia to be used in civil partnership ceremonies. There is no compulsion or coercion of anyone: the state is not redefining marriage, for it cannot.

As His Grace has said, the prohibition on the use of pseudo-spiritual poems in civil ceremonies is absurd: it amounts to state censorship and an enforced division between the private realm of spiritual belief and the public realm of political policy. If consenting adults wish to read the Bible, the Qur’an, the Gita, the Upinishads or a divine piece of Shakespeare as they make their vows, that should be a matter for them. We do not have a tradition of laïcité in this country, and the fundamentalist secularisation of society amounts to the systematic elimination of all religion from public life. Conservatives should see such a violation of conscience and property rights as utterly abhorrent.

If two consenting adult Muslims wish to trundle off to their local mosque to get their gay-friendly imam to pray Allah’s blessing upon their happy civil partnership, what business is that of the state? Having legislated for same-sex civil partnerships, it is bizarre to permit ceremonies to be performed in the Palace of Westminster whilst barring them from Finsbury Park Mosque. The state should have no interest other than in the licence of partnership by which property rights may be determined in law.

Notwithstanding this, Jonathan Wynn-Jones reported that the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘is not prepared for the Coalition to tell the Church how to behave’ and ‘would not be dictated to by the Government’.

Apparently, he had no fewer than four sources for this article, so it must be true.

While we may quibble over the use of the terms ‘Coalition’ and ‘Government’ in this context, His Grace would like to point out to His Grace (if accurately reported, by four sources) that it is indeed for Parliament ‘to tell the Church how to behave’, just as it is for Parliament to license the Church’s Prayer Book and choose its Supreme Governor.

Mr Wynn-Jones informs us that Dr Williams ‘told a private meeting of influential politicians that the Church of England would not bow to public pressure to allow its buildings to be used to conduct same-sex civil partnerships’ and that the Church ‘held a clear position that marriage is between a man and a woman and would not consider changing this stance’.

And so the Archbishop has been accused of ‘alienating homosexuals’ and rendering the Church ‘out of touch with society’. According to Simon Kirby, the Conservative MP for Brighton Kempton: “Public opinion is moving faster than the Church on this issue and it is increasingly in danger of getting left behind.”

Well, thank God for that.

It is not for the Church of Jesus Christ to accommodate every passing fad and societal obsession: sometimes, being ‘left behind’ is very much the best place to be.

But The Daily Mail (which has plagiarised Mr Wynn-Jones’ article verbatim) quotes Dr Williams as saying: “Gay weddings will never take place in church buildings.”

Again, His Grace would like to point out to His Grace (if accurately quoted) that a Church of England building has already been used to conduct a ‘gay marriage’.

So ‘never’ is already negated.

Perhaps Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has this sort of marriage liturgy in mind when she talks of ‘gay marriage’:

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God to join these men in a holy covenant of love and fidelity. Such a covenant shows us the mystery of the union between God and God's people and between Christ and the Church... As David and Jonathan's souls were knit together, so these men may surely perform and keep the vow and covenant betwixt them made."

But getting this form of Nuptial Mass through Parliament is fraught with so many complexities that they would be easier for a camel to pass through St Stephen's Gate.

It should be evident to politicians of all political persuasions and faiths that marriage is not an exclusively Judaeo-Christian institution; it is a union observed in all cultures, and seems, according to Aristotle, to exist by nature. Marriage in the Bible is essential for the functioning of society, and is the model used to explain the mystery of Christ’s relationship to the church (Eph 5:25-32). The Church of England ‘affirms, according to our Lord’s teaching, that marriage is in its nature a union permanent and lifelong, for better or worse, till death do them part, of one man with one woman’. This has its basis in the Old Testament, where YHWH says: ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him’ (Gen 2:18). It continues: ‘for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh’ (v24). Although these verses do not purport to define marriage, they do describe its origin, and are therefore crucial for understanding the Bible’s teaching on marriage.

There are three principal purposes for marriage arising out of v24: (i) the procreation of children; (ii) companionship, and (iii) sexual union. Marriage is a covenant before God, which Jesus confirms with the phrase ‘God has joined together’ (Mt 19:26); when a person ‘leaves’ and ‘cleaves’. Iain Duncan Smith (at least) has realised that it is the erosion of this foundation which has contributed to ‘Breakdown Britain’.

While the Church in England is subject to Parliament, Parliament is not so omnipotent that it may alter the Word of God. But the Government is not proposing to do so. Permitting religious buildings to be used for the blessing of civil partnerships is not the same as imposing a redefinition of marriage upon the Established Church. So let us stop all this hype, for the Prime Minister is rather busy and can do without such disinformation.

Headlines - Sunday February 27

 

 

"The problem is, and dare I say this, it doesn't look like Michelle Obama follows her own nutritionary, dietary advice…I'm trying to say that our First Lady does not project the image of women that you might see on the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue or of a woman Alex Rodriguez might date every six months or what have you."

 

####

 

Times' collection of the most surprising photos of 2010. 

#5 is my favorite.

 

####

 

Remember, when a Republican talks about how much they care about babies, they mean hypothetical babies. Once those babies become real, they couldn't give a big hot bowl of crap.

###

 

###

 

Jonathan Turley: Is the Scott Walker story just the tip of the Koch brothers' political iceberg?

 

###

 

Religion & Freedom.

 

###

 

The protesters were back on Saturday, in the largest numbers yet (estimates ranged from 70,000 to 100,000) and signs indicating Walker is a Koch Whore were everywhere.

Speaking of the Koch Brothers, this ought to shrivel their nutsacks Anonymous has decided that they merit their special attention, and they are "actively seeking vulnerabilities."

###

 

Top ten disasterous policies from the Wisconsin GOP you haven't heard about.

 

###

 

Why did our government give special preference to christian pseudo-insurance companies?

This country recently managed to pass a rather lame compromise on health care: there is now a mandate that requires everyone to have health insurance, even if it is from a hodge-podge of insurance companies, with the intent of fairly distributing the expense. Unfortunately, one group got singled out with an exception from this requirement. Can you guess who?

Yep, Christians.

Did you know that if you are a Christian you are exempt from the taxes, penalties and regulations imposed by the recently enacted health insurance law?

All you have to do is to affirm a statement of Christian beliefs and pledge to follow a code that includes no tobacco or illegal drugs, no sex outside of marriage, and no abuse of alcohol or legal medications and pay a monthly fee to join a religious health care sharing ministry plan, a plan that specifically does not guarantee the payment of your medical bills in any fashion and holds members solely responsible for payment of said bills.

And the reason for this exemption? According to the spokeswoman for the Senate committee responsible for writing much of the legislation, lawmakers granted the exemption out of respect for religious freedom.

That's a rather large loophole, and it's also preferentially sectarian. It's also non-surprising. What it means is that a few Christian scam-artists get to get richer, while lots of gullible Christians get screwed. The con is to set up a Christian "bill-sharing" cooperative in place of a real insurance plan; members send in monthly premiums, which can be quite substantial, but do not have to buy in to any other insurance plan, and then the bill-sharing program offers to help cover medical expenses, but "The payment of your medical bills…is not guaranteed in any fashion." It's a great deal for the Christian bill-sharing plan; if your medical expenses get so high that they cut into their profits, they can just elect not to pay, and then you have to go begging to join some other insurance pool.

Absolutely brilliant. Send me money now, and maybe, if I feel like it, I'll help you out with some bills later. But I am not obligated.

And this is such a profitable plan that they managed to lobby congress to support it, all under the cloak of Christianity.

###

Did you pay five bucks in income taxes in 2010? 

Then congratulations, Mr. or Ms. High Roller! You paid more in Federal taxes than did CitiBank, JPMorganChase, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Boeing, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and probably a shitload of other big corporations--combined!

That's correct. You paid more to the Treasury than all of those fuckers. And all of those bastards either received large bailouts or are large contractors. Boeing is going to make billions and billions on the KC-X contract, but they won't pay any Federal taxes while they are doing it.

Something is seriously wrong here. But nothing will change, between the spineless Democrats who quake in their shoes whenever somebody says something mean about them to the Republicans who scream "Gays! Guns! God! Abortion! Illegal Aliens! Sharia Law!" whenever it is pointed out that they do nothing that does not serve the interests of the wealthy and the corporations.

 

###

###

It looks like more apparent coverups by the Vatican:

The Catholic Church in Rome made the extraordinary admission yesterday that it is aware priests from at least 23 countries have been sexually abusing nuns.

Most of the abuse has occurred in Africa, where priests vowed to celibacy, who previously sought out prostitutes, have preyed on nuns to avoid contracting the Aids virus.

Confidential Vatican reports obtained by the National Catholic Reporter, a weekly magazine in the US, have revealed that members of the Catholic clergy have been exploiting their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favours from nuns, particularly those from the Third World who are more likely to be culturally conditioned to be subservient to men.

The reports, some of which are recent and some of which have been in circulation for at least seven years, said that such priests had demanded sex in exchange for favours, such as certification to work in a given diocese.

###

Olbermann has a blog.

###

From a good article in Newsweek, mostly about his work in Sudan, George Clooney on why he won't get into elective politics:

"I f--ked too many chicks and did too many drugs, and that's the truth."

And were he to take leave of his senses and run for office:

"...'That's gonna be my campaign slogan: 'I drank the bong water.'?"

###

 

Does anybody remember ...

George Bush's "signing statements"? Well, guess who's whining now?

Lawrence O'Donnell took a shot at these great "defenders" of marriage, Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich for going after the Obama administration for their decision not to defend DOMA. Apparently the two of them have a little trouble telling the difference between enforcing a law and defending that law in court.

Here's Beck via Media Matters -- Beck Falsely Claims Obama Won't Enforce Law On DOMA; Adds, "He Has Made Congress Irrelevent".

...

The Chimp didn't enforce anything he didn't want to. If I've ever seen a Congress that was "irrelevant", it was the ones during the Bush years.

Marcy Wheeler: ...

Which makes what Obama did far far less abusive (in all senses of the word) than what George W Bush did with his long catalog of signing statements. Perhaps Bush's most famous was his signing statement to the Detainee Treatment Act.

###

 

Scumbaggery is discernable in youth 

We learned with George W. Bush that what a man does when he is "young and irresponsible" does reflect on the man he becomes later. When a boy gets his kicks by blowing up frogs with firecrackers, it's a pretty good bet that given the opportunity, he'll get his kicks in middle-age by torturing actual human beings. When a boy insists on changing the rules in the middle of a game he isn't winning, it's a pretty good bet that given the opportunity, he'll steal an election.

And when a young man engages in illegal campaigning in college, you can bet that he's going to be equally scumbaggy as a candidate for Governor of Wisconsin: http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2011/02/scumbaggery-is-discernable-in-youth.html

 

###

 

Jill: While I was driving home from work on Friday, I was listening to Thom Hartmann talking to someone who said that the police were going to be sent into the Madison, Wisconsin Capitol building and start arresting protesters one by one -- whatever it took to clear out the rotunda.

How's that working for ya, Gov. Walker? From Boing Boing:

Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of cops marched into the Wisconsin Capitol Building, where Wisconsinites have spent more than a week protesting their governor's plan to eliminate collective bargaining for most public employees. They were there to join the protest. Musician Ryan Harvey posted this report to Facebook:

"Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside."

"Police have just announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: 'We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what's right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!' Unreal."

Click over to see the video. Money quote:

"Mr. Walker, if you are listening to me, let me tell you something. we know pretty well now who you work for. Let me tell you who WE work for. We work for all of these people."

Ireland’s new puppet government emerges

They’re still counting (ah, the joys of STV; it won’t be much better under AV). But it is now looking certain that Fine Gael’s Enda Kenny will be the next Taoiseach of the Republic of Ireland, bringing to a close Fianna Fáil’s 70-year dominance over the nation’s politics and ending their 14-year unbroken period of governance.

All the favourite politico clichés are being rolled out: it’s a ‘landslide’; a ‘sea change’ in Irish politics; a ‘revolution’; a ‘fracturing’ of the Irish body politic, etc., etc. And it is all of those. The people of Ireland have just delivered at the ballot box what the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have to die to achieve: regime change.

But His Grace feels really quite sorry for Mr Kenny, for he cannot quite deliver the regime change the people desire. Fine Gael have been swept to power on the back of a promise to renegotiate the terms of Ireland’s €80bn bailout by the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

Did His Grace say ‘swept to power’?

He apologises.

Gael or Fáil – it doesn’t matter which centre-right(ish) party is in office, their sovereignty has been removed: they have no power. What they have is an electoral mandate from the people to renegotiate, which is nice. But a new marriage of convenience doesn’t negate a bankruptcy order on the divorcée; it doesn’t absolve them of their contractual responsibilities: only death can liberate them from the burden. The Irish people really ought to have learned by now that they can scream and scream and scream – and even reject an EU treaty – but it makes not one iota of difference in Brussels: the EU juggernaut rolls on inexorably.

And the same is true of the IMF and the ECB: unaccountability means the same austerity measures will still be imposed, exactly as they are across the eurozone.

The puppets may have changed but the same puppet master is pulling the strings. This election will not diminish Ireland’s debt by one euro; it will not reduce the interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point; it will not diminish the burden of the deficit by so much as an old Irish pund: it will hang around their necks for decades, and rest upon the shoulders of their children and their children’s children.

Why can they not see that he who pays the piper calls the tune? You’d think, in Ireland of all places, that they’d understand the significance of pipe playing.

These tedious days of vote counting will now be followed by further days of backroom deals and coalition forming: Ireland is familiar with the process. It looks as though Fine Gael will govern with Labour, whose vote has also increased significantly. That will leave Fianna Fáil in opposition along with Sinn Féin.

Enda Kenny’s manifesto for government will then be some fusion of Labour/Fine Gael policies and programmes, no permutation of which will be put to the people. And those who purport to lead the country will be as much on the EU/IMF payroll as their predecessors were on the on the payroll of the banks and financial services sector. And so the money merry-go-round of corruption continues.

As in all democracies, the Irish people have elected the government they deserve. While His Grace is grateful that they have re-adopted Gaddafi Adams, he genuinely feels quite sorry for them. Politicians seem to win elections by promising heaven on earth, and when, a decade later, the electorate realises that they are still in purgatory, another swathe of disaffected voters views the democratic process with cynicism and disdain, declaring a plague on all their houses. This leads to voter apathy and alienation, a deterioration in democratic participation and a declining turnout in elections, especially among the young.

If our democratic leaders do not wake up soon to the inevitable consequences of this, then Tripoli and Cairo will come to Dublin, Lisbon and London, just as it has already come to Athens. You can’t buck the people.

Headlines - Saturday February 26

A child makes the case for atheism:

 

###

 

Get your war news here.

 

4,439 soldiers killed in Iraq; 1,483 in Afghanistan.

 

###

###

 

"I've had a life which, on occasion, has had problems. I believe in a forgiving God, and the American people will have to decide whether that is their primary concern. If the primary concern of the American people is my past, my candidacy would be irrelevant. If the primary concern of the American people is the future... that's a debate I'll be happy to have with your candidate or any other candidate if I decide to run."  Newt Gingrich, asked if he was a hypocrite for espousing moral values when "you've been married three times and admitted to having affairs"

###

 

###

 

We have freedom!

A proposed Tennessee law would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.

State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, introduced the same bill in the Senate and House last week. It calls Shariah law a danger to homeland security and gives the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and decide who's practicing it.

I don't know about you, but I think this is brilliant. I certainly can't imagine a better way to defend American constitutional principles than to put people in jail for the free exercise of religion in their own homes. And even better, it's absolutely critical that government be given the power to investigate every single American to see if they are engaged in illegal religious acts.

In fact, the only real problem with this legislation is that fifteen years really doesn't seem like enough time. And jail might be too soft a punishment. Perhaps a ritual stoning would make more sense. The good news is that if we wait long enough, a Republican will surely come along and propose just such a measure. Thank God.

###

###

Okay, I want everyone to

do your best *facepalm* on the count of three...

Former President George W. Bush has canceled his planned Saturday visit to Denver after learning that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange would be speaking at the same conference he was to attend.

"Six months ago, President Bush accepted an invitation to speak to the YPO Global Leadership Summit in Denver on February 26, 2011. This week, upon learning that Julian Assange had recently been invited to address the same summit, President Bush decided to cancel his appearance," said Bush spokesman David Sherzer. "The former president has no desire to share a forum with a man who has . . .

Wait for it . . . .

" . . . willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States."

You just can't make this shit up.

###

Boehner kills jobs, focuses on abortion, but chides Obama for ignoring jobs with 'divisive' DOMA shift.

###

Oh, Jeebus, thank you for this gift we are about to recieve:

Although I doubt anyone is surprised by this...

Lee's sudden exit took many people by surprise. Hadn't other members of Congress admitted to worse than an unconsummated, PG-13 flirtation and managed to stay in office? It turns out Lee may have had good reason to step out of the spotlight so quickly: It wasn't just women that the Craigslist Congressman was hunting for on the Internet.

...

But if Lee was using the Internet to meet up with transgender women, it now makes a lot more sense why he would have decided to resign so quickly: Lee may have thought if he quit the House immediately, he'd be able to avoid having his "secret" exposed and spare himself any further embarrassment. No such luck.

Republicans really don't understand how the intertoobz works, do they?

###

(CBSNews) WASHINGTON - Keeping American weapons from getting into the hands of Mexican gangs is the goal of a program called "Project Gunrunner." But critics say it's doing exactly the opposite. CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports on what she found.

###

"In using psyops on visiting politicians, we have invented the world's first Perpetual Motion War Machine.  And we're really pretty proud of that."

####

Truth. Pass it on.

I'm serious. Start telling everyone who will listen the truth (from David Cay Johnston) about the Wisconsin state workers and their benefits:

When it comes to improving public understanding of tax policy, nothing has been more troubling than the deeply flawed coverage of the Wisconsin state employees' fight over collective bargaining.

Economic nonsense is being reported as fact in most of the news reports on the Wisconsin dispute, the product of a breakdown of skepticism among journalists multiplied by their lack of understanding of basic economic principles.

Gov. Scott Walker says he wants state workers covered by collective bargaining agreements to "contribute more" to their pension and health insurance plans.

Accepting Gov. Walker' s assertions as fact, and failing to check, created the impression that somehow the workers are getting something extra, a gift from taxpayers. They are not.

Out of every dollar that funds Wisconsin' s pension and health insurance plans for state workers, 100 cents comes from the state workers.

How can that be? Because the "contributions" consist of money that employees chose to take as deferred wages – as pensions when they retire – rather than take immediately in cash. The same is true with the health care plan. If this were not so a serious crime would be taking place, the gift of public funds rather than payment for services.

Thus, state workers are not being asked to simply "contribute more" to Wisconsin' s retirement system (or as the argument goes, "pay their fair share" of retirement costs as do employees in Wisconsin' s private sector who still have pensions and health insurance). They are being asked to accept a cut in their salaries so that the state of Wisconsin can use the money to fill the hole left by tax cuts and reduced audits of corporations in Wisconsin.

The labor agreements show that the pension plan money is part of the total negotiated compensation. The key phrase, in those agreements I read (emphasis added), is: "The Employer shall contribute on behalf of the employee." This shows that this is just divvying up the total compensation package, so much for cash wages, so much for paid vacations, so much for retirement, etc.

The collective bargaining agreements for prosecutors, cops and scientists are all on-line.

Read the whole thing here. The media will not tell your conservative, and even your not-paying-attention friends this truth. You have to.

###

BP is paying the man in charge of overseeing its $20 billion victim compensation fund for its devastation of the Gulf of Mexico over $10 million a year.

 

###

 

Fueled by the carbon pollution giant Koch Industries, Tea Party Republicans in New Hampshire are attempting to scuttle the state's involvement in the region's successful climate program. Robocalls from Koch's Americans for Prosperity group flooded the state over the weekend in support of a bill that would repeal participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which has cut greenhouse pollution and created jobs as a result of energy efficiency.

 

###

Hey, it's everyone's favorite adulterous grifter, on the Twitter. What is Newt up to these days? "Great visit to the academy of natural sciences in philadelphia today-love the dinosaurs and the historic collection," he wrote Tuesday. When some librul jokester tweeted back, "Come on, you don't really believe in dinosaurs," Newt responded with the tweet above. Is it legal to keep a dinosaur's skull in your office? Probably not. But if Newt does it, it is. And then Newt tweeted "@OneTokenBlack" for no apparent reason. READ MORE »

###

Since Newt Gingrich almost destroyed the GOP by stumbling into the impeachment fiasco and actually managed to lose seats to the president's party during a huge sex scandal, you know it's going to go well for him this time since he's now stumbled into saying Obama should be impeached too.

His press team is now trying to clean up the mess.

###

It's really not every day a foreign ambassador in Washington stands outside his embassy, calls his head of state a war criminal and hoists a different flag over the embassy. But that's kinda what happened today when Ali Aujali, the man who is now technically the former Libyan Ambassador to the United States, since he just resigned. He didn't do it at the Embassy. He stood outside the official residence of the Libyan Ambassador, denounced Qaddafi and raised the pre-Qaddafi Libyan flag. Our Ryan Reilly was there and filed this report -- with video.

 

Egyptian Army fires on Coptic Christians in monastery

There has been much speculation what might happen to Egypt's Coptic Christians following the downflall of Mubarak. Would they be persecuted and murdered, like the Christians in post-Saddam Iraq? This video and report is a fine example of the Islamic pogroms against Christians in the Middle East - Assyrian, Coptic, Catholic, Protestant and Chaldean. It comes from the Assyrian International News Agency:

(AINA) -- For the second time in as many days, Egyptian armed force stormed the 5th century old St. Bishoy monastery in Wadi el-Natroun, 110 kilometers from Cairo. Live ammunition was fired, wounding two monks and six Coptic monastery workers. Several sources confirmed the army's use of RPG ammunition. Four people have been arrested including three monks and a Coptic lawyer who was at the monastery investigating yesterday's army attack.

Monk Aksios Ava Bishoy told activist Nader Shoukry of Freecopts the armed forces stormed the main entrance gate to the monastery in the morning using five tanks, armored vehicles and a bulldozer to demolish the fence built by the monastery last month to protect themselves and the monastery from the lawlessness which prevailed in Egypt during the January 25 Uprising.

"When we tried to address them, the army fired live bullets, wounding Father Feltaows in the leg and Father Barnabas in the abdomen," said Monk Ava Bishoy. "Six Coptic workers in the monastery were also injured, some with serious injuries to the chest."

The injured were rushed to the nearby Sadat Hospital, the ones in serious condition were transferred to the Anglo-Egyptian Hospital in Cairo.

Father Hemanot Ava Bishoy said the army fired live ammunition and RPGs continuously for 30 minutes, which hit part of the ancient fence inside the monastery. "The army was shocked to see the monks standing there praying 'Lord have mercy' without running away. This is what really upset them," he said. "As the soldiers were demolishing the gate and the fence they were chanting 'Allahu Akbar' and 'Victory, Victory'."

He also added that the army prevented the monastery's car from taking the injured to hospital.

The army also attacked the Monastery of St. Makarios of Alexandria in Wady el-Rayan, Fayoum, 100 km from Cairo. It stormed the monastery and fired live ammunition on the monks. Father Mina said that one monk was shot and more than ten have injuries caused by being beaten with batons. The army demolished the newly erected fence and one room from the actual monastery and confiscated building materials. The monastery had also built a fence to protect itself after January 25 and after being attacked by armed Arabs and robbers leading to the injury of six monks, including one monk in critical condition who is still hospitalized.

The army had given on February 21 an ultimatum to this monastery that if the fence was not demolished within 48 hours by the monks, the army would remove it themselves (AINA 2-23-2011).

The Egyptian Armed Forces issued a statement on their Facebook page denying that any attack took place on St. Bishoy Monastery in Wady el-Natroun, "Reflecting our belief in the freedom and chastity of places of worship of all Egyptians." The statement went on to say that the army just demolished some fences built on State property and that it has no intention of demolishing the monastery itself (video of army shooting at Monastery).

Father Hedra Ava Bishoy said they are in possession of whole carton of empty bullet shells besides the people who are presently in hospital to prove otherwise.

The army attack came after the monks built a fence for their protection after the police guards left their posts and fled post the January 25th Uprising and after being attacked by prisoners who were at large, having escaped from their prisons during that period.

"We contacted state security and they said there was no police available for protection," said Father Bemwa," So we called the Egyptian TV dozens of times to appeal for help and then we were put in touch with the military personnel who told us to protect ourselves until they reach us." He added that the monks have built a low fence on the borders of one side of the monastery which is vulnerable to attacks, on land which belongs to the monastery, with the monks and monastery laborers keeping watch over it 24 hours a day.

The monks of St. Bishoy are now holding a sit-in in front of monastery in protest against the abuse of the army by using live bullets against civilians

Nearly 7000 Copts staged a peaceful rally in front of the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo, where Pope Shenouda III was giving his weekly lecture (video), after which they marched towards Tahrir Square to protest the armed forces attacks on Coptic monasteries.

In this fraught and unstable context of revolutionary zeal which is sweeping throughout Arabia - in which Christians are being persecuted, tortured, raped and murdered - would it not be wise for HM Government to focus on bringing stability, peace and democracy to the region - a democracy based on the basic human rights of freedom of expression, association and religion - instead of procuring defence contracts, and thereby risking the arming of those very forces which seek to cleanse the region of Christians and purge it of the most ancient expressions of Christianity?

Headlines - Friday February 25

Having solved all of the problems and put Americans back to work, the teabaggers begin the important work: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/republican_party/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/02/21/state_laws

 

###

 

The Kochs, A Nazi Past, Oil & The Foundation of The Right

 

Notorious Nazis Ilse Koch, her husband Karl Otto Koch and Erich Koch are the ghosts of Koch Industries,  who seized the U.S. conservative political agenda years ago and seem capable of seizing the government in total through the Tea Party.  Ilse Koch was the Nazi's specialist in making objects from human skin;  was the only woman charged with war crimes; and along with her husband was in charge of one of the most horrific horror camps in Nazi Germany.

 

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-500857

 

George Bush's family did bidness with the Nazis too.

 

####

A new investigation into the 'Climategate' controversy has exonerated U.S. scientists of any wrongdoing. The probe was conducted by the U.S. Commerce Department's inspector general at the request of Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.).

###

###

###

Dan Quayle's idiot son Ben was missing during 56 votes so far, but he's not alone: 40% of Congress has been missing votes since it began 8 weeks ago; allegedly one of the Teabaggers has only voted Present. (WaPo)

###

Wisco: No, it's not a prank.

###

Yesterday Hawaii, today Maryland. Marriage equality by a vote of 25-21, baby!

###

###

 

The above chart depicts the number of paid holidays and vacation days legally mandated by the world's 21 richest nations. The labor movement is completely out of control in America!

 

###

 

A coalition of 29 Tea Party-backed GOP members of the Iowa House have introduced a bill that would grant criminal and civil immunity to any person who uses deadly force to prevent an abortion. The bill further stipulates that if the police do make an arrest in such a case, the arrested party has the right to sue them.

 

A companion bill filed by the above group defines human life as beginning "the moment the female ovum joins with the male sperm to create a fertilized egg."

UPDATE: A similar bill has just been re-introduced in Nebraska. 

Hmmm. It seems women are fair game even in Canada. A judge just let a rapist off because the victim was asking for it, in the coded language that only rapists can read.

Judge Dewar listed several reasons for this misinterpretation [that the victim consented], including that the victim and her friend were wearing tube tops, high heels and makeup; that the two had implied they might want to go skinny-dipping in a lake nearby and that the circumstances of their encounter with Mr. Rhodes and his friend were "inviting."

That's it? That's all it takes? Except for the skinny-dipping part, then women have been consenting to have sex with me surprisingly frequently, and I've been missing all the signals and all the opportunities.

I'm thinking that maybe women just need to move out of the middle of the continent altogether. It doesn't seem to be a very friendly place.

###

 

Email Of The Day - Eugene Delguadio

"Could I have stood by and watched as Radical Homosexuals spread lies and deceit about their true goals? Who else would have exposed the truth about the 'gay' agenda? These people admit that they want to molest our children. They admit that they want special rights that no American has. They admit that they want to infiltrate and weaken our military's moral fiber. They admit that they want complete control over the national law enforcement apparatus. They admit that they're deviants.

"But now, my friend, I need to count on you. I absolutely must raise $107,372.19 in the next 25 days to pay past bills and keep programs going. I need to be able to count on you for a special gift of $50 or more. Can I count on you? If I am not able to raise the money, I don't know what I will do. I don't know how I can keep fighting. Without you, it will be impossible to hold off the Gay Bill of Special Rights, the Homosexual Classrooms Act or the Entry for Alien Homosexuals Bill. Without immediate help, how can Public Advocate fight to keep children safe in school from lustful deviants?" - Eugene Delguadio, Public Advocate for the United States, who says that if the evil homosexuals find out about his debts, they will destroy him. So send money. 

 

###

 

"So how many guys do you think you've met that have died by hanging?" Louis CK to Donald Rumsfeld on today's Opie & Anthony Show

Genius of the highest order.

###

 

Less than two years ago, this is what Republicans were saying about the government bailout of GM.

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH): "Does anyone really believe that politicians and bureaucrats in Washington can successfully steer a multi-national corporation to economic viability?" [6/1/09]

Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL): "It's basically going to be a government-owned, government-run company. …It's the road toward socialism." [5/29/09]

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC): "Now the government has forced taxpayers to buy these failing companies without any plausible plan for profitability. Does anyone think the same government that plans to double the national debt in five years will turn GM around in the same time?" [6/2/09]

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA): "Unfortunately, this is just another sad chapter in President Obama's eager campaign to interject his administration in the private sector's business dealings." [6/2/09]

Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX): The auto company rescues "have been the leading edge of the Obama administration's war on capitalism." [7/22/09]

Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ): When government gets involved in a company, "the disaster that follows is predictable." [7/22/09]

Gather your survival packs and gold whatnots -- and run for the hills! General Motors is making record profits!

General Motors, which nearly collapsed from the weight of its debts two years ago before reorganizing in a government-sponsored bankruptcy, said Thursday that it earned $4.7 billion in 2010, the most in more than a decade.

If the Republicans had their druthers, GM wouldn't exist today.

The  Center for Automotive Research has determined that the bailout to GM and Chrysler saved more than 1.4 million jobs in 2009 and 2010.  If government had listened to Republicans in 2009, those jobs would have been lost forever…as would the American automobile industry.

So how will the GOP spin this one? I'm guessing it'll be along the lines of suggesting that the profit-sharing checks to GM's unionized workers are nothing more than government handouts.  Socialists! Socialists! Kill the unions

###

In the Republican war against science and reality, no stone is left untouched. Tennessee lawmakers are now seeking to include the fact-free opposing viewpoints to evolution and climate change in course curriculum along side fact-filled reality, leaving children confused and skeptical.

Or as Sean Hannity would say, "its snowing! Its really cold! Where's the global warming?"

The Tennessee House of Representatives is debating a bill on Wednesday that would push teachers to frame evolution, global warming, and other science topics as controversial in their classrooms, creating the impression that their validity is open for debate. [...]

It's not clear what the efforts to "assist" teachers in framing science as controversial would mean; it would probably depend largely on the school district. But the second part of the bill would make it entirely permissible for educators to teach whatever they want to kids about these subjects as long as they frame it as "science" and somehow relevant to the "controversy." And the bill doesn't limit this to just the "controversies" it lists explicitly. The intent of course is clear—compelling teachers to include creationist or climate-change denying materials alongside of actual scientific lessons.

"Is our children learning?" - George W Bush

###

###

I'm sure the oil spill had nothing to do with dead baby dolphins washing up on gulf coast @ 10 times the normal rate.

 

###

Rick Santorum condones pillaging and plundering

 

###

 

Don't they know that they were already liberated? Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld told us so and we know that they've never been wrong about anything.

 

###

 

Wisconsin GOP votes to remove protesters.

 

###

 

The Department of Dirty Tricks

You know, if the Republicans actually believed what they are doing is good for their states and the nation in general, they wouldn't have to resort to shit like this:

...

Then Kramer called the vote. Within seconds, the digital vote system on the wall announced 51 ayes and 17 nays, and voting was suddenly closed. With a total of 96 members, that got to a majority for the bill but left 28 members who hadn't had a chance yet to vote.

At that point, the Democrats got up, chanting "Shame! Shame! Shame!" and similar exclamations, as the Republicans filed out of the room.

There were many Democrats I spoke to and overheard in the chamber, who said they didn't get a chance to vote, or that they were pushing the "No" button at their desks as hard as they could -- keep in mind that a majority of their 38-member caucus was recorded as casting no votes at all. (Interesting to note there were also four Republicans who voted no -- after having joined every party-line vote against Democratic amendments. Some Dems speculated that the GOP leadership had allowed some Assembly Republicans in marginal districts to skip the vote or vote 'no' on the final tally.)

...

### 

"And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I'll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States." ~ Barack Obama in 2007 on the campaign trail.

Out to organic lunch

Workers nationwide fighting for labor rights; Barack Obama invisible

Hey, leftists and liberals and Democrats, remember a couple of years ago how super-excited you were about Barack Obama, the Chicago community organizer? Nobody really expected unicorns and a fair tax burden for the richest of the rich, but we were enthusiastic, right? Barack Obama has remained completely invisible during the intense labor battles raging in Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio and even Tennessee. We sort of remember being at the Democratic convention and lots of Democratic presidential debates over the long 2007-2008 campaign, and it sure seems like labor played a decisive role in Obama getting the nomination and then winning the presidency. But now, even the head of the AFL-CIO is relegated to a backroom handshake with Joe Biden, because multi-millionaire golfer "centrist" Barack Obama doesn't want to dirty his hands with the actual lives of the 90% of the country not living large. Rich people protect rich people, it's that simple. READ MORE »

###

"'Who is going to shoot President Obama?'  Ha! Ha! Ha! You're such a kidder!"

 

###

 

Jill: And when one of these nutballs finally does it, conservatives will say that their incendiary rhetoric had nothing to do with it

 

###

A number of states are trying to save money by using inmate labor to do jobs that state workers or private industry have been doing. And they learn skills, such as how to do farm labor, so they can take jobs from the illegal immigrants.

What the hell, why not use the guys convicted of white collar crimes to teach grade school. We have an entire political party which thinks that teachers are parasites and that learning anything beyond the "three Rs" is a waste of time and resources.

 

###

 

The chairman of Fox News may have committed a federal crime, according to legal documents filed by attorneys for a former News Corporation employee.

Affidavits filed in a lawsuit against a former News Corporation employee say that News Corp. executive Roger Ailes advised former publishing executive Judith Regan to lie to federal investigators about an affair she had with Bernard B. Kerik.

###

Waste of Oxygen "Democratic" Governor Steve Beshear may be setting new records for uselessness, and our rethuglican state senate is trying to win some kind of teabagger award for me-too-ing every Reichwing bill of insanity that comes down the pike, but our state house Democrats still know where to draw the line.

Despite pleas from House Republicans to let the issue be heard on the House floor, the House Health and Welfare Committee defeated a Senate bill that would require a woman to have a face-to-face consultation with a doctor before receiving an abortion.

Senate Bill 9, which would also require a woman to be presented with images from an ultrasound before receiving an abortion, has repeatedly passed the Republican-controlled Senate in recent years but has stalled in the Democratic-controlled House.

After a more than hourlong debate, with several Republican legislators speaking in favor of the bill, the committee voted 9 to 7 to defeat the bill.

Describing this bill as "require a woman to be presented with images from an ultrasound" is like describing beheading as a "close shave."

This bill requires women to suffer having a camera shoved up their vagina against their will.  Among civilized people, this is known as "forcible rape."

Among freakazoid rethuglicans and their conservatard DINO minions, it's making sure those penis-less creatures pay the penalty for daring to act as if they were adult citizens capable of making their own decisions.

###

After three straight days of debate, the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Assembly passed Scott Walker's erotic union-busting fantasy earlier this morning, "before sleep-deprived Democrats realized what was happening." The bill now heads to the Senate, where it will probably stay for quite some time, since Senate Democrats are still eloping in Illinois. Anyway, here is what happened, according to the Associated Press: "Debate had gone on for 60 hours and 15 Democrats were still waiting to speak when the vote started around 1 a.m. Friday. Speaker Pro Tem Bill Kramer, R-Waukesha, opened the roll and closed it within seconds. Democrats looked around, bewildered. Only 13 of the 38 Democratic members managed to vote in time. Republicans immediately marched out of the chamber in single file. The Democrats rushed at them, pumping their fists and shouting 'Shame!' and 'Cowards!'" (Please consider donating to our friends at the Wisconsin-Madison Teaching Assistants' Association, so that demonstrators can continue to "eat food" and enjoy other communist entitlements.) [AP]

###

One of the "friends" on the dearly departed "Lou Sarah" Facebook account, Kermit Ketchum, is mentioned multiple times in former Palin advisor Frank Bailey's leaked book. Who is Kermit Ketchum? According to Bailey, he's an elderly man and longtime friend of the family. Bailey's manuscript describes Ketchum as the one who saw a (presumably doctored) pornographic photo of Palin sent by email to the campaign. Later, Ketchum allegedly repeats gossip from Sarah's mother saying that Sarah had Lasik surgery and just wears glasses for show. They're not a prescription — they're there to make her look smart. READ MORE »

###

Clinton's blow job: Dylan Ratigan on dollars spent on investigations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shoPWQcgDHs&feature=player_embedded