Due to budget cuts, this year Gay Pride and Cinco de Mayo Parades will be merged.
Meghan McCain, daughter of 2008 presidential candidate and Arizona Senator John McCain (R), doesn't appear to have high hopes for the on-screen adaptation of last year's political tell-all, "Game Change." In a column for The Daily Beast Friday, she says she expects HBO's decision to run the book as a miniseries to leave her "family and Sarah Palin to be nothing short of crucified."
As well you fuckers should be. It was your camp that unleashed the Boreal Narcissus on the world, you spoiled, talentless twatwaffle.
--WT
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Sunshine Awards - President Carebear accepts his award for transparency behind closed doors in a meeting that was not on his public schedule. The award was previously scheduled and cancelled because Obama needed to meet secretly to bomb Libya. (Federal Eye)
It occurred to me when I was reading a book on the beginning of the Civil War that we, us ordinary shlubs, have been under the thumbs of the rich since the beginning of what we are foolishly pleased to call "civilization". From the very beginning of socialized tribal life, the guy with more cows, more otter skins, more chickens, thought he should be the one to tell everybody else what to do - mainly to give him all our cows, otter skins, and chickens. Sure, they've thrown us a few bones now and again, especially after we took a few of their heads off with swords and clubs, but basically they've kept the goodies for themselves and thrown us scraps.
For several thousands of years.
Keep reading: The rich win. Always.
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He's already won: Illegal Kenyan Donald Trump Gets Job On 'Fox & Friends'
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Wisco: America's fad: The tea party's big' DC rally.
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Crazy Eyes Leads In 2012 Fundraising
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., raised a combined total of $2.2 million in the first quarter of 2011, outgaining presumed presidential contender Mitt Romney who raised $1.9 million over the same period. Bachmann's political action committee, MichelePAC, raised $500,000 while her Congressional reelection fund took in $1.7 million. The funds raised for her Congressional reelection could be transferred to any federal campaign, including one for president.
American Family Association spokesdouche Bryan Fischer is worried that Donald Trump doesn't hate gay people enough to earn the endorsement of the right wing.Does he believe the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is constitutional? Does he believe President Obama violated his oath of office by refusing to defend this law in court? Does he support a federal marriage amendment that would define marriage as a one-man, one-woman institution and prohibit marriage counterfeits like civil unions and domestic partnerships? Would he reverse President Obama's decision to grant certain spousal benefits to the sexual partners of homosexuals, contrary to DOMA? Would he support reinstatement of the ban on open homosexual service in the military? Would he veto the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) if it came to his desk? Would he sign a repeal of the Hate Crimes act, which will criminalize speech that is critical of homosexual behavior?Fischer also says that Trump's three marriages "ought to be a huge problem for social conservatives," an issue Fischer doesn't seem to have with thrice-married serial adulterer Newt Gingrich, who regularly appears on Fischer's radio show.
House Republicans voted to reduce the budget of the FAA by $4 billion dollars today while also claiming that the agency should be able to do just fine without.
I don't know if anyone has reminded them lately, but $4 billion is actually quite a lot of money and it doesn't just fly out the window without compromising operations or skimping on safety whether that means fewer employees working longer hours or spending less on maintenance.
WASHINGTON – A sweeping aviation bill that could thwart proposed new safety regulations, including one that would prevent tired pilots from flying, passed the House Friday.The $59.7 billion Republican-drafted bill is a blueprint for Federal Aviation Administration programs for the next three and a half years. It cuts the agency's budget by $4 billion, money GOP lawmakers said the agency can do without. Democrats said the cuts would endanger air safety.
The bill passed on a 223 to 196 mostly party line vote. It would require the FAA to tailor regulations to different segments of the aviation industry rather than set across-the-board safety standards. It also would prohibit new safety regulations if the agency can't justify the costs to the industry.
So the Republicans are now on record for being against preventing tired pilots from flying. And the next time a plane crashes or flies off-course because the pilots were asleep, they will be the first ones decrying the FAA's standards while giving the airline which overscheduled their pilots a pass.
I can just imagine the congressional hearings now. There will be a chorus of "excessive government regulation prevented us from staying awake because we spent so much time adhering to all these rules."
By the way, it was only a week ago that two planes landed in D.C. while the air traffic controller was asleep. Now the Republican controlled House of Representatives has voted to "prohibit new safety regulations" from being implemented if the cost can't be justified. Because, ya' know, we might not be able to afford the cost of preventing catastrophe, but we can always afford another tax cut.
Dylan Ratigan hosted T. Boone Pickens on his show yesterday and referred to the far-right billionaire as a "patriot."
Ratigan has a bizarre idea of what constitutes patriotism. Pickens gave $3 million to the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth, a group that relentlessly smeared Senator Kerry's heroic Vietnam War record. And...
Pickens never served, but spent millions trying to smear the patriotic service of a war hero, then renegged on his "Swift Boat Challenge" when presented with facts and evidence from a veterans group.
And he's somehow a "patriot?"
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Warnings of impending class revolt in America are showing up in the weirdest places these days — like Vanity Fair magazine, which just published this terse summary of the situation by Joseph E. Stiglitz. And Stiglitz isn't talking about, say, the "Ron Paul Revolution," where some deluded people send money to a wealthy libertarian congressman in Texas. Although that was lots of fun, what with the blimp and the hobbit videos and the web-children in some of the nation's lesser known publicly funded universities making YouTube videos while wearing tricorns.
Whatever happens, it would be a lot more morally useful if some repugnant vulgarity like Donald Trump was chased into the Atlantic Ocean by an angry mob (or heavily armed architecture critics) rather than be put on teevee to sputter his mushmouthed racist bullshit just because he managed to cling to millions of dollars despite his multiple, massive bankruptcies.
In recent weeks we have watched people taking to the streets by the millions to protest political, economic, and social conditions in the oppressive societies they inhabit. Governments have been toppled in Egypt and Tunisia. Protests have erupted in Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. The ruling families elsewhere in the region look on nervously from their air-conditioned penthouses—will they be next? They are right to worry. These are societies where a minuscule fraction of the population—less than 1 percent—controls the lion's share of the wealth; where wealth is a main determinant of power; where entrenched corruption of one sort or another is a way of life; and where the wealthiest often stand actively in the way of policies that would improve life for people in general.
As we gaze out at the popular fervor in the streets, one question to ask ourselves is this: When will it come to America? In important ways, our own country has become like one of these distant, troubled places.
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I don't know anyone in America who is a more effective communicator [than David Barton.] I just wish that every single young person in America would be able to be under his tutelage and understand something about who we really are as a nation. I almost wish that there would be something like a simultaneous telecast and all Americans would be forced, forced — at gun point no less — to listen to every David Barton message. And I think our country would be better for it. I wish it'd happen.That's right. Huckabee wants every American to be forced to undergo Christianist re-education.
What a small government Republican Huckabee is. Who, other than the government, would be the ones to force me to sit through Huckabee's idea of re-education?
Huckabee must be a closeted admirer of Chairman Mao, for what Huckabee apparently seeks is nothing short of a far-right version of the Cultural Revolution, complete with re-education camps. When fascism comes to this country, it will be wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross, much as Sinclair Lewis prophesied.
That's bad enough, but he wants them to pay for it themselves, about $35, before they can have any support.
(The Root)
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Florida repugs are what's really offensive
It's everywhere, but Steve M. nails it:
WHAT OFFENDS REPUBLICANS, AND WHAT DOESN'TThis offends Republicans in Florida:
Democrat chastized for saying 'uterus' on House floor
During last week's discussion about a bill that would prohibit governments from deducting union dues from a worker's paycheck, state Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, used his time during floor debate to argue that Republicans are against regulations -- except when it comes to the little guys, or serves their specific interests.
At one point Randolph suggested that his wife "incorporate her uterus" to stop Republicans from pushing measures that would restrict abortions. Republicans, after all, wouldn't want to further regulate a Florida business.
Apparently the GOP leadership of the House didn't like the one-liner.
They told Democrats that Randolph is not to discuss body parts on the House floor.
"The point was that Republicans are always talking about deregulation and big government," Randolph said Thursday. "And I always say their philosophy is small government for the big guy and big government for the little guy. And so, if my wife's uterus was incorporated or my friend's bedroom was incorporated, maybe they (Republicans) would be talking about deregulating.
"It's not like I used slang," said Randolph, who actually got the line from his wife....
My compliments to Representative Randolph's wife, by the way -- it's a great line.This offended Florida Republicans -- but I can't find any evidence that any of them complained about this event involving pictures of bloody aborted fetuses, at a state-run institution:
Florida State University College Republicans invited the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform to FSU to set up a display comparing abortion to genocide. The demonstrators belonged to a group called the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP), which travels the country displaying their murals. The demonstrations were set up Wednesday and Thursday from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m., with counter-protests springing up around it.
Mark Harrington, executive director for the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, explained how abortion could be compared to the genocides experienced by Jews in Nazi Germany, African-Americans in the Jim Crow south and Native Americans in the early days of United States....
(See a picture here.)
The FSU College Republicans went on to deny having invited GAP to mount its display on campus -- but the group did say it reserved space for GAP (freedom of speech, don't you know), and members of GAP say that, yes, they were invited by the College Republicans.
In any event, I see no evidence that any Republican, on campus or off, objected to this display. Huge blow-ups of bloody abortions? Hey, it's not like uttering the proper name for a body part in the state legislature, is it?
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MN State Senator: Integration 'Ruined' Minneapolis But He Still Likes Blacks
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Have you been laboring under the delusion that you're still part of the tiny, rapidly vanishing Middle Class? Happy April Fools Day! A new study proves that a family of four needs $67,920 a year (pre-tax) to survive in America.
