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May 10 2010
Sen. Leahy: Obama could nominate Moses, GOP would demand his birth certificate
I think Al Franken is writing jokes for his fellow Democratic Senators, and I like it.
Witness teh funny
“We have some Republicans who would automatically oppose anybody who was nominated,” Leahy said. “The President could nominate Moses the Law Giver. In fact I told the President, I said you realize if you’d nominated Moses the Law Giver, somebody would raise, ‘but he doesn’t have a birth certificate! Where’s his birth certificate!'”
The bigger news is Senate Judiciary chairman Leahy’s statement that Kagan should get confirmation vote before August .
But for more of teh funny and the reality deprived GOP’s reaction, just go below the fold . . .
May 08 2010
WIN! Sen. Franken takes on TBTF Crooked Credit Rating agencies!
Remember how crooked accountants like Arthur Anderson helped create the Enron disaster? Well the credit rating oligopoly of the Big Three (Moody’s, Fitch and Standard & Poor’s) is doing almost the same thing, and Senator Al Franken wants to put a stop to it.
As Senator Franken told ABC news
“If a failing student paid their teacher to turn their F into an A, everyone would agree that what the teacher had done was unethical … But right now, investors are being sold a phony bill of goods. We need to protect consumers from the pay-to-play system that rewards Wall Street players at the expense of Main Street.”
Al Franken has an Amendment to the Wall St reform bill that will bring this to an end.
More below the fold
May 07 2010
F*** these Corporatist Senators and the Bankers limos they rode in on!
I am reminded of the words of our founding father, Thomas Jefferson. 3/4ths of this Senate are not fit to polish his statue. The words this titan among men once said were . . .
“The bank mania… is raising up a moneyed aristocracy in our country which has already set the government at defiance, and although forced at length to yield a little on this first essay of their strength, their principles are unyielded and unyielding. These have taken deep root in the hearts of that class from which our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus from fable has become history. Their principles lay hold of the good, their pelf of the bad, and thus those whom the Constitution had placed as guards to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their duties.”
Cry about that, Glenn Beck!
In the face of the defeat of the Kaufman-Brown Amendment to break up the Too Big To Fail banks, I have this to say.
F*** these Corporate Senators and the Bankers Limos They Rode In On!!!!
May 06 2010
Sen. Sanders reads the RIOT ACT to the Fed on the Senate Floor (Update: WH offers watered down alt)
Where did our 2 TRILLION dollars go, Ben Bernanke?
Watch Senator Bernie Sanders as he spoke today for almost a half and hour in one of the greatest speeches the Senate has ever seen.
I will be adding some quotes from this video in updates. I wanted to get this video published fast, because I think this is a matter of utmost importance.
Are we looking at a Huge Scam?
~ Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
The American people have a right to know where TRILLIONS of dollars of their tax payer dollars are going!
~ Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Why did the Fed argue that this information must be kept secret as a matter of National Security?
~ Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
Congress required the Treasury Department to disclose who received TARP money, why is it wrong to demand the same of the Federal Reserve?
May 02 2010
End Big Oil’s Billions in Government Subsidies NOW!
In the face of HUGE profits made by Big Oil it is time to stop subsidizing them with taxpayer money NOW. The American people are suffering. The Big Oil firms and their extremely wealthy executives are not. With the deficits left over from the Bush/Cheney Administration still harming our nation, the easiest way to cut back wasteful government spending would be to stop subsidizing immensely profitable Big Oil Corporations.
Americans are spending nearly $3 billion more on gasoline due to higher gasoline prices. And taxpayers are spending billions of dollars in tax subsidies to Big Oil. These subsidies will cost the U.S. government about $3 billion next year in lost revenue and nearly $20 billion over the next five years. The next dollars we spend should go to companies that provide genuinely clean and safe fuel. The costs are too high.
More below the fold
Apr 30 2010
NeoNazi/AZ GOP link exposed through Racist Immigration Law. Where the hell is the media on this?
Meet J.T. Ready, avowed Neo Nazi, past president of the Mesa Community College Republican Club and Maricopa County Republican precinct committeeman. J.T. is the second schmuck from the right in the picture below.
And here is J.T. Ready (Left) with Arizona State Senator Russell Pearce, the author of the new Arizona police state “show me your papers” law, who has his own history of ties to Neo Nazi white supremacist groups.
In most states being seen publicly with a Nazi would ruin your political career. In most states you would be shunned by your political party. But not in Arizona, and not in the Republican party.
WTF?
More below the fold
Apr 30 2010
Bill Kristol is a REAL MAN OF GENIUS, except . . .
Witness the unfathomable genius of Bill Kristol in action.
Off-shore drilling is “quite safe” and “very environmentally clean, except … when there’s a disaster like this”
~ Bill Kristol, real man of genius, except . . .
Yes, Bill Kristol is a real man of genius, except when he is talking.
More below the fold, except what is below the fold
Apr 28 2010
Glenn Beck POUTRAGED over Nazi comparisons made by people who are not Glenn Beck
Yesterday, Glenn Beck expressed POUTRAGE that anyone would compare something to Nazi Germany, that is, anyone not named Glenn Beck.
When Democrat Jared Polis (CO-2) compared Arizona’s new “Breathing while Latino” law ( as Fox’s Shep Smith calls it ) to the Nazi tactic of demanding papers be presented at all times or face arrest, Glenn Beck started to cry.
Glenn Beck: “Are you comparing the systematic cold blooded extermination of millions of Jews to America making sure that people are here legally?
No, Glenn Beck, you moron. Jared Polis is comparing the law that required that anyone suspected of being a Jew in Nazi Germany must show documentation or face imprisonment to the new Arizona law that requires anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant to show their documentation or face imprisonment.
More below the fold
Apr 27 2010
Greenwald: Obama DoJ prosecutes Bush corruption whistleblower, but not Bush war crimes
The Obama Justice Department (on April 15th 2010)* announced that it has secured a ten-felony-count indictment against Thomas Drake, an official with the National Security Agency during the Bush years.
~snip~
(T)he DOJ alleges “that between approximately February 2006 and November 2007, a newspaper reporter published a series of articles about the NSA,” and it claims “Drake served as a source for many of those articles, including articles that contained classified information.”
~snip~
Although the indictment does not specify Drake’s leaks, it is highly likely (as Shane also suggests) that it is based on Drake’s bringing to the public’s attention major failures and cost over-runs with the NSA’s spying programs via leaks to The Baltimore Sun.
Bold text and some editing* done by the diarist
The indictment of Thomas Drake has NOTHING to do with the illegality of the Bush warrantless wiretapping program, rather, it has to do with Drake’s uncovering of major failures and cost over-runs within the domestic spying program. As Greenwald writes . . .
I used to write post after post about how warped and dangerous it was that the Bush DOJ was protecting the people who criminally spied on Americans (Bush, Cheney Michael Hayden) while simultaneously threatening to prosecute the whistle-blowers who exposed misconduct. But the Bush DOJ never actually followed through on those menacing threats; no NSA whistle-blowers were indicted during Bush’s term (though several were threatened ). It took the election of Barack Obama for that to happen, as his handpicked Assistant Attorney General publicly boasted yesterday of the indictment against Drake.
Bold text added by the diarist
Wait, wait, wait! If Obama’s DoJ is prosecuting crimes from the Bush era isn’t that an act of “Looking backwards, not forward”? ( and yes, revealing state secrets, even if done for the good of the public as whistleblowers do, is still illegal. )
More below the fold
Apr 12 2010
Man fired shotgun when Census worker visited his home. Way to go CNN and Erick Erickson, you idiots
Was it his wife’s shotgun?
ST. MARIES, Idaho (AP) – A northern Idaho man who police say fired his shotgun near a U.S. census worker who was trying to deliver a census form has been cited for exhibition of a deadly weapon, a misdemeanor.
Fifty-4-year-old Richard L. Powell of St. Maries faces up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
The Benewah County Prosecutor’s office says that on March 3 Powell told the census worker to get off his property and then fired a shotgun into the air.
Bold text added by the diarist
Although this happened before Erickson told his listeners on RedState radio that he would pull his wife’s shotgun on any census worker who set foot on his property, it shows how some people are already on the verge of violence and need no egging on.
So it is official, Erick son of Erick is the new Lou Dobbs/Glenn Beck of CNN.
More below the fold
Apr 04 2010
Gunn High School PWNS Westboro Baptist Hate with Love! Get your Inspiration and Hope right here
I found this on the Coffee Party Facebook page and thought it would be great to share the power of love with all of you today.
I hope you enjoy watching the power of Love overcoming the force of Hate, as embodied in the adult leaders and the young future leaders of America of the Gunn High School of California, who came out to support Love and Tolerance in defiance of the Hate promoted by the Westboro Baptist Church, a group that routinely protests the funerals of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as others, with signs that say “God Hates Fags” and “God loves dead soliders”.
Look at the signs of Hope and Love. It is inspirational.
Look at the pathetic dozen or so hate filled patrons of the Westboro Baptist Church, who, lead by Fred Phelps, preach a message of Hate and exclusion. Now compare that to the massive outpouring of Love, Acceptance and Tolerance that you can see among the hundreds and hundreds of students and faculty at Gunn High School of California. It is truly inspiring.
More to hope for below the fold
Apr 03 2010
Grayson NAILS IT! No Dems Allowed = No Blacks Allowed
There is a fine art to making a powerful point without making that point. Usually, the way to do this is by saying something and then immediately follow by saying “That is not why I’m saying”.
With that in mind, I give you Congressmen Alan Grayson (Kick Ass-FL), who, in an interview with Anderson Cooper last night, made the point ( without making it ) that to turn away Obama voters from your doctors office is pretty much the same thing as hanging a sign that says “No Blacks Allowed”
GRAYSON: Well, in fact, where he lives, in Mount Dora, which is in my district, many, many of the Democrats who live in Mount Dora happen to be African-Americans.
So, by saying that he will not treat somebody who supported Obama, he’s saying that he’s not going to treat a large number of African-Americans in the community
Bold text added by the diarist
A short transcript and more below the fold