Click here to view this media When asked by Sean Hannity how Republicans are going to counter attacks by Democrats that their leadership doesn’t care that they are supporting policies that characterize “Republicans as wanting to kick granny out on the street and have grandma and grandpa eat dog food”, Newt Gingrich offered this defense of their incoming committee chairs. HANNITY: Let’s look ahead to the next Congress. When they start to take power in the House on Jan. 5th and we have more Republican Senators, first order of business I think is going to be to repeal health care, cut spending. You lived through this. How long is it going to be before Democrats start characterizing Republicans as wanting to kick granny out on the street and have grandma and grandpa eat dog food. GINGRICH: Well I’m sure some left wingers will start doing it on Christmas day. But I think the key is for Speaker Boehner and the Republican team in the House to calmly and methodically focus on job creation, then to focus on a series of hearings on Obama-care and then repeal it and begin to replace it with a much better plan, and then to cut spending and to control spending. My understanding is, Congressman Paul Ryan, the new Chairman of The Budget Committee is ready to move on the spending side. I think Dave Camp is very prepared to move on the jobs side on Ways and Means and I think that Fred Upton is very prepared to move on Obama-care, so I think you’re going to see a Republican team in the House from day one prepared to move towards a healthier, more prosperous, more employed America. And I think that’s good news for the country. I’m just curious how Paul Ryan, who wants to privatize Social Security among a ton of other terrible ideas with his Roadmap for America’s Future , Dave Camp who supports outsourcing of American jobs and Fred Upton who wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act — which despite all its faults is better than what any Republicans are offering as an alternative are in any way shape or form — concerned about job creation in the United States or keeping our social safety nets intact so that we don’t literally throw grandma and grandpa out on the streets and tell them to go eat dog food. Republicans don’t care about job creation and their policies don’t create jobs. The only thing they care about are their rich campaign donors, and Newt is just doing a preemptive strike here with what’s sure to be the backlash as that becomes more painfully obvious when they have to take some responsibility for governing with their control of the House. They decided to ignore Darrell Issa and the endless hearings we’re going to get out of his Oversight Committee and whether we’re going to get to look forward to another set of impeachment hearings over bulls**t as we had when Bill Clinton was in office during which Newt Gingrich was blasting him for the same sexual improprieties he was participating in himself. Hannity finished up the segment with trying to get Gingrich to say if he was running for president in 2012 by asking him where we’d see him campaigning. I think other than Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich is about the worst person the GOP could possibly nominate as their candidate, so hey… go for it, Newt.
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Entering a James L. Brooks movie, I am always resolved not to be charmed out of my socks by the thing. But you know how it is—somewhere before the middle of “Terms of Endearment” or “Broadcast News” or “As Good as It Gets,” you get taken over by the film. Related Entries December 17, 2010 Congress Passes Obama-Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy December 16, 2010 Round and Round in Afghanistan
Continue reading …Right-wingers sure seem eager to bring on a government shutdown. Wanna bet they do?
December 17, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Bill O’Reilly seems to think it would be a good thing for the government to shut down. Last night in his opening “Talking Points Memo” monologue: If the feds don’t pass a new spending bill, the government might shut down in a few days, and I say good. These pinheads need some time off. And of course, in O’Reilly’s book, only “patriots” are the folks trying to create the shutdown. Wait until such a thing comes to pass, though, and suddenly half the economy and a gazillion non-essential government functions come to a screeching halt. Then it’ll be a catastrophe, and here’s a prediction: Bill O’Reilly will say it’s President Obama’s fault. O’Reilly wasn’t the only one egging on a shutdown on Fox. On Fox Business News, David Asman was pontificating: “We have to shrink the government, and if that means shutting down the government then so be it”: Evidently Republicans don’t remember what happened the last time they tried this tactic, in 1995. Not even the guy who engineered it, Newt Gingrich, seems to remember. He was on Fox too yesterday, likewise justifying a shutdown: I especially like the part where Gingrich says he has no regrets about what happened. Well, here’s what happened : The Republicans blamed Clinton for the shutdown, and Clinton blamed the Republicans. Public opinion favored the president; Clinton’s approval rating rose to the highest it had been since his election. The Republicans’ support was further diminished two days later when Gingrich made a widely-reported complaint about being snubbed by Clinton; Tom DeLay called it “the mistake of his [Gingrich's] life”. DeLay writes in his book No Retreat, No Surrender : “He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One… Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost. What had been a noble battle for fiscal sanity began to look like the tirade of a spoiled child. The revolution, I can tell you, was never the same.” Gingrich’s complaint gave rise to the perception of his behaving in a petty egotistical manner, and Clinton defended the seating arrangement as a courtesy to Gingrich, the back of the plane being closer to his pickup car. Later, the polls suggested that the event badly damaged Gingrich politically. Go for it, bully boys.
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Julian Assange, embattled WikiLeaks founder and international man of mystery, took a moment Friday to check in with Matt Lauer on “Today” and dispense such enigmatic gems as this description of his recent legal battle: “It is not the beginning of the end; rather, it is merely the end of the beginning.”
Continue reading …Most days I just want to slap John McCain. Every day I’m grateful he’s not the president. Every damn day. Not because he’s a Republican, but because he’s a nasty, mean man with a heart of stone and a hate on for every person who isn’t white, rich and nasty like him. But today, I found myself wishing he’d vaporize on the floor of the Senate. For every person who pays tribute to McCain’s selfless service, blah, blah, blah, I want them to watch this video over and over and over again until they understand what a petty, two-faced liar he is. There’s no question in my mind that Kirk was the instigator to shove a jab at Democrats, given that Kirk now occupies the Senate seat once held by President Obama. Here’s a transcript (h/t Talking Points Memo ) but really, watch the video. Kirk, the most junior member of the Senate asked, ” Did we just win? ” McCain responded, “I think there’s very little doubt that the Majority Leader of the United States Senate would not have taken the action he just took if we didn’t have 41 votes to stop this monstrosity.” Kirk continued, “so for economic conservatives, a 1,924-page bill just died? ” A 1,924-page bill just died ,” McCain responded laughing. TPM doesn’t have the best line where, as he continues to laugh, McCain says he was having “fun” with the earmarks, but it’s in the video. Of course, he fails to state that many of the earmarks were inserted by members of his own party for the sole purpose of entertaining him. To which I fly my middle finger at the screen and find myself trying not to leap through it to grab his chicken neck and shake him like a wet carpet with cat hair attached. Set aside political differences for a minute. What these two men — elected officials who serve at the will of the people — have just done is to LAUGH. LAUGH at us. In our face. Laugh. Giggle, even, about how clever they are at not working while collecting a paycheck. That’s right, not working. If ever there was evidence of an utter lack of good faith, John McCain is the walking embodiment of it. The best revenge, however, is served cold. Therefore, I am looking forward to hearing him rant about the passage of the DADT repeal bill. I hope at least one Senator steps up after it passes and asks if they just ‘won’. It’s not a damn football game. It’s our lives, and our country. No one had better ever again claim McCain is patriotic. He is loyal only unto himself. Here’s a less emotional take on what they did with a better conclusion than I’m capable of making: Senator Tom Coburn has a database of the earmarks that made it into this year’s omnibus – you can see what kinds of projects are funded – things like Army Corps of Engineer projects, funds for Community Colleges, Universities, and other research facilities, foreclosure assistance programs, anti-drug programs, crime prevention programs, vaccine programs, assistance for farmers, green energy projects, medical research, funding for military bases, etc. This is funding that will help keep people in jobs and help innovate at a time when we need to create jobs. So what did Republicans do? They voted against the American people and voted for playing politics – and then they laughed like sociopaths.
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Today on the list: Facebook is poised to recognize faces, Wikileaks read aloud to you, and the “real” person who was Henry Kissinger. On a regular basis, Truthdig brings you the news items and odds and ends that found their way to Larry Gross, director of the USC Annenberg School for Communication. A specialist in media and culture, art and communication, visual communication and media portrayals of minorities, Gross helped found the field of gay and lesbian studies. The links below open in a new window. Newer ones are on top. Facebook To Introduce Facial Recognition for Tags Facebook announced on Wednesday that it would launch facial-recognition technology that identifies people in uploaded photos and suggests tags. Bored? Try Listening to the Wikileaks Documents If your life is too on-the-run to read the endless supply of Wikileaked documents, try listening to them instead. Fox News Boss Ordered Staffers To Cast Doubt On Climate Change Science Unsurprising news that Fox has told its staffers to cast doubt on the science around, and supporting, the phenomenon of climate change. Recovered History: The Real Henry Kissinger Henry Kissinger is a foul entity, plain and simple. But he also was a complex human being. Related Entries December 16, 2010 Everything Is Negotiable, Except Nature December 15, 2010 Time Taps Zuckerberg as Person of the Year
Continue reading …CNN’s Spitzer Twice Refers to START Treaty as Being With the Soviet Union
December 17, 2010 No Comment
It seems that Eliot Spitzer's mind is still in the 1980s, as he twice stated on Thursday's Parker-Sptizer on CNN that the new START Treaty was with the Soviet Union. Spitzer trumpeted “the all-important START Treaty, that will finally cement a nuclear disarmament agreement with the Soviet Union ,” and then noted that the treaty would deal with the ” nuclear warheads that are pointed by the Soviet Union at us ” [audio available here ]. The former New York governor and co-host Kathleen Parker led their 8 pm Eastern hour program with the current affairs of the lame-duck Congress. Spitzer highlighted the recent Gallup poll that found that only 13 percent of American approve of the job the legislative body is doing, and bemoaned how “for the past couple of hours, they have been spending your tax dollars in a debate about- and I don't know how else to say this- how they're going to debate.” After Parker replied that the House debate was specifically about extending the current tax rates, her CNN co-host focused his attention on the Senate and made his first gaffe about the START Treaty. Parker must not have caught his error, as she didn't correct him: [ Video embedded below the page break ] read more
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The cash pot available for the victims of Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme has grown by $7.2 billion, culminating into an engorged $9.5 billion balance that will be allocated to those duped by the Wall Street baron during his near 35-year investment history. Interesting to note is the fact that the $9.5 billion pot for the Madoff case dwarfs the $5.4 billion allocated by Congress for Katrina recovery. —JCL The New York Times: Federal prosecutors and the trustee charged with recovering assets in the Bernard L. Madoff bankruptcy, announced a settlement Friday that would add $7.2 billion to the cash available to compensate victims of Mr. Madoff’s global Ponzi scheme. Details of the agreement with the estate of Jeffry M. Picower, a Palm Beach philanthropist who died in October 2009, were released Friday at a news conference in Lower Manhattan. The settlement “will return every penny received from almost 35 years of investing with Bernard Madoff,” Mr. Picower’s wife, Barbara, said in a statement through her lawyer, William D. Zabel of Schulte Roth & Zabel. Read more Related Entries December 16, 2010 Everything Is Negotiable, Except Nature December 15, 2010 Time Taps Zuckerberg as Person of the Year
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The mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater has argued in court that the company’s private contractors who killed 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in 2007 should not be held accountable. Why? It’s Washington’s fault, they claim, as Blackwater fighters were acting as employees of the U.S. government at the time. —JCL Al-Jazeera English: The security company formerly known as Blackwater has told a US federal judge that the US government, and not the company itself, should be held accountable for a 2007 shooting by its contractors that killed 17 Iraqis in Nisour Square in Baghdad. Lawyers for the company, now known as Xe Services, argued in court on Thursday that Blackwater contractors were essentially acting as employees of the US government because they were providing security to State Department personnel. The North Carolina-based company and several of its contractors are seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit that was filed on behalf of three people killed in the shooting: Ali Kinani, Abrahem Abed Al Mafraje and Mahde Sahab Naser Shamake. The lawsuit accuses the parties of wrongful death and negligence, and seeks punitive damages. Read more Related Entries December 16, 2010 Everything Is Negotiable, Except Nature December 15, 2010 Time Taps Zuckerberg as Person of the Year
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Despite sounding more like an arcade than a currency oversight organization, European Union leaders have agreed to set up an official bailout fund for eurozone members as soon as 2013, doing “whatever is required” to defend the beleaguered currency. —JCL Al-Jazeera English: European Union leaders have agreed to set up a permanent bail-out fund for eurozone members by 2013, as the region’s economic woes gather pace. Members of the 27-nation bloc agreed to do “whatever is required” to defend the shared euro currency as they met for a two-day summit in Brussels, the Belgian capital. “The European Union is not only an economic union and a trade bloc, but also an important geopolitical partner,” Herman Van Rompuy, the EU president said. “We are clearly moving in the right direction.” Read more Related Entries December 16, 2010 Everything Is Negotiable, Except Nature December 15, 2010 Time Taps Zuckerberg as Person of the Year
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