We all know this, right? We all know the birther goal is to delegitimize this country’s first African-American President. It’s just code for racist and even supremacist attitudes. Some things just shouldn’t be articulated and this is one of them. When we’re at a place in our discourse where we’re chortling over the elected President of our country possibly being banned from one of the states he is governing, we have a serious problem. Think Progress : Today, a right-wing organization called Judicial Watch hosted a panel discussion on the “current and upcoming fights over immigration enforcement” featuring Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce (R). Pearce, the author of Arizona’s controversial immigration law, railed against the Obama administration for “siding with a foreign government” against the state of Arizona. However, looking on the bright side, Pearce joked that Obama may not want to come to Arizona as they will require him to show his papers: A little levity is okay, I hope cause I like to [inaudible] at most things. But I can tell you that the best thing about [SB]-1070 is that Obama may not be visiting Arizona because we actually require papers now. Here’s another gem, this one aimed at Grijalva: During the panel discussion, Pearce also suggested that Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) should run for “presidente” of Mexico. When does free speech become seditious? Inquiring minds want to know.
Continue reading …For well over two years, the liberal media have made fun of how Sarah Palin answered Katie Couric's ridiculous question concerning what she reads. On Thursday, Chris Matthews, along with MSNBC political analyst Richard Wolffe, made it clear that no matter how the former Alaska governor answered that question, she was going to be ridiculed (video follows with transcript and commentary): read more
Continue reading …Igor Volsky at the Wonk Room reports on a press release from the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who want to remind us about all of the benefits that the Republicans will be denying the service members of the US armed forces, because it’s more important to the Repubs that homosexuals and lesbians be denied the opportunity to serve their country than to pass a responsible defense budget. The bill as a whole contains numerous other military priorities that the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman are all hoping Congress will pass before the end of the year. They include: -Expanding the number of DoD mental health providers. There is a chronic shortage of mental health providers in the military. With rates of mental health injuries and suicide rising higher every month, the DoD is in desperate need of providers to help service members identify and combat invisible wounds. (Senate §703) -Eradicating Military Sexual Trauma. NDAA contains 29 recommendations of the Joint Task Force on Sexual Assault in the Military, including modernizing the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the creation of a sexual assault reporting hot line. (House §1601-1664) -DoD/VA record sharing. NDAA would change HIPAA to allow records to migrate between the DoD and the VA. (Senate §715, House §532) -Military pay raise and bonuses. NDAA provides a 1.9% pay increase for all service members and the extension of a host of recruitment and retention bonuses set to expire. (House §601) -Improving military health. Authorizes $30.9 billion for the Defense Health Program and TRICARE coverage for eligible dependents up to age 26. [Added by me] What’s happening here is that the very same Republicans who were blasting Democrats for voting against military funding to protest the Iraq war are now using their objection to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell — which the majority of the military actually supports — to obstruct and delay the above benefits and pay increases. In fact, they’re even prioritizing extending tax cuts for the richest Americans to the provisions in the defense bill. And, they’re somehow getting away with it all. Now I know it doesn’t surprise any C&L viewer that Republicans would cynically ignore what’s best for our national defense in order to impose their own socially conservative views on the majority of Americans. But it’s important to let the greater public know that the Republicans really don’t care about national security as much as they say they do. And yes, this defense budget is bloated and needs to be trimmed, ideally by pulling our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan in 2011, but highjacking the appropriations process is only going to make it harder to do that. But then again, the Repubs will be happy if our troops continue to die in the Middle East for the next five, ten, twenty years, just as long as there are no iccky gays in the military.
Continue reading …When the power of the global establishment was brought to bear on Julian Assange and Wikileaks, this backlash was inevitable: LONDON — In a campaign that had some declaring the start of a “cyberwar,” hundreds of Internet activists mounted retaliatory attacks on Wednesday on the Web sites of multinational companies and other organizations they deemed hostile to the WikiLeaks antisecrecy organization and its jailed founder, Julian Assange. Within 12 hours of a British judge’s decision on Tuesday to deny Mr. Assange bail in a Swedish extradition case, attacks on the Web sites of WikiLeaks’s “enemies,” as defined by the organization’s impassioned supporters around the world, caused several corporate Web sites to become unavailable or slow down markedly. Targets of the attacks included the Web site of MasterCard, which had stopped processing donations for WikiLeaks; Amazon.com, which revoked the use of its computer servers; and the online payment service PayPal, which stopped accepting donations for Mr. Assange’s group. Visa.com was also affected by the attacks, as was the Web site of the Swedish prosecutor’s office and the lawyer representing the two women whose allegations of sexual misconduct are the basis of Sweden’s extradition bid. The Internet assaults underlined the growing reach of self-described “cyberanarchists,” antigovernment and anticorporate activists who have made an icon of Mr. Assange, whom they consider one of their own.
Continue reading …Bad news for proponents of the bid to repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”: Thursday’s vote in the Senate failed to send the repeal through successfully, as the measure was blocked by just three votes. Thanks, there, Sen. John “Maverick” McCain. Related Entries December 8, 2010 Obama Speaks Ill of His Allies December 8, 2010 ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Repeal Headed for a Vote
Continue reading …The Republican Attorney General of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli, accomplished what many others have failed to do and that is stay calm and collected in the midst of Chris Matthews' increasingly absurd charges, that even bordered on accusations of racism. Invited on Thursday's Hardball, to discuss a possible repeal amendment to the Constitution, Cuccinelli faced down a series of Matthews distortions as the Hardball host, at varying times, accused him of wanting to start another Whiskey Rebellion, questioned if he wanted to overturn the Civil Rights Act and charged that he was playing to “The old Johnny Rebs” and “Civil War buffs” in his state. After Cuccinelli simply explained to the MSNBC host that the amendment was just an “attempt to bring back the balance of authority between the federal government and what goes on in the states” Matthews went on a tear as he insinuated the attorney general wanted to take America back to Antebellum days, as seen in the following exchange: (video after the jump) read more
Continue reading …Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has pardoned Doors frontman Jim Morrison for showing his penis to a Miami concert audience in 1969. Morrison’s bandmates have long claimed that the singer may have been belligerent, drunk and obnoxious that night, but kept his instrument in his pants. Related Entries December 1, 2010 WikiLeak This Ear November 16, 2010 These Body Scan Images Are the Opposite of Titillating
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Bill O’Reilly has a big problem with any member of Congress that stands up for their principle beliefs except for Republicans of course. Democrats who aren’t named Ben Nelson aren’t true Americans in BillO’s world. Yesterday his Daily “memo” was directed at the left of Congress and his vitriol was targeted to mostly Bernie Sanders for believing the new tax deal that the House has now rejected. Bill O: Bill O’Reilly: “A Gallup poll says 66% of Americans believe President Obama did the right thing by not raising taxes on anyone. {} Sanders and others like him believe the affluent don’t have the right to their own assets; they want the money to impose ‘income equality.’ Sanders does this in the name of ‘social justice,’ but if you really want to be honest about it, he’s a thief! There’s no fairness in seizing assets. So why are we listening to people like Bernie Sanders? Talking Points believes it is time to call these far-left people exactly what they are – harmful to America.” Whenever Conservatives in Congress hold up bill after bill with procedural motions and filibusters, literally taking Congress hostage, The O’Reillys of the right are walking on cloud nine when legislation that will help working class families is destroyed by his ideologues, but if a left wing politician makes a stand, they’re just “harmful” to America. O’Reilly also uses very misleading polling done that suggests more Americans wants all the tax cuts extended. In poll after poll, Americans want the Bush tax cuts to go the way of the garbage, but if you leave that part out of a question, the results are skewered to favor an extension of all tax cuts because middle class families need as much help to make ends meet as they can get. Here’s the Gallop poll he cites: Two major elements included in the tax agreement reached Monday between President Barack Obama and Republican leaders in Congress meet with broad public support. Two-thirds of Americans (66%) favor extending the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all Americans for two years, and an identical number support extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed. If we have real choices in a poll, the results are much different: In a survey conducted before Obama and GOP leaders agreed to temporarily extend all Bush-era tax cuts, most Americans (80%) favor preserving at least some of the tax cuts. However, just a third (33%) of Americans say they favor keeping all of the expiring tax cuts; 47% favor keeping just the tax cuts for income below $250,000, while just 11% want to end all of the tax cuts. Only about one-in-five Democrats (18%) favor keeping all of the tax cuts, compared with 33% of independents and 53% of Republicans . Only 53% of Republicans are in favor of keep the bush tax cuts in place which to me is an amazingly low number, but Bill doesn’t mention that at all. The FOX push to eliminate the Democratic party and progressive ideals has been droning on for years and they are working in overdrive to make sure only Conservative principles are cherished. People are angry, but because our media is feckless when they discuss the two parties in Congress, they enable outrageous behavior by a Republican minority party that was kicked out of office in 2008 after they destroyed this country and financial stability around the world. We keep telling you that the right media juggernaut keeps becoming a bigger threat to our democracy like never before. It could alter historical trends for analysts and historians as we move forward in uncharted territory. Look what they were able to do to Clinton while he was in the White House without 24/7 cable. Bernie Sanders is standing up for his beliefs and should be celebrated. BillO dutifully brought on Bush’s Brain, Karl Rove, the architect of American decline to then say stupid stings like this: To answer the rhetorical question posed in the Talking Points Memo, Fox News analyst Karl Rove explained why we listen to folks like Bernie Sanders. “You have to pay attention to them,” Rove said, “because there are so many of them in the Senate. If that was the case, things would be much different on the Hill. the number “2″ is too many of those people for the likes of Karl Rove.
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