The curator elites at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery were happily abusing the trust of the American taxpayer, with radical gay activists pushing a gay agenda, replete with the religiously bigoted, sadomasochistic and homoerotic fare, all under the auspices of “art.” Then something happened. The public complained. Now these radicals are shocked – shocked! – that the “censors” are out to destroy their “artistic freedom.” It’s like a bad rendition of “Groundhog Day.” How many times must we relive this foolishness? The sponsors tell us that “Hide/Seek” is “the first major exhibition to examine the influence of gay and lesbian artists in creating modern American portraiture,” and how these gay and lesbian artists have made “essential contributions to both the art of portraiture and to the creation of modern American culture.” But that isn’t enough. Theirs is a political message as part of a political agenda. To quote from their program, they want to strike a blow for “the struggle for justice, so that people and groups can claim their full inheritance in America’s promise of equality, inclusion, and social dignity.” read more
Continue reading …This week's news quiz is a toughie. If you blame Sarah Palin for the GOP's failure to take the Senate, have 'always loved NPR,' oppose Arizona's immigration law as “unacceptable and un-American' and called Republican candidate Sharron Angle a 'mental patient,' then you must be: A) Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, B) Lefty loon and entrepreneur Arianna Huffington, C) An MSNBC host or D) An elitist who 'will help headline the launch next month of a new national group dedicated to restoring civility in politics.' read more
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enlarge First, read this: TRINITY — The call came at 1:28 p.m. Friday, the caller ID cryptically reading, “U.S. Government — Honolulu.” Larry Dalla Betta, just getting home from a youth football game, answered in the kitchen. “Is this Larry?” an operator asked. Dalla Betta said yes. Then he heard another voice, speaking from half a world away, sudden, strained: “Dad, I’ve been hit. I’ve lost both my legs.” “Where are you?” Dalla Betta asked. “Where are you?” “I’m in Afghanistan,” his son said. “I can’t talk. They’re taking me to Germany. I can contact you in 24 hours.” Dalla Betta began to talk. The line went dead. He screamed. “Justin! Justin!” He started to cry. Justin’s siblings Larry Jr., 11, and Nicole, 5, started to cry, too. Now read this, and tell me what you think: Ed Rendell, the media-friendly governor of Pennsylvania, has a surprisingly stark quote in USA Today this morning questioning President Obama’s decision to continue the war in Afghanistan: “I question the value of us being there at all ,” Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said in an interview. “I have a great deal of faith in President Obama and in (Secretary of State) Hillary Clinton and I want to believe that their strategy is the right one for the country. But I’m not sure 10 years from now and with all that money invested, things are going to be measurably better.” He argues war funding would be better used to build schools, roads and bridges at home. President Obama, how do you ask a man to lose both legs for a mistake?
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What WikiLeaks revealed might have embarrassed some bigwigs around the world—but was it classified, and will it really hurt? America’s jobs outlook is still heading downward, as unemployment benefits are not extended. Does the deficit matter more than people do? Related Entries December 3, 2010 Joblessness Ticks Higher in November December 2, 2010 The Grinch Who Stole Washington
Continue reading …Alan Grayson Points Out How Much Fox Pundits Stand to Benefit from Extension of Bush Tax Cuts
December 4, 2010 No CommentI’m going to miss our old friend Alan Grayson who apparently isn’t going to leave the House quietly. Grayson took to the House floor to point out just how much some of the talking heads over at Fox are going to benefit from an extension of the Bush tax cuts. You could say the same thing about the lot of the cable “news” hosts and I’m sure it’s not just going to be some of the ones at Fox that are happy to see their tax rates stay low if those extensions get passed, but I don’t think it ever hurts to have a reminder just how much these bloviators are over-paid to come on the air and pretend that they’ve actually got anything in common with the working people they claim to be in touch with. There are plenty of rich people who care about the working class and our interests, but this group is definitely not among them. The prime time serial liars on Fox and the hate talkers like Limbaugh are definitely in a class of their own with the damage they’ve inflicted on America. Colby Hall at Mediaite took the time to transcribe Grayson’s statements which I’ll share here. Stay away from that site’s comments section unless you want to take a trip into Freeperville. Madam Speaker, we’ve heard endless braying from the Republicans, time after time, demanding an extension of tax cuts for the rich in this country. They tell us that somehow extending tax cuts for the rich will somehow create jobs. When we’ve had tax cuts for the rich for nine years and I haven’t noticed a lot of jobs being created in nine years. They tell us it will boost the economy well I haven’t noticed that happening for nine years either. So you have to wonder why they persist in this mania, this obsession of theirs that we need to have tax cuts for the rich when the economy is flat on its back and unemployment is almost 10%. I think I have the answer. The answer turns out to be very simple. They want tax cuts for the rich because they want a tax cut for themselves. What do I mean by that? Let’s take a look at the people who are really in charge, the ones who actually run the Republican party. Let’s start with this gentleman here, the man with the cigar, Rush Limbaugh. Doesn’t he look happy? According according to Newsweek, he makes $58.7 million a year, and extending the tax cuts means he’ll have another $2.7 million. Mega dittos, Rush, and mega money. Let’s look at the next one. Here’s Glenn Beck, according to Newsweek Glenn Beck makes $33 million a year as a pundit and extending the Bush Tax Cuts means a cool $1.5 million for Glenn bBeck’s ongoing imitation of Howard Beale from Network. Now let’s look at the next one. Sean Hannity. Newsweek says that Sean Hannity, this man of the people makes $22 million a year from his act on Fox. And that means the Bush Tax cuts mean an extra $1 million. $1 million for Sean Hannity. Maybe he can afford some anger management classes. Let’s take a look at the next one. Bill O’Reilly. He makes a modest $20 million a year from his gig on Fox. That means that the Bush tax cuts give him not quite seven figures, nearly $914,000 of extra cash. It’s easy to see why Bill O’Reilly wants to see the Bush tax cuts extended. And I have to say, he’s no pinhead when it comes to that. And Now, Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin has made $14 million this year from cashing in on her fame. In fact, she’s done a better job of turning fame into cash than anyone in American history. $14 million. So she wants the Bush tax cuts extended so she can make an extra cool $638,000. As she was — as she would gesture (shoulder shrug.) And now on to Newt Gingrich, the man who did such a great job of running America in the 1990’s, he wants a second chance in this decade. Newt if you do to us now what you did to us then, we’ll be in trouble. But Newt Gingrich makes $5 million a year from his punditry, he’ll get an extra quarter million dollars a year. An extra quarter million dollars a year from the Bush tax cuts being extended. Now let’s go on to the big cheese. George W. Bush himself. The man who got us into two endless war. The man who brought us to the brink of national bankruptcy. The man who gave us $4 a gallon gasoline. George W. Bush makes a cull $4.2 million a year, according to Newsweek. That means that extending the bush tax cuts for George Bush means an extra $187,000 in his pockets every single year. I have a better idea. Instead of placating these people and letting them spew out onto the airwaves their lies about the Bush tax cut ever revealing the fact that they stand to gain millions, millions of dollars each year from their selfish desire to take advantage of the rest of America, let’s do this. Let’s take that money and create jobs. All that money that the Bush tax cuts are charging us that can create jobs for three million Americans a year. $30,000 job a fair wage for fair work, a dignified wage for dignified work and a way to — a dignified wage for dignified work and a way to help our economy, a better idea than putting money in the pocks of the rich. The problem is not that the poor have too much money, that’s not the problem at all, it’s that they need jobs. Thank you.
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enlarge In this season of peace on earth, goodwill towards men, Santa Claus and other myths, House Republicans are once again showing they’re not only the party protecting the interests of the Have Mores, they’re aggressively the party who would literally take food out of a poor child’s mouth, brazenly blocking legislation to fund school meals for tens of thousands of hungry American kids. The increase would add up to a grand total of six cents per kid. That’s all… six whole cents. And to add insult to injury, Sarah Palin brought cookies to a Pennsylvania school to protest what she was spinning as a nanny state edict banning cookies from school lunches. You can’t even buy a cookie for six cents. Hell, you can’t even make them yourself for that little . So while it doesn’t surprise or even shock me that Republicans could be so clueless and so heartless as to actually deny children food, some of whom are the children of the more than 15 million unemployed Americans and who only ever see a square meal at a school lunch, it does shock and sadden me that there’s not more Democrats pointing out how little money it costs to feed a child. By my calculation, and I’m no math wizard here, just one single Bush tax cut giving one single Republican fat cat a $80,000 bonus would buy… (clicketyclicketyclick on my calculator)… one million children a school lunch, and still have $20,000 left over to buy the human skull off the Skull and Bones Society. Now imagine how many school lunches $700 billion could pay for. The House of Representatives just voted 234 to 188 to permanently extend the Bush tax cuts on incomes up to $250,000, after having blocked an earlier attempt by GOP members from offering their own bill to make the tax cuts permanent for all Americans, including the highest earners, which angered the Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner, who called it ‘ chicken crap .’ Or, to paraphrase Marie Antoinette, if there’s not enough money to feed our kids a cookie, let them eat chicken crap.
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By The Rev. Madison Shockley Now, can millions of Catholics around the world be free to use condoms and worship God? Can thousands of priests and others free their tongues and hands to help fight the scourge of AIDS and not worry about the “evil” of condom use? Related Entries November 22, 2010 Pope Knows Condoms November 19, 2010 Spanish Vote Ad Steamy, ‘Misleading’
Continue reading …Jon Stewart Rips McCain on His Resistance to Repeal of DADT; Paints Him as Crazy Japanese Soldier Fighting WWII Years After 1945
December 3, 2010 No Comment
Liberal comedian Jon Stewart once again lampooned Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over his continued opposition to repealing the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy, saying the senator is quite behind the times with his stand. “Well you're really going down with the ship, huh,” he ripped navy veteran McCain's remarks. “McCain's like one of them Japanese soldiers living on Okinawa in 1949, still fighting because he doesn't realize the war ended a long time ago,” Stewart quipped. “And for some reason, even though he's been alone for years and years on this island, he doesn't like gay people.” Stewart opened his Thursday show with an eight-minute segment covering the DADT debate, in the wake of a published study by the military showing that the majority of servicemen polled don't mind serving with gay comrades. He trumpeted soundbites from multiple figures who support a repeal of DADT – including remarks from Sen. Joe Liebermann (I-Conn.), a usual target of Stewart's mockery.
Continue reading …You hear the false meme everywhere: the overpaid public service employees are being vilified all over the media and blamed for the state of the economy . The nation’s public employees educate our kids, fight our fires, make sure our food isn’t tainted with toxic crap, provide services to the neediest and perform a thousand other vital tasks the private sector has no incentive to do. They earn less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts with similar qualifications. None become billionaires. But the government doesn’t engage in the kind of ruthless and relentless union-busting that corporate America has employed to make it virtually impossible for private sector workers to organize. That explains, in part, why public workers toil in the last sector of the U.S. economy where employees enjoy some job security, decent health care and the prospect of a dignified retirement. Now, the corporate Right has public sector workers in its cross-hairs. A viral email making the rounds in Tea Party circles sums up the charge, describing a dark conspiracy among “stinking, filthy libs” to use masses of sallow government bureaucrats to undermine America’s “capitalistic, independent, rugged individualists and entrepreneurs”: [Government workers] are supported 100% by the American taxpayers employed in the private profit producing sector [sic]. None of the gov. offices produce one red cent in profit–they are all parasites. Every 100 gainfully employed American tax payers supports 6.5 gov. employees 100% [sic]. Jonathan Cohn, writing in the New Republic, calls public employees, “the new welfare queens,” an easy target for the Right’s politics of resentment. And the comparison is apt. Just as there were no doubt a few welfare recipients gaming the system and living the high-life, a very small number of public sector employees — mostly the cops and firefighters to whom politicos don’t dare say no — have won lavish retirement packages. That small group of rather specialized workers is being held up as an example of both the perfidy of “big government” and the unbridled greed of public-sector unions. It’s manifestly nonsensical under even the most casual scrutiny. And the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees have decided to fight back : Public service workers are not the problem. Attacking public service workers will not create jobs. Attacking public service workers will not solve the problem of trying to save the vital public services that so many rely on. The only thing attacking public service workers does is divert attention from the real culprits of our country’s economic troubles and inequality: You, greedy Wall Street CEOs, politicians in Washington who turn a blind eye, and all right-wing talking heads who spin lies. When you attack public employees you are attacking the very folks whose work you benefit from — from providing basic public safety, to fixing potholes in the roads you drive on, to making sure clean water runs from your tap. No more. It’s time to stop the lies. You can sign AFSCME’s petition supporting public sector employees here .
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Boy, Paul Krugman’s really upset about Obama’s pay freeze on federal workers. Here’s what he has to say: The truth is that America’s long-run deficit problem has nothing at all to do with overpaid federal workers. For one thing, those workers aren’t overpaid. Federal salaries are, on average, somewhat less than those of private-sector workers with equivalent qualifications. And, anyway, employee pay is only a small fraction of federal expenses; even cutting the payroll in half would reduce total spending less than 3 percent. So freezing federal pay is cynical deficit-reduction theater. It’s a (literally) cheap trick that only sounds impressive to people who don’t know anything about budget realities. The actual savings, about $5 billion over two years, are chump change given the scale of the deficit. Anyway, slashing federal spending at a time when the economy is depressed is exactly the wrong thing to do. Just ask Federal Reserve officials, who have lately been more or less pleading for some help in their efforts to promote faster job growth. Meanwhile, there’s a real deficit issue on the table: whether tax cuts for the wealthy will, as Republicans demand, be extended. Just as a reminder, over the next 75 years the cost of making those tax cuts permanent would be roughly equal to the entire expected financial shortfall of Social Security. Mr. Obama’s pay ploy might, just might, have been justified if he had used the announcement of a freeze as an occasion to take a strong stand against Republican demands — to declare that at a time when deficits are an important issue, tax breaks for the wealthiest aren’t acceptable. But he didn’t. Instead, he apparently intended the pay freeze announcement as a peace gesture to Republicans the day before a bipartisan summit. At that meeting, Mr. Obama, who has faced two years of complete scorched-earth opposition, declared that he had failed to reach out sufficiently to his implacable enemies. He did not, as far as anyone knows, wear a sign on his back saying “Kick me,” although he might as well have. Could the upside be any more obvious? Now it’s our turn to play the “no no no” game! It’s so easy, even a Democrat could do it. All you have to do is bludgeon them with it every time they open their yaps. In fact, anyone who’s ever raised a teenager should already know the drill : POMPOUS POLITICIAN: But voter, we really, really need to cut Social Security to save the country! DEMOCRATIC VOTER: Um, no, we don’t. If you were so worried about the deficit, you shouldn’t have passed a $700 BILLION TAX CUT FOR THE RICH. POMPOUS POLITICIAN: Unemployment benefits shouldn’t go on this long, we need to end this freeloading. DEMOCRATIC VOTER: Well, I guess you should of thought of that before you passed a $700 BILLION TAX CUT FOR THE RICH, huh! POMPOUS POLITICIAN: All the other countries get to cut social programs…. DEMOCRATIC VOTER: I might have been willing to talk about it before you abused my trust and passed a $700 BILLION TAX CUT FOR THE RICH. Now you’ll have to work to regain my trust. See how easy it is? Go on, try it!
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