Goes To Twelve

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Reform Madness

Reform Madness - White Minority

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Chill

Remember the campaign?

Remember how well Sarah Palin convinced the average 'Joe' that Barack Obama was a terrorist Socialist Muslim Honkey-Hater?

Remember how Barack Obama's campaign just kept on not being crazy.

Remember how that turned out.

We need to maintain pressure and presence, but cool will win out.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Starve The Beast

Cut off funding for this orgy of stupidity and reactive racism:

Your one-stop resource: here

In less than a month UPS, GEICO, Progressive Insurance/LexisNexis, Sargento Cheese, Proctor and Gamble have dropped their sponsorship.

Jesus Wept

I am no fan of Arlen Specter (Mad for Joe Sestak) but this is about us, about what America is.

Somehow, the stupid have to learn not to fear the informed. We learned ones should think about this.

Steve Benen

THE WORST AMERICA HAS TO OFFER.... They served as interesting bookends. President Obama hosted a very strong town-hall event in New Hampshire on health care this afternoon, featuring good questions -- from supporters and opponents of reform -- and covering a lot of ground.
The president's event began on the heels of Sen. Arlen Specter's town-hall event in Lebanon, Pa. Watching Obama's gathering, one got the sense that it was American politics as it's meant to be done. Watching Specter's, one got the sense that the American political system is an experiment on the verge of collapse.
Senator Arlen Specter and his staff tried mightily to control a town hall meeting this morning but he was repeatedly booed and heckled by a majority of the 250 people inside a large hall here at the Harrisburg Area Community College. At least 700 more were kept outside, police said.
Inside, fury erupted over a range of topics, from health care to immigration, government spending and the cap-and-trade program to control pollution. Many also expressed broad if unspecified disdain for the government and for President Obama.
"Where do you see an honest man in politics?" one man asked Mr. Specter. "Tell Obama to represent us as an American and if not, there's other countries!"
It certainly wasn't Specter's fault, but this event was enough to make one weep for our future. Fox News' Megyn Kelly called it an "extraordinary showing," filled with "informed" and "articulate" Americans.
Perhaps Megyn Kelly was watching a different event. More likely, Megyn Kelly doesn't know what she's talking about.
Specter's largely right-wing crowd insisted President Obama isn't an American. One nutty man said to applause, "One day, God is going to stand before you and he's going to judge you!" Another yelled, "This is the Soviet Union, this is Maoist China."
One attendee drew a standing ovation when said health care reform is about "dismantling" the United States and "turning" the country "into Russia." She later added that she feared toilet paper rationing.
Someone in the audience wanted to explain that the Qu'ran says that "all unbelievers will be executed." The same person added that if we close Gitmo, "criminals" will "escape" and we'll find "a bunch of innocent people are murdered. And that's what's gonna happen."
We're better than this. We have to be.

No Shark In Sight Today

I was dreading this when it began (I mean, how much real outrage is there, after all, to milk from Sarah Palin) ... but I was literally on the edge of my seat, near tears, by the end.

Give yourself the 14 minutes it takes to watch this.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Monday, August 10, 2009

Facts

Forgot to post this on Friday due to long twit-scussion with a wingnut on the twitter; It's important.

Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform
By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.
While the government will take a more active role in regulating the insurance market and increase its spending for health care, that hardly amounts to the kind of government-run system that critics conjure up when they trot out that oh-so-clever line about the Department of Motor Vehicles being in charge of your colonoscopy.
By now, you've probably also heard that health reform will cost taxpayers at least a trillion dollars. Another lie.
First of all, that's not a trillion every year, as most people assume -- it's a trillion over 10 years, which is the silly way that people in Washington talk about federal budgets. On an annual basis, that translates to about $140 billion, when things are up and running.
Even that, however, grossly overstates the net cost to the government of providing universal coverage. Other parts of the reform plan would result in offsetting savings for Medicare: reductions in unnecessary subsidies to private insurers, in annual increases in payments rates for doctors and in payments to hospitals for providing free care to the uninsured. The net increase in government spending for health care would likely be about $100 billion a year, a one-time increase equal to less than 1 percent of a national income that grows at an average rate of 2.5 percent every year.
When Democrats, for example, propose to fund research to give doctors, patients and health plans better information on what works and what doesn't, Republicans sense a sinister plot to have the government decide what treatments you will get. By the same wacko-logic, a proposal that Medicare pay for counseling on end-of-life care is transformed into a secret plan for mass euthanasia of the elderly.
Government negotiation on drug prices? The end of medical innovation as we know it, according to the GOP's Dr. No. Reduce Medicare payments to overpriced specialists and inefficient hospitals? The first step on the slippery slope toward rationing.
Can there be anyone more two-faced than the Republican leaders who in one breath rail against the evils of government-run health care and in another propose a government-subsidized high-risk pool for people with chronic illness, government-subsidized community health centers for the uninsured, and opening up Medicare to people at age 55?

Fact Free

TPM:

AJC columnist Jay Bookman noticed that in the latest Investors Business Daily editorial about how the 'death panel' will condemn all handicapped or disabled people to death on some horrid wind-swept mountain, it notes that ...
People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn't have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man, because of his physical handicaps, is essentially worthless.
Needless to say, Hawking, who is recognized as one of the great theoretical physicists of the 20th and 21st century, was born in the UK and has lived his entire life there.

The Death Panel

Make sure Granny says that

1)She's from Flint MI

2)Loves the Yankees

3) Never Trusted That Richard
Wollfe fellow

'Like Driving Cross Country To Protest Highways'

Bill Maher says things that should not be true:

Friday, August 07, 2009

Whites Only

The day after 31 Republicans vote against the first Latina ever nominated for the Supreme Court, the only Republican Latino in the in the Senate resigns.

Granted, he was not running for re-election anyway but ... well, What?

Thelma & Louise

Apparently to win a Republican Primary even in the most Hispanic-dense states you must remain anti-Hispanic.

That's gonna work out well.

Kos reports: Per R2K wkly poll: 4

4/20-23, before Sotomayor: Latino favorability of GOP was 15% fav-70% unfav.
This week: 3% fav 86% unfav

Rare Success

Mr S, long-time friend and theater critic, and I were discussing how awful 'Rock' Musicals are when they are written by 'Rockers' (Spring Awakening, Movin' Out etc.).

It takes a theater guy who likes Rock to do it.

And that was true from the very beginning:

Mowing The Astroturf

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Si Se Puede

Beautiful

Sotomayor Confirmed by Senate, 68-31

For many Hispanic voters, the symbolism of the first Latina joining the Supreme Court — and the memory of who opposed her — could be all that lingers, said Janet Murguía, president of the National Council of La Raza, an Hispanic advocacy group.

“This is a singularly definitive historic moment,” she said. “So it is a vote, I think, that will matter to the Latino community and will be remembered by the Latino community.”.

Reunited

I admit it. I'm happy that my divorce from the Clintons is over.

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

William Jefferson Airplane

Not All Racism

Remember the 90's? It's not that different today, and THAT is what Hillary warned us about.

Steve Benen agrees, and provides some derangement-nostalgia

Let's not forget what conservative activists were saying throughout the '90s:
* As governor, Bill Clinton murdered many rivals. Hillary Clinton was involved.
* As first lady, Hillary Clinton was involved in Vince Foster's death.
* As governor, Bill Clinton trafficked drugs through Mena, Arkansas.
* Bill Clinton was himself a major coke user. It's why his nose is so red.
* As a graduate student, Bill Clinton visited Moscow because he was a Soviet agent (or something).
* The Clintons decorated the White House Christmas tree with condoms and drug paraphernalia.
... In this sense, all the talk about "Obama Derangement Syndrome" and "Clinton Derangement Syndrome" is probably mistaken. It has far less to do with the presidents themselves and far more to do with the pathological tendencies of those who seek to destroy Democratic administrations.

In Brazil They Know Waste When They See It

Endorsing a old-fashioned-water saving technique

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

We Are All Kenyans Now

You Are Important

People, America needs you:

For one month, the fight for health insurance reform leaves the backrooms of Washington, D.C., and returns to communities across America. Throughout August, members of Congress are back home, where the hands they shake and the voices they hear will not belong to lobbyists, but to people like you.

August is a crucial time to show Congress where the people stand. That's why Organizing for America is putting together thousands of events this month where you can reach out to neighbors, show your support, and make certain your members of Congress know that you're counting on them to act.

Can you commit to attend at least one event in your community this month?

Click Here

The Beauty Of The Blues

Swimming Freestyle:

Gallup poll on the new GOP
Conventional wisdom is the Republican Party, at least from a majority standpoint, is now dominant in the Southeast. The new Gallup poll of party affiliation by state blows that theory to bits. The data suggests that Democrats have lost a bit of ground since the 2008 general election, but Republicans appear to have lost more. Most of the lost Republicans now identify themselves as Independents and the new party affiliations have had an striking effect on the electoral map.

The Gallup summary:

Since Obama was inaugurated, not much has changed in the political party landscape at the state level -- the Democratic Party continues to hold a solid advantage in party identification in most states and in the nation as a whole. While the size of the Democratic advantage at the national level shrunk in recent months, this has been due to an increase in independent identification rather than an increase in Republican support. That finding is echoed here given that the total number of solid and leaning Republican states remains unchanged from last year. While the Republican Party is still able to compete in elections if they enjoy greater turnout from their supporters or greater support for its candidates from independent voters, the deck is clearly stacked in the Democratic Party's favor for now.

The one thing the four Republican aligned states have in common? Small populations. Not exactly a great position heading into an election.

Keep The Heat Up

The Advocate:

After eight years of George W. Bush, we were sick of being excluded, sick of being hated. [...] [Obama] talked to us -- and about us -- more, and more explicitly, than any nominee before him. And not just when he had to. Not just at Human Rights Campaign dinners. At black churches, in his stump speech, on the night he was elected: He said the word that every major candidate before him had found every excuse not to say. He named us. He said gay.

[...] And during his first months in office, while he worked with Congress on the economic stimulus package and the wars, and laid groundwork for legislation to protect the environment and reform health care, we were on our best behavior, waiting for him to reveal his plans to keep his promises to us.

Momentum for gay equality kept building -- in the courts, in legislatures, and in culture. Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine legalized gay marriage -- which was, significantly, also endorsed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. Dick Cheney too announced his support for marriage equality, as did top Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who managed John McCain’s presidential campaign. Polls showed clear majorities supporting repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” even among conservatives and churchgoers -- constituencies that had long been in favor of the antigay military policy. Still, through all of this, one word was conspicuously absent from the president’s vocabulary.

Find Your Congressman Here.
Find Your Senator Here.
Write the White House Here.
Twitterers can also use @whitehouse

Write 'em. For Me and for you.

The IRS Saves The World ... Again

Remember, Al Capone was convicted of Tax Evasion.

Years from now thousands of as yet unborn American Scientists will look upon this and shake their heads in awe and relief.

Dinosaur Creationism Theme Park Seized By The Government

You'd think that dinosaur-loving creationists would be law-abiding citizens. Not so. Last week a South Carolina judge ordered the government to seize control of Dinosaur Adventure Land creationist theme park after its owners were convicted of tax fraud.

A ruling by U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers states that the nine properties that make up Dinosaur Adventure Land as well as two bank accounts associated with the park will be used to satisfy $430,400 owed to the federal government.

Kent Hovind, who founded the park and a ministry, Creation Science Evangelism, is serving 10 years in federal prison for failing to pay the Internal Revenue Service more than $470,000 in employee taxes.

He was found guilty in November 2006 on 58 counts, including failure to pay employee taxes and making threats against investigators.

The conviction culminated 17 years of Hovind sparring with the IRS. Saying he was employed by God and his ministers were not subject to payroll taxes, he claimed no income or property.

Hovind is incarcerated at the Edgefield Federal Correction Institution in South Carolina.

His wife, Jo, also was sentenced to a year in federal prison for her role in the tax fraud. She's currently jailed at the Federal Correctional Institution in Marianna.

The Black Helicopters

Why do rightwing nutjobs fear the blackhelicopters? Because that's what they use.

Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder

A former Blackwater employee and an ex-US Marine who has worked as a security operative for the company have made a series of explosive allegations in sworn statements filed on August 3 in federal court in Virginia. The two men claim that the company's owner, Erik Prince, may have murdered or facilitated the murder of individuals who were cooperating with federal authorities investigating the company. The former employee also alleges that Prince "views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe," and that Prince's companies "encouraged and rewarded the destruction of Iraqi life."

In their testimony, both men also allege that Blackwater was smuggling weapons into Iraq. One of the men alleges that Prince turned a profit by transporting "illegal" or "unlawful" weapons into the country on Prince's private planes. They also charge that Prince and other Blackwater executives destroyed incriminating videos, emails and other documents and have intentionally deceived the US State Department and other federal agencies. The identities of the two individuals were sealed out of concerns for their safety.

These allegations, and a series of other charges, are contained in sworn affidavits, given under penalty of perjury, filed late at night on August 3 in the Eastern District of Virginia as part of a seventy-page motion by lawyers for Iraqi civilians suing Blackwater for alleged war crimes and other misconduct.

Andrew highlights the charges

Both men requested anonymity to avoid mortal threats. “It appears that Mr. Prince or his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities,” said John Doe #1. John Doe #2 says he received personal threats after leaving Blackwater.

Prince “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.” He “intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis.”

Blackwater “employees openly and consistently used racist and derogatory terms of Iraqis and other Arabs, such as 'ragheads’ or ‘hajis.’”

Blackwater deployed to Iraq individuals who (a) made “statements about wanting to… ‘kill ragheads’ or achieve ‘kills’ or ‘body counts,’” (b) drank excessively, (c) used steroids, and (d) failed to follow safety and other instructions governing the use of lethal weapons. Mental-health professionals who raised concerns about deployment of such individuals were fired.

Prince obtained “illegal ammunition… designed to explode after penetrating within the human body” and smuggled it into Iraq for use.

Prince distributed other illegal weapons for use in Iraq.

Prince was aware of the use of prostitutes, “including child prostitutes,” at Blackwater’s “Man Camp” in Iraq, which he visited.

Praise Jesus.

Do This NOW!

Go to this website, CHANGE THE SUBJECT LINE AND ERASE THE PROVIDED TEXT.

FWIW, this is the text I used.

Public support for Health Insurance Reform has been strong for decades. And remains strong despite attacks on imagined legislation
Congressman, this is your chance to make a lasting improvement in the lives of all Americans. Don't let it pass you by.

Then send the damn thing.

Let's use the Insurance Industry's technology against itself.

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Just Don't Make 'Em Like That Anymore

Our Responsibility

Chris Hayes:

I come from a family of organizers (my dad and my brother), so I'm intimately familiar with just how much work good organizing is. I also have a lot of guilt about the fact I'm not one.
But with that disclaimed out of the way, I have to echo what Josh Marshall says here.
If you want health care, then do something about it. We are now in the middle of a fight. Fights are good. Democracy is fundamentally about the non-violent resolution of conflict, and we've got conflict. There is a small but very mobilized constituency of people and interests that want to kill health care reform. They have the advantage of being on the attack, or tearing down and criticizing and expressing their outrage. The job of advocates of reform is trickier, but unless there is a mobilization and concerted organized attempt to push elected representatives in a progressive direction they will succumb to the braying and bullying of tea-baggers. Find out if your congressman is having a town hall, and go. Find others to go with you. Let them know you will punish them if they don't support real reform. Call their offices. Show up at their offices.
It's on.

Q.E.D.

Had Enough?

Politicians scare easily. Contact your representatives and tell them that abominations like this make YOU more committed than ever to fight back this latest assault upon America.

Fact here

The work did not end on November 4.

Find Your Congressman Here.
Find Your Senator Here.
Write the White House Here.
Twitterers can also use @whitehouse

Who's Your Enemy?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Success Is Failure.

and Glenn Beck is sanity.

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Master Rebators - The Crank Cycle