Archive for April 5, 2010
John McCain Assassinates Himself
Have you heard the news? John McCain said, I “never considered myself a maverick.”
Got that? John McCain — the guy who ran on (1) being a maverick and (2) being a POW, now claims that he “never considered” himself a “maverick.”
OK. Whatever. Live your lie John.
Meanwhile, for the sane among us, check out McCain’sMovie on Twitter. Suggestions are pouring in as to what this movie should be called.
Massey Energy Kills 6 Workers, 21 Missing
Mining companies don’t care about their workers. Mining companies own the senators and governors and judges in their states. They rig the law to their benefit. Massey Energy and the people who enable it killed 6 people today. 21 are missing.
They’ll get slapped with a little fine and go on their way and more expendable fiefs will die.
More detail to come.
Why is Harry Reid Going on Fox Tonight?
Harry Reid will be a guest on “On the Record w/Greta Van Sustern” tonight on Fox:
The topic will apparently be Reid’s vulnerability in November (he has been targeted by the Foxbaggers as the country’s #1 villan):
I’ve wrestled with the notion of Democrats going on Fox (or not) or five years. On the one hand, if they do go on, they give Fox’s audience a nanosecond glimpse of the other side (that is, if they’re allowed to finish a sentence). On the other hand, Fox is so deft at making its enemies look like blubbering idiots that it’s usually not worth the trouble. Not only that, Fox slices and dices video and replays it over and over again, making Democrats look like they said things they didn’t.
As for Reid, he looks like an incompetent buffoon no matter what. He may be a nice and decent guy but he is the wrong guy to represent Democrats in this media age. When I see him on the tube, I cringe. Shorter: he’s lifeless and boring. He can’t stand up to Fox. They’ll make mincemeat out of him. They’ll take the side of the Foxbaggers and make him look hesitant and waffley. He’s not up to it.
So while I’m still conflicted about Democrats in general going on Fox, I’m not conflicted about Harry Reid going on Fox. He shouldn’t do it. He should stay as far away from television cameras as he can, as in watching rabbits eat his cactus.
Talk About Fascism — Look at This Bill Introduced by McCain/Leiberman
I just heard about this today and it is very, very serious — something we have got to follow: McCain Lieberman’s “Enemy Belligerent” Act Could Set U.S. on Path To Military Dictatorship. And the Foxbaggers think health care will bring a dictatorship? They ain’t seen nothin’ yet:
On March 4th, Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman introduced a bill called the “Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010″ that, if passed, would set this country on a course to become a military dictatorship.
The bill is only 12 pages long, but that is plenty of room to grant the president the power to order the arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment of anyone — including a U.S. citizen — indefinitely, on the sole suspicion that he or she is affiliated with terrorism, and on the president’s sole authority as commander in chief.
In other words, if at any point, anywhere in the world, a person is caught who might have done something to suggest that he or she is a terrorist or somehow supporting a terrorist organization against the U.S. or its allies, that person must be imprisoned by the military.
For how long?
As long as U.S. officials want. A subsequent section, titled “Detention Without Trial of Unprivileged Enemy Belligerents,” states that suspects “may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners.” In a press conference introducing the bill earlier this month, Sen. Joe Lieberman said, “I know that will be — that may be — a long time, but that’s the nature of this war.”
As constitutional expert Glenn Greenwald has pointed out, “It’s basically a bill designed to formally authorize what the Bush administration did to American citizen Jose Padilla — arrest him on U.S. soil and imprison him for years in military custody with no charges.” What happened to Padilla, a notorious perversion of justice in a country that claims to be a democratic standard-bearer, would thus go from being an exception to the rule itself.
As “war on terror”-era legislation goes, Greenwald calls the Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act “probably the single most extremist, tyrannical and dangerous bill introduced in the Senate in the last several decades, far beyond the horrific, habeas-abolishing Military Commissions Act.” This is a sobering statement, especially given the intense controversy the MCA generated at the time of its passage, in the heady weeks preceding the 2006 midterm elections. Then-Senator Obama was one of only 34 senators who voted against it, calling it “sloppy,” and expressing his wish that “cooler heads … prevail after the silly season of politics is over.”
Here is a copy of the bill itself.
Two things: (1) The military works for and on behalf of the people of the United States. George Bush repealed Posse Comitatus; this would take that a step further and, by law, turn the military against the people. (2) What is the definition of “terrorism” and “terrorist?” If a president has the power to designate someone a “terrorist,” does that mean that if we have a Republican president who relies on Fox News to paint a favorable picture of him, and I put up a post criticizing Fox News, I can be designated a “terrorist?”
This is very vague territory that McCain/Lieberman want to take us into here and if someone gets elected who turns out to be a maniac, and this bill is law, the consequences could be unimaginable.
Karl Rove Cuts Ad Urging People to Send in Their Census Forms
Gosh, might the GOP be worried that conservatives aren’t returning their socialist census forms?
John McCain is Such a Little, Little Man
John McCain, who’s fighting for his political career in a primary contest against Foxbagger J.D. Hayworth in Arizona, once — and for years — touted himself as a “maverick.” You remember that. Now the little liar tells Newsweek, “I never considered myself a maverick:”
As a presidential candidate, distancing himself from his party was the politically astute move. But now that he’s facing a daunting primary challenge from the right, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is working to shed a label he once vigorously embraced.
“I never considered myself a maverick,” he told Newsweek’s David Margolick in an interview to be published in next week’s issue. “I consider myself a person who serves the people of Arizona to the best of his abilities.”
[...]
Responding to the biggest threat yet to his quarter-century long Senate career, McCain has tacked considerably rightward on a host of issues in the last year, including climate change, gays in the military and his support for the 2008 bank bailout.
His shift in posturing and recent spate of anger toward the Obama and Democrats has helped him open up a fairly comfortable, 15-point lead against Hayworth in a recent poll, after the two were neck and neck late last year.
McCain has also received assists from his former vice presidential pick Sarah Palin and recently-minted Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), both of whom carry notable clout with the GOP’s conservative base, holding separate campaign rallies with the two in recent weeks.
Making life more awkward for the Arizona senator was the fact that Palin, who in 2008 characterized their ticket as “a team of mavericks,” used the label several times again to describe him at their dually-held rally late last month.
Never mind integrity, wining is all that matters to McCain. What’s he going to claim next? What he was never in Vietnam?
“Congress Failed to Pass Extension of Unemployment Benefits?” (UPDATED)
The headline today on the cable “news” shows, including the “liberal” ones, is that unemployment benefits run out today for thousands of Americans because congress failed to pass an extension before it left for Easter recess.
Technically that’s true but there is a more accurate and informative way of reporting the story: Republican Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma Blocks Unemployment Bill.
UPDATE: And don’t forget — unemployment “benefits” are better referred to as unemployment “insurance” (my bad on that). Money is deducted from our paychecks for unemployment “insurance,” so Coburn’s concern about how the “benefits” will be paid for is BS. The money’s already in the bank. And it’s our money.
UPDATE #2 (4-7-10): Now Republicans are boasting about screwing people. Check it out.
Tiger Woods to Hold 2:00 p.m. ET News Conference
Just saw a news flash on MSNBC that Tiger Woods will hold a news conference at 2:00 p.m. ET today. Shorter version: The world will come to a halt at two o’clock this afternoon.
Sarah Palin Helps Colorado Democrat See Surge in Fundraising
Democratic Representative Betsy Markey, of Colorado’s District 4, saw a serge in fundraising after voting for President Obama’s health care reform bill and being marked by Sarah Palin with a crosshairs in that infamous map she released immediately afterward.
Thanks Sarah! At least one good thing came out of that vicious move of yours.
So, Tea Partiers Never Take Their Shoes Off?
Tea Partiers: Obama’s a Muslim Because He Takes his Shoes Off.
Another Punch to the Gut of the American Worker
Talk about the American worker being under assault, here’s a new way they’re being punched in the gut:
With a client list that reads like a roster of Fortune 500 firms, a little-known company with an odd name, the Talx Corporation, has come to dominate a thriving industry: helping employers process — and fight — unemployment claims.
Talx, which emerged from obscurity over the last eight years, says it handles more than 30 percent of the nation’s requests for jobless benefits. Pledging to save employers money in part by contesting claims, Talx helps them decide which applications to resist and how to mount effective appeals.
The work has made Talx a boom business in a bust economy, but critics say the company has undermined a crucial safety net. Officials in a number of states have called Talx a chronic source of error and delay. Advocates for the unemployed say the company seeks to keep jobless workers from collecting benefits.
“Talx often files appeals regardless of merits,” said Jonathan P. Baird, a lawyer at New Hampshire Legal Assistance. “It’s sort of a war of attrition. If you appeal a certain percentage of cases, there are going to be those workers who give up.”
When fewer former workers get aid, a company pays lower unemployment taxes.
New CNN “Political Contributor” Threatens to Shoot Census Worker
A few weeks ago CNN hired winger Erick Erickson as a “political contributor.” When asked about some of the inflammatory statements he’d made in the past, Erickson said he has since “evolved.” Really? I don’t think so. Just last week he threatened to shoot a census worker:
CNN’s new contributor Eric Erickson claims to be toning down his incendiary rhetoric now that he’s more in the spotlight. But on the radio last week, Erickson said he would “pull out [his] wife’s shotgun” if a census worker came to try to jail him for not filling out his census form.
Obviously Erickson is free to say anything he wants; the point is, CNN is wrong to legitimize him and to give him a bigger voice in the national dialogue if he advocates breaking the law and inciting violence.
Michael Steele’s in Trouble, Again
Michael Steele “Plays Race Card in Defense of Incompetence:“
I love Steele trying to compare himself to President Obama, when in fact Steele isn’t even a grub on the other side of the President’s shoe. And then he plays the race card, while he’s the head of a party packed to the gills with racist detractors of the President. Such is the life of the black Republican: Nobody actually likes you.
Embattled Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said he won’t resign despite calls for him to step down amid reports of the group’s excessive spending, adding that he and other African-American leaders such as President Obama have a slimmer margin of error because of their race.
‘The honest answer is, ‘yes,” he said on ‘Good Morning America’ today. ‘Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. A lot of folks do. It’s a different role for me to play and others to play and that’s just the reality of it. But you just take that as a part of the nature of it.’
As previously noted: Michael Steele is the reality of the affirmative action hire conservatives always push. Chosen solely based on his pigment, he’s not actually qualified for the position.
To say he’s unqualified is an understatement. The guy can’t open his mouth without screwing up, but the GOP has no right to complain. I watched Steele on Fox for years and it was obvious he was a buffoon.
