Posts filed under ‘Dumbed Down’
Did E. J. Dionne Just Get the Memo?
Is this news to E.J. Dionne, a dean of the Washington punditocracy?
(Image via Wikipedia)
Two-paycheck couples, working because they must
Instead of fighting a phony mommy war over what Hilary Rosen said about Ann Romney, we should face the fact that most families these days cannot afford to have one parent stay home with the kids. This is not about “lifestyle” or “values.” This is an economic struggle highlighting yet again the social costs arising from decades of stagnating or declining wages and growing income inequality.
There is a profound class bias in our discussion of what mothers should or should not do. The public debate seems premised on the idea that all two-parent families have a choice as to whether one or both work. That’s still true for the better-off. But this choice is denied to most American families. They have had to send two people into the workforce whether they wanted to or not.
Ah, yeah, and that’s been true since about 1980 E. J. You really should get out more.
A Perfect Example of How the “Liberal” American Media Brainwashes Us
Wow. Here we have a perfect example of how the “liberal” American media brainwashes us into fearing or hating groups that those in power decide we should ah, fear or hate. This example is from today’s Washington Post.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has delivered a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that calls for a resumption of peace negotiations.
Got that? Palestinian Authority President Abbas wants to resume peace negotiations, but the Israeli lobby wants us to hate and fear the Palestinians (nobody bucks the Israeli lobby), so check out the photo the WaPo used to illustrate the article:
(Via.)
Amazing.
Tennessee Senate: Holding Hands is a “Gateway Sexual Activity”
Geezus:
Tennessee Senate Approves Bill To Warn Students That Hand-Holding Is A ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’
Like any state legislature dealing with 8 percent unemployment and thousands of its residents facing disenfranchisement, the Tennessee Senate is targeting the menace of underage hand-holding.
Last week, the Senate passed SB 3310, a bill to update the state’s abstinence-based sex education curriculum to define holding hands and kissing as “gateway sexual activities.” Just one senator voted against the legislation; 28 voted in favor.
Uh oh:
And uh oh:
(Photo via flickr user DonnaJW)
How far are the wingnuts going to push this back? Will being born eventually be labeled as a “gateway to sexual activity?” Might as well. That’s how absurd this is getting.
Fox’s Sarah Palin and Eric Bolling Team Up for “Special” on Gas Prices
This would be my tweet of the day:
Eric Bolling is Fox’s up and coming chief propagandist when it comes to “business news.” Here is a sample of the garbage he was pumping out when I monitored Fox at the Newshounds. Notice how he downplayed high gas prices back then because, guess what, George W. Bush was in office. Here is more current info from Media Matters. The guy is a real piece of work.
Believe me, this “energy special” will be pure hooey. I can tell you what the gist of it will be in one sentence (they should change the title): [It's Obama's Fault That You're] Paying [So Much] at the Pump. Expect lots of propaganda “specials” like this on Fox between now and November.
Constitutional Lawyer Obama Hates Whistleblowers
A quickie post:
The law-breaking telecoms who received retroactive immunity from Congress, the interrogators who tortured prisoners, the officials who gave the orders, the attorneys who authored the torture memos, and the CIA agents who destroyed the interrogation tapes have not been held professionally accountable, much less been charged with crimes. National security and intelligence whistleblowers have become the glaring exception to the Obama administration’s mantra of “looking forward, not backward.” If you committed crimes under the guise of national security and the war on terrorism, you will not be held criminally liable, but if you blow the whistle on crimes, you risk criminal prosecution under the Espionage Act.
Learn more here about what Obama’s doing. He’s worse than Bush when it comes to prosecuting people who expose corruption.
I thought he would encourage that, because he said he would:
I didn’t add an “Obama — Don’t Count on my Vote” category to this blog on a whim.
Ozzie Guillen Praised the Wrong Person
You may have heard that Ozzie Guillen, the first-year manager of the Miami Marlins baseball team was suspended this morning:
(Photo: Lynne Sladky / AP)
Ozzie Guillen was suspended five games by the Miami Marlins in advance of a news conference this morning where he explained his explosive comments about Fidel Castro, words that have set off protests in the middle of the community where the Miami Marlins have built their new stadium and among fans the team hope to woo.
Guillen, the first-year manager of the Marlins, made a special trip back to Miami from Philadelphia on an off-day for the team so he could explain comments in a Time magazine article praising Castro.
[...]
The Venezuelan Guillen said in the Time article that he “loves” Castro and respects him for being able to say in power for more than 50 years.
Gee. Guillen made the mistake of praising the wrong person. If he had said he “loved” Blackwater or Saudi Arabia or AK-47s or the Koch brothers, he would have been fine. Poor guy, being from Venezuela he apparently didn’t realize that “freedom of speech” in the United States is something of a myth.
Republicans Lie to Women. Period.
This would be Mitch McConnell (R-KY) today:
McConnell calls GOP’s ‘war on women’ a ‘manufactured’ issue
“Talk about a manufactured issue,” McConnell said in an interview with local Louisville, Ky., radio station WHAS on Monday.
He said his female Republican colleagues in the Senate would agree with him on that.
“There is no issue. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison [(Texas)] and Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine, I think, would be the first to say — and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska — ‘We don’t see any evidence of this.’ “
Nothing there ladies. Nothing at all.
Meanwhile, this would be Scott Walker and the Republicans in Wisconsin on Thursday:
A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly signed the bill.
The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via which to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.
In November, the state Senate approved SB 202, which rolled back this provision. On February, the Assembly did the same. Both were party-line votes in Republican-controlled chambers.
In essence, Republicans don’t want women to be paid the same amount as men for the same job. Why? Because Republicans think women should be folding laundry; men are taking care of them (gag): Money is More Important for Men.
So Mitch. What was that you were sayin’? Your lie about there not being a Republican attack on women is an attack unto itself.
More “Civil Rights” Action From the Right: “Trayvon a N****R
Yesterday I posted about a “My Fox” channel in Orlando, Florida referring to armed neo-Nazis who are “patrolling” the streets of Sanford, Florida (where Trayvon Martin was killed) as a “civil rights group.” (Fox has since taken the post down but I know their sleazy ways so I took a screenshot. Here it is.)
Something happened this morning that Fox would probably also define as the act of a “civil rights group” if they had the guts to report it at all. I checked both FoxNews and FoxNation and I don’t find a thing, but here it is:
(Image via WoodTV.com)
An electronic road construction sign near Dearborn, Mich. displayed a racial slur early Monday morning, targeting a Florida teenager who was fatally shot in February.
The sign referenced Trayvon Martin who police said was killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in self-defense. It has yet been decided if Zimmerman will be charged in the shooting.
The Michigan Department of Transportation sign, which read “Trayvon a N*****,” is located on Interstate 94 near Addison Street, west of downtown Detroit, WDIV reports. MDOT said that the sign was hacked just after midnight. Passersby noticed the hacked sign about 1 a.m. and called police who said they received numerous calls about the incident.
Michigan State Police troopers responded and contacted a sign supervisor to fix the message.
The control box on the sign was unlocked and the keyboard used to write messages was missing.
Read more and see a video here.
When I hear about something like this the first thing that comes to mind is how wingers insist that liberals and progressives are the haters. That’s why a blackout on news like this by the likes of Fox is significant. What they don’t report is as important as what they do report.
Oh, and if I were an African-American living in the United States right now, I would be getting more and more nervous.
Fox Calls Armed Neo-Nazi Group a “Civil Rights Group”
You can’t make this up.
On Friday I posted about armed members of the “National Socialist Movement” who are “patrolling” the streets of Sanford, Florida (where Trayvon Martin was killed):
Neo-Nazis are currently conducting heavily armed patrols in and around Sanford, Florida and are “prepared” for violence in the case of a race riot. The patrols are to protect “white citizens in the area who are concerned for their safety” in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting last month, says Commander Jeff Schoep of the National Socialist Movement [NSM]. “We are not advocating any type of violence or attacks on anybody, but we are prepared for it,” he says. “We are not the type of white people who are going to be walked all over.”
[...]
“Whenever there is one of these racially charged events, Al Sharpton goes wherever blacks need him,” Schoep said. “We do similar things. We are a white civil rights organization.”
The full post is here.
Fast forward to Saturday and”MyFox” out of Orlando bought that “civil rights” crap.
In Fox’s world, righties can do no wrong and white people are always the victim:
Go to the original here.
Obama Speaks the Truth, Fox Has a Fit
Ah, yeah (the headline on FoxNation right now):
I think we can all agree that that’s true. Supreme Court justices are unelected.
But no. Fox is freaking. This is from the accompanying article:
President Obama hosted a North American summit with Canadian Prime Minister Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon today at the White House.
During this summit, the President commented on the recent Supreme Court hearings on his signature healthcare law.
Obama remains ‘confident’ that the law will be upheld and felt he had to remind ‘conservative commentators’ that for four years they complained of ‘judicial activism’ and that an ‘unelected group of people’ would overturn a ‘duly constituted and passed law’ , a scenario he compared his healthcare fight to.
That’s a perfectly legitimate comment but what Fox is freaking out about is that it goes against the meme it has been pushing for years: Liberal judges are the only ones who engage in “judicial activism.” Conservative judges “uphold the Constitution.” What with Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, it has to reconfigure that propaganda.
What to do? Deal with the facts? Hey, we’re talkin’ Fox here folks. The facts aren’t on their side so option #2 is attack, attack, attack, attack Obama.
Be dumb. Watch Fox. They count on it.
Kenneth P. Vogel: Ask Robert Greenwald About Koch Brothers’ Slam on Brave New Films?
Just read this tweet from Politico:
Which lead to this video put out on Wednesday by the Koch brothers:
Which is a kill-the-messinger response to this documentary which was officially released by Brave New Films in New York City last night:
My question to Politico’s Vogel:
I’ll let you know if I hear back. Is Vogel a tool for the Koch brothers, or not?
12 White Men
Ah yes, the liberal media (my Tweet of the Day):
Outrageous. I’m so glad I don’t watch them.
I’m sure Up w/Chris Hayes will have both women and minorities as will Melissa Harris-Perry. Watch them!
Things Not Mentioned in the Constitution
To all of you who oppose the “individual mandate,” here’s my Tweet of the Day:
Think About This: Cows Are Fed Metal Magnets to Prevent Them From Ingesting Metal
FYI — a heads up and a quick post:
Cows Are Fed Magnets to Prevent Them From Ingesting Metal Objects
Image via MagnetSource.com
What?
The headline alone makes me crazy. Cows are fed metal to prevent them from ingesting metal?
Oh. Okay.
Gosh. I wonder if that metal is absorbed into the body of the poor cow and then into ours.
Karl Rove: Any President Would Have Killed Osama bin Laden
Karl Rove is trying to rewrite history while simultaneously making President Obama look like an empty suit:
As for the killing of Osama bin Laden, Mr. Obama did what virtually any commander in chief would have done in the same situation. Even President Bill Clinton says in the film “that’s the call I would have made.” For this to be portrayed as the epic achievement of the first term tells you how bare the White House cupboards are.
Excuse me. George W. Bush was president for eight years while bin Laden was on the run and he didn’t get him. As a matter of fact, Bush blew a huge chance to do so:
(Via.)
And that’s the one big chance Bush blew to catch or kill bin Laden that we know of. There could have been many others over the course of Bush’s two terms.
So again, for Rove to claim “any president” would have done what Obama did — when his guy had eight years to do so but didn’t — is just typical Rove slime.
About the Separation of Church and State
Why never to vote for Rick Santorum (my Tweet of the Day):
And just think, the Romney campaign is kicking around the idea of making Santorum the — say it ain’t so already — attorney general.
Unthinkable, imho.
CEOs Profit By Screwing Companies Up and Laying People Off
Capitalism:
Yesterday:
Sears to Close 62 Stores in 1H to Cut Costs
Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD), the department-store chain controlled by hedge fund executive Edward Lampert, plans to close 62 retail stores in the first half of this year to reduce expenses.
The closings include 43 Sears Hometown stores, 10 Sears Hardware stores and 9 The Great Indoors stores, the Hoffman Estates, Illinois-based company said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on March 14. The company, which also owns the Kmart chain, had 4,010 stores as of Jan. 28.
[...]
Sears fell 1.1 percent to $82.55 at the close in New York. The shares have more than doubled this year after plunging 56 percent in 2011.
The only mention in the article above about job losses is this: “Brathwaite said in an e-mail that he didn’t know how many jobs may be affected because most of the closing stores are independently owned and operated,” and of course, the wimpy reporter let him get away with that BS. Hey, how about asking for a guesstimate?
Today:
Sears Awarded CEO $9.9 Million in 2011
U.S. retail giant Sears Holding Corp. said it paid its top executive, Lou D’Ambrosio, $9.9 million in 2011.
That was D’Ambrosio’s total pay package, the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Crain’s Chicago Business reported Saturday D’Ambrosio received $793,000 for “personal use of chartered aircraft,” which covered, essentially, his commute from the Philadelphia, where he lives, to Chicago.
People bought everything from towels to homes and cars from the Sears catalogue. I remember — this is probably more than you want to know about me — sitting on the toilet leafing through the 500-some-page Sears catalogue as a kid in the 60s. It was like the Amazon.com of its time.
Sears’employees didn’t drive the company into the ground, the managers and owners did. Yet while the honchos are raking in millions workers are being laid off and fired.
But hey, Wall Street’s happy so we should be too, right?
Gay Guys at the White House — Yikes!
This is the amazing blogger Andrew Sullivan (on the left) walking into the White House last night with his spouse, Aaron Tone, on their way to the state dinner with British PM David Cameron.
What a wonderful picture. Despite all the gloom, it reminds me that yes, we’re slowly making progress despite having to drag the ball and chain of the Republicans along with us:
Photo via AndrewSullivan.TheDailyBeast.com
Love it.
Bravo to President Obama for having the guts to invite these two and bravo to Andrew and Tony for their pride and confidence.
A Doctor Speaks Out Against Arizona’s Let-Doctors-Lie-to-Women Legislation
Last Thursday I posted about legislation wending its way through the Arizona legislature known as the “Let Women Die” law. It would permit a doctor who opposes abortion to withhold information about the condition of a patient’s fetus if they feared the patient would choose to abort if they knew how diseased and/or deformed the fetus was.
I think a better name for the legislation is let’s legalize letting “Doctors Lie to Women” or let’s legalize medical practice, because that’s essentially what it would do.
Reader beth, who commented on the post (see the link above), brought up a good point: “Where the hell has the American Medical Association been on all this?” Ah, yeah!
Well, the AMA is still MIA but finally a doctor has weighed in. Meet Dr. Megan Evans:
Imagine carrying a baby to term. You’ve waited nine long months for this moment. You’ve planned for her arrival, you’ve had the baby shower, and you’ve gone to all your prenatal appointments. All along you are told that you are progressing normally and your baby is healthy. Your delivery day comes and, at delivery, your doctor tells you your baby has a devastating abnormality. A cardiac defect or a severe structural abnormality or chromosomal abnormality… something that was likely already detected early in your pregnancy.
You then discover your doctor withheld this information from you for fear you would seek an abortion. What a nightmare.
Unfortunately, the Arizona legislation is working to make this nightmare a reality.
[...]
I respect my patients, I trust them to make the best decision for themselves and their families, and I trust my colleagues to do the same. I, as a physician, have no right to make medical decisions for my patients based purely on what I think is best or based on my religious beliefs.
Thank you Dr. Evans. I can only imagine the hate mail you’re getting tonight. Now I’m waiting for the AMA as a whole to start making some major noise — to start SCREAMING — about this unspeakable oppression.
Andrew Breitbart Wouldn’t Have Been a Star Without Dumb People
My last post about Andrew Breitbart is this tweet from the extremely conservative David Frum:
What a legacy.
Georgia Wants We the People to Be Afraid and to Go the Hell Away
Last I knew, We the People own the streets (via the taxes we pay to buy and maintain them) and thus, they are free speech zones:
Some Georgia lawmakers want to make legitimate union picketing and other common protest activities felonies that not only could result in one-year jail terms but up to $10,000 in fines.
The bill, SB 469, would clamp down on free speech and workers’ rights in several ways. First, it would outlaw picketing outside the home of a CEO or other top company officials, such as rallying outside the home of a sweatshop owner.
It also would allow businesses to ask a judge to halt the protests outside of a business. If the judge orders a halt and the picketing continues, the union members or protestors from other groups could each be slapped with a $1,000 fine.
In addition, any union or organization which “continues to sponsor or assist in the prohibited activity” would be subject to $10,000 fine. Businesses which think they suffered damage from the picketing could ask for a cut of that cash.
We’re heading toward a society that looks something like this:
Homeless man gets 15 years for stealing $100.00:
A homeless man robbed a Louisiana bank and took a $100 bill. After feeling remorseful, he surrendered to police the next day. The judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.
Doubtful Signs of a Criminal Case Against MF Global
Federal authorities are struggling to find evidence to support a criminal case stemming from the collapse of MF Global, even after a federal grand jury in Chicago has issued subpoenas.
Investigators, unable to find a smoking gun amid thousands of e-mails and documents, increasingly suspect that chaos and poor risk control systems prompted the disappearance of more than $1 billion in customer money, according to several people involved in the case.
(Image via.)
Romney Has to Be Programmed Before he Can Respond to Limbaugh Fiasco
Here are my Tweets of the Day (especially like the second one):
Wikileaks Releasing Documents Tonight That Could Be V-e-r-y Interesting
This should be interesting:
Here is their press release:Today WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files – more than five million emails from the Texas-headquartered “global intelligence” company Stratfor. The emails date from between July 2004 and late December 2011. They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal’s Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defense Intelligence Agency. The emails show Stratfor’s web of informers, pay-off structure, payment-laundering techniques and psychological methods, for example,
[Y]ou have to take control of him. Control means financial, sexual or psychological control… This is intended to start our conversation on your next phase” – CEO George Friedman to Stratfor analyst Reva Bhalla on 6 December 2011, on how to exploit an Israeli intelligence informant providing information on the medical condition of the President of Venezuala [sic], Hugo Chavez.
It will take days to cull through all the material but here’s an early reaction: Massive Leak Reveals Criminality, Paranoia Among Corporate Titans.
Class Warfare — And They’re Winning
My quote of the day:
Naomi Klein
The entire world seems to be one huge advertisement for The Shock Doctrine. Naomi Klein showed in her revelatory book how the corporate-political-military-media complex exploits crises to further impose their harsh right-wing agenda – even when they themselves created the crisis. In a sane world, the economic meltdown and deep recession of the past four years would have led at minimum to stringent regulation of financiers and speculators plus programs to assist their victims. But in this world, you have to be nuts to believe in a sane world.
(Via.)
This is Not a Chicken
Wow. I love this graphic responding to the “personhood” amendment Republicans are introducing across the country. You know, the one that would make law the notion that a human being becomes a person the instant a sperm fertilizes an egg.
Bravo!
