[H]e is “proud” the U.S. used waterboarding to gain information from terror suspects.

“I’m proud that we used techniques that broke the will of these terrorists,” he said in a BBC interview, adding that he did not consider waterboarding to be torture.

I know Rove, psychopath that he is, doesn’t give a damn but it just so happens that the world decided long ago that waterboarding is illegal.  Yet this guy struts around essentially boasting that the Bush administration, and thus the United States, broke the law.

Karl Rove shames all of us.  He shames the United States.

A local church is having a food drive on Sunday (must be one of those “social justice” churches) so I followed one of the staff members to its parking lot where he left the truck, for the parishioners to fill up on Sunday, and then I brought him back to the bank.  So nice of churches to do that.  It helps us so, so much.

A cool thing I noticed today was that almost all the people who came though — even though they’re dealing with crushing issues in their lives — brought their own grocery bags.  Neat to see that even with everything on their plate, the care about the environment.

This will be interesting to watch.

This screenshot, from the Fox “News” homepage, speaks for itself in terms of the hate Fox is trying to stoke.  I mean, when was the last time you heard anyone on Fox talk about Russia?

(Crickets.)

This isn’t about Russia.  It’s about Obama and “socialism” and “fascism” and…November.

Not exactly. This would be CNN’s New York headquarters tonight, as reported and photographed by Michael Moore.

If the U.S. is asleep; so too is the world.  Nothing’s happening if it ain’t happening in the U.S.

“Big labor?”  As always, watch Fox and be stupid.  “Big labor” accounts for only 12.3% of the U.S. workforce.

Oh, and I grew up in a “social justice religion.”  What does that mean to me?  That I volunteer at a food bank in an effort to help those less fortunate than I am.  Glenn, that’s “fascism?”

Here’s an email I got from them today:

———————————————————

Subject:  ATTENTION all TPN Members:

Tea Party Nation
A message to all members of Tea Party Nation

It has recently come to our attention that an email is circulating referring to the newly established liberal-funded Tea Party of Nevada as TPN.  This email repeatedly disparages the Tea Party group using the acronym TPN.

TPN – Tea Party Nation is Trademarked.  If you receive this email or have forwarded this email, please make any and all attempts to correct this misinformation.

TPN (Tea Party Nation) is against the formation of a third party political party.

Thank you for your help in this matter.

Sherry Phillips
Vice President
Tea Party Nation

———————————————————

Oh, this must be the version of the “grassroots” Tea Party that is actually an arm of the Republican party.

There but for the grace of God go I.

The list is below.

Good luck to the anchors and reporters at WGN.  It’s going to be very hard not to use some of these words (like authorities and campaign trail).  And good luck to them too for having to work for a boss who involves himself in such petty stuff.  It sounds like an awful place to work.

• “Flee” meaning “run away”
• “Good” or “bad” news
• “Laud” meaning “praise”
• “Seek” meaning “look for”
• “Some” meaning “about”
• “Two to one margin” . . . “Two to one” is a ratio, not a margin. A margin is measured in points. It’s not a ratio.
• “Yesterday” in a lead sentence
• “Youth” meaning “child”
• 5 a.m. in the morning
• After the break
• After these commercial messages
• Aftermath
• All of you
• Allegations
• Alleged
• Area residents
• As expected
• At risk
• At this point in time
• Authorities
• Auto accident
• Bare naked
• Behind bars
• Behind closed doors
• Behind the podium (you mean lecturn) [sic]
• Best kept secret
• Campaign trail
• Clash with police
• Close proximity
• Complete surprise
• Completely destroyed, completely abolished, completely finished or any other completely redundant use
• Death toll
• Definitely possible
• Diva
• Down in (location)
• Down there
• Dubbaya when you mean double you
• Everybody (when referring to the audience)
• Eye Rack or Eye Ran
• False pretenses
• Famed
• Fatal death
• Fled on foot
• Folks
• Giving 110%
• Going forward
• Gunman, especially lone gunman
• Guys
• Hunnert when you mean hundred
• Icon
• In a surprise move
• In harm’s way
• In other news
• In the wake of (unless it’s a boating story)
• Incarcerated
• Informed sources say . . .
• Killing spree
• Legendary
• Lend a helping hand
• Literally
• Lucky to be alive
• Manhunt
• Marred
• Medical hospital
• Mother of all (anything)
• Motorist
• Mute point. (It’s moot point, but don’t say that either)
• Near miss
• No brainer
• Officials
• Our top story tonight
• Out in (location)
• Out there
• Over in
• Pedestrian
• Perfect storm
• Perished
• Perpetrator
• Plagued
• Really
• Reeling
• Reportedly
• Seek
• Senseless murder
• Shots rang out
• Shower activity
• Sketchy details
• Some (meaning about)
• Some of you
• Sources say . . .
• Speaking out
• Stay tuned
• The fact of the matter
• Those of you
• Thus
• Time for a break
• To be fair
• Torrential rain
• Touch base
• Under fire
• Under siege
• Underwent surgery
• Undisclosed
• Undocumented alien
• Unrest
• Untimely death
• Up in (location)
• Up there
• Utilize (you mean use)
• Vehicle
• We’ll be right back
• Welcome back
• Welcome back everybody
• We’ll be back
• Went terribly wrong
• We’re back
• White stuff
• World class
• You folks

Photo: Fernando Trabanco

COVER Substances deposited by a mother bird into her eggs influence how intensely her offspring beg for food after hatching. In canaries, these substances are effectively a prenatal signal of parental generosity. In contrast to the common assumption, they function primarily to serve the evolutionary interests of the offspring rather than the mother.

Then again, hey, it’s Mississippi.

UPDATE:  The ACLU has sued the school district for violating the lesbian student’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression.

Bravo!  I mean, even the Tea Partiers want us to adhere to the Constitution, right?  So it’s a no-brainer.

Previously undisclosed email messages turned over to the F.B.I. and Senate ethics investigators provide new evidence about [Republican] Senator John Ensign’s efforts to steer lobbying work to the embittered husband of his former mistress and could deepen his legal and political troubles.

The next minute I read a tweet about this:  GOP will Call for a Massa [a Democrat] Investigation.

When will the “liberal media” move from 24/7 Massa coverage to 24/7 Ensign coverage?

Asked why he turned out to protest…73-year-old Bob Bunderson of Berthoud talked about federal spending and complained about members of Congress.  When asked about how state lawmakers figured in those issues, he said, “I guess I get the state the the U.S. (governments) confused sometimes.”

Berthoud is roughly 60 miles northwest of Denver, so our friend Bob Bunderson here got in his car and drove for about an hour to get to the Capitol with essentially no idea why he was doing it.

Wow.

The accompanying article mocks people like me, who immediately saw that red “tomato” as a bullet hole:

Featuring President Obama with a tomato splattered squarely on his nose, the image signifies not just a thorough booing of him and his policies but is positioned to liken him to common clown costuming. That latter point is reflected in the issue’s headline, “Enough clowning: Americans rejecting ‘greatest snow-job on Earth.’”

Such symbiotic satire was lost on those who projected criminal intents onto the tomato.

Oh, so seeing this as something more than a tomato splatter means there’s something wrong with me?  I’m “projecting criminal intents [sic] onto the tomato?”  No.  I’m projecting criminal intent onto World Net Daily.

This reminds me of what Fox “News” does when it gets caught making an outrageous statement:  Hey, relax. Get a sense of humor.  Why are you so angry?  It’s a joke.  We’re kidding!  It’s everybody else’s fault, not ours.

Way to go TurboTax!

More on the graphic here.

As you would expect from a conservative plan, compared to Barack Obama’s tax ideas Ryan would raise less government revenue. This is why he needs sharp cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and all other government programs combined with privatization of Medicare so that a larger share of your diminished benefit goes to for-profit insurance companies. The interesting thing, however, is that when the Center for Tax Justice (PDF) ran the numbers, they discovered that this isn’t the kind of tax cut that makes your taxes lower. On the contrary. Most Americans will pay higher taxes under Ryan’s plan than under Obama’s. Only the very richest will pay less.

“Only the very richest will pay less?”  So the very richest would get another GOP tax cut?

So give Ryan credit. It’s quite difficult to raise taxes on 90 percent of Americans while reducing overall tax revenue, but he’s shown enormous ingenuity in getting the job done. Remember that this is the top House GOP budget guy. If John Boehner becomes Speaker after the midterms, Ryan will be writing budgets for the new majority, presumably animated by the same moral principles that led him to this idea.

When you hear the GOP talk about reducing the deficit, this is the kind of thing they’re talking about.  If anything like this ever passes, you can kiss this country good-bye.  We’ll all be living in the streets.

The water utility in Edmonton, EPCOR, published the most incredible graph of water consumption last week. By now you’ve probably heard that up to 80% of Canadians were watching last Sunday’s gold medal Olympic hockey game. So I guess it stands to reason that they’d all go pee between periods.

But still—the degree to which the water consumption matches with the key breaks in the hockey game is stunning.

I bet water consumption patterns in the U.S. were pretty similar.

Women of all races bring home less income and own fewer assets, on average, than men of the same race, but for single black women the disparities are so overwhelmingly great that even in their prime working years their median wealth amounts to only $5.

In a groundbreaking report released Monday by a leading economic research group, social scientists turned a spotlight on the grave financial challenges facing an often overlooked group of women, many of whom could not take an unpaid sick day or repair a major appliance without going into debt.

“It’s rather shocking,” said Meizhu Lui, director of the Closing the Gap Initiative based in Oakland, Calif., who contributed to the report “Lifting as We Climb: Women of Color, Wealth and America’s Future.”

Among the most startling revelations in the wealth data is that while single white women in the prime of their working years (ages 36 to 49) have a median wealth of $42,600 (still only 61 percent of their single white male counterparts), the median wealth for single black women is only $5.

It’s no wonder there is a whole generation of single black women in this country who are living at the same poverty level as their mothers and grandmothers.  Nobody has anything to pass down, to help the next generation get a leg up; the group as a whole has no real chance of breaking out of this vicious cycle.

Terrible.

Go to this site and enter your name — or a name — and sit back and watch.  You too can be honored by Glenn Beck for being the proud progressive you are, just like he honored me:

Never let it be said that Walmart doesn’t know how to pander for a fast buck. The megachain acknowledged today  that it’s selling ethnic Barbie dolls for about half of what it charges for Caucasian Barbies.

The store was forced into the admission after a Louisiana-based shopper posted a photo, seen here,

of the diverse dolls—and their respective pricetags—side by side in a Wal-Mart. As the good-humored Latino-interest blog Guanabee: “The same exact doll, in Caucasian, commands almost double the price! Who says Barbie dolls don’t supply young girls with a realistic portrayal of womanhood?”

Big banks and automakers bailed out by the government are now on a K Street shopping spree.

Over the past few months, the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion financial bailout have hired a slew of blue-chip lobbyists to boost their presence in Washington.

Congressional lawmakers and consumer advocacy organizations pressured companies to stop lobbying when they took bailout money. But as the companies regain their health, with some banks soaring in the process, they are heavily lobbying the administration and Capitol Hill.

General Motors, which went to Washington in late 2008 in need of emergency aid and then passed through bankruptcy in 2009, has hired three outside lobbying firms already in 2010.

Lawmakers should have done more than “pressure” companies to stop lobbying when they took bailout money, they should have required it as a pre-condition to getting bailout money.