Calling Fox News Quality Control: Pie Charts Are Supposed to Add Up to One HundredLet's see... 70% + 60% + 63% = 193%!
Bachmann and Palin to unite for Tea Party convention.Heck, I could almost support a Palin-Bachmann ticket... as a Progressive! - you know, the first Female/Female national ticket! - I'd gladly send 'em $$$.
Sarah Palin will star as the keynote speaker at next February’s First National Tea Party Convention, which will take place in Nashville, TN. Also attending: Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN). The right-wing Minnesota congresswoman has previously asserted that Democrats are trying to “sabotage” both her and Palin “to make sure that we don’t have a prominent national voice.”
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.As mentioned in previous years, most of my family is in town. None of us started out here - we all just ended up here. I've 3 sisters. 2 of 'em are in town, with their husbands. My mom is in town. My wife's folks are in town. Her sister & bro-in-law are in town. A sister's sister-in-law is in town. Our kids are in town. My daughter-in-law's folks are in town. We added a nephew this year.
It's secular - religious overtones are secondary.
It's American - the rest of world goes on happily without us.
Most of all, for me the basic premise - giving thanks - is a good thing. Yes, I am thankful for my family, for my undeserved good-fortune in life, for friends.
Happy Thanksgiving, with friends & family!
Perino: No Terrorist Attacks In America Under Bush (VIDEO)How do you argue with these people?
Rachel Weiner,HuffPost
25 Nov 2009
Dana Perino, recently nominated by President Obama to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, made an odd claim Tuesday night.
On Fox News, the former press secretary suggested President Obama was playing politics by refusing to describe the massacre at Fort Hood as a terrorist attack. "We should call it what it is," she said.
"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term," she told Sean Hannity. "I hope they're not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is."
[emphasis added]
"If wishes were horses, Beggars would ride"The context of that long-ago post was the magical thinking rampant in W's administration."We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality."
[unnamed White House aide, quoted by Ron Suskind, NYT Magazine, 17 Oct 2004]
Truth And ConsequencesSeriously: Why don't the Dems take to the airwaves with these talking points??? ... pointing out the logical implications of the GOP's position? ... stressing the basic economics of health care?
by Digby
This must-read report in the New England Journal Of Medicine lays out the facts about the cost to society in lost lives, productivity and money for failing to assure that everyone is covered by health insurance. And the costs of treating them late in preventable emergency situations is far, far higher than it would otherwise be. This should be obvious, but it's not.
The conservatives frame this problem in contradictory terms, arguing both that people ARE covered and that it will cost us too much to cover them. They further insist that people shouldn't be allowed to free ride on the system, that there should be no mandate to buy insurance and that any government administered health system is an infringement of their freedom. But these various ideas are just a smokescreen.
It's quite obvious that what they truly believe is that people who don't have insurance should not be allowed to get health care and that if they get sick they should be allowed to die unless they can find some charity or raise the money. There's no other way to reconcile their beliefs.
If conservatives believe this, they should say so instead of framing the issues in terms of whether or not we're going to "young and dynamic" vs "middle aged and secure" as David Brooks deceptively does in his column this morning. If you think that people who don't have health insurance (or the means to pay cash) should be barred from getting medical treatment, then you should be willing to make that argument up front. I would guess that there are more than few people in this country who believe just that. People who have insurance.
Mr. President, Dump Your Economic Team and Fix This Unemployment Crisis.My target has been Geithner, but I can see the wisdom of sacking Summers as well.
1) We oppose economic relief for Main Street; we support huge bonuses for Wall Street;You can probably paraphrase better than I. Try it. It's fun!
2) We oppose Medicare and Medicaid; we support the profits of predatory health insurance companies;
3) We support global warming, the melting of the polar ice-caps, and the demise of the polar bear;
4) We oppose unionization and unions; we support big business's unfair labor practices;
5) We don't want any more Hispanics in our America;
6) We support never-ending, futile wars;
7) We support belligerence and saber-rattling; we disdain diplomacy;
8) We're anti-gay;
9) We're don't believe Supreme Court decisions are the law of the land; we support the health insurance industry's right to ration care;
10) We support unmitigated gang violence, the right of psychotics and felons to buy guns, and the drug cartels that have turned our inner cities into war zones.
(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;... well, at least that's the proposal being discussed by the GOP:
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion;
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership.
Republicans considering ideological purity test for candidatesIt gets better.
Tues, 24 Nov 2009
Ten members of the Republican National Committee are proposing a resolution demanding candidates embrace at least eight of 10 conservative principles if they hope to receive financial support and an official endorsement from the RNC.
The "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates," is designed to force candidates to prove that they support "conservative principles" while opposing "Obama's socialist agenda," according to The New York Times' Caucus blog.Ah, yes - invoke St. Reagan - he who grew the National Debt from 33% of GDP to more than 50% of GDP!!!
[emphasis added]
"How long will this country be run by a dead man?"How long will St. Reagan run the GOP???
U.S. Fears Iraqis Will Not Keep Up Rebuilt ProjectsWhere to start?
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS
Published: November 20, 2009
NYT
BAGHDAD — In its largest reconstruction effort since the Marshall Plan, the United States government has spent $53 billion for relief and reconstruction in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, building tens of thousands of hospitals, water treatment plants, electricity substations, schools and bridges.
But there are growing concerns among American officials that Iraq will not be able to adequately maintain the facilities once the Americans have left, potentially wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and jeopardizing Iraq’s ability to provide basic services to its people.
The projects run the gamut — from a cutting-edge, $270 million water treatment plant in Nasiriya that works at a fraction of its intended capacity because it is too sophisticated for Iraqi workers to operate, to a farmers’ market that farmers cannot decide how to share, to a large American hospital closed immediately after it was handed over to Iraq because the government was unable to supply it with equipment, a medical staff or electricity.
15 Signs American Society Is Coming Apart at the SeamsCould be fun!
...
You have a population of 50 million people who are in desperate need of money, they most likely have no health insurance and can’t afford to get health care or help of any kind.
...
While the richest 1 percent have never had it so good, a significant percentage of the U.S. population now has firsthand experience in this. Millions upon millions of Americans are poor, broke, struggling, starving, desperate… and armed.
We are sitting on a powder keg!
When St. Reagan took office in 1981, the national debt was 32.6% of GDP.Dems - INFORM the voters about the myth of GOP 'fiscal responsibility'.
When he left office, it was 53.1% of GDP!
[Yep - in Ronnie's 8 years, he increased the debt by more than 20%, as % of GDP.]
When Bush I took office, the national debt was 53.1% of GDP.
When he left office, it was 66.2% of GDP!
[Yep - that stalwart fiscal conservative Geo. H.W. Bush increased the debt by 13% during his 4 years.]
When Clinton took office, the national debt was 66.2% of GDP.
When he left office, it was 57.4% of GDP!
[Yep - Clinton - the free-spending Democrat - reduced the national debt as % of GDP!]
When W took office, the national debt was 57.4% of GDP.
When he left?... 75.5% of GDP!!!
ObamaCareIt's not that hard: blame Obama & the Dems for all the country's current ills.
Obama's deficit
Obama's recession
Obama's wars
STAY ON MESSAGE!The message???
W and the GOP are the illness.Don't be afraid to REMIND the voters that W & his GOP enablers inherited a $230Bn budget surplus from that profligate tax-and-spend liberal Clinton.
Dems are the cure.
Health care is a human right.Do not - repeat, do NOT - respond to GOP talking points! - not EVER!!! Rather, stay on message. Yes, it's boring, and you sound like a broken-record... BUT IT WORKS!
We're cleaning up after WW's wars
W's recession
W's deficit (does anyone remember W's tax cuts???)
Big Banks Should be Broken Up, Not 'Coddled': Fed's FisherHow come Geithner isn't saying anything like this?
Reuters
Published: Friday, 20 Nov 2009
Banks that are considered too large to fail should be dismantled rather than "coddled," Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher said on Thursday.
...
Fisher suggested the only way of ensuring that such financial giants do not pose recurrent problems is by making them smaller.
"This means finding ways not to live with 'em and getting on with developing the least disruptive way to have them divest those parts of the 'franchise,' such as proprietary trading, that place the deposit and lending function at risk and otherwise present conflicts of interest," Fisher said in prepared remarks to the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
Here It ComesAND
Straight from House Minority Leader John Boehner's office:
"Sen. Reid's Government-Run Health Plan Requires a Monthly Abortion Fee"
We Are All Jihadists!My question: what if Dems responded in kind?
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT): Republicans are about to launch a "holy war" to derail health care reform.
GOP aligns with terrorists, declares jihad on America... maybe in a press-release issued by Majority Leader Reid.
Republican healthcare plan mandates sterilization for immigrant teens!But, no.
[paraphrased]In one of his early Congressional campaigns, LBJ is said to have advised his campaign manager to accuse his opponent of having carnal knowledge of his pigs.If Dems insist on replying to every Republican calumny, they have effectively lost the debate.
"You want me call him a pig-fucker?", the aide queried.
To which LBJ replied, "Make him deny it!"
