One person's plea for sanity and the continuation of the human race in an insane world.
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Pat Robertson on hate crimes bill: ‘The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians.’Yesterday on the Christian Broadcasting Network, televangelist Pat Robertson aired a segment slamming President Obama for signing the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law. Extending hate crimes protection to the gay and transgendered community, Robertson argued, was a targeted attack on homophobic Christians like himself. Robertson said the new law is the latest example of a “noose” tightening around “the necks of Christians.” Later in the segment, he implied Democrats in Congress were “opposed to many of the fundamental Christian beliefs”:
PAT ROBERTSON: The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues. And it all was embodied in something called the Hate crimes bill that President Obama said was a major victory for America. I’m not sure if America was the beneficiary. [...] We have voted into office a group of people who are opposed to many of the fundamental Christian beliefs of our nation. And they hold to radical ideology, and they are beginning put people sharing their points of view into high office. And not only that, they not only have control of both houses of Congress.
(Think Progress)
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Gov't says stimulus saved or created 650,000 jobs---
WASHINGTON – About 650,000 jobs have been saved or created under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, the White House said Friday, saying the president's goal of 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year is on track.
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During House hearing on concussions, Rep. King defends Limbaugh and demands Goodell apologize to him.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell testified to the House Judiciary Committee today about “legal issues related to football head injuries.” However, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) decided to use the hearing as an opportunity to defend Rush Limbaugh and quiz Goodell on why the hate radio host couldn’t become an owner of a team, even while “offensive” musicians like Fergie and J-Lo (who have “alleged that the CIA are terrorists and liars” and “used…verbal pornography”) can. “In fact I don’t think that anything Rush Limbaugh said was offensive,” added King. Although he requested that Goodell apologize to Limbaugh, the NFL commissioner never did so, repeating his belief that Limbaugh’s comments about Donovan McNabb were offensive and inappropriate.
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---Obama honors fallen Americans at Dover
DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. – Standing in the pre-dawn darkness, President Barack Obama saw the real cost of the war in Afghanistan: The Americans who return in flag-covered cases while much of the nation sleeps in peace.
In a surprise midnight dash to this Delaware base, where U.S. forces killed overseas come home, Obama honored the return of 18 fallen Americans Thursday. All were killed in Afghanistan this week, a brutal stretch that turned October into the most deadly month for U.S. troops since the war began.
The dramatic image of a president on the tarmac was a portrait not witnessed in years. Former President George W. Bush said the appropriate way to show his respect for war's cost was to meet with grieving military families in private, as he often did, but he never went to Dover to meet remains coming off the cargo plane. Obama did so with the weight of knowing he may soon send more troops off to war.
For all the talk of his potential troop increase — maybe 40,000, maybe some other
large figure — Obama got a grim reminder of the number that counts: one.
posted by rich at 9:13 AM
Economy grows in 3Q, signals end of recession
WASHINGTON – The economy grew at a 3.5 percent pace in the third quarter, the best showing in two years, fueled by government-supported spending on cars and homes. It's the strongest signal yet that the economy has entered a new, though fragile, phase of recovery and that the worst recession since the 1930s has ended.
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Glenn Beck Rants About Serving Kids Vegetarian Food, Bizarrely Praises PETA, Screams At Al Gore For Not Eating Tofurkey
On Tuesday, in more bizarre, nonsensical ranting that has become Glenn Beck's M.O., the Fox News anchor jumped on a story about the UK climate chief stating that not eating meat was better for the planet.
Beck proceeds to interpret this as though he'll somehow be personally forced to stop eating meat. He then becomes horrified about the "indoctrination" of school children in Baltimore, which has instituted a Meatless Monday lunch program. The "controversy" of serving vegetarian food in schools has also been described by Lou Dobbs as a "political storm in the making".
He then praises PETA for its consistency on climate change policy (though it is an animal rights organization) and demands that Al Gore put down his cheeseburgers.
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eBay refuses to allow auction for Roeder’s defense fund.
The Kansas City Star is reporting that eBay has decided to prevent a planned online auction organized to support the defense fund of Scott Roeder, the accused murder of Dr. George Tiller. EBay said that the auction violated its policy against “offensive material” and would not be allowed. EBay made its announcement on the same day the family of Dr. George Tiller issued a personal appeal to the company to intervene and prevent the scheduled auction:
“These materials contain hate messages, glorify violence against abortion doctors who provide constitutionally protected medical services, and instruct on means of violence, including bombing, of abortion clinics,” said Lee Thompson, an attorney for the Tiller family, in a letter sent to eBay on Tuesday and approved by Tiller’s widow, Jeanne Tiller. “We urge you to deny access to the resources of eBay for this reprehensible and vile ‘auction.’”
The decision by eBay followed a week of increasing national criticism. Anti-choice activists organized the auction to help fund Roeder’s defense, and items being donated included “an Army of God manual, a prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons, and several autographed drawings submitted by Roeder.”
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Fla. man says Home Depot fired him over God button
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A former cashier for The Home Depot who has been wearing a "One nation under God" button on his work apron for more than a year has been fired, he says because of the religious reference. The company claims that expressing such personal beliefs is simply not allowed.
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Hatch bucks Cheney: ‘I would never want to call my president dithering.’Despite his own failures in Afghanistan (namely turning valuable resources away from the war and invading Iraq), former Vice President Dick Cheney attacked President Obama this week, saying he is “afraid to make a decision” on the war in Afghanistan and that he’s “dithering.” Today on CNN, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) disagreed with Cheney’s assessment. “Well, I would never want to call my president ‘dithering,’” Hatch said, adding, “And I know it’s a tough position that he’s in.” Later, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) was far more blunt in criticizing Cheney’s remarks:
BROWN: Look, to listen to Dick Cheney who was the mastermind of the most failed decade of foreign policy that this country has had, at least in my political lifetime, perhaps my whole lifetime, perhaps my parents’ lifetime too. I mean to listen to him when he talked about dithering when their mistake was to attack Iraq and lose sight of Afghanistan as President Abdullah, sorry as Dr. Abdullah, presidential candidate Abdullah said that eight years of failure of Karzai implicitly is also eight years of failure of dithering by that administration, so just take Dick Cheney’s advice off the table.
(Think Progress)
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The Senate voted 68 to 29 yesterday to “extend new federal protections to people who are victims of violent crime because of their sex or sexual orientation.” The hate crimes measure, “attached to an essential military-spending bill,” now needs the signature of President Obama, who has said he will sign it.
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Bachmann replied that although she does receive a lot of mail, it is “because Nancy Pelosi has made me a top target.” Ingraham then began mocking Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) — the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives and the highest-ranking female politician in American history — by making hissing and cat noises, then shrieking, “she doesn’t like powerful women.”(TP)
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Labels: uitor
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Pennsylvania state lawmaker: Veterans who support climate change legislation are ‘traitors.’A coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, under the name Operation Free, is on a 21-state bus tour to alert the public about the dangers of global warming and its threat to national security. Upon hearing about the group’s visit to Pennsylvania, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) blasted the veterans as “traitors” and compared them to Benedict Arnold:
“As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!” Mr. Metcalfe’s email reads. “Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!!”
Rep. Metcalfe, who served in the U.S. Army from 1980-84, today defended the remarks, saying that “if the type of policies that an individual promotes undermines the Constitution and the law of the land in our country, then they are not patriots.”
Global warming is inextricably linked to national security, with the potential to “aggravate existing problems such as poverty, social tensions, environmental degradation, ineffectual leadership and weak political institutions” around the world, which “could increase the pool of potential recruits into terrorist activity.” In the past, Metcalfe has refused to support Domestic Violence Awareness month in Pennsylvania because the resolution referenced domestic abuse suffered by men, which Metcalfe interpreted as part of a “homosexual agenda.” He also opposed a vote to “honor the 60th anniversary of a Muslim group in the state, because ‘Muslims don’t recognize Jesus Christ as God.’”
(Think Progress)
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I really think that it is about time to require people to go through a sanity test - such as, they must recognize reality as defined by science - before becoming a political representative.
I'm sure that loonies think that they should be represented as well as sane people, but this is a bit much.
posted by rich at 10:50 AM
Following Kerpen’s Lead Again, Beck Claims That Net Neutrality Is An Attack On Freedom Of SpeechIn September, ThinkProgress dissected how Glenn Beck’s successful character assassination campaign against former White House environmental adviser Van Jones was fueled by Americans for Prosperity’s Phil Kerpen, who had taken credit for notifying Beck of some of Jones’ past comments. On his Fox News show yesterday, Beck followed Kerpen’s lead once again, this time in an assault on net neutrality.
In a segment featuring Kerpen last night, Beck warned his audience that the Obama administration “just might be trying to take over the media.” “This is a big week, isn’t it, for freedom of speech?” Beck asked Kerpen, who said that it was because “the FCC on Thursday is going to decide what the future of the Internet looks like”:
Beck then used net neutrality as a jumping off point to outline how he believed the Obama administration was trying to shut down freedom of speech. “You have a freedom of speech or the government. You can’t really have both,” said Beck.KERPEN: It is a very big week because the FCC on Thursday is going to decide what the future of the Internet looks like, if it looks much like the past 10 years where you have private competition and pretty much people can do what they want on the Internet or whether we have a much, much heavier government hand. And they’re going to take the first step on that Thursday.
BECK: OK. I want to start just real quick – Net neutrality, because it happens on Thursday. This is that everybody should have free Internet, right?
KERPEN: Well, essentially. You know, they dress it up the way they dress up a lot of their things. They turn it upside-down by saying that evil corporations, phone and cable corporations are going to block what we can do block or we can say.
---When he introduced Kerpen, Beck described him as “the chairman of Internet Freedom Coalition,” an alliance of conservative groups that opposes all taxes and regulations related to the internet. Kerpen’s group released a Beck-like conspiracy chart today that attempts to expose the so-called “Obama Information Control Hierarchy.” Hours before Kerpen appeared on Beck’s show, he pushed the idea that net neutrality is a threat to freedom of speech in his daily podcast, warning that regulation would lead to “a government-owned and controlled network” and eventual “content restriction” that would “decide that certain speech is out of bounds.”
Beck also appears to have no idea what net neutrality actually means. Science Progress aptly explained it last year:
Kerpen, from whom Beck apparently cribbed his understanding of the concept, claims that there is no reason to be concerned about internet service providers blocking access or charging customers differenty. “Proponents of net neutrality rely on the scare tactic that big bad cable and phone companies will block access to Web sites and cause other mischief unless the benevolent federal government rides to the rescue, and soon,” wrote Kerpen on FoxNews.com earlier this month. “But they’ve been ringing this alarm for the better part of a decade and none of the horrors they warn us about have happened.” In fact, in 2007 it was revealed that Comcast had disrupted peer-to-peer file-sharing traffic on its network, leading to an FCC investigation. There was also an incident where “Verizon Wireless denied Naral Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, access when the group asked to the carrier to allow Verizon customers to sign up for text-messaging alerts.”At the most basic level, net neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet; all content on the Internet is equally accessible, and once a person pays for access to the Internet, they alone get to choose how they use it. This means that providers should not be allowed to block access to certain sites or applications, or charge different customers different amounts for services.
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Impeach Obama Effort Is Too ‘Ridiculous’ Even For Rep. Dana Rohrabacher
It’s telling that for Rohrabacher –- who once said global warming was caused by dinosaur farts and dismissed torture as “hazing pranks from some fraternity” –- impeaching Obama is an idea that is just too absurd to support.
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Obama Administration: We're Not Going to Arrest Sick People for Smoking Pot.
I think it's awfully nice of them to promise not to arrest sick people who are trying not to puke their guts out:
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.
Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.
The new policy is a significant departure from the Bush administration, which insisted it would continue to enforce federal anti-pot laws regardless of state codes.
Attorney General Eric Holder said in March that he wanted federal law enforcement officials to pursue those who violate both federal and state law, but it has not been clear how that goal would be put into practice.
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Specter rips GOP: ‘A Party of obstructionism.’
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), who until late April of this year was a lifelong Republican, castigated his former party this morning on Fox News. Specter ripped the GOP for refusing to be a good-faith negotiator in the health care debate:
On the Republican side, it’s no, no, no. A party of obstructionism. … You have responsible Republicans who had been in the Senate — like Howard Baker, Bob Dole, or Bill Frist — who say Republicans ought to cooperate. Well, they’re not cooperating.
Specter also indicated he would fight hard for the public option. “I’m not prepared to recede at all. I think the public option is gaining momentum,” he said. “I am not going to step back a bit. I am going to fight for the best public option.”
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Limbaugh whines that NFL is an outpost of ‘racism and liberalism.’
Hate radio show host Rush Limbaugh’s bid to purchase a minority stake in the St. Louis Rams failed yesterday, after players, a team owner, the head of the players union, and the commissioner publicly expressed concern about his joining the league based on racist comments he had made in the past. Today, Limbaugh addressed the controversy on his show, saying it was all a ploy by Democrats to villainize him and calling the NFL “outpost of racism and liberalism”:
LIMBAUGH: They [Democrats] have to have a villain to advance everything, because they cannot sell their ideas. They had to demonize me with false, fake, made up quotes. To protect their precious little — National Football League as an outpost of racism and liberalism, which is what it is.
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But as Media Matters points out, NFL teams, owners, players and personnel gave overwhelmingly to GOP since 1989. Limbaugh fans are rallying behind him, with some proposing a boycott of the NFL. A RedState blogger strongly supported the hate radio host in a post titled “Tonight… We Are All Rush Limbaugh.”
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Alternate Reality Reporting
For those who have followed the health care reform debate over the past several months, a moment of comic relief -- the lede from a Politico article by Carrie Budoff Brown:In the health care reform debate, where playing nice has been the rule ...
Ummm ... what?
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Liz Cheney takes on 'radical' W.H.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney’s eldest daughter Liz will launch a new group aimed at rallying opposition to the “radical” foreign policy of the Obama administration which it says has succeeded only in undermining the nation’s security.
The new group, Keep America Safe, will make the case against President Barack Obama’s moves to wrench America away from Bush era foreign policy on issues from detaining alleged terrorists at Guantanamo Bay to building a missile shield in Eastern Europe.“The policies being proposed by the Obama administration are so radical across the board,” Cheney said. “Whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, you want the nation to be strong and so many steps this president is taking are making the nation weaker.”
“The Left has dozens of organizations and tens of millions of dollars dedicated to undercutting the war on terror,” said Kristol, a seasoned partisan warrior. “The good guys need some help too.”
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“I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but a recognition of the role of American leadership” in the world, Obama said in remarks moments ago. “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures” who won in the past, he added. “I will accept this award as a call to action, a call to all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st Century.”
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President Barack Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize.
The Nobel Committee announced early this morning that President Barack Obama has won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” Obama has “created a new climate in international politics,” the committee said in its announcement, referencing Obama’s agenda to reduce the world’s nuclear stockpiles through international institutions, restart peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians, and build greater alliances with the Muslim world. The announcement was “a stunning surprise,” given that much of the agenda remains a work in progress. “Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline,” and he was chosen over 204 other finalists. Thorbjorn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, said the committee wanted to “enhance Obama’s diplomatic efforts so far rather than reward him for events in the future.” Obama is the third sitting U.S. President to win the award. “Woodrow Wilson was awarded the prize in 1919, after helping to found the League of Nations and shaping the Treatise of Versailles; and Theodore Roosevelt was the recipient in 1906 for his work to negotiate an end to the Russo-Japanese war.” (Jimmy Carter won the award after leaving the presidency, and former Vice President Al Gore won in 2007 for his work on climate change.)
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Jeb Bush: The Country Needs To Put On Its ‘Big-Boy Pants’ And Leave My Brother Alone
This morning on Fox News, the Fox and Friends hosts and former Florida governor Jeb Bush joined together to gripe about the fact that the country won’t forget what President Bush did to the country for eight years. They said that since it’s already been a whopping 10 months, everything that’s happening is now basically the fault of the Democrats:
KILMEADE: It’s been 10 months. Should Leader Hoyer be looking backwards, and is he accurate?
BUSH: I was on the plane coming up to Washington yesterday, and I heard someone complaining that their child’s acne was because of George Bush. Of course, last week the Olympics didn’t come to Chicago — that was my brother’s fault. And at some point, people are going to have to put on their big-boy pants and assume responsibility for the great challenges and opportunities our country has. I don’t know how much longer leaders — responsible leaders in Congress — can continue to say these things.
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No, President Bush is no longer in office making decisions. But Obama and Democratic leaders are forced to make many of their decisions based on what they inherited from Bush. Eight years is a long time, and the consequences of Bush’s actions didn’t disappear just because he went back to Texas. Ron Brownstein of the National Journal recently noted what the country is still dealing with, according to recent Census figures, after Bush’s two terms:On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country’s condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton’s two terms, often substantially.
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New Oklahoma law will publicy post details of women’s abortions online.
On Nov. 1, a law in Oklahoma will go into effect that will collect personal details about every single abortion performed in the state and post them on a public website. Implementing the measure will “cost $281,285 the first year and $256,285 each subsequent year.” Here are the first eight questions that women will have to reveal:
1. Date of abortion
2. County in which abortion performed
3. Age of mother
4. Marital status of mother(married, divorced, separated, widowed, or never married)
5. Race of mother
6. Years of education of mother(specify highest year completed)
7. State or foreign country of residence of mother
8. Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Live Births
Miscarriages
Induced Abortions
Although the questionnaire does not ask for name, address, or “any information specifically identifying the patient,” as Feminists for Choice points out, these eight questions could easily be used to identify a woman in a small community. “They’re really just trying to frighten women out of having abortions,” Keri Parks, director of external affairs at Planned Parenthood of Central Oklahoma, said. The Center for Reproductive Rights is challenging the law, arguing that “it violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it ‘covers more than one subject’ — a challenge that previously worked to strike down an abortion ultrasound law.”
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Obama loan relief plan hits goal early
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration's mortgage relief program has hit its goal of helping 500,000 borrowers, almost a month ahead of schedule.The government in July gave the lending industry a Nov. 1 deadline to meet that goal for the $50 billion program, which is designed to reduce foreclosures by lowering borrowers' monthly payments to more affordable levels. The lenders hit the government's goal on Oct 6, officials said Thursday.
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Jon Kyl Refuses To Defend John Ensign In Midst Of Ethics Scandal
Late last week, the New York Times documented new ethics problems for Sen. John Ensign (R-NV). In an effort to cover-up an affair he was having with the wife of one of his top staffers, Ensign asked his corporate allies to give that aide — Doug Hampton — a lobbying job. Despite rules that prohibit congressional staffers from lobbying for one year after leaving their government position, Ensign nevertheless helped Hampton line up lobbying clients and then “repeatedly intervened on the companies’ behalf with federal agencies.”
Ensign “could be legally at risk” if he knew that Hampton was violating the one-year ban, or if he aided and abetted him in doing so. Law enforcement officials told the Times that the F.B.I. is “likely to open a preliminary investigation” into the new accusations to determine whether a full investigation is warranted. The FBI inquiry would take precedence over a Senate ethics inquiry.
This morning on CNN’s State of the Union, Senate ethics chair Barbara Boxer (D-CA) announced “there’s a preliminary investigation going on, and we will look at all aspects of this case.” When asked whether Ensign can continue to “serve effectively,” Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) — a member of the Senate Republican leadership — refused to lend his support to Ensign. We should simply “wait and see what happens,” Kyl said.
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