Obama 1 Bin Laden 0

USA! USA!

In all honesty, hats off to the Seals proving once again what a top notch group they are.

Obama's Birth Certificate Revealed

This will go down a big ugly stain on the Republican party forever.

The history books will show how utterly ignorant a majority of Republicans were during this time period.

Congratulations you dimwits on making history.

Congressional Generic Ballot

Ruh roh....looks like we've got some Demomentum happening!

Deal Reached - Government Shutdown Averted

Looks like the crybaby Boehner folded.

Republicans vs. Democrats

Now, lets see, current Democratic Congressmen that are decorated VETS

1) Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) - Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple Hearts

2) Representative Patrick Murphy, D-PA - Bronze Star

3) Representative Jack Murtha (D-PA) - Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts

4) Senator Daniel Inouye - Medal of Honor

5) Senator John Kerry - Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, and three awards of the Purple Heart

6) Representative Charles Rangel - Bronze Star

7) Representative Leonard Boswell (D-IA) - Two Bronze Stars

8) Rep. Mike Thompson, D-CA - Purple Heart

Currently active Republican decorated Congressmen

1) Senator John McCain - Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart

2) Any others?

Here's a longer list of jingoist Republicans/conservatives that run their mouths but have nothing to back it up.

Bill O'Reilly
Pat Buchanan
Rush Limbaugh
Michael Savage
Bill Kristol
Sean Hannity
Ted Nugent
Former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert - avoided the draft
Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey - avoided the draft
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY
Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay
Senate Republican Conference Chairman Jon Kyl, R-AZ
Jeb Bush, Florida Governor
Senate Republican Conference Vice Chair John Cornyn, R-TX
Karl Rove - avoided the draft
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair John Ensign, R-NV
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich - avoided the draft
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-OH

Obama = Bush = Carter

You know what would be really healthy for the Democrats. To relentlessly attack the top of the ticket right before the general election. I mean, make as many Obama = Bush comparisons as possible.

Drum beat that dead horse into the ground, then when it stops moving, keep on beating. Demoralize and dehumanize the top of the ticket and hopefully the base will turn on him viciously and just not show up in 2012.

Because see, what will really be good for the Dems, according to some FDL'ers, is if Dems take another beating in 2012. See, that way the country will really learn its lesson and revolt!

Only problem is that if Republicans continue gains in 2012, they will completely dismantle organized labor and legally destroy whats left of the Dems foot soldiers. More poll tax laws will pass. College voters will be restricted in voting. Republican fund-raising will be ridiculously unbalanced as untaxed corporate profits pour into Republican coffers unrestricted.

It might take 50 years to regain control but man, will we teach Obama a lesson! In the mean time, suck it up middle America.

This is all Obama's fault, because Obama = Bush!

I hear this occasionally and I see conservative pundits run with it any time its mentioned because they know how challenges to the parties leader squashes the morale and motivation of the base.

America Greeted as Liberators

Obama has now achieved what the Bush admin dreamed of...the US greeted as liberators in a predominately Muslim country.

Food for thought.

Operation Get the Dingbat Nominated

When it comes the time to vote in the Republican primaries, vote for Sarah!

Vote for Sarah!!!! Now, who's with me?

These results by PPP should explain why Palin would be...as you'd say at TalkingPointsMemo:

EXCELLENT NEWS!! FOR THE GOP!!!

TalkingPointsMemo

Someone just linked me to this site to start getting yourselves organized.

Primaries for Palin

Boycott Huffington Post

Boycott Huffington Post

They are now having the serial deceiver Breitbart blog there.

Time to forget about them. There are a number of blogs that are much more informative.

Check out my blog roll for a decent line-up to use as a starting point. Many of them don't have the mainland China-like moderation you experience at Huffington ComPost.

It's Time To Take Our Country Back

Watch Michael Moore's speech in Wisconsin. Spread it around. It's a great message about the working class taking this country back.

It's time folks....we've waited long enough.

Thank You Governor Walker of Wisconson

For uniting the Democratic party in a way that hasn't been seen since 2008!

The Few States With No Collective Bargaining Rights For Teachers

This really needs no explanation as these folks do just fine on their own. And with that....

"Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:

South Carolina – 50th
North Carolina – 49th
Georgia – 48th
Texas – 47th
Virginia – 44th

If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country. Let’s keep it that way.

This isn’t to say that the lack of collective bargaining explains these poor outcomes, of course, but it is true that the evidence that breaking teacher’s unions improves educational outcomes is somewhere between “exceptionally weak” and “non-existent.”

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2011/02/but-i-thought-union-busting-solved-all-educational-problems

Why Does the Right Have Such a Disdain for Teachers?

In light of how Gov. Walker of WI kissed up to who he thought was Koch, one of his largest financiers in the election, made me think a bit. Teachers across this country should be aware of how corporate interests can influence Governors to cut their benefits in order to allow business to game the system.

In other words, at the cost of those that educate our children, will come the payoff to campaign contributors.

It's a downward spiral in our education system. The constant attack from the right on our public teaching system is slowly eroding away what was once a noble occupation. Many highly skilled people stay away because they know, the second there is a downturn, they look to teachers to take the lopsided brunt of the load on their backs. Teachers are demonized as leeches on society from the right.

Driving home last month I remember reading a bumper sticker that encapsulated this disdain for public teachers that read; paraphrased 'I Can't Wait to Defund All Public Schools so We Can Build More Stealth Bombers.'

Who on earth could be that ignorant?

The video footage of Sarah Palin and her daughter rolling their eyes when a protester in Alaska mentioned she was a public school teacher is just one more example of the growing disdain the right has for public education.

I know the right likes to say the left thinks Republicans are all dumb rednecks (at least they joke that way to fire up the partisans) but when the apparent attack on our educators is so apparent in every day politics, it's not some far fetched conclusion that the right just doesn't like teachers.

Just Imagine...

Imagine if Obama had joked to a fake Trumka about his baseball bat he had in his oval office when speaking about the Tea Partiers what the uproar would be.

Just for a sec, stop and imagine what would be going on in right wing circles, just imagine.

If Obama joked about a bat in his Oval Office to Trumka, Fox would have guest after guest on to ask them what they thought about the President joking about bashing Tea Partiers heads in and if they think the President should apologize. Asking them if he crossed the line.

It would be on Fox 24/7. Every hourly show would ask the same question over and over. Every right wing blog would have blaring headlines of Obama with a bat drawn in his hand cartoons. Every right wing radio station would be hammering away at it, hour after hour.

At no point is the Governor of a state joking to who he thinks was a major contributor to his campaign about beating protesters with bats funny.

Right wing partisans would be insisting to be invited onto every other cable news station and they would push how the President joked about bashing in the heads of Tea Party protesters.

The conversation would focus on that to the point of a frenzy. Opinions would be heavily shaped. The public would overwhelmingly turn against the President. It would be shameful to throw your support behind someone who joked about bashing in the heads of the people he is supposed to represent.

Just stop for a second, and imagine.

Gov. Walker of Wisoncon Punked by Buffalo Beast

For whatever reason, the buffalo beast blog is down. Most likely because of the flood of people heading there.

The interview is a prank call of Gov. Walker who thinks he's talking to David Koch, the financiers of his Governorship and who also helped logistically getting out the vote and all. Walker basically wrote in his budget a section to hand over WI utilities with no contracts over to Koch for a payback.

Here is the audio for anyone interested.





Here is the original Beast's blog entry, Buffalo Beast

Democrats Lead in One Congressional Generic Ballot

I know its early but there appears to be some momentum behind Dems tightening up the ballot. Maybe Republican overreach at every level of Govn't is wearing thin on the voters and some who considered themselves tea party grassroots folks are fuming Tea Party Patriots and other "grassroots" organizations run by GOP operatives took their money and ran.

According to TPM here PPP is showing Dems edging ahead 45%(D) to 41%(R), Democracy Corps is showing a tightening at 46%(D) to 48%(R) and even Rasmussen, whom Nate Silver from NYT's Fivethirtyeight blog showed had a bad Republican bias in their polling, is showing 39%(D) to 45%(R).

U.S. Chamber of Commerce Goes After Peoples Family's

I thought I had seen it all but when I ran across this ThinkProgress article exposing security firms hired by the Chamber distributing pictures of family members and the schools they attend, I am completely floored.


http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/chamberleaks-target-families/

Distributing pictures of their children and private information about what schools, etc they attend is terribly disconcerting.

I hope the networks pick up on this. It's not some small thing.

No Appologees

Make no mistake. President Obama never apologized for the US. He was just highlighting the arrogance of the last administration to eccentuate his reasonable and modest stance.

Sen. Jim Webb is Out

It's time to draft Tom Perriello for U.S. Senate in Virginia.

Get on the ball folks.

http://wfc2.wiredforchange.com/o/8622/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=221

Left Wing Purists

Watching the legislation passing some state houses and the judicial activism happening in the courts right now makes me worry when ideological purists with a voice try to convince others to sit on their hands and stay home.

Staying home gets us a Republican House, it will get us a Republican Senate and possibly even a WH. The state legislatures will be filled with radical right wing politicians that will criminalize abortion a step at a time, reduce school funding, let our infrastructure crumble, prosecute scientists, push for more oil and less renewable's etc etc etc.

Staying at home solves nothing.

What Violent Right Wing Rhetoric? (cont.)

Heartbreaking. Where is the press on all this. There is a pattern.

"Will Bunch has a truly heartbreaking, infuriating post up on the murder of nine-year-old Brisenia Flores and her father in Arizona in 2009. Brisenia’s mother survived by playing dead.
The killers were newly minted Tea Partiers and fledgling Minutemen, and I think it’s safe to say they were influenced by at least one Tea Party rally in Arizona before carrying out their murders. Shawna Forde, the mastermind of the operation, had apparently cooked up an idea to murder and rob drug dealers to fund her anti-immigrant activities. She and her accomplice, Jason Bush, broke into the Flores home on May 30, 2009."


via Balloon Juice

What Violent Right Wing Rhetoric? (cont.)

It never ends. The right believe in intimidation and death threats as a way to influence Democratic law makers. Here is just one more of many violent attacks against Democrats.

via ThinkProgress

Great Job Gov. McDonnell

First big snow storm and this new Governor is a huge failure.

Thousands of people were stranded last night. There were no emergency vehicles to be seen.

Where was the state of emergency?

Where was the Gov? What an utter failure.

This is what happens when Republicans take over. They talk a good talk but when it comes to actually doing something they are nowhere to be seen.

George Allen Announces Run for Senate

Jim Webb - Born Fightin!

George Allen - Born With a Silver Spoon in His Mouth!

You decide.

Webb /

A 1968 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Webb served as a Marine Corps infantry officer until 1972, and is a highly decorated Vietnam War combat veteran. During his four years with the Reagan administration, Webb served as the first Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, then as Secretary of the Navy.

Allen /

Born March 8, 1952 in Whittier, California) is a former United States Senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia, and the son of former NFL head coach George Allen.
Allen graduated in 1970 from Palos Verdes High School, where he was a member of the falconry club and the car club. He was also quarterback of the varsity football team.

Falconry club! That's the kind of leadership I'm looking for.

What Violent Right Wing Rhetoric? (cont.)

As more threats of violence against Democrats continue to pile up, at what point will our Govn't put a stop to the hate speech inciting violence.

"LOS ANGELES — Police in the Orange County city of Santa Ana and California Gov. Jerry Brown's security detail were trying find out Friday who wrote graffiti on two walls threatening to kill the new governor on Valentine's Day.

The graffiti, which threatened the governor and included a Nazi swastika, was discovered Thursday and is considered a "terrorist threat." Authorities are also investigating any links to earlier graffiti in the area threatening to kill Catholics."

Read more at McClatchy DC

What Violent Right Wing Rhetoric? (cont.)

There may not be an even remote link in what happened in Arizona and the hate pushed by Fox but, that doesn't mean they are off the hook.

In an article titled, “6 Lunatics Inspired by Fox News and Glenn Beck,” published on Oct. 28 — so six weeks before before Jared Loughner’s terror attack in Tucson that left six people dead and 13 wounded, including Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — Jim Edwards, columnist for BNET, recapped six instances over the past two-and-a-half years in which lunatics committed violent acts, or were thwarted before they could act, later said they were inspired to violence after intense exposure to propaganda from Fox and Glenn Beck:

Seniors Enjoy New Health Care Benefits

It was only a matter of time. Hopefully, more see this video posted by Thinkprogress.

What Violent Right Wing Rhetoric?

March 21-22, 2009 — Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) states that she wants residents of her state to be “armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back. Thomas Jefferson told us ‘having a revolution every now and then is a good thing,’ and the people—we the people—are going to have to fight back hard if we’re not going to lose our country.”

July 15, 2009 — Katherine Crabill (Republican candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates 99th District) makes headlines by calling on Americans to resist the course President Obama has set for the country. Appearing at a “Tea Party” rally “We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box. But that’s the beauty of our Second Amendment right. I am glad for all of us who enjoy the use of firearms for hunting. But make no mistake. That was not the intent of the Founding Fathers. Our Second Amendment right was to guard against tyranny.”

August 25, 2009 – Rex Rammell, (candidate in the 2010 Idaho Republican Primary) remarks on “Obama hunting tags” at a discussion about state-issued tags for wolf hunting.”The Obama tags? We’d buy some of those.” In a subsequent press release, he adds, “Anyone who understands the law knows I was just joking, because Idaho has no jurisdiction to issue hunting tags in Washington, D.C.”

August 26, 2009 — Debra Medina (Texas gubernatorial candidate) “We are aware that stepping off into secession may in fact be a bloody war. We are aware. We understand that the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

September 28, 2009— Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), Chairman of the Second Amendment Task Force in the U.S. House of Representatives, calls House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a “domestic enemy of the Constitution”

April 10, 2010 — Martha Dean (Republican candidate for Attorney General in Connecticut) “If government is legitimate and truly is the voice of the people, it need never fear the people themselves when they’re armed. Only a government that uses secrecy and force to impose improper laws [to] which the people do not consent need fear the wrath of its law-abiding citizens at the ballot box or, ultimately, with arms … Our right of free speech and to back it up with arms if necessary if our government becomes tyrannical and unjust as King George’s was to the colonists are the most essential of the rights we as Americans have … I will oppose all efforts to create nonsensical distinctions that are nowhere supported by our constitutions between different types of firearms. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that the government gets the effective firearms and the people the ineffective ones. Nowhere in our Constitution does it say that the government gets the modern firearms and the citizens only get the antiquated ones.”

April 13, 2010 — Sen. Randy Brogdon (R-OK) on meeting with Oklahoma Tea Party groups to discuss the formation of a new “volunteer militia” to defend against ‘improprer federal infringements on state sovereignty’ Brogdon states that the Founding Fathers “were not referring to a turkey shoot or a quail hunt. They really weren’t even talking about us having the ability to protect ourselves against each other. The Second Amendment deals directly with the right of an individual to keep and bear arms to protect themselves from an overreaching federal government.”

May 6, 2010 — Christina Jeffrey (Republican candidate 4th Congressional District South Carolina) holding an AK-47 assault rifle; “Why do we have the Second Amendment? The Second Amendment ensures all of our other rights … The Second Amendment was placed in the Constitution, plainly, to ensure that our limited government stayed limited and that we would be able to enforce those limitations if need be … We are a sovereign people. A sovereign people is an armed people.”

May 15, 2010 — Newt Gingrich “The Second Amendment is not in defense of hunting. It is not in defense of target shooting. It is not in defense of collecting. The Second Amendment is in defense of freedom from the State.”

May 30, 2010 — Sharron Angle (Republican candidate U.S. Senator Nevada) “...the nation is arming. What are they arming for if it isn’t that they are so distrustful of government? They’re afraid they’ll have to fight for their liberty in more Second Amendment kinds of ways.”

May 31, 2010 — Rex Nichols (candidate for sheriff Montana’s Lincoln County) in reference to federal agents, Ruby Ridge, Waco and keeping feds out of the county if elected. “I am going to take my deputies and stand in the middle of the road and tell them to get the hell out …..And if they want a war, they got it.”

September 30, 2010 — Steve Kendley, (candidate for sheriff Montana’s Lake County) threatens “a violent conflict” with federal agents if “they are doing something I believe is unconstitutional.”

October 21, 2010 — Stephen Broden (Republican candidate for 30th Congressional District Texas) states the violent overthrow of the government is an “option” that remains “on the table.” “Our nation was founded on violence….I don’t think that we should ever remove anything from the table as it relates to our liberties and our freedoms.”

November 9, 2010 — U.S. Representative-Elect Allen West (R-Fla) “I am convinced that the most important thing the Founding Fathers did to ensure me my First Amendments rights was they gave me a Second Amendment. And if ballots don’t work, bullets will.”
November 29, 2010 — U.S. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) comparing the Obama administration to the Nazi regime in Germany “Put anything in my scope and I will shoot it.”

Happy New Year

And for this year I'll start by just highlighting an article by ThinkProgress. Via ThinkProgress the highlighted this gem from FT.

The excitement started even before the show when David H. Koch, the co-owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately-own industrial conglomerate in the US, came out on stage to talk about his $2.5m sponsorship of the production. Most people applauded but there were also boos from near where I sat in the balcony, followed by an angry debate in the row in front of me, with one of the booers declaring “he’s an evil man” and a couple next to her telling her to “shut up” and to leave the theatre. [...] Once Mr Koch had left the stage, the booing stopped and the ballet started.

The more people learn about these slugs Koch and Donahue from U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the better off this country is.

I've written about Koch HERE, HERE, HERE, and about the Chamber HERE and HERE.