This complex of beautiful, dusty reflection nebulae lies in the constellation Scorpius along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. Its overall outline suggests a horsehead in profile, though it covers a much larger region than the better known Horsehead Nebula of Orion.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
By GottaLaff
Was the judge watching the Rachel Maddow Show, because Rachel's been steaming mad over issues like this one:
U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker of San Francisco warned the Obama administration on Friday of severe sanctions if it does not comply with the court’s order to turn over a secret document an Islamic group says proves they were illegally spied upon.The case, Al-Haramain v. Obama (see also: Al-Haramain V. Bush), springs out of a government mistake in which a secret document detailing the wiretapping of calls between attorneys and Saudi charity Al-Haramain was turned over to the charity’s counsel.
The document was taken back by the government, and the Department of Justice has since maintained that the attorneys who read it should not be allowed to use their memories to pursue litigation over the illegal spying.
There's that S word again.
“The Court noted the government was ‘continuing to assert legal positions already specifically rejected by the court in previous orders’ and ‘government officials in one or more defendant agencies, including the NSA Director … are refusing to cooperate with the court’s orders,’” noted the Electronic Frontiers Foundation. “Judge Walker ordered the government to show cause as to ‘why, as a sanction for failing to obey the court’s orders’ the government ’should not be prohibited … from opposing the liability’ for spying without warrants and that the ‘court should not deem liability … established and proceed to determine the amount of damages to be awarded to plaintiffs.’ A hearing is set for June 3, 2009 in the San Francisco federal court.”
That should do it, right? Not so fast:
Now let's see if Rachel mentions this on her next show.Should Walker rule in favor of Al-Haramain, it would not fully satisfy the group’s legal aims, but “it would be a stiff rebuke to an administration that has pledged to reconsider Bush’s broad claims of secrecy in all cases touching on national security,” noted Bob Egelko at The San Francisco Chronicle.
By GottaLaff
Look what The Full Ginsburg found:
Petulant emails: "Kris Allen did get one Gay Vote..."
[P]oor, pitiable Pastor Ted, who I fervently wish would find his way to Shakesville or any other place where he could learn to love himself for who he actually is and not who he's been told his whole life he should be, viewed voting for Kris not only as his Christian duty, but as an opportunity to prove to a community who doesn't want him that he isn't gay, and desperately tweets the evidence of his rejection of self to anyone who will listen.In all honesty, I do feel for him. His denial is painful to watch, and he must be a very sad individual.
By GottaLaff
My BuzzFlash buddy Mark Karlin wrote himself a bloggy post:
Please go read the whole thing. I cut it way down to its barest bones.The Cheney Enigma Solved. Power is Virtue; Weakness is Evil. Lies on Behalf of Empire are Necessary Truths. [...]
Cheney and Rumsfeld -- and their "eager to prove his manhood" boy king, George W. Bush -- have a simple belief: if you have power, use it and use it without regard to its impact on the losers in life (the weaker ones). It's a simple view of the world that goes back to cave men. If you got a bigger cudgel, beat your competition for food and territory with it -- and make sure they don't get back up. [...]
Cheney [...] attack a newly elected President, scare Americans again about terror, and call in one of his daughters to back him up on TV. It was, however, not to assert power, but to try to put a halt to a perfect storm that was brewing that would put him and his loyalists still in the CIA and military -- and those that have left -- in jeopardy of prosecution on a variety of legal issues: including torture, murder, illegal actions, etc.
That was how we ended up with a bizarre television spectacle of a former alleged Vice-President (functioning as President on foreign policy) acting as if he were running against the man who had just a few months ago been elected President by an electoral landslide. [...]
From the days when Rumsfeld and Cheney ran the White House under Gerald Ford's brief presidency and presided over America's chaotic departure from Vietnam, Cheney apparently vowed to adopt the doctrine -- if given the chance: "If it's ours to seize, take it. The weak deserve what they get; that's why they are weak."Ethics, Morality, Decency, Legality: these are all pusillanimous concepts fostered by weak-kneed "liberals" who don't understand the realities of the world. [...]
As for the past week, Cheney can now say with some degree of personal pride, "Mission Accomplished: I Dicked the Country Again!"
By GottaLaff
Norm Coleman's appeal of his defeat in the Minnesota election trial has not yet been argued before the Minnesota Supreme Court, but the two campaigns are busy litigating yet another point: How much Coleman's campaign will have to reimburse the Franken camp for legal costs under the loser-pays provision of the election law.As of now, and as determined by the court clerk, Coleman will owe Franken about $94,000 for trial-related fees. Team Franken had asked for $161,000, which was then reduced by the clerk after the Coleman camp objected that some of these costs either didn't qualify or weren't sufficiently itemized.
This hardly begins to cover the millions that have been spent on legal fees, but it's one more thing for Coleman to worry about. [...]
The Coleman camp argued that they should not have to pay until the appeals process is over -- due to the possibility that they can still win. [...]
In the Franken camp's reply, filed on May 13, they say that there is no legal basis for Coleman to delay paying the check.
By GottaLaff
Typically KKKarl, turning logic and the truth inside out:
It’s unclear what cases Rove is referring to. There has been no litigation on the military commissions since Obama took office in January.
The lingering legal mess at Guantanamo, of course, was created by Bush. Obama now must determine “where to imprison and/or try the remaining approximately 250 Guantanamo detainees, many of whom have already been declared eligible for release.” This is complicated by the fact that multiple detainees have not been able to go to trial because of inadmissible evidence obtained through torture or hearsay. The international community is also encountering similar problems in repatriating Guantanamo detainees. Perhaps worst of all, Bush’s kangaroo courts have produced only three convictions.
As Obama noted Thursday, “the problem of what to do with Guantanamo detainees was not caused by my decision to close the facility; the problem exists because of the decision to open Guantanamo in the first place.”
Good lord, things are that bad? The police were called.
MISHAWAKA — Shoppers pushed, shoved and screamed at each other as they fought over $1 flip-flops Saturday morning at the Mishawaka Old Navy store, customers and police say.
"It was insane, worse than the day after Thanksgiving," said Renee Becker, of Osceola, as she stood in the parking lot with 20 new pairs of sandals in bags at her feet.
(snip)
"You couldn’t move as the doors opened," Becker recounted in disbelief. "If the manager hadn’t jumped out of the way she would have been trampled."
(snip)
"It was crazy, I don’t know how else to describe it," said Becker, who heard about but did not see actual fights. "But the tension and tempers were high."
Customers screamed when they saw other people cutting in ahead of them in the checkout line that stretched around the store, police said.
By GottaLaff
I'm having all kinds of tech issues with Twitter, so it's monopolizing my time. Again, we have a lot of TPC readers from Twitter, and I value them immensely. So, I must fix the problem. Hence, the light posting today.
This should tide you over. The RNC once again shows their usual lack of class:
Actually not as goofy as it first sounded. We've had commenters here and other people we knew online just vanish, never to know what happened.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 23 (UPI) -- A new service by a Swedish design student will allow people to have a final Tweet or Facebook status update made after they die.
Lisa Granberg told The Local her service will allow friends and family members to have the information necessary to access social networking accounts belonging to people who have died.
(snip)
Granger's Webwill service will allow registered users to decide how they want their social networking profiles to change following their death. Webwill can also allow users to create a final blog post on Blogger, or have their goodbye e-mail sent to friends.
"The service is designed to let the individual decide what will happen with their online profiles after they're gone," she said.
By GottaLaff
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are resisting President Barack Obama’s call for a swift confirmation of his choice for Supreme Court, opening a rift between the parties even before the nominee has even been named.That's nice, isn't it, how the Rushpublics are interfering with/infringing upon yet another branch of government (the first being their refusal to seat Senator Al Franken)? Yeah, that'll win over voters. Memo to Rushpublics: It's the American people and democracy that suffers.
Democrats contend that Republicans are planning to slow-walk an inevitable confirmation. The GOP has an incentive to do so: Conservative activists have vowed to use the court fight to raise money, fire up their base, identify troops and rebuild their movement, with millions of dollars in advertising planned.
By GottaLaff
Thank you all again, so much, for the cool things you've said about these radio spots. I'm starting to un-cower now.
I'll post one a day until I catch up to the current week. Then I'll try to post each set after the initial airing.
Again, I do three per show (or here )every Friday. Podcasts here.
I'm adding visuals to the audio, those will be coming up later.
Hope you like this one!
By GottaLaff
I like "universal" better:
President Obama vowed in an interview Saturday that his health care plan will provide “basic coverage” to all Americans — a linguistically different choice than “universal” care — but reiterated his commitment to the idea of reform. [...]Gasp! Does this mean he's no longer a socialist?
The president said his plan will “invest more in prevention and wellness programs,” as well as a move to increase electronic data-keeping.
“Then what we want to do is also to make sure that everybody has basic coverage,” Obama said. “Now, they may not have the gold-plated Cadillac health insurance, but it doesn't make sense in a country as wealthy as ours that if you are working full time, you should be able to afford health care.”
Obama did not describe “basic coverage,” but Republicans and some Democrats in Congress have been publicly doubting the country’s ability to afford universal coverage, which would include approximately 46 million Americans who are currently uninsured.
I hope someone has the cojones to put it in the Fiction section. This guy has a great working title- "I'm right, you're wrong". heh
Former Vice President Dick Cheney "is actively shopping a memoir about his life in politics and service in four presidential administrations, a work that would add to what is already an unusually dense collection of post-Bush-presidency memoirs that will offer a collective rebuttal to the many harshly critical works released while the writers were in office and beyond," the New York Times reports.Cartoon via.
"A person familiar with discussions Mr. Cheney has had with publishers said he was seeking more than $2 million for his advance. That sum may prove hard to get in this economic climate, especially given his generally low approval ratings, which publishers view as a potential -- but not certain -- harbinger for sales."
Ahh, the vaunted three day weekend. Little does Jeff know of the dreaded "list" I have ready for him...
Job Fight: Immigrants vs. Locals
Bet dieting takes hold in the UK
The real Inglourious Basterds: Why Britain's secret Jewish commandos were far more heroic than the Nazi scalpers in Tarantino's new film
Asbury Park building housing Bruce's early glory days for sale
Child health interventions save billions
Man saves his dog's life after sucking venom from a rattlesnake bite out of the animal's nose
I'm only popping this up because it's so emblematic of the twists and turns some wingers will go to for their narrative to survive. Of course, Rolling Thunder is some uber patriotic group of vets, so the President would be "afraid" to meet them. He ends up having some face time with them and accepting the letter they carried (with praise from the leader of the group), and now he's a coward because he didn't want to be seen in public with them because we (you and me) don't like motorcyles or vets. Sigh.
Sometimes momentous events happen without much notice in Washington.
Such was the case of Rolling Thunder and the White House. At 3:30 p.m. Friday, President Obama met privately with representatives of the group famous for its support of active-duty military, veterans and prisoners of war not to mention its distinctive blend of patriotism that includes Old Glory and motorcycles.
The moment was totally unexpected.
"The president stopped by while members of Rolling Thunder were meeting with administration officials about veterans' issues," said White House spokesman Nick Shapiro.
(snip)
Mr. Obama came through at the close of a busy week that included a meeting with wounded soldiers, several major policy speeches and commencement ceremonies at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.
The meeting was brief but cordial.
"This is an unbelievable, great, wonderful start to our weekend. We are excited, and elated," said Rolling Thunder spokeswoman Nancy Regg.
By GottaLaff
I hear Rachel talking about this right now. How timely:
Liberty University, the evangelical school in Virginia founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, is drawing heat Friday for its decision to revoke recognition of the College Democrats' chapter on campus.How Christian of them.According to the Lynchburg News & Advance, the school decided a week ago the organization "stood against the moral principles" held by the school and therefore could no longer be sanctioned.
Maria Childress, the staff adviser to the club, told the paper the school — which opposes abortion rights and gay marriage — had issues with the Democratic Party platform.
Childress says she was told by Mark Hine, the vice president of student affairs, that "'You can't be a Democrat and be a Christian and be a university representative.'"
By GottaLaff
This is one of those times Judith Miller has some credibility. She has actual hands-on (so to speak) experience:
This morning, the hosts of Fox and Friends brought up FBI Director Robert Mueller’s recent comments warning that if Guantanamo detainees are allowed into U.S. prisons, they may turn to “radicalizing” other inmates. Fox News contributor Joel Mowbray said that it would be dangerous putting detainees into U.S. prisons because guards “know how to handle rapists and murderers and drug dealers,” but “they do not know how to handle terrorists.” Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller took issue with Mowbray’s conclusions, saying, “We know how to do this.” To back up her point, she pulled out her street cred and cited her time serving in prison.It's all about commercializing and politicizing yet another issue: Us against them. The Big Dueling Speeches. Chris Matthews insisted on asking (paraphrased), who's going to win America to their side?
By GottaLaff
UPDATE: Looks like Paddy already posted this, but what the heck. Here it is again, only shorter:
If the corporate media would deny the disgraced, sleazy Cheney family (and the irrelevant Pat Buchanan) access to the airwaves, this insanity wouldn't be monopolizing the news cycle:
[...] Cheney himself has answered this question, claiming he is speaking out because he believes that torture and other Bush administration anti-terror policies — many of which Obama is abandoning — were “exactly the right thing to do” and that “there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth.”In turn, media figures have answered the question in much the same way. “I think he genuinely believes we are threatened now more because of what Obama is doing,” MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan has said. CNN’s David Gergen said, “I think Dick Cheney almost has a Churchillian view of this, and that is somebody has got to stand up and be the voice in the wilderness.”
There's a reason the Nation of Dick is out in the wilderness: It's where he belongs.
The Cheneys' opinions are nothing more than a worthless, self-serving, pre-emptive defense of Daddy Dearest's criminal acts, all crafted carefully to affect a potential jury pool.Last night on CNN, however, Cheney’s daughter Liz revealed that fear of prosecution is indeed a motivating factor in the former vice president’s current media campaign [...]
Does Liz Cheney also fear that her dad will be prosecuted for his role in the Bush administration’s torture program? Perhaps so. As Steve Benen has noted, “Liz Cheney has been all over the television news” as well, with “12 appearances, in nine and a half days, spanning four networks.”
By GottaLaff
In a new gesture toward Cuba, the Obama administration signaled willingness on Friday to reopen a channel with Havana that was closed under President George W. Bush by scheduling high-level meetings on migration between the two countries.The move comes as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to fend off pressure from her Latin American counterparts to take an even bolder step by endorsing a proposal that would reintegrate Cuba into the Organization of American States.
The question of how far the new administration is willing to go toward engagement with Cuba carries fresh urgency two months after President Obama lifted restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba for Cuban-Americans with relatives on the island. Even before the administration indicated its new approach, in a letter delivered to Cuban officials, it was clear the reaction at home and abroad could pose political challenges.
By GottaLaff
During an exclusive interview with C-SPAN, Pres. Barack Obama relates the last time he spoke to Pres. George W. Bush.
By GottaLaff
Oo! Oo!
A top aide to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy told fellow Democrats on Friday to get ready for President Obama's Supreme Court pick to come as early as next week, according to an e-mail obtained by CNN."It is possible the President will designate his nominee to the Supreme Court as early as next Tuesday or some time next week," Jeremy Paris, Leahy's chief counsel for nominations, wrote in the e-mail to fellow Democratic aides.
Here comes that annoying, ever-present BUT:
But the three senior administration officials said flatly the president has not yet settled on his pick, and they noted this weekend would be pivotal in the decision-making process. "He's mulling it over," one top aide said of the final stages of the process.
Top officials say it is unlikely the president will announce the pick at a prime-time event, as then-President Bush did when he nominated John Roberts to be Chief Justice. [...]
The senior administration officials cautioned it is still possible the Supreme Court announcement could slip into early or mid-June if the President does not make up his mind over the course of the next few days.
Obama is under some pressure, however, to announce the pick before he leaves Washington on June 3 for a foreign trip that will take him to Egypt, France, and Germany because he needs to get the confirmation process started because the Senate takes the month of August off for recess. While Obama aides are hoping to get confirmation hearings started in July, there are many possible delays that could push the hearings into September, which could put confirmation before the first Monday in October in some peril.
Senate Judiciary spokeswoman Erica Chabot acknowledged to CNN "the rumors are flying fast and furious" that next week is possible for an announcement, but stressed that Paris' e-mail is not a sign that the panel knows the timing for sure. "We just don't have an indication of when this is going to happen," said Chabot.
BUT:
Sources close to the selection process tell CNN most of the major vetting has been done and the process is pretty far along, farther than the White House may be letting on. All of the dozen or so major candidates under consideration have had at least initial vetting and most of the top-tier candidates — a half dozen or so — have been fully vetted.I'm all out of buts.
It's slow and sure, but it damn well makes me feel good.
Four months into President Obama’s tenure, the mood of African-Americans throughout the country has improved to historic levels, according to a new Pew Research Study.
Asked whether Americans can always find a way to solve problems, 62 percent of blacks agree, up 22 points in just two years. In fact, agreement was up 12 points across racial lines, reflecting a more optimistic attitude than in 2007, despite the murky economic situation.
“The optimism from a personal sense about the country is most pronounced among African Americans,” Pew Research Center President Andrew Kohut said. “We've been tracking attitudes now since 1987 and we haven't seen it bump up like it has now. It's hard not to give [Obama] credit.”
(snip)
The study on values and core attitudes shows African-Americans feel more invested in society — in fact, more blacks than whites say voting gives them a say in how the government makes decisions.
(snip)
In fact, after the election of the country's first black president, Americans of every race say racial attitudes and relations are improving. Just 31 percent of Americans say there hasn't been much improvement for African-Americans, an all-time low and down 10 points in the past two years.
Social views on racial issues have changed markedly since the Pew Center started the annual check on American values in 1987. That year, just 48 percent of respondents said it is all right for white people and black people to date each other; today, the number who support interracial dating has climbed to 83 percent.
Even among whites in the South, where just 30 percent backed interracial dating in 1989, the number has climbed, rising 39 points in recent years.
Just a nice thing to read at the start of Memorial Day Weekend.
(CNN) – President Obama has tapped former Georgia Sen. Max Cleland to serve as Secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission.
The one-term Democratic senator, who lost a bitter re-election fight to GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss seven years ago, headed the Veterans Affairs Department under former President Carter, and had been considered a top candidate to fill that post in the Obama administration. The president instead nominated retired Gen. Eric Shinseki to lead the VA.
Maybe we can get Steele and the Cheneys to go on a national "listening" tour... Via Think Progress-
STEELE: The problem that we have with this president is that we don’t know [Obama]. He was not vetted, folks. … He was not vetted, because the press fell in love with the black man running for the office. “Oh gee, wouldn’t it be neat to do that? Gee, wouldn’t it make all of our liberal guilt just go away? We can continue to ride around in our limousines and feel so lucky to live in an America with a black president.” Okay that’s wonderful, great scenario, nice backdrop. But what does he stand for? What does he believe? … So we don’t know. We just don’t know.
By GottaLaff
Thank you all again for the cool things you've said about these radio spots. Seriously, I am so relieved. I am my own worst critic.
I'll post one a day until I catch up to the current week. Then I'll try to post each set after the initial airing.
Again, I do three per show (or here )every Friday. Podcasts here.
I'm adding visuals to the audio, with a couple already under my belt, but those won't be posted for a few days, since I'm putting them up chronologically. I don't know if I'll have the time to add visuals to all of them, though.
Hope you like this one!
By GottaLaff
"If aliens are watching this through telescopes," comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said, "they're going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge?"George Bush:
"And there I was, former president of the United States of America, with a plastic bag on my hand."Perfect.
-- Former President Bush, quote by the AP, on how walking the dog showed him that "life is returning back to normal."
By GottaLaff
Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told CNN Thursday that former Vice President Dick Cheney's charge the Obama administration has made the country less safe is wrong.I'm sorry, who's Tom Ridge again? Oh yeah. BushCo's head of Homeland Security.
"Yeah, I disagree with Dick Cheney," the Pennsylvania Republican and former Bush administration official told CNN's John King, adding he "does not" think the country is more vulnerable to an attack under President Obama.
Why is an irrelevant, failed, unscrupulous war criminal, a universally-accepted known-liar allowed to take up the air waves with his verbal flatulence? Here's why: Nielsen ratings. The fact that there is an attempt at serious debate that includes anything this thug says is appalling.
Ridge appears to agree with a majority of Americans, according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll. In that survey, taken last month, 72 percent of registered voters said they did not think the country was less safe under President Obama.Ridge:
"It's just the whole notion of a Republican vice president giving a speech after the incumbent Democratic president," he said. "It's gotta go beyond the politics of either party."
That's dandy. But... and there's always a pesky "but":
The former Pennsylvania governor also took issue with a portion of Obama's speech, during which he said some Bush national security decisions were based on "fear, rather than foresight."
"I'm surprised that President Obama, who I really, truly believe knows better, would make such a statement," said Ridge. "The men and women in charge of America's security, whether they're military, or the intelligence community — the president, the vice president, the attorney general, the FBI director — did everything they could at the time to prevent another attack on America. And did it consistent with the Constitution and the rule of law."
I'msorrywhat? Really? Really??
"He [Obama] keeps looking backwards to justify what he's doing now and I don't think at the end of the day — I think that becomes more politics than policy, and I don't think it's the kind of approach that we need to bring America together on this very important issue," he said.Anyone with a pending criminal trial should be hand-clapping gleeful over Ridge's comments. After all, why look back on any crimes one has committed? Pfft! That was yesterday. And as Scarlet O'Hara declared, "Tomorrow is another day".
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Just a taste of teh stupid that is going around the intertubes from our friends at Fact Check.
Q: Is Oklahoma as defiantly conservative as a chain e-mail says? A: The state is one of the most Republican in the nation, but the message exaggerates Oklahoma's laws on religion, immigration and guns.
Q: Is the Army demanding information about soldiers' privately owned firearms?
A: This is another false Internet rumor. A memo from one commander of a small unit in Kentucky was an isolated mistake that was quickly corrected; it wasn't Army policy.
Q: Did Michelle Obama make $317,000 a year while working part-time at the University of Chicago Medical Center?
A: This allegation in a chain e-mail is wrong: Obama's reported income was $103,633 in 2007, the year she reduced her work schedule to part time.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Very nice. h/t Ben.
Indonesian consulate general in New York will organize an exhabition of traditional clothes of batik that belonged to US President Barak Obama's mother in July, says a top diplomat.
Indonesian Consul General in New York Trie Edi Mulyani said on Friday there were around 40 pieces of batik of Ann Dunham, Obama's mother who married to an Indonesian and spent five years in the capital city of Jakarta, that would be exhibited.
"Besides those belonged to Obama's mother, we are going to exhibit a number of batik that belonged to first lady Ibu Ani," she said in Jakarta.
(snip)
The exhibition is a part of a roadshow in the United States with the first has been held in Chicago this month.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Good, I hope they listen.
Paul Begala has circulated a point-by-point rebuttal of GOP consultant Frank Luntz's widely read strategy memo on health care.
According to Politico, Begala argues that Luntz "aims to confuse voters about which party wants reform. He warns Democrats that they risk seeing their message co-opted and a health overhaul die this year unless they aggressively confront Luntz's tactics."
Writes Begala: "Because they know they cannot win the argument honestly, Republicans are resorting to mendacity. Democrats must not let them get away with it."
Nothing much here. You guys doing anything special for the weekend?
Iraqis say ex-U.S. soldier should be put to death
The'Jigsaw Kid' who has five spleens, a back-to-front liver and two left lungs
Contractors say Blackwater supplied forbidden guns
Wall Street Journal: Energy Groups Urge Faster U.S. Aid for Power, Pollution Projects The Obama administration is coming under pressure from energy companies to speed up decisions on more than $100 billion of loan guarantees for projects intended to boost the use of renewable power and reduce pollution.
Gurkha veterans allowed to stay in Britain
Designer jeans seem recession-proof
Bush: It's 'Liberating' To Be Out Of Office
Wall Street Journal: Texas Mayor Trades Job for Romance in Mexico J.W. Lown, the mayor of San Angelo in West Texas, recently narrated a video touting his town as a great place to live. Then he left to pursue another passion. Mr. Lown resigned this week — less than a month after winning a fourth two-year term in a landslide — saying he was leaving to carry on a relationship with a Mexican man who had been living illegally in the U.S.
But the wingers are ticked he's not going to meet with Rolling Thunder. Can't please everyone. Pics via.
Funny, I'm not hearing alot of substance on the merits of the argument today, just more fearmongering and sturm and drang.
If President Barack Obama is going to turn the page on Guantanamo, he may need help from two of his old rivals: John McCain and his sidekick, Lindsey Graham.
While Senate Republicans have shown a united front on Guantanamo, the Arizonan and the South Carolinian are among a handful of GOP senators poised to break away from their party if the White House offers an appealing plan for dealing with the detainees and closing the prison.
McCain, who has always spoken out against torture, believes that keeping the facility open hurts America’s standing abroad, and Graham, a military justice expert, is also working with the White House on Guantanamo proposals.
So if Obama threads the needle on this issue — and keeps Democrats in line — he may grab the votes of these GOP senators and trump the Republican opposition in the end. Obama seems to sense the usefulness of his campaign rivals, too: He explicitly mentioned McCain and Graham in his Thursday speech on Guantanamo.
Okay, I'm having a problem coming up with one word that describes her demeanor in this segment. Condescending? Haughty? Psychopathic? At least Anderson gave her a fight.
You know, my first instinct is to make a snarky Palin remark, but this is really horrible. Very interesting read.
-- Not only did more Alaskans kill themselves last year than ever recorded, but the suicide rate is a whopping 24.6 deaths per 100,000 people statewide. The average rate over the past decade was 20.7 deaths in comparison, according preliminary info from the Burea of Vital Statistics.
(snip)
-- Put another way, the suicide rate has jumped about 25 percent since 2005.
By GottaLaff
By GottaLaff
Mitt (Willard), Mitt (Willard), Mitt (Willard). You and your limited mental capacity never disappoint. You see, Willard, the Nation of Dick apparently finds torture to be a dreadful bore. You do it once, twice... 183 times ::yawn:: it gets so old, so fast. Why, the very mention of protecting your country puts him right out:
[W]hen it came to protecting Americans, [Cheney] never went to sleep,” Romney concluded. This would be news to Cheney. In October 2007, Cheney dozed off during a briefing on the California wildfires and also during his boss’s farewell address in January 2009.National security: Dick Cheney's sedative.
By GottaLaff
Blogging at The Corner today, Mitt Romney panned President Obama’s speech on national security, saying that Vice President Cheney’s “response” to Obama was “direct, well-reasoned, and convincing.” Romney mocked Obama’s speech condemning torture as being worse than Bush’s torture tactics:He struggles to explain how he is keeping faith with the liberal advocates who promoted his campaign but in doing so, he breaks faith with the interests of the American people. When it comes to protecting the nation, we have a conflicted president. And his address today was more tortured than the enhanced interrogation techniques he decries.
Willard can't fool me. He knows it was torture, that sly fox. Nothing gets by him.
Jeebus, pretty soon we're going to need a database of their websites...
WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Obama administration is making government data more accessible with the launch of a new Web site Thursday.
An Office of Management and Busget representative tells CNN that in the next two to three weeks, the administration expects to use the new site, data.gov, to host more than 200,000 'datasets' — groupings of governmental information like the results of the last government survey of residential energy use.
The site is currently home to 46 'raw' datasets and 27 information tools, the OMB said in a statement announcing the site.
By GottaLaff
Next thing you know, she'll say torture is illegal. Then the Rushpublics will really have to go after her.The Associated Press reports that the House voted by 252-172 to block the measure, which was sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop of Utah. Two GOPers, Ron Paul of Texas and Walter Jones of North Carolina, joined Democrats in voting against it.
[...]
Big picture: Pelosi isn't likely to be investigated for having the temerity to claim that the CIA wasn't entirely honest. So that piece of the Pelosi "story" -- which is itself, of course, is a distraction from the larger issue of torture -- seems set to go away.
Gotta love Hank.
We're well aware, at this point, that the House Republican strategy for opposing the Waxman-Markey climate change bill is to make the legislative process take a very, very long time. That means heaps and heaps of irrelevant amendments, written by congressmen who warn of "Global Warming Gestapo." But so far they have eschewed a maneuver that would force the Democrats to read the bill aloud. All 900-plus pages of it.In case the GOP decides to change course, though, Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats are prepared. With a speed reader.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the new temp thinks he can plow through about one page every 34 seconds--a pretty impressive clip considering the nature of the reading material. And it means the entire stunt would only last about nine hours--significantly less than it would take if the committee's clerks were forced to do the job.
By GottaLaff
So will these arrests blow up in our faces now? How many more stories like this do you think will start to leak out?
The FBI agent with a high-profile role in yesterday's arrests of four men for plotting a terror attack in New York has a pretty interesting -- and controversial -- track record.Wait. What? Torture doesn't work? Huh?? Whaaa? ::slaps forehead:: If only we'd known earlier!
Special Agent Robert Fuller, whose name appears at the top of the federal criminal complaint in the case, had a hand in the FBI's failure to nab two of the 9/11 hijackers, had one of his informants set himself on fire in front of the White House, and was involved in misidentifying a Canadian man as a terrorist leading to his secret arrest and torture -- a case that is now the subject of a major lawsuit.
Fuller is listed as the lead agent in the arrests of four men yesterday who officials say were trying to blow up a couple of synagogues and shoot a military jet from the sky. But as in other cases of seemingly inept homegrown terrorists, the four suspects were supplied (inert) weapons from an FBI informant, and in coming weeks we'll learn more about how much that informant goaded the four suspects into carrying out the supposed acts of terrorism. The case is being prosecuted in the Southern District of New York. (James Margolin, an FBI spokesman said the agency declines to comment for this story, because Fuller is a potential witness in an ongoing prosecution.)
Fuller was involved in the earlier Canadian case as the man who interrogated a wounded Afghani teenager named Omar Khadr. (We've written extensively about Khadr's bizarre case here.) Under Fuller's interrogation, Khadr dubiously identified a Canadian citizen named Maher Arar as someone he had seen in Afghanistan. Arar was then shipped to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year. It's now been proven that Arar could not have been in Afghanistan when Khadr, under intense pressure from Fuller, said he saw him there. [...]
"Fuller very clearly has a questionable track record," Pither says. "Even if his claims about what Khadr said were true, there's no doubt that Khadr would have said anything. He is on the record as having said he would have said anything to get better treatment."
Fuller was also on the team that was tasked to track down two of the 9/11 hijackers in August, 2001, prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. [...]How reassuring to remember how much safer BushCo made us. And how comforting to have guys like Fuller on our team.
You can read more on the Arar case at: www.maherarar.ca or www.kerrypither.ca
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