Jason Stanford: The Man in the Chair Who Wasn't There
So that happened. Clint Eastwood argued with an empty chair on national television for 14 minutes. Also, Mitt Romney accepted the Republican presidential nomination, but his Pinocchio speech (in which he tried to become a real boy by lying) isn't what people are talking about. When an old man arguing with furniture is what people remember, your convention didn't go so well...
Samsung trumps Apple in Tokyo court - FT.com
A week after Samsung lost its US smartphone patent case, a judge in Tokyo rejected a separate attempt by Apple to assert its intellectual property against the South Korean group in Japan.
The judge ruled on Friday that Samsung had not violated Apple patents by copying a feature of the US group’s iPhone and iPad mobile devices that allows them to synchronise music and video files with computers...
America Is Not A Business–Mitt Romney’s Experience Would Decimate Middle Class
...I want to make one important statement. Mitt Romney was successful in making money using laws in our capitalist structure that I believe should be dramatically curbed. Mitt Romney did not create or oversee the creation or production of any product or service like his father or our capitalist magnates like Edison. Mitt Romney had no innovative ideas that resulted in a product or service like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. Mitt Romney went into companies that created something, extracted the wealth, put many in debt, and then left with a bounty. There is nothing with that experience that can solve the myriad of problems (deficit, education, pollution, climate change, healthcare, etc.) we have in America...
Clint Eastwood’s Turn at GOP Convention Part of Republicans’ Swooning Over Stars - The Daily Beast
Thursday evening, just before the final night of the Republican convention got underway, the editor in chief of the conservative Iowa Republican website tweeted, “Obama campaign sending Ashley Judd and Ben McKenzie to Iowa to campaign. You know tts [sic] bad when you have to get actors to campaign for you...”
...Conservatives like to pretend that, unlike liberals, they’re above the shallow charms of Hollywood. But whenever a remotely famous person identifies as conservative, the GOP swoons, whatever the star’s personal history. (Sondra Locke, who was Eastwood’s partner for more than a decade, famously claimed that he pressured her into two abortions and then a sterilization.) This is, after all, the party of Ronald Reagan. It’s the party that made Eastwood the mayor of Carmel and Arnold Schwarzenegger the governor of California. Before Hurricane Isaac shortened the convention, it was planning on giving a speaking role to reality-TV troll Donald Trump, who briefly led the primary polls. Al Franken aside, performers have much better luck as Republicans than as Democrats...
Social media analysis: Ryan called out for claims in convention speech - NBC Politics
Paul Ryan was getting hammered on social media for what commenters say was his dishonesty in his address Wednesday night at the Republican National Convention, according to NBCPolitics.com's computer-assisted analysis of thousands of Twitter and Facebook posts through midday Thursday. But the controversy didn't appear to be changing many people's votes...
And therein lies the fundamental problem with many people: even when shown the error of their ways, people had rather swallow their own bile and gag and die rather than admit they made a mistake. Magical thinking abounds. Apparent illogical contradiction becomes truthy dogma; lies, repeated often enough and loud enough, become facts, and the whole twisted morass tornadoes for decades through the pliable minds of the believers until they descend into madness or simply fizzle into automatons, eschewing thought and endlessly jerking the straight party lever. For some people there is no hope-- they know what they know because they know what they know.
A new prong in the crusade against women’s reproductive freedom, according to a profile in the Colorado Independent, is an outsized concern for women who may be coerced into getting an abortion that they don’t want. Anti-choice activists are pushing legislation they say will help address the alarming rates of coerced abortions in the U.S. — despite a lack of scientific evidence to bolster their claims — and often employ testimonies from women who regret their abortions to make their point...
US Politics | AMERICAblog News: Romney, Ryan and the post-truth age
...The past six months have revealed how cheap and empty their leaders and institutions are. Serial adulterer Newt "Open Marriage" Gingrich is their "family values" guy. Churches tell their flocks to not worry about the poor and instead focus on Republican politics. Their political discourse has been further monetized. And, appropriately, the greasy fast food bag has become the celebrated symbol of their moral compass.
Deserved or not, there's often been the perception that the Republicans were the extreme-but-responsible grown-ups in the room. While we're out exploring, they could be counted on to hold down the marina.
This campaign has put that notion finally to rest...
...Second (this is the chutzpah part), Condi Rice—a top adviser in the most disastrous, reputation-crippling foreign-policy administration in decades—has no business lecturing anybody on this score...
Social Darwinism is on full display down under. World’s richest woman to ‘jealous’ poor: ‘Drink less, work more’ | The Raw Story
The world’s richest woman, Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, urged those “jealous” of the wealthy to “spend less time drinking” in a piece the government described as “insulting” on Thursday...
...By making debt the centerpiece of his campaign, Romney was making a calculated bluff of historic dimensions – placing a massive all-in bet on the rank incompetence of the American press corps. The result has been a brilliant comedy: A man makes a $250 million fortune loading up companies with debt and then extracting million-dollar fees from those same companies, in exchange for the generous service of telling them who needs to be fired in order to finance the debt payments he saddled them with in the first place. That same man then runs for president riding an image of children roasting on flames of debt, choosing as his running mate perhaps the only politician in America more pompous and self-righteous on the subject of the evils of borrowed money than the candidate himself. If Romney pulls off this whopper, you'll have to tip your hat to him: No one in history has ever successfully run for president riding this big of a lie. It's almost enough to make you think he really is qualified for the White House...
Federal judge to permanently lift Florida voter registration restrictions | The Raw Story
A federal judge has said the he will permanently remove recently enacted voter registration restrictions in the state of Florida. According to Talking Points Memo, Judge Robert L. Hinkle has declared that he will grant a motion to permanently strike down the new rules once the state of Florida has dropped its case against the federal government in U.S. appeals court.
Voting rights activists have welcomed the decision, which makes permanent an temporary injunction that Hinkle granted in May, in which Hinkle called the restrictions forbidding third party groups from organizing to register voters “harsh and impractical” and said they would impose unnecessary burdens on organizations trying to ensure voter participation...
Republican national convention blighted by racial slur | World news | guardian.co.uk
An attendee to the US Republican party convention was removed from the conference after allegedly throwing nuts at a black camerawoman from CNN, saying "this is how we feed animals".
The incident was reported by the former MSNBC news anchor David Shuster, who tweeted: "GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African-American CNN camerawoman + saying "This is how we feed animals..."
Democrats infiltrate Tampa for Republican convention - Chicago Tribune
...O'Malley, the Maryland governor seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2016, needled New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican star who will deliver the feature address on Tuesday.
O'Malley likened Christie, a frequent sparring partner, to an "angry Don Rickles," the notoriously cranky comedian...
Very interesting article about George & Son. Commentary: The Romneys | Michigan Radio
...[Mitt] He said, “If you look back at the history of the country, the issues people campaigned on generally turned out to be quite different than the issues that defined their presidency. More important than their view on a particular issue is their character and their capability and their vision and their leadership skills...”
Republican party platform to target ‘hardcore’ porn | The Raw Story
Though Romney had vowed as recently as 2007 to implement his porn filter policy, but he drew criticism from not only progressive commentators like Lawrence O’Donnell, but fellow conservatives, who ripped him for not doing such a thing when he was chairman of the board audit committee for the Marriott hotel chain.
“Even though Romney has profited from pornography through his investments — including through his hotel investments where pay-per-view porn is a big profit center — Mitt says he wants to limit your freedom,” O’Donnell said on MSNBC last month. “He wants to limit some Americans’ freedom to search for porn...”
Convention: Lies and Dog Whistles - The Daily Beast
Well, here we go. The week has begun in Tampa, report Adele Stan and Peter Montgomery, with Ralph Reed, that great Christian casino gambling enthusiast, rallying the troops, advocating that the fall election be dedicated to "the Lord." This invocation comes in advance of what promises to be a toxic waste dump of hate and lies and race-baiting for the next four days...
Fear of a Black President - Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic
The irony of President Barack Obama is best captured in his comments on the death of Trayvon Martin, and the ensuing fray. Obama has pitched his presidency as a monument to moderation. He peppers his speeches with nods to ideas originally held by conservatives. He routinely cites Ronald Reagan. He effusively praises the enduring wisdom of the American people, and believes that the height of insight lies in the town square. Despite his sloganeering for change and progress, Obama is a conservative revolutionary, and nowhere is his conservative character revealed more than in the very sphere where he holds singular gravity—race...
Glad I found Wolcott again.
Apostle Paul Named Veep Pick | Vanity Fair
Kneeling before the winsome Paul Ryan and handing him a single red rose that he had picked himself from some stranger's garden, Mitt Romney asked the congressman from the great state of cheese if he would be his running mate to stand together on the stage of the Republican convention, united in purpose, two slices of Wonder Bread forming a sandwich of no meat, for nothing shall come between them...
Top Story: How Badly Do American Women Need Barack Obama? | Taylor Marsh
“If President Obama is reelected on November 6th, it will be primarily because he ran against Mitt Romney. It he were running unapposed, 2012 would be a very tough fight for him.” – Mark Shields, “The News Hour”...
Custer was apparently a brave man who fought well for his country (at least during the Civil War), but he did have a dark side. I was never a fan of the murderous Mr.Custer and am certainly not a fan of his fans.
RNC Official: NM Governor ‘Dishonored’ Gen. Custer By Meeting With American Indians | TPMMuckraker
A progressive group called on Republican National Committee leader Pat Rogers to step down on Friday after emails showed him telling New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez’s staff that meeting with a group of American Indians “dishonored” Gen. George Armstrong Custer, the 19th century commander who killed scores of American Indians.
“The state is going to hell,” Rogers, who is a member of the GOP executive committee and is currently in Tampa for the RNC convention, wrote in a June 8 email released by Progress Now New Mexico. Former Republican gubernatorial candidate Col. Allen Weh “would not have dishonored Col Custer in this manner,” he wrote...
Election a stark choice on America's future - CNN.com
...On the Democratic side, aides to President Obama are spreading the word that, if he wins, he has had enough of trying to accommodate the Republicans and will also be more confrontational...
Raped, pregnant and ordeal not over | Coffee Party Feminists | Scoop.it
In a rape case it is the victim, not the defendant, who is on trial. But blaming myself was neither my idea nor my first inclination. I thought such 17th-century notions were long dead. I was wrong. People who did not even know me were quick to comment or speculate on my rape. What were you wearing? Did you scream loudly? Did this occur in public?
It would not be long before I would learn firsthand that in the vast majority of states -- 31 -- men who father through rape are able to assert the same custody and visitation rights to their children that other fathers enjoy. When no law prohibits a rapist from exercising these rights, a woman may feel forced to bargain away her legal rights to a criminal trial in exchange for the rapist dropping the bid to have access to her child.
I know it because I lived it. I went to law school to learn how to stop it...
Airline Dress Codes Ban Cleavage, Shirts With Expletives
Airlines give many reasons for refusing to let you board, but none stir as much debate as this: How you're dressed.
A woman flying from Las Vegas on Southwest this spring says she was confronted by an airline employee for showing too much cleavage. In another recent case, an American Airlines pilot lectured a passenger because her T-shirt bore a four-letter expletive. She was allowed to keep flying after draping a shawl over the shirt...
So Fox News has decided to name the anonymous Navy SEAL who authored an upcoming book about the rain on OBL. Up until now the names have been kept secret out of fear for the lives of those SEALs. They and their families would make perfect Al Qaeda targets now and in the future. And now they are, thanks to Fox.
This of course is not long after Fox News - the same journalist who outed the SEAL, in fact - blasted President Obama for discussing the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden - Fox claimed at the time that leaking details of the raid like, oh I don't know, maybe the names of the guys who did the raid, might endanger their lives (Obama did not release their names)...
Remember that the Internet is a series if tubes...
The Crackpot Caucus - NYTimes.com
The tutorial in 8th grade biology that Republicans got after one of their members of Congress went public with something from the wackosphere was instructive, and not just because it offered female anatomy lessons to those who get their science from the Bible.
Take a look around key committees of the House and you’ll find a governing body stocked with crackpots whose views on major issues are as removed from reality as Missouri’s Representative Todd Akin’s take on the sperm-killing powers of a woman who’s been raped...
Kissing the whip, cutting off your nose to spite your face, etc., etc. : ACORN whistle-blower on Akin-gate: Women 'are the new pawns in this political game' | The Daily Caller
Bryan Henry–Voting Republican in 2012 fundamentally different than one at any point in nation’s past
...I am curious what “civil discourse” means to the average American. Is it uncivil to tell people, honest terms, what a specific policy or idea will mean for them if it becomes law? Is it uncivil to point out facts? This is about as civil as I can be at this point: President Obama and the Democrats want to conserve Medicare, Social Security, public education, women’s rights, and the environment. Romney and Ryan want to reverse 100 years of progress. Voters need to know something: voting for the Republican Party in 2012 is fundamentally different from voting for the Republicans at any point in our nation’s past....
...It’s the right that relies on religion to keep everyone in line with threats of hellfire if you’re sexually active and not married. You can always count on the religious to condemn everyone who doesn’t believe strictly in the Judeo-Christian version of the ten commandments. They have a holy fit if you’re an atheist. But they seem to be perfectly Ok with giving Wall Street a pass. It’s like, “there’s nothing we can do. They’re evil and we’re scared of them because they have all the power to make our lives miserable.” Bullshit, of course there’s something you can do. Stop voting for the politicians who keep asking for fewer regulations. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. Unfortunately, they’re also the politicians who hide behind religion or pander to religious people. Show me a religious politician and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t believe in regulation. That’s all there is to it. They want to let the criminals operate without boundaries.
If these wealthy, unaccountable assholes continue to do what they’re doing without oversight, they’re going to bring the entire world’s financial system down. That’s what happens when you can’t stop yourself from taking whatever you want and no one else has to power to interfere.
It doesn’t matter if you are on the right or the left, everything you own, everything you planned, your health, your retirement, your entire future, is at risk.
Maureen Dowd / Just think no - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
...Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Mr. Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he's just a fresh face on a Taliban creed -- the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Mr. Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.
In asserting that women have the superpower to repel rape sperm, Mr. Akin ratcheted up the old chauvinist argument that gals who wear miniskirts and high-heels are "asking" for rape; now women who don't have the presence of mind to conjure up a tubal spasm, a drone hormone, a magic spermicidal secretion or mere willpower to block conception during rape are "asking" for a baby...
Texas Judge Tom Head warns of ‘Civil War’ if Obama reelected | TPMMuckraker
Texas Judge Tom Head is worried about what might happen if President Obama wins reelection in November. There could be riots, unrest or a “civil war, maybe,” he told a local television station this week.
Because of that, the Lubbock County judge has decided the only way to prepare is to increase taxes to help beef up local law enforcement.
“I’m thinking worst case scenario now,” Head said during an appearance on FOX 34 in Lubbock. “Civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war, maybe. And we’re not talking just a few riots here and demonstrations, we’re talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms and get rid of the guy...”
btw, the comment thread has some of the funniest stuff I've read since Tbogg last week.
Sheriff’s candidate Frank Szabo says deadly force OK to stop abortions | TPMMuckraker
Frank Szabo wants the people of Hillsborough County, N.H., to know that if they elect him as sheriff this year, he will do whatever it takes to stop doctors from performing abortions — even if that means using deadly force.
In an interview on Wednesday with local television station WMUR, Szabo said he believed sheriffs were granted special powers under the Constitution. That means, he said, he would be empowered to arrest or even use deadly force against doctors for providing legal abortions for women...
GOP Will Tout 'We Built This' In Arena Built With Public Funds - Politics - The Atlantic Wire
"We Built This" (the GOP's "Call Me Maybe"), is the catchphrase of the season, and it'll be a major theme of the Republican National Convention at the end of this month. The irony? They'll be holding that convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum, formerly the Tampa Bay Ice Palace, which was publicly financed...
Ramona's Voices: The GOP Fixation on Rape and Sex and Women's Bodies: There are Cures for That.
...It's our job to keep reminding potential Romney/Ryan voters that Todd Akin is not an anomaly, he is a symptom. Five minutes before he gave that interview his loony beliefs about women's bodies were right there with him, and five minutes afterward he was feeling no pain about what he said. He is who he is, and Paul Ryan and his fellow sex-masters are right there in the peapodwith him.
There is no cure for what ails them, but there is a cure for us.
We quit them, pronto.
Paul Ryan: 2002 We need stimulus ‘cause it works –2012 Stimulus don’t work
...Paul Ryan is neither the bold fiscally conservative congressman many news networks would portray him to be nor the anti-stimulus guy he has turned out to be under President Obama. After-all he voted to support both unfunded wars under Bush, both unfunded tax cuts under Bush, and the unfunded drug bill under Bush...
...Paul Ryan and his obstructionist congress have materially harmed the American economy and with that millions of Americans. Republican intransigence this cycle has shown a moral depravity not seen before. It turns out that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are made from the same cloth. They have no core or values. They are willing more so than most to change their positions to fit a selfish goal even if millions get hurt in the process...
The middle class falls further behind - Aug. 22, 2012
The middle class is struggling to survive and shrinking before our eyes, the Pew Research Center reported on Wednesday.
"America's middle class has endured its worst decade in modern history," the Pew Research Center said in its report. "It has shrunk in size, fallen backward in income and wealth, and shed some -- but by no means all -- of its characteristic faith in the future..."
Signs of divine intervention for Republicans? | StarTribune.com
Has God forsaken the Republican Party?
Well, sit in judgment of what's happened in the past few days:
-- A report comes out that a couple dozen House Republicans engaged in an alcohol-induced frolic, in one case nude, in the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is believed to have walked on water, calmed the storm and, nearby, turned water into wine and performed the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
-- Rep. Todd Akin, Missouri's Republican nominee for Senate, suggests there is such a thing as "legitimate rape" and purports that women's bodies have mysterious ways to repel the seed of rapists. He spends the next 48 hours rejecting GOP leaders' demands that he quit the race.
-- Weather forecasts show that a storm, likely to grow into Hurricane Isaac, may be chugging toward ... Tampa, where Republicans will open their quadrennial nominating convention on Monday.
Coincidence? Or part of some Intelligent Design?...
Costs Seen in Romney’s Medicare Savings Plan - NYTimes.com
Mr. Romney has been especially critical of the cuts for insurance companies that provide Medicare Advantage, a popular private-policy alternative to Medicare. “This is the president’s plan: $716 billion cut, four million people losing Medicare Advantage and 15 percent of hospitals and nursing homes not accepting Medicare patients,” he said in a recent campaign appearance.
But Medicare Advantage, which was created 15 years ago in the hope that private-market competition for beneficiaries would result in lower prices, has consistently cost more than standard Medicare — costs that Medicare beneficiaries must help subsidize through their premiums...
the daily howler: Brainwash si, skinny-dip no!
...Forget your particular view of AIPAC. You may agree with their policy views. You may think they too are all wet.
Forget whether AIPAC is right or wrong; this isn’t all about AIPAC. In those passages, Sherman was describing an obvious form of bribery, in which a private entity spends oodles of money on members of Congress and their grasping families.Other entities run junkets too. But in this particular instance, AIPAC was spending giant sums to brainwash members of Congress. (If we may use the old George Romney term.) Sherman was describing obvious bribery. But the point which has caused the concern is the lack of one congressman’s swim suit!...
...There’s an election coming up and it’s a good time to compare how the candidates plan to bring the left-out back in. Instead of throwing around straw men about Muslims and foreigners, those who want to speak for ordinary Americans should inspire them to join forces with other left-out people. Hating anyone isn’t the answer. Organizing for better representation is.
Huckabee to Akin: 'Horrible' rapes created some extraordinary people - latimes.com
...“Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape,” Huckabee said of the late American gospel singer. One-time presidential candidate Huckabee added: “I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things...”
An Unserious Man | Coffee Party News | Scoop.it
...So if we add up Mr. Ryan’s specific proposals, we have $4.3 trillion in tax cuts, partially offset by around $1.7 trillion in spending cuts — with the tax cuts, surprise, disproportionately benefiting the top 1 percent, while the spending cuts would primarily come at the expense of low-income families. Over all, the effect would be to increase the deficit by around two and a half trillion dollars.
Yet Mr. Ryan claims to be a deficit hawk. What’s the basis for that claim?...
Bain Closes U.S. Plant, Forces Workers to Train Chinese Replacements - DailyFinance
...In the most recent news in that vein, The Guardian reports that Bain has for months been dismantling and shipping to China, "piece by piece," a car parts plant, of which it is majority owner, in Freeport, Ill. -- even as it requires the workers to train personally their Chinese replacements, who have been flown in by management.
"It's not easy to get up in the morning, training them to do your job so that you can be made unemployed," Bonnie Borman told the paper. Borman, 52, has worked at the Sensata auto sensors plant for 23 years. She has three children and predicts that soon, "I am going to be competing for minimum wage jobs with my own daughter..."
Simply Left BehindThe Non-Rapturist's Guide To The Galaxy: Dead Man Walking
...Now, people can believe that (personally, I do not) but if you are going to believe it, then do us all a favor and don't sugarcoat it to make yourself feel better. If you really want to have no more abortions, even in the case of what you consider "not rape," then just say that and then suffer the consequences of being thought monstrous.Because you are a monster. You are an inhuman freak and you deserve the condemnation and damnation of every person you come in contact with. But please, have the courage of your convictions and be honest with yourself first...
Navy SEAL's Birther Admission Leads To Spike In Fundraising - Washington Whispers (usnews.com)
The downside of being a birther: Your colleagues may think you're a nut. The upside: It brings in the dough...
Tea party rogue: Todd Akin defies GOP bosses by staying in race - latimes.com
...The congressman said recently that he thought both the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act should be reexamined to determine whether the foundational pieces of legislation were still worthwhile...
Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” gaffe shows how abortion can be a crime issue. - Slate Magazine
...The logic is brutally simple. Rape victims didn’t choose to have sex. This exempts them from the common conservative notion that women should live with the consequences of their choices. And this exemption, in turn, transforms the virgin/whore dichotomy into a weapon against pro-lifers. It also turns the culture of law and order against them. It puts them in the politically untenable (though morally consistent) position of defending the result of a violent crime. That’s why Akin bought and peddled the idea that “legitimate” rape victims can shut down pregnancy. Pregnancy from rape violates his righteous understanding of nature...
Junket Drunk Dunks His Junk | TBogg
From Rep. Steve Southland’s official biography page:
Representative Southerland believes the best way to keep America strong is to empower its people, not government bureaucrats. Expanding personal freedom by shrinking the size of government. Fueling the engine of free enterprise through lower taxes and less regulation. Supporting a responsible pro-family agenda that strengthens homes and teaches our children how to succeed. These are the bedrock principles that secure the blessings of liberty for future generations.
[emphasis supplied}
Taking your daughter on a drunken junket and allowing a male to strip down in front of her should accomplish bedrock principal.
GOP cuts support after Mo. lawmaker Akin's rape remarks – USATODAY.com
Facing a growing controversy over his comments on the abortion rights of rape victims, Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., is under heavy pressure from the senior ranks of the GOP to bow out of the race by Tuesday in order to nominate a candidate who faces better odds of defeating Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill...
Todd Akin Steps Back Remarks on Rape - WSJ.com
The Republican vying for Democrat Claire McCaskill's Senate seat in Missouri said Sunday that he misspoke during an earlier television interview when he said pregnancies in the case of "legitimate rape" are rare and that women have a biological ability to prevent pregnancy in such cases...
20 years after Ruby Ridge, there's forgiveness | ajc.com
...Harris and Randy Weaver were arrested, and Weaver's daughters went to live with their mother's family in Iowa. Randy Weaver was acquitted of the most serious charges and Harris was acquitted of all charges.
The surviving members of the Weaver family filed a wrongful death lawsuit. The federal government awarded Randy Weaver a $100,000 settlement and his three daughters $1 million each in 1995.
"Ruby Ridge was the opening shot of a new era of anti-government hatred not seen since the Civil War," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which keeps tabs on hate groups...
Cannonfire: Did Mitt Romney commit voter fraud? (Update: Get this to Jon!)
As we know, in-person voter ID fraud is extremely rare -- but one person who may have done the deed is Mitt Romney. Maybe this is one reason for Mitt's refusal to show his tax returns.
In a nutshell: In April of 2009, Mitt moved to La Jolla, California. Yet he voted in a 2010 election in Massachusetts, stating that he was living in the basement of his son's home. Mitt doesn't strike many people as the kind of guy who would live in a basement -- I mean, can you visualize him playing video games while scarfing pizza? Nevertheless, that's his story...
Congressional probe launched into allegations of lewd conduct at ICE | Fox News
Graphic allegations of "sexually charged" conduct rocking a federal agency have attracted the attention of Congress, with Republican Rep. Michael McCaul launching an inquiry this week into the charges.
FoxNews.com has learned that McCaul, R-Texas, whose subcommittee oversees the Department of Homeland Security, reached out to the attorney in a recent lawsuit against DHS to begin probing the claims about conduct at Immigration and Customs Enforcement...
Are 'Swift Boat' attacks on Obama bogus? - CNN.com In a word, yes. The charges are just ridiculous as the charges against John Kerry, but that doesn't mean the Evil Empire of Fox News et.al. won't echo them endlessly.
Mitt Romney says he pays 13 percent in taxes. How low is that? - CSMonitor.com
...In total, Romney paid $29,000 out of $20.7 million in income in 2010 for Medicare and Social Security...
Just Because You Can Does Not Mean You Should | Logistics Monster
I wonder how the rest of ‘Real America’ (not the elites and their henchmen; the police, IRS agents, the banks, credit card companies, certain segments of the intelligence community and the military, etc.) feels about drones flying overhead recording and analyzing their every move? How much more like 1939 Germany must America become before the shit finally hits the fan? The frakkin’ cameras everywhere but in your undies are bad enough, but this bullshit is now officially over the top. This headline says it all…really? FRAKKIN’ REALLY?
Police chiefs adopt drone code of conduct...
Click the link for the "Code Of Conduct" and the rest of the post--good read!
Beneath the Bottom of the Barrel
...Notice how Lane uses the Occupy Movement's rhetoric with that line about how elderly people "can and should contribute their fair share to resolving the country's fiscal predicament"? That's right, you ghoul...don't tax the rich. Don't tax the bankers or Wall Street. Don't touch the grotesquely bloated "defense" budget. Instead, let's tap the most vulnerable among us to be fodder for the wheat thresher of your callous, bottomless conservative greed. Yes, let's "treat them as what they are," just another juicy target.
I suppose I should not be surprised. After all, it was Charles Lane who said, after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head and critically wounded, that Rep. Giffords would denounce union workers in Wisconsin if only she "could speak normally."
But see, that's the thing. Once upon a time, ruthless conservative lickspittles like Lane would only whisper jokes about Gabby Giffords getting shot, and about old people being ripe plums for the picking, into their sleeves. They're not even bothering to hide their viciousness any more, and now that Paul Ryan has joined Mitt Romney on the Republican presidential ticket, this is the kind of argument we can look forward to. After all, it is Mr. Ryan who has built his career on a plan to annihilate Medicare, all the while defending the "defense" budget to the knife. All Mr. Lane has done with his pestiferous little missive is carry some water for Mr. Ryan. Welcome to Republican priorities, 21st century-style...
Subsidizing the CEOs - Truthdig
Twenty-six of the nation’s largest corporations paid their CEOs more than they spent on taxes in 2011, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies.
“Our nation’s tax code has become a powerful enabler of bloated CEO pay,” says the report, which documents how American tax dollars have been diverted from public services to the accounts of executives at the nation’s biggest banks and corporations.
Americans are subsidizing CEO paychecks at a time when budget cuts have cost people 627,000 public service jobs since June 2009...
Marijuana legalization would raise $32 million for Colorado: report | The Raw Story
If Colorado voters decide to legalize marijuana this November, the state could see more than $32 million in new revenue, according to a report by the Colorado Center on Law & Policy.
The report found that if Amendment 64 is passed, the state would gain about $24 million in new revenues from an excise tax on marijuana producers. Colorado would also see approximately $8.7 million in new sales tax revenues. Local governments would benefit as well, gaining around $14.5 million in new local sales tax revenue combined...
...This result does my heart good to tell you the truth. If you listen to Villagers, the American people are a bunch of selfish pigs who refuse to sacrifice. (These are all millionaire celebrities who won't have to go through other people's garbage to collect cans when their social security fails to buy them enough food to eat, but somehow they feel qualified to scold the rest of us about ourselfishness.) It's very reassuring to hear that most Americans still care about children and the elderly and other vulnerable citizens.
This genuinely surprised me, I must say:
Even conservatives were swayed, shifting a net 13 points toward Obama.Ayn Rand hasn't won this thing yet. If someone, anyone, makes the case for decency, compassion, empathy and the common good, apparently there are enough decent people left in this country who are ready and willing to hear it. The question is whether the Democrats are so far gone they've lost the vocabulary to talk about it....
Romney: I’ve paid at least 13 percent tax rate in each of past 10 years - The Washington Post -- and that puts you a good 20% behind me and most Americans. Don't looks for kudos here, buddy.
...The video made it appear that Vera had given human-smuggling advice to O’Keefe and Giles while the two conservative activists were dressed as a pimp and prostitute.
However, it was later revealed that Vera had reported their fake child prostitution ring to the police. A California state investigation later cleared Vera and other ACORN workers of any wrongdoing...
Ryan mocked in media for inability to defend his own budget plan | The Raw Story
Media figures spent Wednesday morning mocking vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)’s inability to defend his budget plan or provide any specific numbers in what should have been a softball interview with Fox News’s Brit Hume.
Media Matters reports that Ryan, who is widely lauded as a “budget guru” and a man of ideas within the confines of Fox News, talk radio and the rest of the right wing media world, was forced to admit to Hume that “we haven’t run the numbers yet” on the very budget that he is proposing, a pronouncement that seemed to leave some commentators genuinely flabbergasted...
I may have to start watching CNN again; it sounds like at least one anchor has left the fact-free zone for the journalist zone.
Pawlenty suggests that Soledad O’Brien doesn’t understand English | The Raw Story
Romney surrogates going up against CNN host Soledad O’Brien clearly haven’t learned their lesson.
A day after former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu angrily told O’Brien to “put an Obama bumper sticker on your forehead,” former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney’s national campaign co-chair, suggested that the CNN host didn’t understand English.
During an interview on Wednesday, O’Brien told Pawlenty that one of the presumptive Republican presidential candidate’s ads falsely claimed that President Barack Obama had cut $716 billion from Medicare — but the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had determined that it was actually reduction in spending, not benefit...
I agree with both statements. Don't do it, SOS Clinton.
John McCain: Would be ‘wise’ to can Joe Biden - Kevin Cirilli - POLITICO.com
John McCain said Wednesday he thinks “it might be wise” for President Barack Obama to replace Vice President Joe Biden on the ticket with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“I think it might be wise to do that,” Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.) said on Fox News, responding to a suggestion that Sarah Palin made on Tuesday night. “But it’s not going to happen…If I were Hillary Clinton, I’m not sure I’d want to be on that team...”
HCA, Giant Hospital Chain, Creates a Windfall for Private Equity - NYTimes.com
...Many doctors interviewed at various HCA facilities said they had felt increased pressure to focus on profits under the private equity ownership. “Their profits are going through the roof, but, unfortunately, it’s occurring at the expense of patients,” said Dr. Abraham Awwad, a kidney specialist in St. Petersburg, Fla., whose complaints over the safety of the dialysis programs at two HCA-owned hospitals prompted state investigations.
One facility was fined $8,000 in 2008 and $14,000 last year for delaying the start of dialysis in patients, not administering physician-prescribed drugs and not documenting whether ordered tests had been performed...
Poll Watch: Paul Ryan pick doesn't give Romney a bounce - latimes.com
Two more national polls out Wednesday confirm what scattered early data had suggested — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is not seeing much of a boost in the opinion polls as a result of his pick of a running mate.
And a poll of battleground states also showed very limited movement, with Romney gaining a little ground in Ohio and Virginia, but losing some in Florida and Colorado. In all cases, however, the shifts were within the poll’s margin of error.
Cannonfire: "Mitt Romney lied to the family of the woman he killed"
Did you know that Mitt Romney drove a car into a vehicle driven by a Catholic Bishop? Did you know that one of Romney's passengers died? And did you know that Romney has lied about the incident ever since?...
Many of the 48 Iranian men captured in Syria on August 4 who claimed to be religious pilgrims are in fact active-duty Iranian Revolutionary Guard members, multiple U.S. officials tell Fox News...
Bill banning cellphone disruption heads to Brown - CBS News
Legislation that would ban government agencies from disrupting cellphone service without a court order is heading to Gov. Jerry Brown...
It’s enough to make even the most ardent Obama cynic scratch his head in confusion.
Amidst all the cries of Barack Obama being the most prolific big government spender the nation has ever suffered, Marketwatch is reporting that our president has actually been tighter with a buck than any United States president since Dwight D. Eisenhower...
The House Oversight Committee filed a civil lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder Monday, demanding that Holder release documents from the Fast and Furious gunwalking operation...
Does Picking Ryan Smell LIke Panic? | The Middle Ground | Scoop.it
The most important thing to know about Mitt Romney’s running-mate choice is this: It’s not the move he would have made if the campaign was going the way he hoped it would.
Until now, the Romney strategy has been relentlessly single-minded. He’s had no interest in articulating or embracing specific policy proposals and has generally shied away from saying or doing anything that anyone might find at all unsettling. More than any other candidate in recent history, he has strained to be generic, someone positioned to serve as a protest vehicle for swing voters who are inclined to vote President Obama out...
Romney’s Tax Plan Defies the Rules of Math - NYTimes.com
IN May of 2000, when George W. Bush was running for president on a platform of extravagant tax cuts for all, his campaign did something that would be considered remarkable today: it submitted his tax plan to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, to see how much all those tax cuts would cost the Treasury.
The bipartisan committee ran through the details provided by the campaign and predicted that the tax plan would cost about $1.3 trillion over nine years, an underestimate but a clear sign of its high price tag. With the budget in surplus at the time, Mr. Bush didn’t dispute that cost, and never tried to pretend that the cuts would be free. Within a decade, in fact, they would turn out to be the biggest factor in the huge deficit he created...
If you somehow have the notion that charter schools are a good thing, then read this article. 14 Wacky "Facts" Kids Will Learn in Louisiana's Voucher Schools | Mother Jones
Getting pulled over for rolling through a stop sign is whack. But getting pulled over, having a gun pointed in your face, and then being strip searched on the side of the road in front of your two children for rolling through a stop sign is, well, really whack and probably an excessive use of force...
With Paul Ryan, Romney bets on the wrong vision for America - baltimoresun.com
Mitt Romney said he wanted to select a vice presidential candidate who had a vision for America, and that he did. In fact, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan likely beats out his prospective boss in the vision department, having provided the most concrete and detailed expression of how ultra-fiscal conservatism would actually transform our government. Unfortnately, the vision is the wrong one. Mr. Ryan's propsoals for the federal budget would end Medicare as we know it and decimate safety net programs for the poor, all while offering huge tax breaks for the wealthy and failing to meaningfully address the budget deficit...
Cannonfire: "Ryan's song: End Medicare"
I'd say that RMoney has chosen his Dick Cheney - a VP who is stronger-willed and much crazier than the nominal leader of the party.
The last time we had a VP lead the country behind the throne, it didn't work out too well. To borrow a phrase, the GOP forgets nothing and learns nothing.
Mitt Romney Criticized By Franciscan Friars For Comments On The Poor
The Franciscan Action Network (FAN), a Catholic faith-based advocacy and civic engagement organization, is strongly criticizing Mitt Romney's recent ads and rhetoric regarding welfare programs and welfare recipients, urging him to spend some time in low-income communities.
"Our Christian tradition teaches that we are to treat the poor with dignity and to prioritize the poor in our policies as a society," the organization said in a press release on Thursday. "At a time when millions are struggling financially, it is degrading to talk about the 'dependency' of people hurting in this economy, as Gov. Romney did recently..."
Connecticut town threatens to take overgrown pet bunny from girl, 7 | Fox News
A 7-year-old Connecticut girl will lose her 20-pound pet rabbit if North Haven officials get their way.
Zoning Enforcement Officer Arthur Hausman issued a cease-and-desist order to the Lidsky family two weeks ago, informing them that they were violating town zoning regulations because their property was smaller than the 2 acres required to keep rabbits and other types of livestock...
As Negative Attacks Pile Up, Romney's Favorability Ratings Go Down | PBS NewsHour
Mitt Romney's favorability ratings were on the upswing ever since he locked down the Republican nomination in April, but there are growing signs that a torrent of negative attacks from President Obama and his Democratic allies have affected voter impressions of the GOP hopeful...
Calif. accuses major veterans charity of misusing millions
...In the lawsuit filed Thursday against Help Hospitalized Veterans, of Winchester, near Los Angeles, the AG says the charity's board retroactively spiked the earnings of the founder and former president, Roger Chapin, to justify his nearly $2 million annual pension after he retired in 2009. The organization also spent more than $80,000 on golf memberships for board members...
‘Les Riches’ in France Vow to Leave if 75% Tax Rate Is Passed - NYTimes.com
...A chill is wafting over France’s business class as Mr. Hollande, the country’s first Socialist president since François Mitterrand in the 1980s, presses a manifesto of patriotism to “pay extra tax to get the country back on its feet again.” The 75 percent tax proposal, which Parliament plans to take up in September, is ostensibly aimed at bolstering French finances as Europe’s long-running debt crisis intensifies.
But because there are relatively few people in France whose income would incur such a tax — an estimated 7,000 to 30,000 in a country of 65 million — the gains might contribute but a small fraction of the 33 billion euros in new revenue the government wants to raise next year to help balance the budget...
...When I was a kid, my dad and his brothers had a dry cleaning business and, back in those days, they actually used to deliver dry cleaning to their customers homes. It sounds weird now but it’s true. My dad, being the youngest, used to make most of the deliveries (in fact, we were so poor that the delivery panel truck was also the family car) and he used to tell us how, when he went to deliver dry cleaning to the swells up the hill in La Jolla, often people would leave a note on the door or the gate asking him to leave their clothes because they wouldn’t be home. In those days most people would pay upon delivery, so my dad would knock on the door or ring the house anyway in an attempt to get paid which, at the time, was probably a couple of bucks tops back in those golden days when dimes and nickels weren’t just useless pocket weight. After getting no answer, my dad would leave the clothes to avoid a call to the shop wondering why they hadn’t been delivered which could only mean yet another trip back up the hill. More than a few times, after getting back in the truck, he would look back at the house only to see the curtains move because the occupants were checking to see if he had gone and whether it was safe to come out and collect their belongings...
Why Mitt Romney is losing - CNN.com
...Romney's failure to surpass Barack Obama this summer stems in no small part from his reluctance to make any bold moves on policy, and this reluctance is a direct product of the beating he's taken from conservative critics for much of the last year...
...Whatever else was true of him, no one doubted Richard Nixon was a man of ability. Whatever else was true of him, no one doubted Barry Goldwater was a man of conviction. No one doubted that Gerald Ford was a man of integrity, or that Ronald Reagan was a man of eloquence, or that George Herbert Walker Bush was a man of experience, or that Robert Dole was a man of legislative accomplishment, or that George W. Bush was a man of crusty charisma, or that John McCain was a man of heroism. Nothing we’ve seen of him so far indicates that Mitt Romney shares a single one of these qualities. Craven, arrogant, empty, dull, opportunistic—he’s a man of only ambition and acquisition, his distinctions the antitheses of all the attributes that have commended others to his party in the past. As such he reflects what the party has become: a political body so obsessed with defeating the president as to nominate a man known for but a single thing, which is that the name those mysterious tax records bear is not “Barack Obama...”
China’s Military Seeks More Sway, Worrying Communist Party - NYTimes.com
...With China’s once-a-decade leadership transition only months away, the party is pushing back with a highly visible campaign against disloyalty and corruption, even requiring all officers to report financial assets.
“Party authorities have come to realize that the military is encroaching on political affairs,” said one political scientist with high-level party ties. “Although the party controls the gun, the expression of viewpoints from within the military on political issues has aroused a high level of alarm.” He, like others who agreed to discuss internal party affairs, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of reprisals...
Oh, there is so much that could be said here, but I'll just leave it to you to peruse the article. Romney's Dad Had a Free McDonald's For Life Card - Yahoo! News
Sen. Kyl blasts sexual connotation of ‘goes both ways’ House ad | The Ticket - Yahoo! News
A new campaign ad from Arizona Rep. David Schweikert is causing a stir for appearing to suggest fellow Republican Rep. Ben Quayle is bisexual.
"Ben Quayle. He goes both ways ... " reads one side of the mailer. On the flip side, it clarifies: " ... on important conservative issues."
Following media coverage of the mailer, Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, who is supporting Quayle in the incumbent vs. incumbent Republican primary, spoke out Monday night, issuing a statement calling the ad "an example of the worst in American politics..."
Mitt Romney Needs More Than Moneyâ¿¿A Lot More : The New Yorker
...If November’s electorate were confined to millionaires and billionaires, Romney would be a shoo-in. Unfortunately for him, even the G.O.P.’s best efforts to suppress voter turnout through the introduction of voter I.D. laws and the like won’t prevent many less-wealthy Americans from ambling along to their local polling station and pulling the lever. Which means that the Mittster is also going to have to ingratiate himself with the regular folk, something he’s never been particularly adept at.
Rove and Stuart Stevens, the sometime novelist and bon vivant who is Romney’s campaign manager, may be hoping that they can spend their way to victory, burying President Obama under an avalanche of negative ads, but in their heart of hearts they know they can’t. In today’s politics, money is a necessary condition for success, but it’s by no means sufficient. From Steve Forbes in 1996 to Meg Whitman in 2010 and Rick Perry last year, the political landscape is littered with the detritus of well-funded campaigns that self-destructed because the candidate wasn’t up to it, the opposition was too strong, or the objective conditions were unfavorable...
Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who provided Mitt Romney’s stiffest test during the GOP primary season, will deliver a primetime address to the Republican National Convention later this month...
Former Congressional staffer on how money divides politics | Marketplace.org
Jeremy Hobson: Congress has left Washington for the August recess, and still no firm plans to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" of spending cuts and tax increases due to go into effect at the end of this year. Those cuts were set in motion during the debt ceiling fight, which Mike Lofgren remembers well. It convinced him to pack his bags after nearly 30 years working for Republicans on Capitol Hill.
He's just written a book called "The Party is Over: How Republicans Went Crazy, Democrats Became Useless, and the Middle Class Got Shafted" and he's with us now to talk about it. Good morning...
Interesting interview.
Simply Left BehindThe Non-Rapturist's Guide To The Galaxy: Just For Laughs
...But to think that Romney can reboot into some sort of competitor for the President is silly. At best, he can burn bridges behind him and slow the juggernaut down. He cannot beat Obama.
Business and Industry hold Americans hostage over future tax increases « The Confluence
...This is the biggest bullshit excuse I have ever heard. It’s just applying the screws with more torque. If business doesn’t get its way, they’re just going to lay off more people, have I got that right? If rich and powerful people, especially people in the finance and defense industry, are asked to sacrifice even one teensy tiny piece of their enormous share of the pie, they will pull the plug on any economic recovery.
This is the equivalent of domestic economic terrorism, in my humble opinion. It’s a test of Obama’s and the Democrat’s fortitude. When are they going to get tough on these bastards and the Republicans? It’s time to stop pretending there is any compromise possible with these assholes. Some of them need to be thrown in jail for threatening to send the economy into another destructive recession. These industrialists and their finance industry allies are enemies of the people...
Review & Outlook: Stay Classy, Harry - WSJ.com
...Mr. Romney has responded by denying the charge and saying it's time for Mr. Reid "to put up or shut up." Other Republicans are calling Mr. Reid a "liar," which Mr. Reid will consider a professional compliment.
Mr. Romney's problem is that he can only disprove the charge by releasing his tax returns, which he says he will not do for years other than 2010 and 2011. Mr. Reid knows this, which is why he has thrown out the unproven accusation from an unknown source. If someone calls him a liar, no one can prove that either...
Politics panel: Obama camp "mystified" at Romney's campaign strategy - CBS News
On CBS News' "Face the Nation," a panel of political reporters discussed the presidential campaign up until this point - just a few weeks before the political conventions.
CBS News' Nancy Cordes said the Obama campaign is "mystified" that Mitt Romney has not done more to define himself, allowing the Obama campaign to fill in the gaps.
"At Obama headquarters, when I was talking to them this week, they were mystified by why this Romney approach that they're taking now to sort of roll out his bio, talk about him. You see ads now where he's driving a car and talk about running the Olympics. They really don't understand why he didn't do that a couple months ago. And it really gave them the opportunity to define him on their terms about Bain, about outsourcing, at a time when he was really vulnerable. It's almost as if he thought that he could run solely harping away at the president, not defining himself in positive terms," Cordes said...
(24) Mrs. Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian
I can hear Mitt Romney at job interview: “No, I'm not showing you my resume. You prove that I don't have enough experience or shut up and give me the job.”
...So here is a fix for the student debt crisis and the crisis in public education funding.1. Legalize marijuana (Belgium, the Netherlands and Peru have not suffered from doing so, and it has been decriminalized in places like Portugal and Argentina with no ill effects; Portugal’s drug addiction rate has actually fallen)...
...It is a mordant irony to see the political and policy fratboy amateurs of the Cult of the Precious turn, once again, to a Clinton to bail them out. After demonizing them, slandering them, rejecting the wisdom and the smarts that they had brought to this floundering institution. Once again, a Clinton is carrying their water, after they have pissed all over his leg. Once again, they find themselves turning to actual leaders, who actually want to win, and know how to do so.
Republicans say Harry Reid was lying in statement about Mitt Romney's taxes - CSMonitor.com
Leading Republicans on Sunday accused the Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of lying by passing along an anonymous claim that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney hasn't paid taxes for ten years...
No one vetted Mitt - Salon.com
I can’t tell you that Mitt Romney’s stumbles in London, as embarrassing as they are, will cost him even a single vote in November. But this latest campaign glitch is a good reminder that something really unusual did happen in the nomination process this cycle, and it leaves Romney as an unusually untested, and undervetted, nominee...
Sandra Day O'Connor defends Roberts on health care ruling - CBS News
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said Chief Justice John Roberts' deciding vote to largely uphold President Obama's health care law doesn't mean the usually conservative Justice or the Court are moving left. "I see it deciding a very sensitive case with political connotations," she said Sunday on CBS News' "Face the Nation..."
Bitter African foes Sudan and South Sudan reported Saturday that they had struck a deal that would let South Sudan re-start oil production and ship it through Sudan for a fee, but while U.S. officials hailed the accord, it remained unclear when, or even if, oil will start flowing.State Department officials credited Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a "great success" for bringing the two sides together. Clinton met with South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on Friday in that country's capital, Juba, on Friday. "It should be seen as her achievement. It should be seen as a major diplomatic success," said a senior State Department official who was authorized to speak only on condition of anonymity...
Reid has long history of going after Romney - San Jose Mercury News
Sen. Harry Reid's decision this week to hurl a taunting, unsubstantiated accusation at Mitt Romney is hardly out of character for the cantankerous Democratic leader of the Senate, who revels in provocative comments and once called Romney "kind of a joke."
On a personal level, Reid has long been publicly contemptuous of Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee and a fellow Mormon.
In 2008, he said that Romney would have been "a tremendous drag" on the Republican ticket.
Last year, he said Romney "doesn't stand for anything." And in the past month, he has said that Romney could not be confirmed as a dogcatcher or a Cabinet secretary...
If this were Windows, we would have been besieged by hundreds of articles and dozens of email missives and blog posts by Apple fanboys eager to explain to the world how bad Microsoft sucks and how superior the Bitten Fruit is.
TidBITS Macs & Mac OS X: Mountain Lion is (Still) a Quitter
Almost exactly a year ago, I pointed out that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion had the habit of causing some applications to quit while you were using them (“Lion Is a Quitter,” 5 August 2011) — a habit which, as I explained at the time, goes by the name of Automatic Termination. It was with bated breath that I waited to learn whether Lion’s recently released successor system, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, would prove to have kicked this vile habit. It hasn’t...
Jenna Jameson Endorses Mitt Romney: 'When You're Rich, You Want A Republican In Office'
Retired porn star Jenna Jameson waded into the 2012 presidential race on Thursday, choosing a San Francisco strip club as the venue to announce her support for GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.
CBS San Francisco has her comments:
"I'm very looking forward to a Republican being back in office," Jameson said while sipping champagne in a VIP room at Gold Club in the city's South of Market neighborhood. "When you're rich, you want a Republican in office." ...
It's not just the economy, Mr. Romney | Fox News
Among Republicans, it is an article of faith that high unemployment and voter disapproval of President Obama’s handling of the economy should put Governor Romney in the White House. Unfortunately, Republicans fail to grasp that challengers must offer a compelling alternative to unseat an incumbent. Plus other issues matter more to voters than party leaders care to recognize...
Throwing up a little « The Confluence
...What I want is rehab. Yep, if Obama can’t come up with a plan to rehab the financial services industry for our and their good, even at the risk of pissing some of them off, he needs to step aside. If he can’t do the rehab thing, then he’s no use to us. Everyday he continues to enable them and puts off getting them clean and sober, he puts us at risk for a catastrophic failure. And this will happen because as long as they never suffer the consequences of their reckless behavior, they will get even more reckless. Sooner or later, probably sooner, we will have another financial catastrophe on our hands...
Well, duh...
Conservative talk radio contributes to more hate of minorities, study says | Fox News Latino
The participants and content of five prominent conservative talk-radio programs contribute to increasing hatred against certain minorities, according to the report entitled "Social Networks for Hate Speech" released on Wednesday.
The study, carried out by the National Hispanic Media Coalition and UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, analyzed the themes and content of "The Rush Limbaugh Show," "The Sean Hannity Show," "The Glenn Beck Program," "The Savage Nation" and "The John and Ken Show..."
August 20th, 2012 at 7:39 am
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