Tea Party Attendees Call For Book Burning
AWESOME. (via… Little Green Footballs?)
Remember, they’re not Birchers. Except they are.
Who Is Awesome? I Am Awesome.
The year is 1981. I went to a foreign country for the first time, a little place called England you may have heard of. My grandmother on my father’s side lived there, and my mom and I went for a little visit. Flash forward to today and my uncle just happened to have a few pictures from that trip and emailed them to me.
Behold Oliver, 3 years old in 1981. Oh yes…
GOP Mainstreams Crazy
Blair “Thinks About Iraq Every Day”
By Ben Cohen
I'm not sure why Tony Blair believes anyone cares whether he 'thinks about Iraq every day'. Having helped orchestrate one of the worst planned invasions in recent history, Blair is ultimately responsible for the wholesale destruction of the country. The least he could do would be to shut up about it, but his massive narcissism takes over and he continues to talk about the 'utter evil' of terrorism and his 'comfort' in his religion. At least George Bush is having the decency to keep quiet after his disastrous exit from power,
a trick Mr Blair would do well to mimic.
Matt Taibbi: “Official End of Obama’s Honeymoon”
By Ben Cohen
Unfortunately, it looks like the suspicions that Obama was in the pocket of Wall St turned out to be true. Writes Matt Taibbi:
It’s an undeniable pattern. He put William Lynn, a former Raytheon
lobbyist, in the Pentagon as Deputy Defense Secretary. A lot of people
squawked about Obama’s early lean towards John Brennan as CIA director
because of his role in establishing the “enhanced interrogation”
policies, but to me more significant was the fact that Brennan was the
former chair of INSA (Intelligence and National Security Alliance),
which is sort of like the Chamber of Commerce of intelligence
contractors. Most importantly, I’m sensing in these economic
appointments a kind of drearily cynical parsing of the approval-rating
situation here — Obama knows he’s still flying high with the “Yes We
Can!” t-shirt crowd, and knows that most people simply are not going to
give a shit if he packs his Treasury Department with Goldman alums and
lobbyists, despite the fact that he explicitly promised to do otherwise.
lobbyist, in the Pentagon as Deputy Defense Secretary. A lot of people
squawked about Obama’s early lean towards John Brennan as CIA director
because of his role in establishing the “enhanced interrogation”
policies, but to me more significant was the fact that Brennan was the
former chair of INSA (Intelligence and National Security Alliance),
which is sort of like the Chamber of Commerce of intelligence
contractors. Most importantly, I’m sensing in these economic
appointments a kind of drearily cynical parsing of the approval-rating
situation here — Obama knows he’s still flying high with the “Yes We
Can!” t-shirt crowd, and knows that most people simply are not going to
give a shit if he packs his Treasury Department with Goldman alums and
lobbyists, despite the fact that he explicitly promised to do otherwise.
Speaking with a friend of mine yesterday (who knows a great deal more about economics than I do), he said he wouldn't mind one big giant payout to the banks provided they changed the regulation afterward. Looks like that won't be happening either.
Anti-Cuba Diehards In The Minority
It seems nowadays every time an issue meets a poll, the dominant position in the Republican party is a fringe position. Funny how that operates.
Do Americans back a plan to relax some of the current restrictions on that island nation?
A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Friday suggests the answer is yes. Nearly two thirds think the United States should lift its ban on travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba. And seven in ten think it’s time to re-establish diplomatic relations with that country.
The continued embargo versus Cuba hasn’t done a thing to disrupt Castro’s rule. All it does is screw over Cubans and make it hard for Cubans in America to support their families. The Cold War is long over, we won, time to move on.
RELATED: 57% believe economic failure is Republican fault, fringe blames Dems.
Black, British, and No Hope
By Ben Cohen
Despite the markedly different history, Black British people have much in common with their American counterparts. Both groups have struggled to achieve an equal status in society, and both are systematically discriminated against by the police and the workforce. A culture of hostility has developed in both societies, and all too often, it results in violence, incarceration and poverty.
In a bleak article in the Guardian, Peter Akinti highlights the untold story of an existence with no real hope that many Black Britons experience. It is a story that in many ways is worse than the American one, where African Americans have defined their culture more successfully, and have been given a huge boost with the election of Barack Obama. Akinti writes:
In 2007, 30 teenagers, mostly black, were reported murdered. A
recent police report on London's gang culture identified 170 separate
gangs, with more than a quarter said to have been involved in murders.
According to a 2008 study by Queen Mary University, London, suicide is
proportionally more common among young black men than white men; but
more alarmingly, most of the suicides that occur among black men happen
within 24 hours of talking to a counsellor.
recent police report on London's gang culture identified 170 separate
gangs, with more than a quarter said to have been involved in murders.
According to a 2008 study by Queen Mary University, London, suicide is
proportionally more common among young black men than white men; but
more alarmingly, most of the suicides that occur among black men happen
within 24 hours of talking to a counsellor.
Karl Rove Is Clearly A Comedian
I’m really not interested in the merits or demerits of this non-story* about Joe Biden and what he did or didn’t say to George W. Bush (I’m inclined to believe Biden, but whatever) but this quote from Karl Rove is hilarious:
“You should not exaggerate and lie like this when you are the Vice President of the United States.”
Karl Rove worked for the biggest liar and most odious excuse of a subhuman being in history to ever hold the office of the vice presidency in the guise of Dick Cheney. For Rove to lecture on Vice Presidential truthfulness is like Oedipus lecturing on what an appropriate relationship with your mother is.
* The story is the perfect kind of nonsense Drudge story that once determined our political fates in America, and I found it on Drudge. Thankfully for the time being we’re very over that obsession with Republican-created trivia noise.
Joe McCarthy returns: Republican Congress man has secret list of 17 Socialists in the House
by Ari Rutenberg
The Republicans always wanted to bring us back to the 50's and now they've done it. Al.com claims a Republican Congressman named Spencer Bachus from Birmingham, Alabama, has said he has a list of 17 House members who are Socialists.
The first and most obvious problem is that this is eerily reminiscent of Sen. Joe McCarthy's activities in the 50's, always claiming to have lists of Communist agents in the government. We, as a nation, have already rejected this kind of cowardly fear mongering, and rightly so. It is dangerous to have political leaders in a democracy encourage violence against political opponents. It stifles dissent and encourages distrust between citizens.
The second problem is that it is perfectly legal to be socialist in this country. Though it is impermissible to have agents of a foreign government running our country, freely electing a socialist is perfectly legal. Americans fail to understand that socialism, and especially the European social democracy that many Americans confuse with socialism, can be democratic. Only Stalinist nations are necessarily totalitarian. It is an affront to the ideals of this nation to pursue a vendetta against those who have won free elections.
It is a sad day for America. Whether Republican or not, it is clear we have lost control of ourselves as a country. Our ability to accomplish great things has been hampered by a small minority who have no concept of what it actually means to govern. We are no longer able to have a rational debate about the relative merits of various policies and programs. This is case for most of us as individuals, as well as on a collective basis.
Mr. Bachus is clearly not a fan of not repating the mistakes of history. And combined with the recent hysteria from the Glenn Beck's looneyverse, this is going to create long-term social breakdown in this country. Shame on him.