AWFULs

"Patriot" hate groups on the rise again, just like in the 1990's. Kentucky always gets a bad rap but Michigan has many more of the Angry White Fringe United Leagues (I call them AWFUL's).

  

CNN report suggests Antichrist-fearing militia group hosted Tea Party

From  Raw Story

A militia group worried about the Antichrist was the subject of multiple reports over the weekend."A Christian militia group was a target of at least one of a series of weekend raids the FBI conducted in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, a Michigan militia leader says," the Associated Press reports.

The FBI said Sunday that it had conducted raids in the three states, resulting in at least three arrests. Federal warrants were sealed, but a federal law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity said some of those arrested face gun charges and officials are pursuing other suspects. Some of the suspects were expected in court Monday.It wasn't clear what prompted the raids, but Michael Lackomar, a spokesman for the Southeast Michigan Volunteer Militia, said one of his team leaders got a frantic phone call Saturday evening from members of Hutaree, a Christian militia group. They said their property in southeast Michigan was being raided by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Lackomar said.
"They said they were under attack by the ATF and wanted a place to hide," he said. "My team leader said, 'No thanks."'


"Jesus wanted us to be ready to defend ourselves using the sword and stay alive using equipment," Hutaree.com reads. "The only thing on earth to save the testimony and those who follow it, are the members of the testimony, til the return of Christ in the clouds. We, the Hutaree, are prepared to defend all those who belong to Christ and save those who aren't. We will still spread the word, and fight to keep it, up to the time of the great coming."
Another AP report notes, "Two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that members of the group had planned multiple attacks on police officers or other law enforcement personnel as way to express their hatred for the government. Charges against members of the militia group are expected to be unsealed later Monday when some of the suspects appear in court."
"Nine members of a militia group arrested in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Ohio were planning to 'levy war' against the United States and 'oppose by force' the nation's government, according to an indictment released this morning in U.S. District Court in Detroit," the Detroit News reports.

The indictment says they were planning to kill a member of law enforcement, possibly after a traffic stop, to "prompt a response by law enforcement."
The goal: To "intimidate and demoralize law enforcement, diminishing their ranks and rendering them ineffective," according to the indictment.
The group then intended to use the incident to spark a "war" against law enforcement, using bombs, ambushes and prepared fighting positions.

During a report about the arrests, CNN's Susan Candiotti displayed a web page from MichiganMilitia.com advertising a "Tea Party." The website promotes an "Open Carry Family Picnic & Tea Party" to be held on April 10, 2010.


Read More Here

Freaky Booth

Spending time with family and close friends in a special town Sam calls "Freaky Booth". Also we officially entered our thirty-somethings with our new (used) mini-van.

The Hysteria Rises

I have a new favorite quote "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."-Horace Mann

New online Harris poll basically says: Republicans are insane

By John Amato

OK, let's have some fun. There's a new Harris poll that was just released and the results are pretty hysterical. It's not scientific, but based on who decided to take it online during the height of the health care debate, so take it for what it is:

On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he's a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim—and 24 percent say "he may be the Antichrist."

To anyone who thinks the end of the health-care vote means a return to civility, wake up.

Obama Derangement Syndrome—pathological hatred of the president posing as patriotism—has infected the Republican Party. Here's new data to prove it:

67 percent of Republicans (and 40 percent of Americans overall) believe that Obama is a socialist. The belief that Obama is a “domestic enemy” is widely held—a sign of trouble yet to come.

57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president" 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did" Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist." These numbers all come from a brand-new Harris poll, inspired in part by my new book Wingnuts. It demonstrates the cost of the campaign of fear and hate that has been pumped up in the service of hyper-partisanship over the past 15 months. We are playing with dynamite by demonizing our president and dividing the United States in the process. What might be good for ratings is bad for the country.

• Michelle Goldberg: What the Polls Really Show The poll, which surveyed 2,230 people right at the height of the health-care reform debate, also clearly shows that education is a barrier to extremism. Respondents without a college education are vastly more likely to believe such claims, while Americans with college degrees or better are less easily duped. It's a reminder of what the 19th-century educator Horace Mann once too-loftily said: "Ignorance breeds monsters to fill up the vacancies of the soul that are unoccupied by the verities of knowledge."

The poll was based on John Avlon's new book: Wingnuts. If nothing else it speaks to the people that are clicking through and then taking the poll. Clearly there is a derangement syndrome going on in America today. We know this by the behavior we see everyday and the actions...oh...like...cutting someone's gas line. Things like that.

GOP Celeb Hints at Violent Action.

It is getting to the point that the GOP spokespeople, not just the fringe base, are trolling for bloodshed. I called my republican rep, not that it matters. The polarization is sickening, but when you rise above it, it is almost like going to the circus.  I just hope no one gets hurt.

Sarah Palin's PAC Puts Gun Sights On Democrats She's Targeting In 2010


From Huffington Post

Sarah Palin is targeting -- yes, with gun sights -- House Democrats facing tough reelection fights who voted for health care reform.  Palin's Facebook page now carries a map featuring 20 gun sights, one for each of the Democrats targeted this year by her political action committee SarahPAC. Three of the gun sights, those where incumbent Democrats have already announced their retirement, are colored red.
Likewise, Palin's rhetoric is decidedly militant. "We'll aim for these races and many others," she wrote on her Facebook page. "This is just the first salvo in a fight to elect people across the nation who will bring common sense to Washington. Please go to sarahpac.com and join me in the fight."

Adele Update

Adele is going to have another major surgery. Her right leg is coming out of its socket again and it's not getting better. Her surgery is scheduled for April 20 at University of Michigan Mott Children's Hospital, and will take 4 hours. They will be cutting her femur and changing the angle so it better stays in the hip socket. Then, they will reshape her hip socket to get better coverage and also help the femur stay in place. We are, of course, devastated that the first surgery didn't work as we hoped. Adele will be in the hospital for at least two nights (last time it turned into three nights, though). She will be in a hip spica body cast for at least six weeks after, then possibly in a hip brace for another six weeks after that. While we are so sad to put her through this, we now have lots of experience in what Adele needs, what we need to help her. For example, diiapering requires a Poise Pad, on top of a size 2 diaper, stuffed under the edges of the cast, then all wrapped up with a size six diaper over the cast. We are planning to rent TWO hip spica car seats, so BOTH parents can pick up or drop off from daycare. Last time Adele learned to crawl in the cast by about week four or five -- this time I'm betting she'll be going by week two or three!
In other (good) news, Adele is now grabbing a cookie or a cracker and bringing it to her mouth more consistently, and she had a very good occupational therapy session on Monday. She used a oral vibrator (no laughing please) and she used it like a spoon to feed herself after the food was placed on it. She will have lots of opportunity to practice her fine motor over the next few months.

Health Care Close to Passing.

Its not a perfect bill, but this is the first time I can remember congress working on strengthining the social safety net rather than dismantling government regulation.  Everytime I was discouraged or disappointed in how the Health Care debate was going I had to remind myself that if McCain Palin had won in 2008 we would not even be having these debates or any bill at all.

  



Robert Reich
Former Secretary of Labor, Professor at Berkeley                                                                                                         
The Final Health Care Vote and What it Really Means
It's not nearly as momentous as the passage of Medicare in 1965 and won't fundamentally alter how Americans think about social safety nets. But the likely passage of Obama's health care reform bill is the biggest thing Congress has done in decades, and has enormous political significance for the future.
  Medicare directly changed the life of every senior in America, giving them health security and dramatically reducing their rates of poverty. By contrast, most Americans won't be affected by Obama's health care legislation. Most of us will continue to receive health insurance through our employers. (Only a comparatively small minority will be required to buy insurance who don't want it, or be subsidized in order to afford it. Only a relatively few companies will be required to provide it who don't now.)
  Medicare built on Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal notion of government as insurer, with citizens making payments to government, and government paying out benefits. That was the central idea of Social Security, and Medicare piggybacked on Social Security.
  Obama's legislation comes from an alternative idea, begun under the Eisenhower administration and developed under Nixon, of a market for health care based on private insurers and employers. Eisenhower locked in the tax break for employee health benefits; Nixon pushed prepaid, competing health plans, and urged a requirement that employers cover their employees. Obama applies Nixon's idea and takes it a step further by requiring all Americans to carry health insurance, and giving subsidies to those who need it.
  So don't believe anyone who says Obama's health care legislation marks a swing of the pendulum back toward the Great Society and the New Deal. Obama's health bill is a very conservative piece of legislation, building on a Republican rather than a New Deal foundation. The New Deal foundation would have offered Medicare to all Americans or, at the very least, featured a public insurance option.
  The significance of Obama's health legislation is more political than substantive. For the first time since Ronald Reagan told America government is the problem, Obama's health bill reasserts that government can provide a major solution. In political terms, that's a very big deal.
  Most Americans continue to be suspicious of government. That distrust is deeply etched in our culture and traditions. Our system of government was devised by people who distrusted government and intentionally created checks and balances, three separate branches, and almost insuperable odds against getting big things done. The period extending from 1933 to 1965 -- the New Deal and the Great Society -- was an historical aberration from that long tradition, animated by the unique crises of the Great Depression and World War II, and the social cohesion that flowed from them for another generation. Ronald Reagan merely picked up where Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover left off.
 

But Reagan's view of government as the problem is increasingly at odds with a nation whose system of health care relies on large for-profit entities designed to make money rather than improve health; whose economy is dependent on global capital and on global corporations and financial institutions with no particular loyalty to America; and much of whose fuel comes from unstable and dangerous areas of the world. Under these conditions, government is the only entity that can look out for our interests.

  We will not return to the New Deal or the Great Society, but nor will we continue to wallow in the increasingly obsolete Reagan view that we don't need a strong and competent government. Today's vote confirms our hope that we can have both strength and competence in Washington. It is an audacious hope, but we have no choice.


 

The Conservative Fringe gets Uglier (if possible).

Ahhh.  The true face of the Teabag anti-reform movement and it is no surprise it has nothing to do with health care reform at all.

Tea Party Protests: 'Ni**er,' 'Faggot' Shouted At Members Of Congress

Sam Stein HuffPost Reporting

Abusive, derogatory and even racist behavior directed at House Democrats by Tea Party protesters on Saturday left several lawmakers in shock.
  Preceding the president's speech to a gathering of House Democrats, thousands of protesters descended around the Capitol to protest the passage of health care reform. The gathering quickly turned into abusive heckling, as members of Congress passing through Longworth House office building were subjected to epithets and even mild physical abuse.
  A staffer for Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-M.D.) had been spit on by a protestor. Rep. John Lewis (D-G.A.), a hero of the civil rights movement, was called a 'ni--er.' And Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) was called a "faggot," as protestors shouted at him with deliberately lisp-y screams. Frank, approached in the halls after the president's speech, shrugged off the incident.
  But Clyburn was downright incredulous, saying he had not witnessed such treatment since he was leading civil rights protests in South Carolina in the 1960s.
 
"It was absolutely shocking to me," Clyburn told the Huffington Post. "Last Monday, this past Monday, I stayed home to meet on the campus of Claflin University where fifty years ago as of last Monday... I led the first demonstrations in South Carolina, the sit ins... And quite frankly I heard some things today I have not heard since that day. I heard people saying things that I have not heard since March 15, 1960 when I was marching to try and get off the back of the bus."
  "It doesn't make me nervous as all," the congressman said, when asked how the mob-like atmosphere made him feel. "In fact, as I said to one heckler, I am the hardest person in the world to intimidate, so they better go somewhere else."
  Asked if he wanted an apology from the group of Republican lawmakers who had addressed the crowd and, in many ways, played on their worst fears of health care legislation, the Democratic Party, and the president, Clyburn replied:
  "A lot of us have been saying for a long time that much of this, much of this is not about health care a all. And I think a lot of those people today demonstrated that this is not about health care... it is about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful."


Wow, real inspiring patriots, these Tea-Baggers. Nice that these blood crazed protesters can outright call for violence and insight hatred without any consequence but just plan to protest the RNC in 2008 and you get arrested.Spitting and gay-baiting too, but this hysteria has been going on since before the election.  If these Tea-Baggers tried to have an informed and fair discussion their brains would burst.  For the past 25 years the angry white working class have just about voted themselves out of existence and now they want to blame their favorite scapegoats: Blacks, Gays, and Liberals. They must believe if you are one of those three you are also a Socialist, because there is nothing in that Bill that even comes close to socialism.  All I wanted was the public option, but I don't know if that makes me a Marxist, a Czar, or a Batman villain? If you reach that level of crazy hate please tell me.

Snow-Sugarbush Time Again.

GOP/FOX lies about Health Care Reform.

If you think health care reform it is too expensive then roll back the Bush tax cuts for the mega wealthy, stop privatizing the military and stop allowing corporations to buy politicians and write legislation.

Kitchen sink: Fox's last-ditch effort  to rally opposition to health care reform

Posted using ShareThis

Fox News' weeklong assault: Distortions and falsehoods abound

Fox falsely attributes doctor survey to New England Journal of Medicine. Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Brian Kilmeade, Sean Hannity and Marc Siegel all pushed the false claim that a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) survey found that 46 percent of primary care physicians would consider leaving their profession if health care reform legislation passes. In fact, NEJM says they didn't publish or conduct the 3-month-old email "survey," which was actually conducted by The Medicus Firm and published in an employment newsletter.
Fox News erases 2006 Hawaii earthquake to attack Obama. Responding to President Obama's statement during a Fox News interview that Hawaii "went through an earthquake" and could benefit from a health care reform provision that would help Louisiana cope with Medicaid shortfalls resulting from Hurricane Katrina, Doocy asked, "What Hawaiian earthquake?" In fact, as Fox News itself reported at the time, President Bush declared a "major disaster" after Hawaii was hit by a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in October 2006. [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 3/18/10]
Beck attacks family of 11-year-old who spoke about his mother's death at health care event. Following 11-year-old Marcelas Owens' appearance at a health care reform event to speak about his mother, who reportedly died after losing her health insurance, Beck asked, "Where was grandma" when Marcelas' mother was sick and attacked her work with the organization Washington Community Action Network, saying the group was "all about economic, racial, gender, and social justice for all," which he called, "pesky phrases." [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 3/15/10]
Fox calls CBO score untrustworthy. After the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the health care reform reconciliation package would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years, Fox News -- led by Beck, Hannity, Doocy, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer and The Fox Nation -- attempted to portray the nonpartisan CBO as untrustworthy and unreliable. By contrast, after the CBO gave a "favorable" score to the GOP health care plan, Fox praised the office as "nonpartisan" and advanced false GOP claims about the CBO's findings.
Fox News suggests Dems were bought off to support health care reform. Dick Morris suggested that Obama "illegal[ly]" nominated Rep. Jim Matheson's (D-UT) brother Scott "to a judgeship with an implicit quid pro quo." Rep. Matheson's office and the White House have called the smear "ridiculous" and "absurd," former Bush-appointed judge Michael McConnell definitely debunked the smear and conservatives have stated that Scott Matheson is "plenty qualified for the job." Likewise, following Rep. Dennis Kucinich's (D-OH) appearance on Fox & Friends to discuss his decision to support the bill, Fox News displayed a graphic stating: "What was Kucinich promised? Congressman changed vote from no to yes."
Fox anchors falsely attack House rule as undemocratic. Fox News anchors, during their self-described daytime "news hours," repeatedly forwarded the false suggestion that by using a legislative procedure known as the "self-executing rule" to finalize health care reform in the House, Democrats would be passing health care reform "without actually voting for it." In fact, passing legislation by using the procedure would require a majority vote. Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich criticized the rule as "incredible" and "passing bills without voting on them," despite the fact that the Republican Party "set new records" for its use of the self-executing rule in the years following Gingrich's ascension as Speaker. 

More Adele Off Road.

Off Roading with Adele

Adele got to practice with her walker outside today. She also gave me a kiss, while she has received many, she has never given kisses back. There is that social reciprocity again.

Remembering Peter Graves

Peter Graves died yesterday of a heart attack at the age of 84. He stared in "Airplane" a movie my brothers and I rented over and over one summer. Later I would watch this film with my friends Chris and Ryan usually on New Year's Eve. Gaves also stared in a few B-Movies I recall fondly on MST3k such as 'It Conquered... the World' During the writers strike in the late 80's he had a reprise role in Mission Impossible, much more watchable than the film versions. Godspeed Mr. Graves. You will be missed.

Adele Feeds Self for First Time!

Adele fed herself an Oreo Cookie! This is the first time she’s ever fed herself with her hand, other than holding a bottle. We are thrilled that we found something she liked well enough to motivate her to feed herself!
Thanks Nabisco, for making junk food beloved by toddlers of all abilities.

Adele is over two years old now and has a ‘placeholder’ diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. We recently had a IEP meeting with several professionals and therapists from the Early On program. While Adele has behaviors that are similar to Autism, her social interactions, while sporadic and unpredictable, are not best explained by placing her on the autistic spectrum at this early age. She has just been tested for cognitive impairment, and is greater than 3 standard deviations below the mean, meaning she is severely cognitively impaired. Since she also has the diagnosis of a physical impairment (Cerebral Palsy), she qualifies as “Severe Multiple Impairment”, a disability category used in educational settings, which will make her eligible for additional programs. For now, Adele is best understood as being very developmentally delayed and intellectually disabled, functioning in the 6-11 month range for most behaviors and cognitive abilities.
Today, she put a cookie in her mouth for the first time, repeatedly! It’s all about finding the right thing to motivate, I guess.

Rep. Messa and his Tickle Fights.

Jerry is right, it must be strange to be the crazy one in Glenbeckistan.

Saturday Mornings

Opinions

The opinion page can be a real drag, but today I saw two letters to the editor in the ever shrinking Lansing State Journal that made me smile.

Tea-partiers can relocate

I wonder if tea-partiers and the anti-government, "rights of the individual" purists out there ever follow their own arguments to their logical ends.

If they think government-ensured health care for all is a form of socialism, then presumably they also object to being taxed for armed forces to protect our nation, government employees to build and maintain our roads, public teachers to educate our children and so on. We'd have to wait for the market to correct Toyota's "errors," assuming they also object to governmental consumer protections.

Individual rights carried to the extreme mean anarchy - every (wo)man for her/himself. Do they really think that is preferable to a society that includes compassion in its national ethos and which chooses to govern and regulate itself for the common good?'

If so, then perhaps they'd be happier living elsewhere. But finding their ideal government could prove difficult. Other developed nations long ago rejected such selfish, misguided and antisocial demands.

Ellen Link
Laingsburg

Churches can fund care

I have the perfect solution on health-care funding.

The average yearly income for all of America's tax-exempt religious organizations is $15 billion. If we asked them to donate .001 percent of that, we would have $15 million a year to insure the 30 million Americans who don't have insurance. That leaves $500,000 per person per year per policy.

I am sure that there is no religious group in America that would object to such a small tithing of their church's income for the welfare of fellow Americans. If there are any objections by any religious group, I would hope they speak out so their members would know they really don't care about people who are sick.

Patrick O'Neill
Grand Ledge

Hocus Pocus on the Focus

May Focus on the Family and Dobson continue to become less relevant and more obscure. Nice that they donated a million dollars to Dobson so his 40 something skateboarder son can have a radio career. Not to forget the millions they spent on subverting gay rights in other states while laying off hundreds of their own staff in Colorado. I used to listen to this show on a daily basis, always quite interested in how the religious right operates. Was surprised on how little time was devoted to actual family and family issues and how much time was given to paranoid political views, nationalism, advocating war, homophobia and attacks on fictional characters. With such blatant promotion for the GOP, I still do not understand how they remain a 501(c). I guess it helps having million dollar lawyers and lobbyists.

James Dobson Was Pushed Out Of Focus On The Family, Says Influential Evangelical
From Huffington Post

Contrary to most reports, one prominent evangelical thinks that iconic evangelical James Dobson was pushed out of Focus on the Family, the conservative group he founded, because he no longer squared with the image the group was trying to project.

Ken Hutcherson, who leads the Antioch Bible megachurch in Kirkland, Wash. and is a friend of Dobson, wrote an article for World Net Daily in which he says he "knows" that Focus on the Family's board of directors forced Dobson out of his radio show because they wanted to take a new, less divisive direction.

Hutcherson argues that Dobson, who is starting a new radio venture with his son, "did not want to stop his voice from being heard over the airway after turning over leadership to the new team."

Dobson has been phased out of the organization's everyday operations since 2003. He resigned his position as Chairman of Focus on the Family in February, 2009, but continued to do his radio show until February of 2010.

Hutcherson thinks parting ways with Dobson is part of a larger effort on the part of Focus on the Family to become "loved and understood."

As Talking Point Memo points out, Dobson seemed confused and troubled by the board's request that he stop doing his radio show, and has suggested it was part of a broader paradigm shift.

"[T]the board of directors voted privately on Wednesday -- before we got there -- to ask for my resignation, although their request was made with kindness and respect. We can only guess the reason for their decision because frankly I don't fully know," Dobson said during a November radio show. "But it apparently has to do with the desire for closure on my tenure and the beginning of another."

Focus donated $1 million to Dobson to start his new show.
Focus officials vehemently denied the claims on Wednesday.
In the article, Hutcherson was critical of Focus's new direction, and suggested that he should have been offered a leadership position in the organization

The Story of Stuff.

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever. http://storyofstuff.org

Estate Tax

Here is yet another champion of a made up 'Death Tax' crisis. It is unfortunate that there are so many delusional Americans (Tea-Baggers) who think they will be millionaire’s some day and can be fooled into something as silly as repealing the Estate Tax.  'Hey, Millionaires need that money to buy Politicians!'

While Americans Look for Work, Blanche Lincoln Works to Cut Taxes for Millionaires

 from Firedoglake




The nation is suffering its worst economic slump since the 1930s.
10% of the country is out of work, many more have given up looking for
a job, and even those Americans who are fortunate enough to be employed
are struggling to make ends meet under the burden of higher medical
costs.

Kind of an odd time to be worried about the Estate Tax.

Lobbyists
for small businesses, construction companies, manufacturers and other
trade groups are racing the clock to convince Congress to reinstate the
federal estate tax they’ve fought for years to abolish. The
National Federation of Independent Business and more than 40 business
organizations wrote Senate and House leaders last week asking for quick
action on a proposed 35 percent levy on inheritances worth more than
$10 million per couple.

[...]

The groups have changed positions in a bid to head off higher taxes on the horizon: Unless
Congress acts, current law would raise the tax next year to 55 percent
on estates after they exceed $2 million per couple, from nothing this
year.

Don’t you feel the urgency people?! There are
desperate millionaires out there who will pay higher taxes UNLESS WE
ACT NOW!!!11!1

Blanche to the rescue!

Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl and Arkansas Democratic Senator Blanche Lincoln have proposed setting the rate at 35 percent, retroactive to Jan. 1. The measure would apply to the portion of estates that exceed $10 million per couple, and would adjust that exemption for inflation in later years.

Extra style points for teaming up with Jon Kyl, there, Blanche.

And here’s the kicker.

The
legislation pushed by Kyl and Lincoln, exempting $10 million per couple
from taxation, would affect 3,030 taxpayers this year, including 310 business owners or farmers, according to Tax Policy Center estimates.

Don’t have a job? Don’t have health care? Tough shit. Got an estate worth $10M? Blanche is ready to help.

Donate to Bill Halter’s campaign.

Blame the Unemployed (Because They Want It).

Tom Delay: People Are Unemployed Because They Want To Be
Sam Stein
From Huffington Post


Former House Majority Leader Tom Delay called Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) "brave" on Sunday for launching a one-man filibuster of unemployment benefits, arguing that they dissuaded people from going out and finding work.

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," the Texas Republican said that Bunning's fiscal responsibility was commendable, even if his shenanigans (refusing to allow unemployment benefits to be considered by unanimous consent) nearly brought the Senate to a halt.

"Nothing would have happened if the Democrats had just paid for [the benefits]," Delay said. "People would have gotten their unemployment compensation. I think Bunning was brave in standing up there and taking it on by himself."

Asked whether it was bad strategy to make a budget stand on a $10 billion extension of unemployment (as opposed to, say, the Bush's $720 billion prescription drug package), Delay insisted that if the PR had been done right, Bunning would have been applauded. Helping the unemployed with federal assistance, he said, was unsound policy.

"You know," Delay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions, the unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs. In fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don't look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.

Host Candy Crowley: Congressman, that's a hard sell, isn't it?

Delay: it's the truth.

Crowley: People are unemployed because they want to be?
Delay: well, it is the truth. and people in the real world know it. And they have friends and they know it. Sure, we ought to be helping people that are unemployed find a job, but we also have budget considerations that are incredibly important, especially now that Obama is spending monies that we don't have.

Tom Delay is not above kicking someone when they are down or capitalizing on other people’s tragedy. Do not forget this is the guy who used a terminally brain dead woman as a political football. This is the guy who allowed corporations and lobbyist to write their own regulatory legislation and conduct business on the House floor while congress was in session. Tom Delay member of the 'The Family' Christian Cult and friends with other criminals like Jack Abramoff. I can also tell you about Jim Bunning having lived in Kentucky and watching him run one of the dirtiest campaigns in recent memory. Jim Bunning, former baseball player and current Mitch McConnell page, won a narrow race in 2004 by hinting that his opponent, Daniel Mongiardo, was a possible homosexual and that he looked like 'one of Saddam's Hussein's sons. It is real hard to find two bigger Scumbags, even in the GOP.

AFA Staffer Says Bible Mandates Death For SeaWorld Orca

Talk To Action | Whale Tale: AFA Staffer Says Bible Mandates Death For SeaWorld Orca


Side Note: American Family Association founder, and World Class Bigot Donald Wildmon  has stepped down due to an illness he contracted  from a  mosquitoe.  Rest assured the mosquitoe did not catch anything from Wildmon and is doing fine.

The Milky Way

This was shot over Hawaii, if you slow down the frames  at the bottom of the screen you can see Dog the Bounty Hunter spray someone with mace.


The White Mountain from charles on Vimeo.

The 9 Worst Movies Ever Made (That Will Make You Question Humanity)

There are movies like "Glitter," "Gigli," and "Big Momma's House 2" -- movies that make you question the mental capacities of Hollywood execs. But then there are these films that make you long for a Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy. Yes, these are actually the worst movies ever made, and just in time for the Oscars we want you to vote for the worst of the worst! » Full Story on Huffington Post

Nine horrific films and I want to see them all! I think Pocket Ninjas or Praise Band would be my favorite. Birdemic looks like it was based on a 1990's screen-saver.

Birdemic




Pocket Ninjas



Praise Band

Freedomworks

Its funny that a conservative think tank/ astro turf organization like Freedomworks is calling reconciliation a "parliamentary trick." Reconciliation is just an up or down vote with a 51 majority rule. No one has used this "trick" more than republicans. It was how Bush 43 passed his tax cuts for the wealthy. If health care reform is socialism than so is Medicare and if you want to opt out of that you should probably stop driving on our socialized roads too. In regards to expense, health care reform is a drop in the bucket compared to the money that is wasted on the military industrial complex. The current bill just scratches the surface of what needs to be done.