Anatomy of a Column

eggy Noonan completed watching the “Death Valley Days” marathon on her old black and white Philco television set in the back bedroom at the Aviary 2, the name she christened the new Penthouse (so large, so chic), when she buzzed the concierge.

“A horse, a horse, half my kingdom for a horse,” she whispered into the phone. They quickly made arrangements for a riding lesson in The Park. Watching her beloved Ronnie in the greatest western television series ever inspired Noonan to give horseback riding another try, her previous attempt had ended in failure at the Reagan Ranch in the hills above Santa Barbara, and of course 30 years of mocking from her nemesis, Nancy Reagan.

Noonan shuddered thinking about Nancy’s scratchy voice bellowing over the hills, “Hey Ronnie look! A horse with two asses!”

“This time,” Noonan sniffed, “things will be different.”

Just like for the GOP, she mused. “Whatever word means the opposite of snakebit, that is what the Republican Party is right now.” Noonan took a thoughtful sip of her Mai Tai as she changed into her riding togs, red coat, and black boots, funny cap, and just as quickly changed her mind. “Western saddle, that’s what Ronnie would want.”

Changing into denim jeans, and a plaid flannel blouse, Noonan mused further on the luck of the GOP. “One reason they are feeling hope is that they have received two big and unexpected gifts from President Obama,” she grinned to herself, “The first, of course, was his political implosion—his quick descent and speedy fall into unpopularity, which shaped the outcome of the 2010 elections.” She cursed under her breath while struggling with the skinny jeans that seemed to stop at her ample calves. “Fuckin’ cleaners must have shrunk them,” she snarled as she took a deep quaff of Mai Tai, and tried to peel off the jeans. She worried that she might look like a turtle that rolled onto its back as she struggled to pull them off, writhing on the floor.

“Obama’s second gift, of course, is how he reacted to the election’s outcome in a way that suggested he’s still in his own world, still seeing a reality no one else is seeing,” Noonan huffed, out of breath. Noonan giggled at the thought of the very smart and unlikable man sitting at her beloved Ronnie’s desk not being aware he was not political enough, too serious, too substantive, and no one could see the size of his achievements.

Grimacing, Noonan thought about how the media was going to treat the incoming GOP freshman class, “The mainstream media this January will be looking for the nuts,” she thought as she slurped the pineapple wedge. She had seen this before when the new Republican Congress came in in 1994. The spirited Helen Chenoweth, freshman from Idaho, talked a little too much about “black helicopters.” She was portrayed as paranoid and eccentric. Bob Livingston, from New Orleans, went to his first meeting of the Appropriations Committee wielding a machete. The new speaker, Newt Gingrich, was full of pronouncements and provocations; he was a one-man drama machine.

***

Iced to the eyebrows, Noonan poured herself out of the cab at the stables in The Park and asked the driver to stick around for the return trip home.

“Howdy, Ma’am. What do you want to do today,” the friendly instructor asked her.

“As Mrs. Patrick Campbell once said, I don’t really care what people do as long as they don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses,” Noonan said as she slipped off her coat, and Lady Godiva-like, mounted her steed.

Obama’s Gifts to the GOP, by Peggy Noonan

World Exclusive Photos!

Our intrepid photojournalist, DistributorcapNYC was there!

Exactly 47 years to the day after Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech from the feet of the Lincoln Memorial, America’s Favorite Free-Range Conspiracy Theorist, Glenn Beck took to the same stage to dog-whistle to the simple-minded the repellent message: let’s get that nigger out of our White House. The rally was ostensibly about restoring America’s honor, but conveniently no one mentioned how we lost it.

Perhaps now would be a convenient time to do that.

It’s too easy to say that Former President Chimpy McStagger is the root of all evil. He had help from Richard Nixon’s hand maiden, Dick Cheney and a legion of toadies and minions from both parties. It is not an exaggeration to say that our loss of honor, the nadir was reached under Chimpy’s administration with secret renditions, wire tapping citizens, torturing suspects, and the suspension of habeas corpus. Just to name a few.

I don’t recall seeing a single GOPer flocking to the mall to protest that loss of honor.

When Chimpy started the illegal and illogical Iraq war, there were world-wide protests. One day the modest estimate was fourteen million people protested. Chimpy said it was a focus group and was not interested.

I don’t recall seeing a single GOPer protesting that loss of honor, either.

So now we see two b-grade Fox News employees and flimflam artists, Beck and Mooselini, get up on a stage and tell us about the dark forces working to put our great country in the dustbin of history is beyond the pale, so to speak. To see a vast sea of uncritically thinking, white-entitled boomers slack-jawed and drooling from the comfort of their lawn chairs, wondering what happened to their country is sad, yet somewhat understandable.

The country is going through convulsions right now, we have an economic crisis of unimaginable proportions (brought to us by Blessed Saint Ronnie of Trickledown-on-Bel-Air and all who suckled at his crotch); I can understand that some of us are looking for divine intervention to save us from what is actually an engineered disaster brought about by thirty years of callous and selfish policy.

What I cannot understand the the lack of willpower on the part of allegedly sane politicians to let charlatans like Beck and Palin frame the issues and set the stage. The mystery is why are Obama, Pelosi, Reid — and other elected official claiming to be a Democrat– why are they letting these buffoons set the agenda? Why is it that the left are not telling us about what we are going through and why. Why can’t they just say it: we are broke.

We are broke because for thirty years we allowed the rich and the powerful to raid the treasury as a matter of policy. And to this day The Powers That Be are doing nothing about it; heck, they are not even trying to prosecute admitted criminals like Chimpy and Blam-Blam. They’ve told the criminal class that the rule of law does not apply to them.

And so instead of frog-marching the supply siders with their ill-gotten gains to the poky, we are being told that we little people must sacrifice, delay retirement till 70, scrap Medicare, oh, and give more tax breaks to the Rich and Corporations. We are broke, unemployed, and about to be screwed again as a matter of policy.

The thing is, the Dims could have fixed it if they wanted to: they had solid majorities. They did not have the willpower, or worse, they did not see this as a problem. The point is that off-shoring your job (or industry for that matter) continues to happen because they (both sides of the aisle) want it to happen; their corporate paymasters want it, and it will continue.

I can understand how a grifter like Mooselini and a snake oil salesman like Beck can suddenly shine in these times. They can say with a straight face that what is wrong is that their pasty white followers are not praying enough; White Jeebus (and it is the white Jeebus) will keep you out of bankruptcy. And the great unwashed masses can believe this message because they can see that no one inside the Beltway is doing anything for them. They’ve been trained for thirty years to hate liberals/progressives/Dims by rote memorization (the promise of a tasty fish as the reward, who knows), and lately the Teabagger phenomenon shows that they have learned not to trust the people who have been giving them the tasty fish.

And so while these simpletons are praying for Jeebus to save them and blaming the Kenyan Usurper for their problems, and showing their independence by attending rallies that are paid for by the GOP establishment that they are opposed to, their allies on the right are picking their pockets and laughing at the rubes.

The housing market is nothing more than a collection of swindles that may never be unwound and resolved, retail is crashing as we are entering what will probably go on record as the Worst Holiday Shopping Season ever, Afghanistan AND Iraq continue to suck billions of dollars out of our wallets, peak oil has been reached and all that that implies is yet to really hit home, and the Teabaggers are going non-linear and being agitated into some sort of Xristian Nationalism. Expect things to get much, much worse.

Unless you are a member of the ruling class. Then expect excellent business as usual.

I think [President Obama]‘s quite complacent, and I think he’s in over his head, and he has poor advisers around him. And I think he’s really in flux when it comes to what his governing philosophy really is. Some of this, though, is a result of him not having much experience.

– Mooselini, who quit being Governor of Alaska about half-way through it.

He spent about the same amount of research time as for his coloring book, Liberal Fascism:

Doughy Pantload: Obama said on The View yesterday that he didn’t know who Snooki is. But here’s Obama at the White House Correspondents Dinner:

Obama: “Of course, that’s not the only thing that we’ve been accused of socializing this year. You might have heard we passed a health care bill and — (applause.) Is that Roger Ailes applauding out there? (Laughter.) Some Republicans have suggested that the bill contains a few secret provisions. That’s ridiculous. There aren’t a few secret provisions in the health care plan — there are, like, hundreds. (Laughter.)

Obama: “Tonight, in the interest of transparency, I’d like to share a couple. Let’s see — this provision is called the Bay State of Denial. It reads: “This bill shall cover short-term memory loss related to the passage of Massachusetts health care reform.” So, good news, Mitt, your condition is covered. (Laughter.)

Obama: “This next provision is called the Jersey Shore-Up. It reads: “The following individuals shall be excluded from the indoor tanning tax within this bill.” Snooki, J-WOWW, the Situation, and House Minority Leader John Boehner. (Laughter.)”

Yup, the Blog at Poo Corner, the most intellectually dishonest rest stop on the Information Superhighway, does it again! You got him dead to rights, Doughy, and if it was good enough to earn Big Dawg an impeachment, well, the Kenyan Usurper is doomed now!

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday he had offered to rehire fired department official Shirley Sherrod, and the White House extended a full-throated apology to her, calling her ouster as the result of an out-of-context video an “injustice.”

It is a master class in passive voice, and while I believe that Gibbs meant it to be sincere, it still comes off as dodging and tapdancing – to me. These people cannot do anything with full-conviction, everything has to feel like a compromise.

As you know, I have publicly said that President Carebear and his opponent Iceberg Lettuce were the two worst candidates that the Dims could put forward.

Joe Biden does a better job here in just a few minutes than the Carebear did in his oval office address.

We reported this unnamed comment from the White House (in regards to the Lincoln-Halter campaign) last night in the live blogging, but it is worthy of a little more exposure:

Organized labor just flushed $10 million of their members’ money down the toilet on a pointless exercise,” the official said. “If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country, that could have made a real difference in November.

–Politico

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that was Rahm Emanuel (just add in the usual expletives on your own, and you probably got the actual transcript).

OK, now I think Progressives (and dare I say Liberals, I think I do!) already know that this White House hates us as much as the Previous Seven Administrations of Saint Ronnie, but if you had any doubts, this comment should wash them from your soul.

In as much as the White House’s preferred candidate, Blanche Lincoln, the bluest of the blue dogs, won the night, this was a pure poison pen letter, and stupid to boot: our idiot President Carebear needs the base to get out the vote in November, so insulting us seems like a stupid thing to do.

Secondly, Labor has been a reliable resource for the left, Blanche Lincoln, not so much. Dissing Labor is a stupid thing to do. Say goodbye to “free” campaign workers, Rahm

Lastly, unless President Carebear’s seven-dimensional chess game is to lose the House in the fall (and it could well be), he needs all hands on deck.

I wonder how much money it will cost the DNC to keep Blanche Lincoln in her seat, because I’m betting that she is not going to get much money from the base who loathe her. And when she loses to GOP’s rising star, Senator John Boozman (and I think she will), somehow Rahm will blame the Left and Unions for the loss of that seat.

Rahm is such a dunce.

UPDATE 1: SEIU President Mary Kay Henry: ‘Sen. Lincoln won a narrow victory after a bruising runoff election … Working families all over Arkansas supported Lt. Governor Bill Halter’s bid … because he spoke up for them … The tens of thousands of volunteers and activists have made their point loud and clear: If you stop fighting for working families, working families will stop fighting for you.’

UPDATE 2: In a blast e-mail to campaign supporters, Lincoln wrote: ‘President Clinton called me tonight when it was clear we were going to win and said, ‘Blanche, you’re the new Comeback Kid!’ The campaign headlined a release, ‘Arkansas’s New Comeback Kid.’ (Jeebus, gag me with a spoon.)

First of all, Mazel Tov to President Obama!

When I first saw the news yesterday, I was preparing for class and had no time to react other than to be puzzled. By the time class ended and I’d finished preparing for tonight’s Jewish holiday festivities and tomorrow’s children’s programming for the same holiday, the right-wingers had already gone batshit crazy on the issue, but some liberals and the Taliban were also objecting. While I was in “getting the soup to cook quickly for Shabbat” mode, Shabbat-eating & visiting mode, and soaking my dishes mode, Rachel Maddow took the time to explain it all in a way that even I could understand both the honor and the controversy.

Here’s Rachel:

And here’s the rest of the blogosphere:

President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is more than anything else a tribute to America’s voters. In making the award, the Nobel Committee said, “The question we have to ask is, who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world, and who has done more than Barack Obama?” Of course the most important thing Obama did to enhance peace in the world, was to win the election – and once elected, to chart a course for American foreign policy that is fundamentally different, in both substance and tone, from that of the Bush-Cheney years.

…..

Since his election, President Obama has launched a worldwide campaign to eliminate all nuclear weapons – recognizing that controlling the proliferation of nuclear weapons is a practical impossibility unless we work to eliminate them from the globe. He has rededicated America to cope with the massive threat of climate change. He has reset our relationship with the Muslim world. He has rededicated America to the world’s international institutions. And, he has begun to use all of the tools available to our country – including diplomacy – to create a more just and peaceful planet.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-creamer/obamas-nobel-prize-is-rea_b_316375.html

via Robert Creamer @ Huff Po

and

Once you had to help lead one of the most important social movements in U.S. history or minister to the poor, sick, orphaned, and dying to receive a Nobel Peace Prize. Now you can promise change and international cooperation while ordering more drone bombings that kill innocent civilians — and still get a Nobel Peace Prize. There’s something wrong with this picture.

Via Mike Ferner at After Downing Street

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image 3rd or 4th hand via facebook friends

Ranting Keyboard has a great take on last night’s outburst by repiglican congress critter Joe Wilson:

Apology NOT Accepted, Representative Wilson

from HORN News by rantingkeyboard

You just had to go and do it, didn’t you Representative Joe Wilson, republican from South Carolina? You just had to go and shoot your mouth off.

For anyone who missed it, during President Obama’s speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress Wednesday night, Representative Wilson shouted “You lie!” while the President was debunking the often repeated GOP talking point, that the President’s health care proposal provides FREE health care to “illegal immigrants.”

Representative Wilson later released an “apology”, which reads in part:

“This evening I let my emotions get the best of me… While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable. I extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.”

Representative Wilson, you are 62 years old. Aren’t you just a tad old for emotional outbursts? Or is the fact that you still freely indulge in emotional outbursts at 62 years of age an indication of deep emotional immaturity? It reminds me of former Vice President Dick Cheney shooting his mouth off to Senator Patrick Leahy, with his now infamous command to “Go fuck yourself” on the floor of the Senate. He later told a Fox News anchor he “felt better” for having done so. Yeah, if it feels good, do it.

And as if you weren’t a big enough embarrassment, your party then put up Representative Charles Boustany, republican from Louisiana, to deliver the GOP response. Your party assumed that since Boustany is a doctor, that having him speak on your party’s behalf would somehow lend the message more credence. The decidedly conservative-slanted website Politico called your party out on this choice of speaker, by pointing out that Boustany has been sued THREE TIMES for medical malpractice. There were judgements awarded against him in each case. Let us know when we should start taking what your party says seriously. But, back to your apology.

In your ‘apology’ you stated that you “extend sincere apologies to the president for this lack of civility.” That’s all well and good, and if the President chooses to accept it, that’s fine. However, your apology left out the people that you should have apologized to in addition to the President – the American people.

She has more, but my own take on it is that he also needs to apologize for being wrong, and for demeaning the public dialogue.

Compare and contrast Obama’s speech to school children tomorrow with Mooselini’s repiglican rebuttal.

Transcript via Citizen of Earth:

BILL MOYERS: The editors of THE ECONOMIST magazine say America’s health care debate has become a touch delirious, with people accusing each other of being evil-mongers, dealers in death, and un-American.

Well, that’s charitable.

I would say it’s more deranged than delirious, and definitely not un-American.

Those crackpots on the right praying for Obama to die and be sent to hell — they’re the warp and woof of home-grown nuttiness. So is the creature from the Second Amendment who showed up at the President’s rally armed to the teeth. He’s certainly one of us. Red, white, and blue kooks are as American as apple pie and conspiracy theories.

Bill Maher asked me on his show last week if America is still a great nation. I should’ve said it’s the greatest show on earth. Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we’re the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con-men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today’s talk radio.

Speaking of which: we’ve posted on our website an essay by the media scholar Henry Giroux. He describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a “culture of cruelty” increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence toward any political figure who believes health care reform is the most vital of safety nets, especially now that the central issue of life and politics is no longer about working to get ahead, but struggling simply to survive.

So here we are, wallowing in our dysfunction. Governed — if you listen to the rabble rousers — by a black nationalist from Kenya smuggled into the United States to kill Sarah Palin’s baby. And yes, I could almost buy their belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, only I think he shipped them to Washington, where they’ve been recycled as lobbyists and trained in the alchemy of money laundering, which turns an old-fashioned bribe into a First Amendment right.

Only in a fantasy capital like Washington could Sunday morning talk shows become the high church of conventional wisdom, with partisan shills treated as holy men whose gospel of prosperity always seems to boil down to lower taxes for the rich.

Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him.

No one’s ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying “pretty please” to the guys trying to cut your throat.

Let’s get on with it, Mr. President. We’re up the proverbial creek with spaghetti as our paddle. This health care thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution — the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as General Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory “Made in the USA.” We could have said to the world, “Look what we did!” And we could have turned to each other and said, “thank you.”

As it is, we’re about to get health care reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean this is topsy-turvy — we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

As we speak, Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker, has been fined a record $2.3 billion dollars as a civil and criminal — yes, that’s criminal, as in fraud — penalty for promoting prescription drugs with the subtlety of the Russian mafia. It’s the fourth time in a decade Pfizer’s been called on the carpet — and these are the people into whose tender mercies Congress and the White House would deliver us?

Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company’s share price and profits.

Here’s a suggestion, Mr. President: ask Josh Marshall to draft your speech. Josh is the founder of the website talkingpointsmemo.com . He’s a journalist and historian, not a politician. He doesn’t split things down the middle and call it a victory for the masses. He’s offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan; one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you’re 65? Check it out, Mr. President.

This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it’s life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.

That’s the meme here, right?

The Star Report: Did Obama’s mom jeans prevent him from throwing a strike?

By Jeff Thomas

From Mercury News wire reports

One might have thought that the most cringy part of President Barack Obama‘s performance on the mound before last week’s All Star game was that his delivery of the first pitch had absolutely no mustard on it. At least he didn’t bounce it to the plate.

But now the controversy is not about his weak-sauce sinker, but his baseball attire. The fashion community, and by that we mean anyone wearing clothes, says the president was wearing mom jeans — high-waisted, baggy demin favored by, moms? Actually, they didn’t seem that bad — no pleats or elastic waist band, anyway. But when the president felt compelled to address the pressing matter Tuesday, he issued no apologies.

In an interview that mostly covered serious topics, Obama acknowledged that he “looked a little frumpy.” He said he hates to shop and that “those jeans are comfortable.”

“For those of you who want your president to look great in his tight jeans: Sorry, I’m not the guy. I’m not 20.”

Also, check out the video, via Crooks & Liars:

Life is hard enough and the mainstream media has a lot to answer for in making it so much harder –financial ‘experts’ like Jim Cramer spreading Wall Street rumours and urging viewers to buy Bear Stearns stock just before the investment bank collapsed, the Investor’s Business Daily’sLou Dobbs and his incessantly silly conspiracy theory over Obama’s birth certificate, Hardball’s collaboration with Karl Rove in the intentional misleading coverage of the Plame CIA leak, the non-stop maudlin eulogies for Michael Jackson drowning out any other more boring news like, oh say, more soldiers killed in Afghanistan, Glen Beck’s high-pitched hysterical assault on our (largely medically uninsured) eardrums, and now… scare-mongering with false claims the health care reform bill would make private medical insurance ‘illegal’,

… Mom Jeans.

This is big news, according to Greg Gutfeld and the immaculately bleached and botoxed Laura Ingaham on Fox’s O’Reilly Factor as the first ‘dork’ President of the United States has appeared in public wearing Mom Jeans, bought with a gift certificate, apparently, from the now bankrupted Mervyn’s. Americans should be scared – scared, I tell ya – that the POTUS has lost his cool and dresses like a band teacher. Greg Gutfeld barely cracks a smile as he warns us ‘this isn’t going to intimidate Putin’ and ‘our adversaries in Iran will not take [him] seriously,’ especially since he also throws a baseball ‘like a little girl’… all symbols of something ‘deeper and more sinister’…

Let’s reframe.

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Some are suggesting that he’s advocating child abuse. Is he? What do you think of his suggestions? What’s the story here?

Laffy has some of the reaction to the speech.

NAACP is 100 years old.

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And for your reading pleasure ….

from Huff Po by Robert Naiman

U.S. policy in the broader Middle East over the next four years will be judged in the region according to whether the pledges that President Obama made in Cairo today are kept.

So it’s important for Americans to know what those pledges were. Because when right-wing voices in America try to undermine those pledges, they’ll be undermining U.S. national security by trying to force President Obama to break faith with the Arabs and Muslims of the world to whom he made those pledges today.

The text and video are here. I encourage Americans to watch the speech in addition to reading the text, because in watching the speech, you also get the reaction of the audience – in particular, the vigorous applause – which has the effect of underscoring the pledges that President Obama made.

In what follows, I will highlight some of the President’s statements on the Palestinians, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and democracy, and what the President said about extremist violence.

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Nope, not quite. Not if we take “senseless” to mean that WE can’t make sense of it. The murder of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas this morning was as predictable as tornado season.

I’ve been reading a number of different news and commentary sources this afternoon, and the reaction by the religion industry victims and perps is quite disturbing. More disturbing, or at least somewhat unexpected, was President Obama’s reaction.

President Barack Obama said he was “shocked and outraged” by the murder. “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,” he said.

Is he really this naive? Has he simply not been paying attention? I agree with him that violence is not the answer, but “shocked”? Really? Mr. President, I refer you to the AP: Recent cases of abortion-related violence

Also, while we’re here, go read Americablog: Why is the religious right so concerned about protecting its right to kill?

Editorial note: No pic. No photoshop image. No video. Not on this. Not today. —Betsy

I know, I know. I could use this title every day of the entire year with a slightly different example each day. Today’s example? Obama’s speech at the Roman Catholic university:

Go read:

Obama urges “fair-minded” U.S. abortion debate (Reuters)

from Yahoo! NewsReuters – President Barack Obama urged both sides in the abortion debate on Sunday to pursue a “fair-minded” discussion as he sought to quell a firestorm over his invitation to speak at Notre Dame, a premier U.S. Catholic university.

Creepy older guys protest Obama’s commencement speech at Notre Dame

from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth by John Aravosis (DC)

It’s telling that the pro-life guys doing the protesting are both men who clearly didn’t graduate recently. I’m all for public protests, but there’s an astroturf quality to some of these religious right protests, and conservative protests overall. You’d think, if the students were truly upset that Obama was coming to their school, that some – uh – students themselves might protest?

Obama Notre Dame speech

from Balloon Juice by DougJ

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Video of Barack Obama’s comedic performance this evening at the white house correspondents’ dinner. I loved it.

You may have YOUR faith just up until the moment that it invades my faith or my family’s faith. Then, watch out!

Confirmed, Mormon Web site shows Obama’s mother as baptized after death

from AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth by John Aravosis (DC)

A Provo, Utah newspaper has confirmed our earlier story – a Mormon geneological Web site does in fact list President Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, as having been baptized into the Mormon faith after her death (and presumably without her, or her son’s, consent). The Mormon church has yet to respond to numerous reporters’ inquiries whether they did in fact baptize the President’s dead mother last year in the middle of the presidential campaign. If true, and it’s looking increasingly likely, this could cause the Mormons quite a bit of trouble politically and in the public relations sphere.

Still unanswered is whether the Mormons also baptized Obama’s father.

More from the Provo Herald Extra:

At the same time that Barack Obama sealed the Democratic nomination for president last year, someone in the Provo LDS Church temple was performing a baptism and temple rites for his dead mother.

The move is a serious breech of protocol for church members, who in the past have been criticized for performing such proxy baptisms for victims of the Holocaust.
“Church members are specifically instructed not to submit the names of persons not related to them,” reads a statement on the LDS Chuch Web site. “Before performing temple baptisms for a deceased family member born within the last 95 years, members are instructed to get permission from the person’s closest living relative.”

Officials of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have yet to confirm the incident, but records on their FamilySearch.org genealogical site clearly show that Stanley Ann Dunham received proxy rites in the Provo temple on June 4 and June 8 of 2008. The birth and death dates of the person for whom the rites were performed match those of Obama’s mother.

Also from Americablog,
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For the people instead of the corporations?? Damn Commie!

Obama crackdown on tax loopholes

President Barack Obama has proposed outlawing offshore tax-avoidance techniques in a move that could hit US corporations with overseas divisions.

His proposals would axe some tax deductions for firms that earn profits in countries with low tax rates.

His plan envisages 800 extra federal agents to police the laws, and may reap $210bn (£140bn) in tax over the decade.

The president said he wanted to “make it easier” for US companies to create jobs at home.

‘Corporate loopholes’

He wants to close tax provisions that allow firms to put off paying taxes on profits made overseas as long as those earnings are invested back into the overseas subsidiaries.

“The steps I am announcing today will help us deal with some of the more egregious examples of what is wrong with our tax code,” he said at a joint announcement with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

While “most Americans meet their responsibilities” with regard to tax, he said there were others shirking theirs.

He now needs congressional approval for the changes, which some business leaders oppose, before they could come into effect in 2011.

The president said his proposals would fix a tax code “full of corporate loopholes ” which encourage US companies to send jobs overseas.

‘Balance’

His administration wants to prohibit American firms from taking deductions on the expenses for their overseas operations, until after they have booked their profits in the US.

However, expenses on research and experimentation would be exempt.

In addition, at present US firms are allowed to claim a credit against their American taxes for foreign taxes paid.

But the Obama administration wants to end this practice as it says some firms take advantage of this by artificially increasing the amount of taxes they owe.

And the administration also wants to restrict the strategy that allows US-based multinational firms to shift profits into low-tax jurisdictions.

To prevent this it would require some foreign subsidiaries to be considered as separate corporations for US tax purposes.

The president also called for more transparency in bank accounts held by US citizens in tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.

It is proposed that reporting requirements for overseas investments are tightened and that tougher penalties are introduced for those who fail to report foreign accounts.

US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said the package of proposals “would bring balance to our tax code”.

But Drew Lyon, a tax expert at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, said: “It’s really hitting most Fortune 100 companies that depend to a great deal on growth of foreign markets for growing their total earnings.”

via the BBC. video here

AP

Oh, the humilation! The Freepers must be warming up, even as we speak…

I must say that I’ve been quite upset this week by the extent to which we have become a nation that tortures.  While I found Obama’s comments on the subject disturbing, I’ve actually been holding out hope that he would investigate and prosecute the architects of torture if not the hands-on torturers themselves.  But the latest from Rahm Emanuel has me losing hope that we’ll ever have a real investigation.

Rahm Emanuel sez NO Bush officals should be prosecuted over the torture memos

By John Amato

Rahm Emanuel not only told George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s This Week that no field officers should be prosecuted over breaking the law when it comes to torturing prisoners, but he took it a step beyond and proclaimed that even the lowlife John Yoos and Jay Bybees shouldn’t face any consequences for their actions.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What about those who devised policy?

EMANUEL: Yes, but those who devised policy, he believes that they were — should not be prosecuted either, and that’s not the place that we go — as he said in that letter, and I would really recommend people look at the full statement — not the letter, the statement — in that second paragraph, “this is not a time for retribution.” It’s time for reflection. It’s not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and any sense of anger and retribution.

We have a lot to do to protect America. What people need to know, this practice and technique, we don’t use anymore. He banned it.

Look, it’s up to us and Congress to push along these hearings and impeachments.

As Jane says:

Is that truly what the administration thinks? That people who want to see those who illegally led the country down the road of torture held to account are simply “looking back” in “anger” and “retribution”? Fifty percent of the country favor such investigations, including 69% of Democrats and a majority of independents. Is Rahm saying that President Obama believes they’re nothing more than an angry, vindictive mob, and that nobody could possibly have a rational basis for believing that our laws should be enforced?

Manfred Nowak, the United Nations top torture investigator, says that treaties entered into by the United States require criminal investigations:

The United States, like all other states that are part of the U.N. convention against torture, is committed to conducting criminal investigations of torture and to bringing all persons against whom there is sound evidence to court.

For Obama to see “it is the time to look forward,” is not a shock to me, but we have to look backward and take action so these insane practices and anything like them never, ever happen again under any president. I understand that the spooks don’t want to be prosecuted for following orders and the pressure the president is being put under by these agencies. I’m just fine with seeing Yoo and Addington and Bybee and all the rest of the Bush Administration honchos in shackles doing a frogmarch, justice for their miscreancy in disgracing this country and using the OLC to justify the illegal practice of torture. I think the world needs to see them too.

Also, as Marcy Wheeler noted,

The CIA wants you to believe waterboarding is effective. Yet somehow, it took them 183 applications of the waterboard in a one month period to get what they claimed was cooperation out of KSM.

The rest of the world is rightfully insisting that we pursue justice rather than simply moving forward, and future administrations will no doubt try to extend the torture regime on their own enemies unless we hold the Bush war criminals to account.  Prosecuting war crimes is justice, not retribution.

More on torture in my shared items.

Lots of controversy over President Obama’s chat with Jay Leno last night, especially about his comment comparing his bowling abilities to the special olympics.

Even the governor who recently rejected the portion of the stimulus money devoted to special education had something to say.

Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin said she was “shocked to learn” about Obama’s comment. “This was a degrading remark about our world’s most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world,” said Palin, whose son, Trig, was born with Down syndrome last year. “These athletes overcome more challenges, discrimination and adversity than most of us ever will.”

(more…)

8 yrs ago today

4 yrs ago today

TODAY!

as though they’d blasted the volume too loud?

GOP Blasts ‘Magic Negro’ CD Distributed by Top Republican Operative – FOXNews

from Google News

FOXNews

GOP Blasts ‘Magic Negro’ CD Distributed by Top Republican Operative
FOXNews -
Candidate for Republican National Committee chairman blasted for sending out ‘appalling’ CD of political satires. One of the Republican Party’s best-known operatives is under fire for distributing a CD containing the spoof song “Barack the Magic Negro” …

These are two halves of an interview I did with Barbara O’brien, proprietor of the Maha Blog. I interviewed her in July 2007 at Yearly Kos 2 and the interviews were later broadcast on the Head On Radio Network.

The topics of our discussion were religiosity and secularism, and how religion is viewed by the left and the right and the media in this country. All very timely in light of all of the controversy surrounding Right Wing Extremist Rick Warren’s scheduled invocation at President Obama’s inauguration. Here’s Maha’s take on that particular invitation.

barbara obrien interview part 1

barbara obrien part 2

Please note that this is the raw audio, before the ummms and uhhhhs were removed. No idea where in the HORN archives to find the edited versions.

Y’all have already seen blogging by my son (age 14) and several by Cassie (age 17), but I saw this piece created by a student at the HS where I work and just knew I had to bring it to you. J, a 17-year-old senior is taking a high school class called Business Image Media Marketing and was inspired by the November election results to create this using photoshop. His teacher shares some of my political outlooks and was able to convince J to allow us to publish this.

J and his teacher will be looking at these comments Thursday morning at a school district computer, so KEEP IT CLEAN!

While we’re talking ’bout the teens, go read ThinkYouth and Future Majority. The country just might survive another generation.

Just got off the phone with my folks. They live in an Orthodox Jewish community in New Jersey and told me a story that has not made the news. One of their neighbors has a ninth grader who attends an Orthodox Jewish school and reports that one of her classmates said recently that Obama should be assassinated. Disturbed? I am. But not nearly as upset as when I heard that the teacher’s reply was “My thumb’s up.”

The 9th grade neighbor of my parents was quite upset, but her mother (an Obama supporter) wasn’t sure how to deal with it. In the end, she decided to email the school and tell them the comment, but refused to say which teacher had threatened our president-elect. Apparently, she didn’t want to get the teacher in trouble.

Me? I would have called the secret service. My parents would have marched into the school and demanded that the teacher be fired. As I pointed out on the phone, there’s rather a large difference between voting against a candidate and publicly advocating their assassination to a group of teenagers!

I wonder how many other Jewish, Muslim and Christian schools this has played out in. Of course very few of them make the news. Below is Exhibit A why they’re not publicized.

from one of my comments last night:

Actually Reuters & Yahoo (which one wrote the headline?), it’s racism and racists who provoked the rise in hate crimes.

Election of Obama provokes rise in U.S. hate crimes (Reuters)

from Yahoo! News

Reuters – Barack Obama’s election as U.S. president has provoked a rise in hate crimes against ethnic minorities, civil rights groups said on Monday.

First the passport, now this. At first, I assumed this was more on the story we covered over the weekend. Emptywheel (as always!) asks exactly the right question.

Well, This Should Make the President-Elect More Anxious to Overturn Domestic Spying

from Emptywheel by emptywheel

Getting snooped on by Verizon employees…

Some Verizon Wireless employees accessed billing records from a cell phone President-elect Barack Obama had used, the Obama transition and Verizon Wireless said Thursday.

[snip]

Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam issued a statement apologizing to Obama. He also said that whether they were authorized or not, the employees who breached the president-elect’s account face possible disciplinary action and were immediately put on leave without pay. [my emphasis]

I’m sorry, Mr. McAdam. Are you suggesting these Verizon employees may have been authorized to access Obama’s records? By whom?

Obama Meeting With McCain in Chicago

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/Associated Press

President-elect Barack Obama met with Senator John McCain on Monday at Mr. Obama’s transition office in Chicago.

from NY Times