Idaho is the first state to pass anti-health care reform law
Idaho Republican Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter signed into a law a bill that would require the state attorney general to sue the federal government if and when Idaho citizens are fined because they choose not to purchase health insurance. From MSNBC:
There’s similar legislation pending in 37 other states, a point Otter stressed when asked if the bill he signed can succeed, given constitutional law experts are already saying federal laws would supersede those of states in a U.S. District Court fight.
You know who else says that federal laws supersede state laws? 11th grade government students. If I was a Republican in one of these anti-health care reform states, I would be extremely embarrassed. Though Republicans are always talking about tort reform, they are usually the first to run to the courthouse when they don’t get their way. They come off like sore losers.
I’m not a big fan of the insurance mandate, but I do think that those that can afford heath insurance should by all means, purchase health insurance. When the uninsured go to the hospital and don’t pay, the costs are rolled into what the rest of us pay, those of us that pay for health insurance. If it was up to me, we would be like every other industrialized country in the world and have universal heath care. It’s not up to me, so I have to accept the reality in which I find myself in.
Sarah Palin used to travel to Canada for icky, awful government health care
Former governor of Alaska and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was in Canada speaking to a bunch of Canadians when she admitted to the crowd of listeners that as a child, she used to partake of the awful icky socialized Canadian medical system. From The Globe and Mail:
PALIN: We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn’t that ironic?
No, that’s not ironic. It’s hypocritical.
Sarah Palin has long railed against health care reform saying that if we reform health care in this country, it will lead to socialized medicine. Like they enjoy in Canada.
Now that health care reform is taken care of, Obama wants to tackle immigration reform
Now that President Obama has licked health care reform, he wants to next focus on immigration reform. He must be a gluten for punishment. He wanted to ensure that every American had access to affordable, quality health care and he got compared to Adolf Hitler and called a Marxist. What will he be compared to because of immigration reform? Whatever it is, it won’t be good.
Obama is crazy for getting involved with this. With unemployment already over ten percent, does he really want to make it easier for businesses and corporations to bring more unskilled workers into the country? Workers willing to accept wages far lower than the prevailing wage?
After all, that is what immigration reform is all about.
Obama needs to let the Republicans deal with immigration reform when they are back in charge. It’s a Republican issue, not an issue for the Democrats. If Obama keeps on not doing what he said he was going to do before he was elected, that day will be a lot sooner than he thinks.
Senator Jon Kyl: Unemployment insurance dissuades people from getting jobs
Yesterday on the Senate floor, a debate on unemployment compensation showed what Republicans think of people who are out of work and receive unemployment insurance: they are lazy deadbeats who willing to forsake meaningful work in exchange for the chance to suckle on the government teet.
Or something like that.
From The Huffington Post:
Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican whip, argued that unemployment benefits dissuade people from job-hunting “because people are being paid even though they’re not working.”
Unemployment insurance “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work,” Kyl said during debate over whether unemployment insurance and other benefits that expired amid GOP objections Sunday should be extended.
Having recently spent nearly three months on unemployment insurance, I think I know a thing or two about what it feels like to be on unemployment insurance. It sucks. Not that I’m not thankful that I was able to receive the bi-weekly payments. On the contrary. If it wasn’t for my unemployment insurance payments, I would have been in real trouble.
Nobody gets rich off of unemployment insurance. It merely allows you to keep your head above water until you can find a job. It allows you to keep on paying the rent, the electric, the car insurance, and a whole host of other monthly bills.
Jon Kyl doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He obviously hasn’t stopped to consider just how bad this economy would be right now if our country’s unemployed weren’t able to pay any of their bills. We wouldn’t be in a recession.
We’d be in a full blown depression.
Congresswoman’s car still parked in congressional parking garage three years after she left office
Once upon a time, there was a Republican congresswoman from Pennsylvania named Melissa Hart. Though she technically lost her congressional seat in 2006 and is now a registered lobbyist, it seems nobody has told her car. Her very dirty Volkswagen Jetta is still parked in the Longworth House Office building parking garage, reserved for members of Congress.
I don’t know what is more remarkable – that a member of congress would just seemingly forget about the car they had parked in their former official parking garage or that the parking garage security would just allow a car to sit there for years. The license plate displayed on the car expired last year.
If I was an al qaeda dirty bomb, I’d hide in the Longworth House Office building parking garage. It’s pretty clear nobody would mess with me there.
John Shadegg is a fear mongering coward
Arizona Representative Republican John Shadegg stood on the House floor speaking out against trying those that participated in the September 11 terror attacks in a New York civilian courtroom and posed a rhetorical question to New York City mayor for life, billionaire Michael Bloomberg how he’d feel if his daughter was kidnapped by terrorists.
Classy.
Doesn’t Shadegg have a staff that he can run ideas past before he opens his mouth and says something really stupid? What a stupid thing to say. I’m sure Bloomberg would hate to have his daughter kidnapped. Who wouldn’t? That doesn’t mean he should curl up in a ball under his desk.
I don’t understand fear mongers like Shadegg. What does he think, that we shouldn’t try terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? I assume that he’s in favor of military tribunals. I guess then only members of the military and their families would face possible repercussions from the terrorists.
Does Shadegg not care about military families?
When did it become OK for Americans to act like cowards? It’s a trick question because it’s not OK. When you react to terrorism with fear and trepidation, you are responding just the way they want you to respond.
My advice to John Shadegg is that if he cannot get past his fears, maybe he ought to move to Canada. That’s what cowards did during the Vietnam conflict, they went to Canada.
Sarah Palin will tell you what you can do with your fact checking
Former Alaska governor and vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin’s new book is coming out tomorrow. A lot of people, including those that worked in the McCain campaign, have taken exception to some of the contents of the book, specifically the parts she evidently just made up. The AP have been going through the book and have been writing about the factual errors the book contains. Palin has a problem with this. So much so that she wrote about it on her Facebook page:
Amazingly, but not surprisingly, the AP somehow nabbed a copy of the book before it was released. They’re now erroneously reporting on the book’s contents and are repeating many of the same things they spewed during the campaign and afterwards. We’ve heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, “fact checking” research! Imagine that – 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to “fact check” what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s health care takeover costs, Hasan’s associations, etc. Amazing.
She refers to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as though Sheik is his title, like the Iron Sheik. It’s not his title, it’s his middle name. Maybe she just likes to refer to people by their middle name. In that case, I’m going to start referring to her has Louise Palin. That’s her middle name.
Louise Palin also wrote the following:
We’ll keep setting the record straight, and we’ll keep reminding some in the media that Americans are very tired of their non-objective reporting.
I couldn’t disagree with her more. If Americans want objective reporting, why do so many of them watch Fox News? On the contrary, a good many Americans want non-objective, biased reporting. They not only want their news to be biased, a good many of them will simply reject anything that doesn’t embrace their particular bias.
I also think Louise Palin is dead wrong about the AP. I think the AP is very serious about getting the facts right. Back when I found a t-shirt at Wal-Mart with a Nazi skull on it, I was interviewed by an AP reporter for an article they published about the controversy. When the article first appeared online, it incorrectly stated that I’m a veteran of the U.S. Navy. I’m not. I’m a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, not that it mattered.
I didn’t really care, because to me, it didn’t make a difference. I didn’t think my military service pertained at all to the article. About 20 minutes after reading the article, the reporter called me. He asked me whether I had said I was in the Navy or the Air Force. I guess he was going over his notes and noticed that I never said I was in the Navy. I told him that I was in the Air Force, but that I don’t think it mattered. He disagreed. He said that the mistake would be fixed immediately. He said the AP cared a lot about getting facts, all the facts, correct.
Sure enough, the AP quickly corrected the article.
I was impressed by this. I didn’t think it really mattered, but they went to the trouble of fixing a mistake anyway.
So when Louise Palin implies that the AP shouldn’t be trusted with the facts, I couldn’t disagree more.
The state of Virgina is fixin to kill Muhammad
Tonight at 9 p.m the state of Virgina will be executing John Allen Muhammad, one of the so-called beltway snipers.
Back in 2002, Muhammad and his young ward, Lee Boyd Malvo, terrorized people in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Virgina. People were afraid to cut their grass, pump gas, or go shopping. Before they were done, they had killed 10 people and wounded 3 others.
The three weeks they were driving around and shooting people from the trunk of their car was a colossal bucket of suck for everyone. They were caught sleeping in their car at a rest stop here in Maryland on Interstate 70, about halfway between Frederick and Hagerstown.
The reason Muhammad is now in Virgina and not Maryland is because the Bush administration had him transfered to Virginia so that he could be tried there first. The reason? Because the prosecutor in Virginia was a Republican who had aspirations for higher office.
The prosecutor in Maryland was a Democrat.
I’m generally against the death penalty, not because I care about people like John Allen Muhammad. I don’t. I just don’t see how it solves anything. When Muhammad shuts his eyes for the last time tonight, the people he killed will still be dead. I also have a problem with how the death penalty is given to some, but not others.
It seems far too arbitrary.
With that said, I’m glad Muhammad is getting his ticket punched tonight. If we are going to have the death penalty in this country, why not him? I can think of no better person than John Allen Muhammad to get strapped down on a gurney and a toxic cocktail pumped through his veins.
I hope this man has good health insurance
Republican Teabaggers held a protest yesterday on the steps of the Capitol in Washington D.C. to protest against government run health care and/or health care reform. Unfortunately, one of the people at the protest collapsed. Luckily for him, paramedics from the Office of the Attending Physician, the organization responsible for the medical welfare of the members of the House, members of the Senate, and members of the Supreme Court, were on the scene and were able to quickly provide assistance to this man.
As this photo shows, they gave him oxygen and started an I.V. They later removed him from the scene via a stretcher, presumably to take him to a hospital.
For this man’s sake, I hope the Office of the Attending Physician is in his health insurance plan. Otherwise, his out-of-pocket expenses are going to be ginormous. I don’t even want to think about the added surcharge someone has to pay for paramedics wearing a jacket and tie.
Also, I hope that he had the foresight to call his health insurance company before he collapsed to get pre-authorization for the collapse. As we all know, failure to do so can be grounds for your insurance company to deny the claim.
The man doesn’t appear to be old enough to qualify for Medicare, the popular and very successful government run health insurance plan for our nation’s seniors and disabled. That’s too bad because if he was on Medicare, he wouldn’t have to worry about his claim being denied because of a preexisting condition or because he was treated by health care professionals outside his insurance plan’s network.
If he was on Medicare, he’d only have to worry about getting well.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla of Getty Images
Health care reform is scarier than terrorism
Republican Representative Virginia Foxx from the fifth district of North Carolina spoke on the House floor and said that we have more to fear from health care reform than we do terrorists. Watch it:
If she said that not having access to quality, affordable health care was more of a threat than some radical Islamic fundamentalist hiding in a cave in Pakistan, I might actually agree with her. She didn’t say that. She’s not telling people to be afraid of not having access to quality health care, she is telling people to be afraid of health care reform because it will somehow infringe on our freedoms.
I don’t really understand people that actually encourage others to be scared. As an elected official, she really should be doing the complete opposite.
Republican Congressman from Mississippi jokes about hunting liberials
Someone from Politico asked Representative Gregg Harper, Republican from Mississippi, what the Congressional Sportsmen’s Caucus does. Evidently he is a member of this organization. His answer was somewhat surprising:
We hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition.
If Representative Gregg Harper were ever to checkout my Facebook page, he would see that I label my political orientation as “tree hugging liberal”. Mostly I labeled myself this way as a joke, but like all good jokes, and don’t get me wrong, I am in no way saying this is a good joke, it’s based firmly in the truth.
I like trees and I’m proudly liberal. So does this mean Harper wants to shoot me?
Being that Harper is from Mississippi, I’m surprised he would make jokes about killing liberals. Mississippi has a really bad track record in that department. They even made a movie about it once, called Mississippi Burning.
When did it become acceptable in our country for one of our elected officials to joke about killing his fellow citizens because of their political beliefs?
Roscoe Bartlett, the individual representing me in the House of Representatives, once referred to Democrats, people like me, as the enemy. At least he didn’t talk about shooting me.
Stay classy TEA baggers
TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Baggers in Connecticut held a rally to outside a healthcare town hall meeting held by Senator Chris Dodd in Hartford. The soft spoken gentleman in the white t-shirt and the red ball cap seems to be suggesting that Dodd, who was recently diagnosed with early prostate cancer, ought to forgo medical treatment and instead just kill himself.
What gets me the most about this video is not the knuckle head making the stupid comments about Dodd taking a lethal does of booze and pills, but how nobody around him is telling him to shut up. Nobody even steps away from him.
I think that says a lot about them.
West Virginia Teabaggers protest against healthcare
The Blue Ridge Patriots of Berkeley County and the Jefferson County TEA (Taxed Enough Already) Party held a protest in front of the federal building in downtown Martinsburg, West Virginia on Friday. Evidently they were protesting not against the tax increases to those making more than $250,000 a year, but against the idea of national healthcare.
I just don’t understand Teabaggers. By the looks of the people in this photo, none of them look like they make over $250,000 a year. Do they still not realize that their income taxes were lowered under President Obama? Haven’t they noticed that the amount being withheld in the paychecks for federal taxes is lower then it was before President Obama took office?
They seem to have time during the workday to protest, so maybe none of them work. Maybe they don’t know that their income tax has been lowered because they don’t draw a paycheck.
I often wonder if the people who are against national healthcare have ever been seriously ill and needed medical care. I often have to wait months to see a dermatologist for my psoriasis. Every time I’m prescribed a new medication or a new treatment, I have to get authorization from my insurance company. That often times takes weeks, or even months to get approved. It’s not even a medical doctor who approves the medication or the treatment, but just a person working for the insurance company.
How is that not rationing?
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin quits
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin announced today that not only would she not be seeking a second term as governor, she will be stepping down in a few weeks.
Huh?
This makes no sense and that’s saying a lot for someone such as Sarah Palin. She didn’t step down when she gave birth to a special needs child. She didn’t step down when she ran for vice president of the United States. If she was prone to quiting, you would think she would have done so when either one of these two events took place.
This makes absolutely no sense.
$14 billion auto bailout dies
The $14 billion government bailout for the Detroit auto makers died in the Senate because all but ten Republican Senators refused to vote for it unless the union representing the autoworkers agree to massive pay cuts.
Congressional Republicans have been in open revolt against Bush over the auto bailout. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky joined other GOP lawmakers Thursday in announcing his opposition to the White House-backed bill, which passed the House on Wednesday. He and other Republicans insisted that the carmakers restructure their debt and bring wages and benefits in line with those paid by Toyota, Honda and Nissan in the United States.
I think I actually agree with the Republicans on this one. I think it would be great to get the pay and benefits that the average UEW worker gets. The problem is, the money just isn’t there. Because of the high cost of labor, Detroit automakers have to resort to not making cars, but expensive trucks, vans, and SUVs to absorb the high cost of UAW labor. When you are paying someone $69 in wages and benefits to turn bolts on an assembly line, it makes more sense economically for the big three automakers to make autos they can charge more for. Paying someone to turn bolts on a $9,000 car costs the same as paying someone to turn bolts on a $45,000 truck or SUV.
The automakers then have to spend millions on advertising to convince Americans that they need a truck or a sports utility vehicle to drive to work or to run errands. Unless you regularly haul around a full sheet of plywood, you don’t need a truck. You definitely don’t need a Ford F-150 truck, Ford’s best selling vehicle. It’s a vehicle that gets only 15 miles to the gallon in the city, 20 miles to the gallon on the highway. The fuel efficiency is even worse if the vehicle is hauling something heavy in the bed.
Not that this would ever happen.
If the big three automakers file for bankruptcy protection, UAW wages and benefits will be almost certainly be cut, but instead of the UAW leadership having any kind of say in the matter, it will be decided by a federal bankruptcy judge.
RNC spends $150,000 to clothe and accessorize Sarah Palin and her family
From Politico:
The Republican National Committee appears to have spent more than $150,000 to clothe and accessorize vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and her family since her surprise pick by John McCain in late August.
According to financial disclosure records, the accessorizing began in early September and included bills from Saks Fifth Avenue in St. Louis and New York for a combined $49,425.74.
The records also document a couple of big-time shopping trips to Neiman Marcus in Minneapolis, including one $75,062.63 spree in early September.
The RNC also spent $4,716.49 on hair and makeup through September after reporting no such costs in August.
Politico asked the McCain campaign for comment, explicitly noting the $150,000 in expenses for department store shopping and makeup consultation that were incurred immediately after Palin’s announcement. Pre-September reports do not include similar costs.
Spokeswoman Maria Comella declined to answer specific questions about the expenditures, including whether it was necessary to spend that much and whether it amounted to one early investment in Palin or if shopping for the vice presidential nominee was ongoing.
“The campaign does not comment on strategic decisions regarding how financial resources available to the campaign are spent,” she said.
I’m not at all surprised by this news. When the Sarah Palin’s future son-in-law and high school drop out Levi Johnston showed up at the Republican National Convention all decked out in a fancy suit, I wondered were he got the money to buy such nice threads. He obviously didn’t even have enough money for condoms. I figured someone bought the suit for him.
‘Joe the Plumber’ is not regestered to vote [UPDATED]
It seems that Joe Wurzelbacher, AKA “Joe The Plumber”, the McCain-Palin campaign’s favorite turd herder isn’t even registered to vote in Ohio. Learning this fact makes me wonder why he bothered to complain to Barack Obama about his plan to raise taxes on bald guys people making over $250,000 a year.
Since he chooses not to participate in the democratic process, wasn’t there something else he could have been doing with his valuable time? Wasn’t there a plugged up toilet somewhere needing his attention? [Politico]
UPDATE: It appears that “Joe The Plumber” is registered to vote under his real name, Samuel Joseph Worzelbacher. I researched the Ohio voter rolls under the names Joe The Plumber, Detective Vic Mackey, Joe Wurzelbacher, and Joe The Turd Herder. I never thought of checking for a Samuel Wurzelbacher. My bad.
So what exactly is a ‘hockey mom’?
I can’t remember if I’ve ever heard the term “hockey mom” before Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin entered the public consciousness last week. Palin refers to herself as a hockey mom quit a bit. In fact, she even mentioned it in her speech last night. She even worked it into a joke involving lipstick, a bulldog, and (I think) a transvestite.
I might have thought the joke was funny if I knew exactly what a hockey mom was. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t.
As a kid growing up in the high desert of southern California, youth hockey was something only the rich kids played. The cost of all the gear coupled with the cost of rink time made hockey the most expensive sport a kid could play. I realize that Palin is from Alaska and I am from California, but it’s not like her kid played out on the frozen tundra and she made all of his gear out of discarded elk bones.
Hockey is expensive no matter where you live.
When Sarah Palin refers to herself as a “hockey mom”, she might as well be referring to herself as a “polo mom” or a “fox hunting mom” or some other kind of mom that involves a really expensive sport that only rich kids play.
I don’t think that is her intent.
Todd Palin was a member of an Alaskan secession party
Todd Palin, the snowmobile racing husband of Republican Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin twice registered with the Alaskan Independence Party. One in in 1995 and then again in 2000. One of the things this party advocated was seceding from the United States of America.
I’m no expert, but I have to believe that this little nugget of information trumps Michelle Obama saying something about it being the first time in her adult life that she has been proud of her county. It’s one thing not to be proud of your country. It’s quite another thing to join a group of people that want to secede from the country. Michelle Obama is a registered Democrat. Voter registration records shows that Todd Palin has been registered “undeclared” since 2002. His wife is the Vice-Presidential nomenee for the Republcan party and this guy can’t even commit to being a Republican?
Wow.
Comparing Governor Sarah Palin’s pregnancy photos
Both of these photos are of Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s when she was seven months pregnant. The one on right was taken in in 1989 when she was seven months pregnant with son Track. The one on the left was taken in 2008 when she was seven months pregnant with son Trig.
Maybe it’s just me, but in one of these photos, Palin looks to be pregnant. In the other photo, not so much. Could the rumor that Sara Palin is Trig’s grandmother and not his mother have any truth to it?
I think something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Rumor: Governor Sarah Palin’s baby is really her grandson
Daily Kos currently has a blog post — they call them “Diaries” — up that claims that Governor Sarah Palin’s 4-month old baby with Down syndrome might be her granddaughter grandson. Evidently there is a rumor going around that the baby is Palin’s teenage daughter’s child, not the Governor’s.
They linked to an article in the Anchorage Daily News published this past March that broke the news that Palin at the time was 7-months pregnant. The problem was that she didn’t look pregnant. Supposedly her own staff was caught off guard by the news.
It states on Daily Kos that Palin’s teenage daughter was out of school and unseen by anyone for months because she had mono.
I’m somewhat surprised that this story would appear over on Daily Kos. I highly doubt the mainstream news will touch this, unless you consider the National Enquirer to be a member of the mainstream news media.
I’m not sure how Republicans or conservatives will respond to this rumor. Palin is extremely anti-choice. While running for Governor of Alaska, Palin stated in a debate that even if her daughter became pregnant in the result of a rape, she would “choose life”. I believe that is code for forcing her underage child to have her rapist’s baby.
That’s just plain nuts.
How would Governor Palin and her husband respond if their teenage daughter became pregnant? Would they hide the fact that their teenage daughter obviously had unprotected sex and became pregnant?
Jesse Helms is finally dead
Finally there is justice in the world. Jesse Helms, that racist old coot from North Carolina is finally not breathing the same air as the rest of us.
His hometown newspaper, The News & Observer, published a joke of an obituary that failed to truly capture the level of absolute racism this man practiced. They described him as “cantankerous” and wrote that “Helms could be the picture of the courtly Southern gentleman“. As if there is anything cantankerous or gentlemanly about hating folks because of the color of their skin.
Not that they failed to mention the Helms’ racism. They wrote:
Although Helms denied he was a racist, his work in the Senate often seemed at odds with the interests of blacks.
Well now, isn’t that putting it rather nicely. Helms was one of two senators for the state of North Carolina, Helms represented many black people. So when his work in the Senate was “at odds with the interests of blacks”, it was at odds with a good many of his own electorate. The very people he should have been representing.
That’s not democracy.
Woman pregnant with 18th child
This is a photo of Michelle Duggar and her family. She’s 41-year old and she is currently pregnant with her 18th child.
That’s right. She has given birth to 17 children and that is not enough. She must have at least one more. I read the whole article over on Yahoo, but I didn’t really need to. As soon as I heard there was a woman pregnant with her 18th child, I already assumed certain facts to be true. These facts include:
- She lives in Arkansas.
- She and her husband have named every child with a name starting with the letter “J”. To be honest, I wasn’t certain what the actual letter was, but I knew the names all started with the same letter.
- All of the children are home schooled.
- They are Republicans.
- They plan on continuing to have children as long as “God wills it”.
- They are supporters of former Republican Presidential nominee Mike Huckabee.
To put this into context, I know people who haven’t even had sex 18 times.
I can’t imagine the pain someone must feel that desperately wants to have a child, but for whatever reason, cannot become pregnant. It must be very similar to what someone who is starving to death feels when they have to watch someone at an all-you-can-eat Chinese food buffet go up and get 18 plates of snow crab legs.
And of course they have a reality TV show. I don’t watch reality TV shows that revolve around a single family unless that family includes midgets.
Little People, Big World rocks!
Stick a fork in Huckabee, he is done
Evidently Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee has a hard time telling the difference between AIDS and a highly contagious and scary disease from the middle ages. Back in 1992 when he was trying to become a U.S. senator, he answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. I have to think somebody at the AP kept Huckabee’s answers in a special file. The file was probably entitled, “WHACK JOB”.
Among the things advocated by Huckabee:
- He wrote that, “If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague.”
- He suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.
- He wrote that, “It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents.”
In case you don’t remember, by 1992 we already knew that you couldn’t catch HIV or AIDS from casual contact with those that were infected. As far as infectious diseases go, it’s fairly difficult to contract. You don’t get it from shaking hands with someone or sitting next to them on a bus. Unless you are exchanging bodily fluids with someone who is either HIV positive or has AIDS, you have nothing to worry about.
Even back in 1992, people knew the idea of putting people with AIDS in special camps was a dumb idea. Everyone except Mike Huckabee.
CNBC explains to Ron Paul admirers why they removed poll
After a recent CNBC Republican candidate debate, CNBC threw a poll of on their website asking readers who they thought won the debate. Ron Paul supporters responded by flooding the poll with votes for Ron Paul in an attempt to skew the poll’s results. Ron Paul won by a whopping 75%. CNBC responded by removing the poll from the website. This from the CNBC website:
And the computer logs showed the poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar fashion. Congratulations. You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can’t help but admire that.
What’s to admire? I didn’t realize that being “well-organized” and “feeling strongly about something” were necessarily traits to admire. Nazis were well-organized. Nazis felt strongly about something. Should they be admired too? Not that I am comparing Ron Paul fanboys to Nazis. Even though at least some neo-Nazis are Ron Paul supporters and it seems that at least some of the people helping to flood these online polls in Ron Paul’s favor have goose-stepped over from antisemitic white supremest websites.
What about substance? Having fans on the Internet that spam online polls and vote for every Ron Paul story on Digg aren’t things to brag about.
Also from the CNBC website:
But you also ruined the purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest “show of hands” — it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum. That certainly wasn’t our intention and certainly doesn’t serve our readers … at least those who aren’t already in the Ron Paul camp.
I don’t know what Ron Paul’s über fanboys expect when they do stuff like this. Sure, they may get some momentary personal pleasure by throwing the results of an online poll, but all they are really doing is making their candidate look bad. Manipulating Internet polls just makes their candidate look weird. That’s something Ron Paul doesn’t need any help with.
He already has that down pat.
Dear Roscoe Bartlett
Roscoe Bartlett
2412 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C.
20515-2006
Dear Roscoe Bartlett –
I’m writing this letter in regards to comments you made shortly after your historic vote last March against the continued funding of our troops in Iraq.
You stated that you were against a time table for withdrawal. Wouldn’t you agree that our military has already accomplished everything they were asked to do? They have:
- Ensured that Iraq is free of weapons of mass destruction.
- Removed Saddam Hussein from power.
- Allowed Iraq to become a democratic and free country.
Our troops have successfully done their job. Now it’s time for you to do yours. You need to work towards bringing them home. Their mission has been accomplished.
You stated back in March that another reason you voted NO was because one-fifth of the spending bill was pork. Expenditures unrelated to our national defense. As though the continued occupation of Iraq has anything to do with the defense of our nation. Now that the Democrats have caved and removed any type of timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, voting YES on the supplemental spending bill should be fairly easy for you to do – unless you really are a fiscal conservative. All that pork is still firmly attached to the bill.
Rick Rottman
Hagerstown, Maryland
Rudy Giuliani is an idiot
Rudy Giuliani should have been spending less time flying around the country giving paid speeches on the 9-11 terror attacks and spent more time actually learning more about them. Including the reasons we were attacked.
This following is a partial transcript from the recent Republican South Carolina Presidential debate.
REP. PAUL: No. Non-intervention was a major contributing factor. Have you ever read the reasons they attacked us? They attack us because we’ve been over there; we’ve been bombing Iraq for 10 years. We’ve been in the Middle East — I think Reagan was right.
We don’t understand the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics. So right now we’re building an embassy in Iraq that’s bigger than the Vatican. We’re building 14 permanent bases. What would we say here if China was doing this in our country or in the Gulf of Mexico? We would be objecting. We need to look at what we do from the perspective of what would happen if somebody else did it to us. (Applause.)
MR. GOLER: Are you suggesting we invited the 9/11 attack, sir?
REP. PAUL: I’m suggesting that we listen to the people who attacked us and the reason they did it, and they are delighted that we’re over there because Osama bin Laden has said, “I am glad you’re over on our sand because we can target you so much easier.” They have already now since that time — (bell rings) — have killed 3,400 of our men, and I don’t think it was necessary.
MR. GIULIANI: Wendell, may I comment on that? That’s really an extraordinary statement. That’s an extraordinary statement, as someone who lived through the attack of September 11, that we invited the attack because we were attacking Iraq. I don’t think I’ve heard that before, and I’ve heard some pretty absurd explanations for September 11th. (Applause, cheers.)
And I would ask the congressman to withdraw that comment and tell us that he didn’t really mean that. (Applause.)
MR. GOLER: Congressman?
REP. PAUL: I believe very sincerely that the CIA is correct when they teach and talk about blowback. When we went into Iran in 1953 and installed the shah, yes, there was blowback. A reaction to that was the taking of our hostages and that persists. And if we ignore that, we ignore that at our own risk. If we think that we can do what we want around the world and not incite hatred, then we have a problem.
They don’t come here to attack us because we’re rich and we’re free. They come and they attack us because we’re over there. I mean, what would we think if we were — if other foreign countries were doing that to us?
Congressmen Ron Paul is correct. Bin Laden didn’t attack the United States because of our love of apple pie and baseball. He didn’t attack us because we love Jesus.
Rudy Giuliani has made a lot of money off of 9-11. You would think he would try to learn a thing or two about it. Instead he comes off looking like an idiot.
Congressman Ron Paul was right. The so-called “America’s Mayor” was wrong.
Pat Robinson on the risks of too much plastic surgery
From the February 7 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network’s The 700 Club:
ROBERTSON: You know there’s a lady named Greta Van Susteren, who’s on Fox.
WATTS: Yeah.
ROBERTSON: Got a very popular –
WATTS: Oh, I saw her.
ROBERTSON: She looked gorgeous last night, but she had a really serious facial deal. And it did a wonder –
WATTS: Sister needed help.
ROBERTSON: Sister got the help.
WATTS: Sister — she needed some help, yeah.
ROBERTSON: But she got it. She just looks great, and she’s so popular.
WATTS: But have you ever seen someone who got it too much, and so they come up to you, and they’re like, “Pat, how are you doing? It’s so good to see you.”
ROBERTSON: Yeah, they got the eyes like they’re Oriental, and, you know, it’s all pulled. So, make sure you do it right. But — it’s — that’s one way you can go, but it’ll cost you five or six thousand dollars probably. All right. What else?
This racist crackpot once ran for President. Granted, he ran as a Republican, but he ran for President none the less. I can just imagine a Pat Robinson presidency where he sits around the oval office doing impersonations of various racist ethnic stereotypes.
The New York Times makes Sean Hannity whimper like a little girl
I was driving home from work today and decided to listen to Sean Hannity. I was listening to XM Radio and CNN was on yet another commercial break. I noticed immediately at Hannity was quite upset about something. The tone of his voice was even more shrill then normal. It seems there is a new weekly TV show on Fox News entitled “Hannity’s America”. Alessandra Stanley from the New York Times watched the show and then wrote about it.
Sean Hannity didn’t like the article. Go figure.
When I got home, I read the article. I thought Sean Hannity’s reaction to the article was funny. The actual article was hilarious.
Underneath the flag-waving swagger, Mr. Hannity’s show is riddled with leftist subliminal suggestion and degrading, un-American images of violence and pornography. Last Sunday Mr. Hannity toured the Bunny Ranch brothel in Nevada and stood over two prostitutes lolling on a bed in skimpy lingerie, their hands placed between their legs, and asked them if they believed in God.
The Bunny Ranch? You have to hand it to him for finding a way of incorporating prostitutes into his show. Who knew that Hannity’s America included prostitutes.
But it’s the sex and violence that suggest that Mr. Hannity harbors a secret plan to undermine American moral fiber. Despite President Bush’s assertion that the execution of Saddam Hussein was botched and disgraceful, Mr. Hannity repeatedly flashes some of the more gruesome video images of the hanging, pictures so ghoulish and unsettling that they could well be the fare for a snuff film.
First Hannity shows prostitutes rolling around a bed, then he shows the Saddam Hussein snuff film. I think to many Republicans, the crappy cell phone video of Saddam getting killed is a form of pornography. That strikes me as being quite off. Most Republicans worship Ronald Reagan and Reagan was really quite fond of old Saddam Hussein. May he not rest in peace.
Sean Hannity is a tool. He wraps himself in the American flag and dishes out disparaging comments about the patriotism of Americans that hold views different then his own. Americans like me. He does this not because it is what he really believes. No, he does it to make a buck.
Hannity’s fake patriotism has made him millions of dollars. He loves to chastise people like Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, and the Dixie Chicks because of their political views. The thing that separates these people (and others like them) from Sean Hannity is that they have never made a buck off their political views. Like he does. In fact the complete opposite is true. They often lose money because of their political opinions.
Just ask the Dixie Chicks.
Sean Hannity loves America so much that he is spending the holidays in Europe
I was listening to right-wing radio talk show host Sean Hannity yesterday while driving home from work. He was talking about his working vacation to Europe this holiday season. He and his family are going to London, Paris, and Rome where he will conduct town hall like meetings with Europeans entitled, WHY EUROPE HATES AMERICA. Something like that. I might have the name wrong, but I don’t think so. He pointed out that Paris and Rome ought to be interesting since he doesn’t speak their language, but “they all speak English over there.”
He then went on to do some French bashing. I guess this is still a popular activity in Republican circles. I wouldn’t have thought it was. Sure, they seemed to have fun renaming French fries “freedom fries” when France questioned the rational of invading Iraq. Imagine that. I just didn’t know that Republicans were still bashing the French. You usually don’t make fun of someone when it turns out that they were right and you were wrong.
He then went on to talk about how “we” liberated “them” from the Nazis back in World War Two. That “they” would all be speaking German if we didn’t go and save them oh so long ago. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought Sean Hannity had personally lead the Allied invasion of Normandy. Storming the beach with a Thompson submachine gun in each hand and cutting through the barbed wire with nothing more then his teeth.
In reality, Sean Hannity refused to serve in the military.
I always get a kick out of people that refer to historical things in the first person. Of course people like Hannity only do this when it concerns something they deem to be positive. Though you will hear Sean Hannity take credit for winning World War Two, you wont ever hear him say we owned slaves or that we distributed smallpox infected blankets to Indians. The word “we” will never be used when talking about these bits of American history. People like him only take credit for the good and distance themselves from the bad.
I also found it funny that Sean Hannity would insinuate the Nazi Germany would still occupy western Europe today if it wasn’t for the Allied forces. As if Russia was not marching closer to Berlin each day the war went on. Germany would have fallen even if the Allies had not hit the beaches of Normandy. The French wouldn’t be speaking German today, they would be speaking Russian.Then again according to Hannity, everyone over there speaks English.
Maybe Sean Hannity ought to read a history book.
That’s not a 5-day work week
I don’t know what is more ridiculous. Republican congressmen that think a 5-day work week is too brutal or Democratic congressmen that think Monday night to Friday afternoon constitutes a work week. It seems to me that neither group has any understanding what the American worker does each and every week.
Not that it should be any surprise.
Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.
With the hours they will be working, it’s a wonder they even qualify for medical benefits. It almost seems like they are working part-time. Sort of.
This from the Republican viewpoint:
“Keeping us up here eats away at families,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. “Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families — that’s what this says.”
Those mean Democrats. They want members of congress to actually work. They want to keep congressmen like Jack Kingston away from their families. I guess that’s why they refer to it as public service. As in they are serving their nation. Whining about time away from the wife and kids sounds pathetic.
They had no problem sending American service members off to Iraq. I know Representative Jack Kingston enjoys posing with American service members when they come back from Iraq. I bet a lot of them want to be home with their wife and kids too. Instead, they are in Iraq stuck in the middle of a civil war. Maybe next time congressmen Jack Kingston uses an American soldier back from Iraq as a prop in a photo, he can tell them about the hardship for working a 5-day work week.
UPDATE - While Representative Jack Kingston (R-Ga) was whining about having to actually work five whole days a week in Washington DC, 10 more American GI’s were killed in Iraq today.
5-day work week is a Capitol Hill culture shock [Washington Post]
Dennis Prager is pissed!
When right-wing radio talk show host Dennis Prager isn’t doing his radio show or performing Led Zeppelin cover tunes on the accordion, he writes commentary on the Townhall website. I’ve never heard of the website. Then again, I don’t normally read websites that feature the writings of wingnuts such as Dennis Prager.
Personally, I wish Dennis Prager would just speak though his accordion music. Let the rock’n sounds of the squeeze box do all his talking.
Dennis is mad because the first Muslim congressman wants to take his oath of office with his hand on the Koran instead of the Bible. Is it really that hard to believe that a Muslim might want to use the Koran instead of the Bible when he or she takes the oath of office?
He wrote:
He should not be allowed to do so — not because of any American hostility to the Koran, but because the act undermines American civilization …. Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison’s favorite book is. Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress.
Undermines American civilization? Let’s not get all overly dramatic here. You know what I think undermines American civilization? Dorky white haired guys that play the accordion.
How ironic that Prager would state that America is interested only in the Bible. He might be interested in learning that Congressman elect Keith Ellison will be taking an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. This includes the First Amendment. The part that grants everyone the right to practice their own religion. The part that prohibits the government from preferring one religion over another. In other words, one holy book over another.
I don’t understand what the problem is. Then again, it seems kind of silly to me to put your hand on a book you hold dear and demean it by using it as a prop. I guess if all of the Christians are using the Bible, the first Muslim congressman ought to be able to use the Koran.
It’s no big deal.
George Bush is only brave when other people’s lives are at stake
President Bush suggested Thursday that Democrats don’t have the stomach to fight the war on terror. He was at a Republican campaign fundraiser in Alabama and had lots of nasty stuff too.
“Five years after 9/11, the worst attack on the American homeland in our history, Democrats offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing,” Bush said at a Republican fundraiser.”The party of FDR and the party of Harry Truman has become the party of cut and run,”.
Party of cut and run? How does Bush have any business saying something like this? He is the guy that acted like a wuss on the day of 9-11. When the Saudi terrorists attacked, he was at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida reading to kids. Instead of getting on Air Force One and returning to Washington D.C., he flew around the country hiding from threats that never existed. He even spent time in a bomb shelter at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. How embarrassing. There were a lot of people doing brave and courageous things on the day of 9-11. Don’t let anyone fool you. George Bush wasn’t one of them.
I’m tired of Bush and gutless neo-con chickenhawks like him constantly trying to man-up on everyone else. Only in America can someone like Rush Limbaugh describe a man such as John Kerry as a coward. John Kerry earned a Silver Star for killing the Viet Cong into the jungles of Viet Nam. The only thing Limbaugh has ever killed was a bottle of oxicotin.
I find it ironic that Bush can refer to leaving Iraq as “cut and run”. What more do we have to do over there? We took care of ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. Granted, Iraq didn’t have any weapons of mass destruction. Saddam Hussein was captured and is now on trial. They have had democratic elections in Iraq. Twice. Iraqi People even got purple fingers. What more is there to do? Mission accomplished, right? Major combat operations in Iraq are over, right? So why continue the military occupation of Iraq?
Not only are we paying a heavy toll in American lives, it is costing the American taxpayers approximately $2 billion dollars a week to occupy Iraq. Then again, it’s not like current taxpayers are going to be footing this bill. It will be this country’s great, great, great grandchildren that end up paying for the Bush Iraq war. Future taxpayers will be footing the bill for Bush’s war. Bush isn’t really keen on the idea of paying for the things he wants. He drives up the national debt while cutting taxes. Mostly these tax cuts go to the ultra rich. Tax cuts for people that don’t sacrifice or contribute anything to the war on terror or Bush’s war in Iraq. It’s not as though their children are enlisting in the military after high school and going to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Then again, if you join the military, your chances of going to Afghanistan are not all that high. The odds of going to Iraq are seven times more likely then going to Afghanistan. That’s a shame too, especially if someone joined the armed forces to kill the people that caused the terror attacks on 9-11. Instead of occupying Iraq, our military needs to be in Afghanistan killing the Taliban and hunting down bin Laden.
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