The hypocrisy of Rick Perry

Texas governor Rick Perry, who went from secessionist to socialist (and socialized medicine supporter) in the space of days, is quite the hypocrite.

Texas, Run by Secessionist Guv, Has Received More Federal Disaster Relief Than Any State

Like everyone else, I was amused when Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, requested help from the CDC with swine flu medication just a week or so after he said that the "federal government has become oppressive" and that if Texans started considering seceding from the union, "who knows what might come out of that." Perry didn't seem to realize that throwing off the yoke of the federal government would mean no more help when the going got tough.

Today comes news that Perry has issued a disaster declaration for the state of Texas, the first step in getting assistance from federal agencies like FEMA, DHS, and HHS. I decided to take a look at how many times the federal government has bailed Texas out during Perry's tenure. The results are pretty incredible.

According to FEMA's website, Texas has been the site of 13 "major disaster declarations" since Perry took office following George W. Bush's departure in 2001. That includes five instances of severe storms and flooding, two tropical storms, one "extreme wildfire threat," and Hurricanes Claudette, Rita, Dolly, and Ike. (Texas received significant federal assistance following Hurricane Katrina, but it did not appear on FEMA's website in the "major disaster declaration" category.)

In fact, since FEMA's record-keeping began, Texas has received federal disaster assistance more times than any other state.

Hate makes you stupid

The right wing talking heads are in yet another frenzy (Godz, don't they EVER get tired of being frenzied all the time?) about swine flu.

Basically, it's because of illegal immigrants from Mexico. It's Janet Napolitano's fault. It's Obama's fault.

Hate radio talker Michael Savage goes even further: It's a "gay plot" concocted to "get people to stop talking about AIDS." Apparently, evil gay scientists created the H1N1 virus and infected illegal immigrants, and then sent them over the border with President Obama's full knowledge and consent.

Never mind the fact that, so far, all the confirmed US cases are American citizens who had traveled to Mexico, or had a family member who'd recently been there.

No illegal immigrants in the bunch.

Hate makes you stupid, people.

BREAKING NEWS: Specter switches to Democrat

Republican Senator Arlen Specter makes waves this morning, with sources saying he's switching to the Democratic Party. Once Al Franken is seated, that's 60. Specter will be placing himself squarely in the "conservative Democratic" camp.

Specter is facing a tough re-election, challenged by a harder rightwing Republican, and it looks like this finally pushed him over to the Democratic way.

The following story is fiction

I was busy munching on the bodies of some children I'd caught the other day. I had blood running down my shirt, and just as I was pulling some meat off a tasty femur, a bunch of Christian teabaggers burst into my hideout.

"We've got you, you filthy child-eating cannibal!" they shrieked.

Thinking quickly, I rose to my feet and said, "I think the guy next door is gay! And there's an Obama bumper sticker on his hybrid! I THINK HE VOTED FOR OBAMA!!!!"

The Christian teabaggers all ran out the door, screeching bloody murder. Several of them were trampled to death in the rush while others burned themselves with their torches.

Desert!

Protesting the teabaggers

These counterprotesters showed up at a teabagging party April 15, but for some reason, they weren't welcomed. I wonder why.

Miss California NOT a winner in any way

Not only was she incapable of forming a coherent sentence, her opinions on gays are informed by a known hate group.

Miss California's church says pedophilia is central to the gay lifestyle

Rick Perry changes his tune

Governor Rick Perry of Texas, who blithely talked of secession because, you know, that gay commie socialist secret-Muslim black guy is president, is changing his tune today, asking for federal assistance in the form of a request to the CDC for antiviral medication to guard against a possible outbreak of swine flu in his state.

Gee, Ricky, what would you do if Texas left the Union, eh?

Teabagger: "Start the killing now!"

From AMERICAblog:

A number of us have been saying for a while now that the Republicans' extremist, anti-American rhetoric was going to push someone to violence. And it almost just did. From WIRED:

Daniel Knight Hayden, 52, was arrested by FBI agents who identified him as the Twitter user CitizenQuasar. In a series of tweets beginning April 11, CitizenQuasar vowed to start a "war" against the government on the steps of the Oklahoma City Capitol building, the site of that city's version of the national "Tea Party" protests promoted by the conservative-leaning Fox News.

"START THE KILLING NOW! I am willing to be the FIRST DEATH!," read a tweet at 8:01 PM that day. "After I am killed on the Capitol Steps, like a REAL man, the rest of you will REMEMBER ME!!!," he added five minutes later. Then: "Send the cops around. I will cut their heads off the heads and throw the[m] on the State Capitol steps."

Hayden's MySpace page is a breathtaking gallery of right wing memes about the "New World Order," gun control as Nazi fascism, and Barack Obama's covert use of television hypnosis, among many others.

100 days of No

DNC web ad:

Newly frugal guy!

http://www.markfiore.com/political/newly-frugal-guy

Another anti-gay marriage ad

This one is pretty damn convincing that you should be very, very, very, very afraid of gay marriage.

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

Protesting a tax break

Found at ePluribus:

It's easy to be disdainful toward teabaggers -- and it's perhaps justifiable to feel a might uncomfortable with a male group of them in a public washroom given the sexual connotation of their activity that day -- but it is a baffling phenomenon.  Given that most of the teabaggers at the modestly sized Chicago protest appeared middle or lower middle class, why were they protesting a President who was giving them a tax break?

In short, if I walked up to you and said here's $800.00, would your response be to push my cash-filled hand aside and yell, "Stop trying to steal my money you socialist! If you keep trying to give me money, I'm going to get my gun, shoot you, and take over the government"?

Obama lectures Chavez

So right wing heads exploded and flung goop over everything, because Obama was "laughing it up" with Hugo Chavez -- based on one video.

But I guess they didn't want to wait around and watch this one:

New video shows "stern" Obama, apparently lecturing Hugo Chavez

Chavez Obama
by noticias24

Limbaugh continues on path to hell

LIMBAUGH: The idea that torture doesn’t work– that’s been put out from John McCain on down– You know, for the longest time McCain said torture doesn’t work then he admitted in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention last summer that he was broken by North Vietnamese. So what are we to think here?

Smile and a handshake

The right whiners are frantic over Obama shaking hands with Hugo Chavez. Apparently, this is some kind of "proof" that Obama is a Manchurian Candidate who is aiming to force all of us into gay marriages and give up our guns to baby-eating Muslim socialists. Oh, and as one of the signs seen at a "teabagging" event said, it's "the end of white America."

Here are some examples of a few other Manchurian Candidates shaking hands with the enemy, thereby proving that they hated America too.

 

Live mics and cameras can kill you

All of us in the broadcast media have either been caught with our pants down by a studio microphone left on, a live camera aimed our way when we weren't aware, or we know someone who has. A live camera or mic at an inopportune time can destroy your career, or in the case of "news" media, can destroy your credibility.

People's exhibit #1: Neil Cavuto.

Torture prosecutions or not?

Following up on Keith Olbermann's special comment last night challenging the president on the torture prosecution issue.

There are, and I know it's ugly to say, political implications.

Pursuing prosecution on this will hand the Publicans an issue they CAN effectively use, and at a bad time -- we're still trying to move on fixing the economy, putting the focus back on the middle class and not the ultra rich, and health care reform. Pursuing torture prosecutions right now would harm all that, because I'm sensing that the signals have been sent to the president: "Pursue this now, and we'll destroy you and you'll get NOTHING done." There are elements within the CIA that have been hinting, through media leaks, that there could be an all-out revolt against the administration if Obama follows through.

Olbermann is right on this. The president is wrong on this. But Olbermann is right as a MORAL issue, while Obama seems to be following a pragmatic path from the political standpoint. Yes, that's ugly, but it may just be the nature of the beast and the best deal we can get RIGHT NOW.

Later... Well, we're hoping for 2 terms. The president is nowhere near done yet, and I and others learned during the campaign that Obama doesn't always move as quickly as we think he should, but he does move, and when he moves, it's usually a good move. He's playing chess, while we're used to watching football.

If it came down to a choice, and if you could only get one or the other and not both, which would we rather have: Torture prosecutions of low-level CIA personnel, or universal health care?

Publicans shoot themselves in the feets

A little schadenfruede... Democrats were notorious for years for the ability to shoot themselves in the foot. Now, it's the Publicans' turn.

The teabagging parties, er, hurt them much more than helped.

It's been two days now since angry conservatives hosted a series of tea parties across the country, and the fallout has some Republicans nervous.

While the anti-tax sentiment of the protests may have been sincere, the images pulled from the events have often been offensive, embarrassing, or politically problematic.

It is a development that has tripped up the GOP before. The rallies outside McCain-Palin events included some of the same bile that was seen at the tea parties: charges of fascism, terrorism and other malicious criticisms leveled at Barack Obama. And it did the Republican ticket little good in its efforts to bring moderate voters to the cause. More...

Special Comment

Olbermann challenges Obama on torture prosecutions.

Signs we'd like to see

If Fox News and those big lobbyists decide to throw another teabaggin' party, one of our contributors on our Delphi forum has a fantastic idea:

My tongue-slightly-in-cheek suggestion:  go to the rallies, disguised as a frightwinger, carrying signs like "end Social Security now" and "end all unemployment payments" and "end the deficit: no more hurricane [or tornado or flood] relief" and "no more aid to schools" and "fight socialism: abolish health insurance."  Oh, and "stop government regulation: end all federal border patrols," "stop government regulation: down with food & drug safety regulations," "stop federal interference with piracy," and "stop government regulations: abolish workplace safety."

Fair and balanced

Holy shit. Shepard Smith at Fox News did some actual journalism about the DHS report. He accurately relayed that the report was begun under the Bush administration, that a previous report issued while Bush was in office that also warned of right wing extremism didn't get as much coverage, and that other reports also warned of extremism from the far left. He also accurately reported that the DHS wasn't calling returning vets "right wing loons" like the right wing echo chamber has been asserting. Smith actually reported on the facts of the issue.

Kudos to him for making Fox News, for about 6 minutes, truly fair and balanced.

None dare call it treason (when a Democrat is in the White House)

I'm kind of amused that the people who are calling for Obama to be "stopped" by any means necessary or America will "cease to exist" (Alan Keyes), who are saying that Obama's opponents should be "armed and dangerous" (Michelle Bachmann), who are calling Obama a fascist or a communist or a socialist (Fox News), or who are chanting "Death to Obama!" (scattered teabagging protesters) are the same ones who, for 8 years, said that any criticism of George W. Bush was the same as "wanting the terrorists to win," "hating America," and tantamount to treason.

Limbaugh's head would have exploded if a Democratic governor had suggested, in protest of Bush's Iraq war, that his or her state should secede. That kind of open rebellion against Bush would have been called treason, traitorous, and Rush would likely have called for that governor to be hanged.

But now there's Rick Perry, who obviously "hates America" so much he's blithely talking about Texas being sovereign and suggesting that Texas could secede from the Union.

A run on the banks

North Carolina Publican Senator Richard Burr sure sounds like he was encouraging a run on the banks. Either he's stupid, or he was deliberate.

And deliberate is not such a far-out accusation, when you consider that the Publicans have a vested interest in the economy of the United States completely collapsing so long as Barack Obama is president and the Democrats control Congress.

They absolutely cannot allow anything President Obama does on the economy to succeed, or it will destroy what's left of the Publican Party.

"Country first." Riiiiiight.

Did Texas just secede?

Sure sounds like it. Hey, that’s fine. Let’s take ALL the federal money spent on that state on others that need it. Hell, this could save us an awful lot of money.

They bet against the US and lost

Let's go back and see how the right wing talking heads were "pre-selling" Obama's failure to resolve the hostage crisis with the pirates.

If you can't see the video, go here.

Good old fashioned book burnings, just like the Nazis used to do

It didn't take long for the teabagging movement [snicker] to bring out the REAL nuts. Now they're ranting about "brainwashing machines" and crowd members are shouting, "Burn the books!"

I'm not kidding.

"In the early 50s our country was infiltrated by the communist party," he says, calling the Obama administration the culmination of that infiltration. "They're doing everything they can to brainwash our public...This thing they're putting on our TVs," he says, presumably referring to digital cable converters, "it's a brainwash unit!"

As his speech winds down, he exhorts his listeners to get their kids "the hell out of college. They're brainwashing 'em!"

The anti-school message resonates with one woman.

"Burn the books!" she yells from off-camera. The surprised camera man asks if she's serious, and which books she'd burn. "The ones in college, the brainwashing books, like the evolution crap."

Obama's "pirate crisis"

What happened today was, in my view, the proper response at this time. These pirates need to know that if they mess with American ships, our Navy carries big guns for a reason. Threaten American lives, and there will be a response.

That's not to say that these criminals won't learn from what transpired today. They'll up their efforts. But we'll up ours too.

However, there is a deeper issue. Somalia is a global tragedy. No functioning government since the 90s, mass starvation, and other nations taking advantage of the situation by stealing their food shipments and dumping nuclear waste off their shores.

That doesn't excuse the actions of the pirates, just as poverty here doesn't excuse the actions of homegrown criminals. But the deeper problems in Somalia need to be addressed if there's going to be a long term solution to the piracy problem in that region.

Jennifer Loven of AP has written a very good analysis of the Obama administration's response to the immediate situation that was resolved today:

Analysis: Obama scores win on pirate crisis: His administration passes its first critical national security test

Latest right wing target: Snopes.com

There's a chain email floating around purporting to "expose" Snopes.com as some kind of surreptitious "Democrat" liberal operation out to eat the babies of conservatives and drink the blood of white Christian babies. Or something like that.

No big surprise, but the email is full of your typical right wing lies.

Xenophobe of the week

Ladies and gentlemen, the Publican party strikes again:

In a puzzling move which she insisted isn't about race, a Republican state lawmaker in Texas said in House testimony Wednesday that Asian Americans should change their names to ones that are "easier for Americans to deal with."

Democrats jumped on the comments by state Rep. Betty Brown. Her remarks came during a Texas House Elections Committee hearing, who'd invited a Chinese American representative to testify about ballot accessibility.

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?" Brown remarked.

Brown later told Ko: "Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?"

The most polarizing president ever? Not so fast.

Debunking -- yet again -- the claim that Obama is the "most polarizing president" ever. The right wing fear machine has worked itself into a lather taking certain elements of a recent Pew Research poll and twisting them to claim that Obama is the most polarizing president ever, even more than George W. Bush. The overseer of Pew's political polling himself disputes that claim.

Jon Stewart takes on the fear mongers

Jon Stewart eviscerates the fear mongering of Publican pundits like Fox News, Beck, Bachmann, Limbaugh, etc.... the same fear mongers who seemed to miss all the moves Bush made to erode our liberties.

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One common thread in all the recent shootings

Here's an interesting fact:

In the recent shootings, the gunmen all had one thing in common:

Gun permits. They all were legally entitled to fire their weapons.

Inciting bloodbaths

David Shuster on MSNBC did a good job addressing our concerns that right wing fear mongering from the likes of Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann are driving nutcases like Poplawski in Pennsylvania to kill people.

Too many crazy people have access to the Internet

Rachel Maddow presents proof positive that too many crazy people have access to the Internet. I can't think of any sadder commentary than that there are actually people out there who believe this stuff.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Michael J. Fox talks about Rush

Michael J. Fox is a great human being. He stopped by The Daily Show last night and talked about Rush Limbaugh's attack on him.

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Surprise visit

Obama in Baghdad, tells troops Iraq must take over

BAGHDAD – Cheered wildly by U.S. troops, President Barack Obama flew unannounced into Iraq on Tuesday and promptly declared it was time for Iraqis to "take responsibility for their country" after America's commitment of six years and thousands of lives. Full Story»

Michelle Bachmann wants more blood

Michelle Bachmann, not sated with a shooting spree by a nutcase driven to rage by her brand of shrill, right-wing fear-mongering against Obama, apparently wants to drive another nutcase to kill people. In her bloodthirsty hatred of the president, she is hoping and praying for another round of mass murder from an unhinged individual. Her dream is that one day she can push some whackjob into taking a shot at the president or his family:

Bachmann: Obama Wants "Re-Education Camps For Young People" (AUDIO)

Right wing hate in action

The right wing noise machine keeps feeding the fire, going on and on about "stopping Obama or the nation will be destroyed," wanting "armed and dangerous" citizens to rise up against the duly elected president of the United States, and all the non stop bleating how Obama is a fascist out to "bring down America" and how he's some kind of "Manchurian candidate."

Keeping feeding the fire, right wingers, because it's now obvious you want more of this:

A gunman wearing a bulletproof vest and "lying in wait" opened fire on officers responding to a domestic disturbance call Saturday, killing three of them and turning a quiet Pittsburgh street into a battlefield, police said.

Police Chief Nate Harper said the motive for the shooting isn't clear, but friends said the gunman recently had been upset about losing his job and feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.

Richard Poplawski, 23, met officers at the doorway and shot two of them in the head immediately, Harper said. An officer who tried to help the two also was killed.

Let's be very clear: This what the right wing pundits, led by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Michelle Bachmann, want. This makes them happy. They dance in the streets the more this stuff happens at their call.

If it's not what they want, they maybe they better re-think their hate speech and what is obviously going to be the result of it.

But I'm betting they won't stop. They want this. Whenever you hear them rant and rave, just remember they want this. More of it. They want more nutcases enraged and frightened and pushed to the limit so they'll kill more and more people, and maybe they'll get "lucky" and some nutjob will take a shot at the president or his family.

This is what they want, America. Keep that in mind.

Leadership

Leadership. Here's what it looks like.

Twittering and Facebooking makes you more productive at work

That's according to an Australian study. Employees who took short breaks now and then to surf the web for news, update social networking sites, catch a quick video on YouTube, were more productive than those who didn't.

Ed Schultz gets MSNBC show

This will be good. Ed's a somewhat moderate, leaning ever-so-slightly to the left pundit. Here's the press release:

Veteran talk radio host Ed Schultz joins MSNBC as host of "The Ed Show," premiering on Monday, April 6. "The Ed Show" will air weekdays, 6-7 p.m. ET. The announcement was made today by Phil Griffin, President, MSNBC.

"I am thrilled to have Ed kicking-off our primetime lineup," said Griffin. "Ed's proven that he can connect with Americans and will be a perfect compliment to Chris, Keith, and Rachel. He's already made his mark on radio and I'm excited to see what he'll do with the 6 p.m. hour."

"I'm excited to have this opportunity with MSNBC," said Schultz. "I look forward to having a day to day discussion with fellow Americans on issues that really matter to all of us."

David Shuster, currently hosting "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" at 6 p.m. ET on MSNBC, will join Tamron Hall as host of a new 3-5 p.m. ET program on MSNBC. Shuster will also continue to anchor breaking news coverage during the day and serve as a regular substitute anchor for "Countdown with Keith Olbermann." Norah O'Donnell's hour will move to the morning. The exact hour will be announced at a later date.

Gifts to the Queen

All I’ve been seeing today from the right wing websites like Drudge is ridicule of Obama because, gasp, he gave the Queen of England an iPod. How embarrassing! How insulting! This is a disaster! Obama should be impeached!

Uh, but that’s not quite the whole story – not that they’d ever let that get in the way of committing the "treasonous act" of "undermining the president" (that’s what they said when anyone criticized Bush.

Here’s the part of the story they left out:

During their private meeting, President Obama and first lady gave the queen a personalized iPod with video footage of her 2007 visit to Washington and Virginia. She was also given a rare songbook signed by composer Richard Rodgers.

In return the queen and her husband, Prince Philip, gave the Obamas a signed portrait of themselves.

Colbert does Beck

And Beck disappears in a puff of smoke.

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Lovin' April 1

Respected British newspaper will cease printing and move completely to Twitter, including daily issues and the entire past archive:

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include "1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!"; "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more"; and "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"

A pink slip for a CEO

Michael Moore comments on the firing of GM CEO Richard Wagoner:

I write this letter to you in memory of the hundreds of thousands of workers over the past 25+ years who have been tossed into the trash heap by General Motors. Many saw their lives ruined for good. They turned to alcohol or drugs, their marriages fell apart, some took their own lives. Most moved on, moved out, moved over, moved away. They ended up working two jobs for half the pay they were getting at GM. And they cursed the CEO of GM for bringing ruin to their lives.

Not one of them ever thought that one day they would witness the CEO receive the same treatment. Of course Chairman Wagoner will not have to sign up for food stamps or be evicted from his home or tell his kids they'll be going to the community college, not the university. Instead, he will get a $23 million golden parachute. But the slip in his hands is still pink, just like the hundreds of thousands that others received -- except his was issued by us, via the Obama-man. Here's the door, buster. See ya. Don't wanna be ya.

More…

The teleprompter president

See if you can tell which president these quotes are about.

• President _______ has mastered the teleprompter in spades, so much so that when he is delivering a 12-page speech he gives the impression it is off the cuff.
• The Teleprompter is _______'s star medium.
• In delivering his first televised address from the Oval Office Thursday night, _______ was smooth and polished in his delivery as he read from a teleprompter with the ease of a pro.
• Reading his speech from a TelePrompTer, _______ was magnificent, showing again his wondrous way with TV.
• I think _______'s mistake was, the smooth, suave _______, who is totally in command when he is reading from a teleprompter, suddenly was there without a speech writer and he babbled and bumbled ...
• In fact, at one point, _______, the political master of the teleprompter, stumbled quite badly and uncharacteristically, creating an expectant hush, a collective holding of breath ...
• Although Mr. _______'s speech was one of his most urgent appeals for support ... he delivered it in a quiet, sometimes halting fashion, apparently because of a malfunctioning teleprompter.
• To guard against any mechanical snafus, _______ had several backups for the text. The principal system is a teleprompter that flashes the text on a screen ... The _______ campaign also had a backup teleprompter ... and a third ... text, on 5-by-8-inch sheets, was to be on the podium for _______.