Before you bash Obama for caving…

Before you join the bandwagon and bash President Obama for “caving” in the deal, hold off for just a couple of minutes to consider another view – from a left wing source that hasn’t been afraid to criticize the president vehemently.

Many of you are rushing too quickly to judgment on the deal that appears to be coming together between GOP congressional leadership and the White House. President Obama actually got us a very strong deal (especially under the circumstances) and it will serve the country, and his re-election campaign well, even if he has to take some political flack in the short term.

The vast majority of Kossaks believe that the President "caved". It appears that people feel the main cave is that there isn't revenue raises in the bill. But keep in mind the one thing the tea party wanted--a default. For them, this was not a hostage negotiation, they wanted to kill the hostage. In this they failed--totally. And in fact if you read between the lines, I think you'll see that this deal is far more advantageous to us in the longer game for other reasons.

Keep reading…

Deal reached

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Bill Kristol’s electoral strategy

Bill Kristol's got his electoral strategy mapped out for Republicans: Accept the debt ceiling deal, vote for it, then use it to bash Obama and beat him in 2012.

Of course, a lot of Democrats will help him.

Teabaggers are the kidney stones in America’s urethra

Teabaggers are the kidney stones in America's urethra.

They're the only reason the US is facing a default. If not for them, this vote would have been as routine as all the other times we've raised the debt ceiling. They're the ones who pushed the GOP to hold the nation hostage over a routine vote. It shows us how little they really care about the country; they only care about getting Obama.

Big Oil profits from your pain

Big Oil rakes in the profits when prices get higher at the pump. They laugh while you suffer.

View data comparing Big Oil profits to prices for oil and gasoline (.xls)

Proving the monarchists right

The prevailing idea behind the old monarchists' opposition to democracy was that "mob rule" was bad, because people, in general, were not smart enough to rule themselves. And here we are, a couple of centuries later, doing our best to prove them right.

Why a third party isn't a good idea in America

Everybody's disgusted to one degree or another with our government, and the answer most people bring up is, "More third party candidates!" But that's not really a good idea in our system of government, and here's an excellent article that explains why.

What about third-party candidates for Congress? Now, I hope you are familiar with our winner-take-all system which is mandatory in federal elections because of our Constitution. What this means is that you can win an election with a mere plurality of the votes, and that if you lose by even one vote you lose everything. And this has very real consequences. Suppose you have candidates from the Red, Blue, and Green parties. The Red candidate disagrees with you about abortion rights and the blue and the green candidates both represent your views on the issue nicely. Assuming this is a dealbreaker issue for you, in the sense that you won't support someone who disagrees with you, you can eliminate the red candidate and choose between blue and green based on some other considerations. If everyone behaves like you do, the blue and green candidates will split the abortion vote (for your position) between them while the Red candidate will get all the votes opposing your position. It's possible for the Red candidate to win with as much as one vote shy of two-thirds of the voters opposing their view on abortion. You can substitute for abortion any issue which sharply divides the Democratic and Republican parties, which increasingly means almost every social and economic issue under the Sun.

So, the first problem with third-party candidates is that they have to win or they risk being spoilers that throw the election to a candidate who holds views out of the mainstream for their district. A recent example of this occurred in Illinois' 8th District. Tea Party activist and deadbeat dad Joe Walsh won election by a margin of 291 votes. Green Party candidate Bill Scheurer won 6,494 votes. Democrat Melissa Bean was out of a job. The people of the 8th District were left with a moron to represent them.

Of course, once in a blue moon a third party candidate can actually win. This most often happens through the consent and conniving of one of the two major parties. For example, the Democrats simply agree not to field a candidate against Socialist Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Or, another example, the Republicans fielded a joke candidate against Joe Lieberman and Ned Lamont, and openly pulled for Lieberman's victory.

Read the rest

Spouses are off limits?

Michele Bachmann declares that her husband is "off limits." Even though she regularly slammed Michelle Obama in 2008.

Michele Bachmann isn't happy with the attention her husband, Marcus  Bachmann, has been getting in the press lately over allegations his clinic practices gay conversion therapy. In fact, she thinks he should be kept out of the campaign entirely.

"I am extremely proud of my husband, I have tremendous respect for for him," Bachmann said at a luncheon in DC on Thursday. "I am running for the presidency of the United States. My husband is not running for the presidency. Neither are my children, neither is our business, neither are our foster children."

But Bachmann has a very different take when it comes to other candidates' spouses: She's repeatedly attacked Michelle Obama in the harshest terms and specifically challenged the press to join in on her condemnations.

Fox News' religious hypocrisy

Don't forget, when you're listening to Bill O'Reilly moaning about "media bias" in reported Breivik's Christian philosophy, that he was the pundit who inspired a radical Christian extremist to murder Dr. Tiller.

Breivik wrote a Christian manifesto, but that's not enough for O'Reilly to admit he's a Christian. But Major Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, gave plenty of cause for O'Reilly to condemn all of Islam because Hasan had a reference to Allah on his business card.

And Jon Stewart, always his brilliant self, opened The Daily Show last night nailing Fox News on their religious hypocrisy.

 

The Daily Show - In the Name of the Fodder
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Deer in the headlights

There's video of this HILARIOUSLY awkward exchange at the link. Talk about "deer in the headlights."

An ABC News producer asked Gingrich to hold up one of his campaign t-shirts for the camera and he probably now wishes he hadn’t followed her instructions.

“A lot of what you’re talking about is about taking America back to America,” the ABC News producer explained. “We asked for t-shirts to be sent to us and they were made in America. I just picked up that one and it was made in El Salvador.”

“Uh-huh,” a stunned Gingrich replied.

“It was a big thing when we talked to your campaign about how you wanted things to be made in America,” the producer continued. “Do you have plans to change things?”

“I’ll have to ask the folks who ordered this,” Gingrich said while still holding the t-shirt. “I didn’t order it and I don’t do it.”

The liberals haven’t left

The poll numbers show that Obama's liberal base is hanging around.

According to a new Gallup poll, support for President Obama has fallen slightly on a national level, but remains high among Democrats.

The president's over-all approval rating went down one point from the previous survey period from 44 percent to 43 percent. However, 78 percent of Democrats approve of how the president is doing his job. According to Sam Stein of Huffington Post, these are the highest numbers any Democratic president has enjoyed at this point in their term since Harry Truman.

President Obama also scored high marks with Liberal Democrats, scoring an 81 percent approval rating, a number surpassed only by his approval among black voters, which held steady at 86 percent.

Violent rhetoric

What is it with teabaggers and right wingers and their constant use of violent rhetoric and imagery? Don't they know anything else?

Balanced budget amendment?

If the GOP is so gung-ho about a balanced budget amendment, how come they never passed one when they held the Oval Office and controlled both houses of congress?

Fox News logic

Fox News logic: If a Muslim carries out a terrorist attack, it proves that all Islam is our enemy and no Muslim can be trusted. If a Christian carries out a terrorist attack, he's not really a Christian, how dare you say that, the guy was just a lone nut, shut up and move along, there's nothing to see here.

Governor Walker's continuing voter suppression tactics

Teabagger governor Scott Walker has a neat little voter suppression thing going on.

The first thing he did was require a photo ID to vote, and you have to get a photo ID at a DMV office. So he's closing DMV offices in Democratic districts, but expanding office hours in Republican districts.

But wait, there's more: A DMV office can refuse to grant a photo ID if your bank account doesn't show enough "activity." So if you're poor or out of work, you won't be able to vote in Wisconsin.

This is what democracy looks like to teabaggers. Can you get more un-American than this? I don't think so.

That's a lot of hair and makeup!

Mother Jones has the story of Michele Bachmann's $4,700 hair and makeup bill:

Considering Rep. Michele Bachmann's crusade against government spending and her demand that America live within its means, you wouldn't figure her for a conspicuous spender. But after launching her bid for the White House, Bachmann has broken with her usual frugality and shelled out some serious cash on a stylist in what could be seen as her own John-Edwards'-$400-haircut moment.

According to Bachmann's latest campaign finance filings, her campaign spent nearly $4,700 on hair and makeup in the weeks after she entered the presidential race on June 13. Records show her campaign made three payments of $1,715, $250, and $2,704 to a Maryland-based stylist named Tamara Robertson. Robertson's LinkedIn profile says she works as a makeup artist at Fox News in the DC area. She's also listed in the "Make-up" section of the credits for the Citizens United-produced film A City Upon a Hill, hosted by Newt and Callista Gingrich—a pair who've raised eyebrows with their own spending.

Bachmann's hefty hair and makeup tab in recent weeks far surpasses what she's spent in the past. A review of her campaign records shows less than $1,000 in similar spending last year, which includes her 2010 congressional reelection bid. (A Bachmann campaign spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment.)

“President O’Bachmann”?

Michele Bachmann might want to re-think her no teleprompters pledge.

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann slipped up Monday and nearly referred to herself as “President O’Bachmann” during an attack on President Barack Obama over his use of teleprompters.

“I know you’re not used to seeing a president without teleprompters, but I’m just here to tell you President O’Bach — President Bachmann will not have teleprompters in the White House.”

Repubs voted for all the debt they blame on Obama

By way of a little reminder:

Bloomberg reports that Boehner and Republicans voted for all the Debt they now Blame on Obama

How dare we call the Oslo terrorist a Christian (as he claims he is)

Bill O’Reilly is pissed at the media again. Apparently, the fact that some media makes mention of Anders Breivik’s Christianity – as Breivik claims to be a Christian – has raised O’Reilly’s ire.

Why, it’s because the media is biased against Christians, O’Reilly whines.

Funny that O’Reilly and the rest of the Barbie and Ken dolls at Fox News had no problem with constantly pointing out that Major Malik Hasan, the guy who shot all those people at Fort Hood, is Muslim. They even claimed the media never mentioned it… They did, but Fox News never lets facts get in the way of a “mainstream media” whine.

"No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder," O’Reilly said. "The man might have called himself a Christian on the net, but he is certainly not of that faith...we can find no evidence, none, that this killer practiced Christianity in any way."

The fact that Breivik committed mass murder “proves” to O’Reilly that Breivik can’t be a Christian. Yet when Fox News hears of mass murder, the first assumption they make is that the killer must be Muslim. That certainly was their first assumption when news of the attacks in Oslo first came out.

But hey, they’re fair and balanced, so don’t dare accuse them of being biased. The fact that they work for Fox News “proves” they can’t be biased!

Keith Olbermann tells the truth about Glenn Beck

Yawn

Would the GOP be so gung ho about spending caps and debt ceilings if this were a Republican president? Of course not. It wouldn't have even made the news. They would have raised the debt limit with a yawn.

Scott Walker’s neat little trick

Wisconsin’s teabagger governor, Scott Walker, signed a bill requiring a photo ID in order to vote. And to get a voter ID, you have to go to the DMV. And now he wants to close a bunch of DMV offices… mostly in Democratic districts. Oh, and he wants to expand the hours of DMV offices in Republican districts. But there’s NO attempt to suppress Democratic votes, no sir!

When Breitbart sheep attack

My twitter has been inundated all day with threats of violence from teabaggers. Seems I tweeted something about Andrew Breitbart, and Mr. Thin Skin retweeted and his sheep went on the attack. You'd think Andy had something better to do with his time than troll for mentions of his name.

But here’s my offer again: Any teabagger who wants to put his money where his mouth is, and wants to see if he can shut me up, bring your biggest gun and take your best shot, because the only way you’ll shut me up is to kill me.

I dare you.

Threats, violence and intimidation. This is what counts as discourse for teabaggers.

Oslo terrorist: teabagger

If the Oslo terrorist were from the US, he’d be a teabagger through and through.

He called President Obama a Marxist, a Muslim, and made fun of his middle name being Hussein.

He was also an ardent believer in theories about “cultural Marxism,” a belief in a vast conspiracy aiming to undermine western society by inculcating multiculturalism and Marxism… a conspiracy theory also peddled by Andrew Breitbart.

The Oslo terrorist is a right wing extremist

The Oslo terrorist who blew up a government building and killed at least 80 children... he's a right wing extremist.

After the shooting the police seized a 32-year-old Norwegian man on the island, according to the police and Justice Minister Knut Storberget. He was later identified as Anders Behring Breivik and characterized by officials as a right-wing extremist, citing previous writings including on his Facebook page.

The acting chief of police, Sveinung Sponheim, said Mr. Breivik, who is not known to have any ties to Islamic extremists, had also been seen in Oslo before the explosions. The police and other authorities declined to say what the suspect’s motivations might have been, but many speculated that the target was Mr. Stoltenberg’s liberal government.

[…] Mr. Breivik had registered a farm-related business in Rena, in eastern Norway, which the authorities said allowed him to order a large quantity of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, an ingredient that can be used to make explosives. Authorities were investigating whether the chemical may have been used in the bombing.

A Facebook page matching his name and the photo given out by the police was set up just a few days ago. It listed his religion as Christian, politics as conservative.

Another one

Looks like Bristol's not the only one... There's ANOTHER Palin pregnancy scandal. Mama Grizzly sure doesn't appear to have instilled good Christian values in her kids.

Two months ago, 22 year-old Track Palin, eldest child of Sarah and Todd, married 21 year-old Britta Hanson in an intimate family gathering. Fast forward to the present day when pictures surfaced on Facebook of Britta surrounded by gifts at her baby shower, looking to be firmly in her third trimester of pregnancy. How good are you guys at math?

Looks like Mama Grizzly, gun-slinging woman that she is, whipped her shotgun out on this one.

In case you just crawled out of a hobbit hole, let me bring you up to speed. Sarah and her 20 year-old daughter Bristol, who became a single mother at the age of 18, are fierce advocates of abstinence. Bristol currently serves as an “abstinence ambassador” for the Candie’s Foundation, and often speaks vehemently about abstinence at various public events. Sarah has spoken against sex education and in favor of abstinence-only education in schools, to summarize the very least. There, all caught up.

So, since the Palin family continues to ignore the elephant in the room, I’ll go ahead and throw it out there: How well is this whole abstinence-only thing workin' for ya?

Spock finally shows emotion

President Obama was mighty pissed at the press conference that just concluded... and it's about time. THAT Obama needs to show up EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Science wins in Texas

Science wins one in Texas!

Pop the champagne corks. The Texas Board of Education has unanimously come down on the side of evolution. In an 8-0 vote, the board today approved scientifically accurate high school biology textbook supplements from established mainstream publishers--and did not approve the creationist-backed supplements from International Databases, LLC.

"This is a huge victory for Texas students and teachers," said Josh Rosenau, NCSE programs and policy director, who testified at the hearings this week. In his testimony, Rosenau urged the board to approve the supplements--recommended by a review panel largely composed of scientists and science educators--without amendments, and to reject International Database's creationist submission. The board did just that, and asked for only minimal changes to the approved supplements.

In hearings yesterday, NCSE members and allies showed up in force. At least four times as many people testified in favor of the supplements as written, versus those opposing the supplements or demanding significant changes.

Better not f#%k with me

Right wingers sure do love gun imagery and insinuating shooting their political opponents. As their Bible says, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

Steve Wynn hates Obama for NO reason

That alleged "registered Democrat" Steve Wynn, who trashed Obama for "socialism" and for being "the greatest wet blanket on business," went on in the very same conference phone call to reveal that his company had the best first quarter in their history, making huge profits.

So it doesn't look like Obama's been bad for his business at all. Obama's economy has been terrific for Steve Wynn.

Cenk Uyger

Cenk Uyger says he left MSNBC because they "wouldn't let him tell the truth." Does that mean Rachel Maddow is lying?

No cave

Reports have started surfacing that Obama has agreed to 3 trillion dollars in cuts with a Republican "promise to do something about tax reform later."

That sounded like bullshit to me -- albeit worrisome bullshit -- but the White House is pushing back against that claim.

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer just tweeted: "Anyone reporting a $3 trillion deal without revenues is incorrect. POTUS believes we need a balanced approach that includes revenues."

The race card

Liar Allen West, who can't make up his mind whether he apologized to Debbie Wasserman-Schultz or not, is playing the race card.

Republican president, Democratic congress?

Public Policy Polling says while there's a chance a Republican could enter the White House in 2013, he or she would have a Democratic majority in the House and Senate.

Racist dies with a message of peace

Mark Stroman, an avowed white supremacist who killed two people and permanently injured another in "retaliation" for the 9-11 attacks, was executed Wednesday night, but he died with a message of peace, due in large part to one of his victims, whose Muslim faith led him to forgive his attacker and beseech the state to spare his life.

"Hate is going on in this world and it has to stop," Stroman said in his final moments. "Hate causes a lifetime of pain."

A key inspiration for Stroman's radically altered point of view was the extraordinary effort made to spare his life by one of his victims: Rais Bhuiyan, a Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh who was shot in the face by Stroman while working as a cashier at a Dallas convenience store. Bhuiyan survived the attack, but was blinded in one eye.

Late last year, after undertaking a pilgrimage to Mecca, Bhuiyan realized that his devout Muslim faith called on him to not only forgive Stroman for the attack, but to attempt to spare him from execution.

After conferring with the families of the other victims, Bhuiyan began an online petition asking Texas authorities to commute Stroman's sentence to life in prison without parole. When that effort went nowhere, he attempted to delay Stroman's execution by arguing that his right as a victim to participate in a reconciliation process with his attacker had been unjustly denied.

In an interview with HuffPost last week, Bhuiyan said that although the he had never met Stroman in person since the attack, the two had exchanged letters and he had recently received a video message from Stroman telling him to continue to spread his message of peace and forgiveness.

"His eyes were full of tears," Bhuiyan said.

Bhuiyan's efforts led to a dramatic legal showdown with the Texas attorney general in state and federal courts this week, but late Wednesday night, a federal judge ruled that Bhuiyan's lawsuit had come too late, removing the final hurdle to the execution.

Stroman was declared dead by Texas prison officials at 8:53 p.m. Wednesday.

Insanity

A federal appeals court has ruled that it’s protected free speech to call for the assassination of President Obama.

Florida is a lovely state…

… that I’m SO glad I don’t live in anymore. Teabagger governor Rick Scott is busy destroying my former home state, and theocratic sheriffs are throwing women into solitary for not believing in his god.

EllenBeth Wachs is the Legal Coordinator for Atheists of Florida, and a staunch Atheist Activist. She is infamous in her community of Polk County, Florida and is quite possibly the most reviled woman in town.

Wachs claims her experience in Polk County has been marked by harassment from the locals: her home and car have been vandalized; she's been called a "loon," "pervert" and "witch." Moreover, she's been advised to "kill herself," and it's been suggested that she should be "boiled in oil."

It seems this all started when, last year, Wachs and the Atheists of Florida "sued the Lakeland City Commission over public prayers, protested invocations before Polk County School Board meetings and challenged Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd's donation of basketball goals from the county jail to a church."

Polk County Residents have not taken too kindly to this type of behavior. Many view Wachs' Activism as a form of bullying. Perhaps Lynne Breidenbach, a Christian Activist, sums up the feelings of the believing residents best: "This is a community of faith, and faith is very important to the people of Polk County, and if they (Wachs and other atheists) would like to live and work here as members of this community, they need to be more accommodating of us."

In a recent turn of events, Wachs has been arrested twice. Wach's office has denounced Sheriff Judd's recent arrests as a form of retaliation and persecuation. Wachs has filed a suit in against him in which she asserts that "the sheriff’s actions, including two arrests and searches of her house, violated her First Amendment rights and her right to due process."

Wachs herself was charged with "unlawfully practicing law, and simulating a sex act in the presence of a child."

In the first incident , Wachs, " A nonpracticing lawyer...signed the requests with the designation Esquire after her name. Sheriff Judd sent a team of officers to arrest her and charged her in March with illegally posing as a lawyer, a felony." But according to her lawyer, Lawrence G. Walters, “This does not violate any bar rules...she is allowed to use esquire.”

In the second incident, "Wachs asked her next door neighbor's son to stop playing basketball because the racket was bothering her. When he continued to play, investigators say Wachs made loud noises of a sexual nature, and deputies were called."

Her second arrest resulted in Wachs spending "six days in solitary confinement in a 6-foot-by-8-foot cell." She claims that she was denied her medication, and that "the arrests and jail experience have exacerbated her multiple sclerosis symptoms." She has recently been undergoing treatment for post traumatic stress disorder related to her experience.

Reporter Brian Ross roughed up by Michele Bachmann's thugs

ABC investigative reporter Brian Ross tried to get some questions answered by Michele Bachmann about the report of her incapacitating migraines, and that apparently didn't sit well with her personal guards.

That’s when things got interesting. Ross dashed after Bachmann, repeatedly asking whether she had ever missed a House vote due to a migraine. She ignored him. Ross pursued her into a parking area behind the stage. Her aides grew alarmed. When Ross made a beeline for the white SUV waiting to carry Bachmann away, two Bachmann men pounced on him, grabbing and pushing him multiple times with what looked to me like unusual force. In fact, I have never seen a reporter treated so roughly at a campaign event, especially not a presidential one. Ross was finally able to break away and lob his question at Bachmann one more time, but she continued to ignore him.

Afterward, I asked Ross — a hard-nosed pro who nevertheless seemed slightly shaken — whether he had ever been treated so roughly. “A few times,” he told me. “Mostly by Mafia people.”

Bachmann makes statement about the migraine story

Bachmann makes a statement about the story.

ABC News - Rep. Michele Bachmann told a crowd in Aiken, S.C., today that her migraine headaches are under control with medication and would not affect her ability to be president, playing down reports that the ailment has prevented her from doing her job.

Her spokeswoman told ABC News earlier today that the migraines have not interfered with her presidential campaign or her ability to serve as a member of Congress. She denied reports that Bachmann's migraines have "incapacitated" her in the past.

"Twelve percent of Americans suffer from migraines, so if you're saying that Americans who suffer from migraines can't do their jobs, then I think you're going to run into problems," said Alice Stewart, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota congresswoman.

But doctors who specialize in treating migraines say that while they can't speak for Bachmann, 55, about 10 percent of migraine sufferers experience headaches that can be incapacitating.

Michele Bachmann's migraines

Michele Bachmann reportedly suffers from horrible migraine headaches that can incapacitate her for days. Perhaps she and her husband should try "praying away the pain."

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann's campaign is pushing back against a story published online by the Daily Caller on Monday night suggesting the conservative congresswoman suffers from headaches that can "incapacitate" her for days.

Dave Dziok, a former communications director for Bachmann, told the Daily Caller that when he informed the congresswoman of his intention to leave his job with her after more than two years, Bachmann experienced medical symptoms that landed her in the hospital "within 24 hours." Dziok said that he and his former boss were on relatively good terms at the time of his departure.

Dziok declined to elaborate further on the situation that unfolded, but suggested that the episode experienced by Bachmann should not be received as a cause for concern.

Citing three individuals who have worked in close proximity to Bachmann, the Daily Caller reports that Dziok's account was not an isolated incident, and that Bachmann suffers from migraines on a regular basis and has been hospitalized multiple times as a result.

Muslim hate crime victim tries to save man who shot him

With one day left before execution, a Muslim hate crime victim tries to save the man who shot him.

 

On September 21, 2001, a 41-year old white supremacist from Dallas walked into a gas station and opened fire on people he believed to be Arabs. Enraged by the 9/11 attacks, the shooter, Mark Anthony Stroman, killed an Indian man who was Hindu and a Pakistani man who was Muslim.

Rais Bhuiyan, a 37-year old Muslim Air Force pilot from Bangladesh, was Stroman’s third victim. Shot in the face at close range with a double-barrel gun, Bhuiyan survived the attack, suffering now from partial blindness. After admitting to the attacks, Stroman is scheduled to be executed tomorrow in Texas.

Bhuiyan, the lone survivor of Stroman’s attack, is now trying to save his life. After the attack, Bhuiyan told the New York Times that he spent his time “simply struggling to survive in this country.” But pulling on his profound capacity for forgiveness, he has spent the last several months petitioning Texas to spare Stroman’s life. When asked why, Bhuiyan said his Islamic faith taught him not to seek vengeance and that what Stroman “did was out of ignorance” about Islam:

Q Mr. Stroman has admitted trying to kill you. Why are you trying to save his life?

A I was raised very well by my parents and teachers. They raised me with good morals and strong faith. They taught me to put yourself in others’ shoes. Even if they hurt you, don’t take revenge. Forgive them. Move on. It will bring something good to you and them. My Islamic faith teaches me this too. He said he did this as an act of war and a lot of Americans wanted to do it but he had the courage to do it — to shoot Muslims. After it happened I was just simply struggling to survive in this country. I decided that forgiveness was not enough. That what he did was out of ignorance. I decided I had to do something to save this person’s life. That killing someone in Dallas is not an answer for what happened on Sept. 11.

Shirley Sherrod’s case against Andrew Breitbart begins

While Rupert and company are getting grilled by Parliament, here in the States Andrew Breitbart may be preparing to face the music. Shirley Sherrod’s case against him begins today.

WASHINGTON -- A year to the day after Shirley Sherrod was ousted from the Agriculture Department, the former government employee is still seeking vindication.

On July 19, 2010, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack ordered Sherrod's resignation from her job as a Georgia rural development official after learning about a video of Sherrod making supposedly racist remarks. On Tuesday, the U.S. District Court will hold the first hearing in Sherrod's defamation case against the conservative blogger who posted the video.

The video on Andrew Breitbart's website turned out to be edited, and when Sherrod's full speech to an NAACP group earlier that year came to light, it became clear that her remarks about an initial reluctance to help a white farmer were not racist but an attempt at telling a story of racial reconciliation. Once that was obvious to everyone, Sherrod received public apologies from the administration – even from President Barack Obama himself – and an offer to come back to the USDA, which she declined.

Sherrod is now suing Breitbart, his employee Larry O'Connor and an unnamed "John Doe" defendant for "defamation, false light and intentional infliction of emotional distress." Sherrod's lawyers say the unnamed defendant is the person who they believe passed the video on to Breitbart.

News International hacked

The online hacking groups claims they’ve broken into the servers of News International.

Online protest group "Anonymous" said Monday night it had obtained a large cache of emails from the servers of News International, the News Corp. subsidiary which oversees global media baron Rupert Murdoch's British newspapers.

Along with the emails, Anonymous said it had unearthed the email logins and passwords for News International executives, including former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks, who was arrested recently in connection to the paper's phone hacking schemes.

A Twitter account connected with the hackers said they planned to release the emails online tomorrow. Also unearthed were phone numbers for News International officials, along with personal information about an online content editor.

News International, which hosts The Sun, responded by taking their mail servers offline. Hackers also took down the News International website, forcing it to redirect to a Twitter account for the hacking group LulzSec.

Why isn’t Fox News covering Bachmann’s radical church?

Fox News went crazy with "all Reverend Wright all the time," so I wonder why they're not covering Michele Bachmann leaving her radical, extremist church after 10 years?

Americablog is mad at Obama for not being a dictator

I love how Americablog is bashing Obama for not nominating Elizabeth Warren to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, making absolutely no mention of the fact that Warren had no chance of being approved in the Senate.

They’re blaming Obama for not being a dictator.

Lawrence O’Donnell, the MVP of political pundits

I love Keith Olbermann, and I'm pleased as punch he's back on TV. But while Lawrence O'Donnell isn't as entertaining or charismatic as Olbermann, you get far more substantive analysis of behind-the-scenes politics from O’Donnell than you do from Olbermann. He knows the game. He knows how it's played. And he's not afraid to share all the dirty little secrets of political gameplaying with his viewers. (Not to mention he wrote the stories behind the some of the best West Wing episodes.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the Politicus blog:

Apparently, Lawrence O’Donnell has also grown tired of the firebagger and far left’s ignorance of both history and politics. The problem is that the far left doesn’t understand political language. If you go back and read exactly what President Obama said at each of his press conferences, he never said that he would cut Medicare or Social Security. He simply said he would listen. He never has said that he would actually cut anything.

I too do not wish to demean the achievement of the PCCC. A couple hundred thousand people is a nice number, but these fine citizens are so misguided that they actually believed they were putting pressure on Obama or making him stand up to the GOP. What they are really doing is providing Obama with political cover. As O’Donnell said, the PCCC has just validated Obama’s claim that he is taking heat from his base.

In reality, Adam Green has just done Obama a gigantic political favor. The president now has evidence for his illusion that he is actually giving something up. Thanks, firebaggers. We owe you one. It is really interesting that when these people say they want nothing changed, they are helping the rich collect Social Security and not pay their fair share for Medicare. Talk about progressive values!!!!

The one thing that the far left and far right both have in common is that they are so attached to their emotion and ideology that they sacrifice facts and history to the altar of their feelings. As we already know the Tea Party and the firebaggers already share a common leader, so it is not surprising that their unity of heart is also a unity of mind.

The teabaggers got us here

Remember this:

The only reason we are where we are in this debt crisis is because of the teabaggers and the GOP's Obama Derangement Syndrome. If not for that, we'd have had this thing worked out months ago.

Obama talks about compromise

This is an interesting video -- President Obama talking to a bipartisan group of college students, and accurately pointing out that the right sees him as "the most liberal president ever!" while the far left see him as Republican-lite, "a tool of the right wing!"

Swallowed up in our own noise

More and more each day, we give ourselves over to irrationality.

The media feeds into our intellectual laziness because that's what makes money. So we get reality shows, paranoia, sensational crime trials, fantasies about lizard people in disguise and all-powerful conspiracies pulling all the strings... All feeding into an all or nothing, black or white mentality, with no in-between.

Political debate on TV consists of, "Is too!" vs "Is not!" and never goes deeper than that. We ridicule the political campaign that can't successfully boil its message down to a bumper sticker.

Presenting "both sides" means we have to get someone on the air who says, "The sun is NOT hot!" to balance out the view that it is.

We pay vast sums of money for art that's nothing more than disaster porn, to see how much CGI we can use to show huge robots blowing up cities, rather than telling a story. Louder is better.

We are always good, pure, wholly innocent. "They" are always the most evil, most sinister beings ever created. There is nothing in between.

We've lost the ability to see any humanity on the other side of the fence, and now we can only see caricatures. A clear view of reality is boring, only the fantastical, the overwrought, holds any interest for us.

Either we've gotten lazy, or we're all just tired, worn out and fatigued by the constant barrage of the loudest noises we can make.

In the final analysis, maybe the whole concept of being sentient is self-defeating, an evolutionary dead-end, destined only to burn itself out in an orgy of violent irrelevancy. We can’t take the strain of our own self-awareness. Maybe the day we decided to come down out of the trees was our first, biggest, most fatal mistake.

But there's no going back now. The cancer has metastasized. The only step left is to eat ourselves.

Bon appétit!

Should have booked Harry Potter in an extra theater

In conservative Orange County CA, Sarah Palin's self-praising "documentary" debuted to an empty theater.

Car mechanics who hate cars

Would you trust your car to an auto mechanic who constantly talks about how much he hates cars? That there should be less cars on the road? That cars suck, they never work, and people who drive them are idiots?

Then why the hell would you trust your government to Republicans?

A question that must be asked

This question must be asked. I’m not being snarky, I’m not trying to be funny. It’s a serious, sincere question and I believe it needs to be asked, and I’d really like to hear an answer:

Does Michele Bachmann’s husband believe he has been cured of being gay?

Mitch McConnell opposes elections

Mitch McConnell has expressed the clearest definition of conservative ideology yet -- He says the Constitution needs to be rewritten because, basically, people keep electing politicians who disagree with him, and we can't have that! He says, "Elections don't work!"

So there you have it: the GOP opposes free elections.

"The time has come for a balanced budget amendment that forces Washington to balance its books. If these debt negotiations have convinced us of anything, it’s that we can’t leave it to politicians in Washington to make the difficult decisions that they need to get our fiscal house in order. The balanced budget amendment will do that for them. Now is the moment. No more games. No more gimmicks. The Constitution must be amended to keep the government in check. We’ve tried persuasion. We’ve tried negotiations. We’re tried elections. Nothing has worked."

House Republicans are FINALLY working on jobs!

Oh wait, no, no they're not...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Having to buy a squiggly fluorescent light bulb is an affront to personal freedom, some lawmakers are saying as the House decides whether to overturn a law setting new energy-efficiency standards for the bulbs.

House Republicans are pushing legislation that would overturn measures in a 2007 energy act requiring efficiency upgrades in the old-fashioned incandescent light bulb, little changed since it was invented by Thomas Edison in 1879.

Republicans say the new standards, signed into law by President George W. Bush, are a symbol of an overreaching federal government and people should have the right to buy the traditional, cheap and reliable incandescent bulbs. The Obama administration and environmentalists say new bulbs on the market will save American households billions of dollars in energy costs.

The legislation, promoted by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, is being considered under a procedure requiring a two-thirds majority to pass. With Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee urging their colleagues to oppose it, that won't be easy to achieve, and the bill faces dim prospects in the Democratic-controlled Senate. A House vote could come Tuesday.

Fox News seems to be completely unaware in their anti-CFL bulb rants that it was George W. Bush that signed the legislation into law, not the hated Obama.

Lawrence O'Donnell breaks down Obama's strategy

I hope O'Donnell is right.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Politics first

Once again, even though he didn’t really intend to, Mitch McConnell drops the mask and illustrates that the GOP doesn’t want to work to solve the big problems we’re facing, they just want Obama gone. Nothing else matters. Their hatred for Obama far outweighs their love of country.

No pea outrage today

When President Obama said at this morning's press conference, "It's not going to get easier, it's going to get harder. So we might as well do it now; pull off the Band-aid, eat our peas," I was sure that within minutes some pea-growing group somewhere was going to attack him for insinuating that eating peas wasn't completely enjoyable. I was ready for some pea-farmer outrage in our outrage-saturated culture.

But I was pleasantly surprised.

A spokesman for the pea council said it wasn't interpreting the remarks in a negative context.

"We take President Obama's comment on the need to 'eat our peas' as a reference to the first lady's push to get all Americans to eat a more healthy diet as part of the Let's Move campaign," Pete Klaiber, the council's director of marketing.

"We know that if tasty and nutritious meals featuring peas are served more frequently in the White House and in the cafeterias of both Houses of Congress, it will contribute to a balanced diet, if not a balanced budget."

Klaiber added, "Eating more lentils couldn’t hurt, either."

Idiot.

Arizona Republican pulls a loaded gun on a reporter and points it at his chest. Yeah, that's hilarious.

Maybe the whole ballgame is over

I have to wonder if President Obama sees the same thing I do: That maybe the Republicans have broken the country so badly it can't be fixed.

And what's worse, with this Randian nihilism that's taken hold of them, they're willing to destroy the country rather than let Obama get one single thing done.

The GOP has taken our system of government and turned it into a weapon to kill us all. I have to wonder why Obama would even want a second term. If it were up to me, I'd cut my losses and get out, go find a nice island somewhere, and take the phone off the hook.

Maher’s best rant ever

It may be Bill Maher’s best “new rule” rant ever, despite the heckling of the vile Ann Coulter. Here it is from last Friday’s show:

McConnell: It’s only about politics

Mitch McConnell, probably still pissed Republicans were unable to win a majority in the Senate last election, has admitted once again that the top priority of Republicans is NOT the economy or even "jobs, jobs, jobs," it's all about getting Obama. Nothing else matters. The stuff that's really important to Americans only gets lip service.

Even with the country on the brink of default, the Senate's highest ranking Republican says his "single most important" goal is to make Barack Obama a one-term president.

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told National Journal's Major Garrett in October.

Fox News' Bret Baier asked McConnell Sunday if that was still his major objective.

"Well, that is true," McConnell replied. "That's my single most important political goal, along with every active Republican in the country."

Ann Coulter

It was hard to stomach Real Time with Bill Maher last night, with his guest Ann Coulter. Such a vicious, hate-filled woman. There is no thought that tumbles out of her head not drowned in rage and hate.

But watching her and hearing her nervous, forced laughter, as if she might be aware of the ridiculous corner of the universe she inhabits but is unable to do anything about it, the thought struck me that at some point she’s going to overdose on sleeping pills or something… She’s a suicide waiting to happen.

You can’t have that cancerous a soul and live much longer.

Oprah is the harbinger of the antichrist!

Rick Perry has a preacher problem too. His preacher is all riled up about people in the media who are "harbingers of the antichrist." And his primary target? Oprah Winfrey.

Governor of Texas and potential GOP 2012 candidate Rick Perry is touting a national prayer event in Texas in early August. Footage of the evangelical preacher he is running the event with, however, shows that he may be spouting some very unpopular ideas: He thinks Oprah is the anti-Christ.

“They will feed the poor, have humanitarian projects, inspire acts of compassion…for all the wrong reasons,” he shouts of these harbingers. And of Oprah: “She is winsome, she is kind, she is utterly deceived.”

Watch the video from the Rachel Maddow Show:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

How Mitt got rich

One thing you should never forget about Mitt Romney: He got rich by firing American workers.

Always remember that whenever he bashes Obama on jobs.

Not just that, but as governor, he had a HORRIBLE record as a job creator:

In April a Reuters story summed up Romney’s economic record, “Later, as Massachusetts governor from January 2003 to January 2007, Romney presided over one of the puniest rates of employment growth among the 50 U.S. states, at a time the nation’s economy was booming. Labor Department figures showed Massachusetts ranked 47th among the states in the rate of jobs growth in those four years — ahead of only Ohio, Michigan and Louisiana.”

A 2010 Market Watch story highlighted just how pitiful Massachusetts’ job growth was under Romney, “The Massachusetts jobs growth over that period, a pitiful 0.9%, badly lagged other high-skill, high-wage, knowledge economy states like New York (2.7%), California (4.7%) and North Carolina (7.6%). The national average: More than 5%. The state was dead last in job creation.

Yet, here we are in 2011 and Mitt Romney is trying to sell himself as a job creator. As a corporate raider Romney may have laid more people off than he actually created jobs. For a top pro like David Axelrod, this was shooting fish in a barrel. Romney can ditch the suits and show up at campaign events in a pickup truck, but at heart he is still country club Mittens.

Bachmann’s bigot preacher

Michele Bachmann has a crazy pastor problem.

If you thought evangelical preaching needed longer hair, tattoos, nu-metal drumming, and a ton of hate speech directed at gays, then Bradlee Dean is your guy.

He's very much Rep. Michele Bachmann's guy. Bachmann, whose district covers Dean's suburban Minnesota headquarters, didn't just endorse Dean, but has prayed for him and his ministry, You Can Run But You Cannot Hide International, in a clip highlighted recently by City Pages.

"Would you keep them from evil?" Bachmann prays. "Would you keep them from pain?" Finally she begs the All Mighty to "pour a triple blessing on this ministry" and expand it ten fold.

Bachmann may come to regret her superfandom for Dean. One news outlet has already suggested that Dean might be her Jeremiah Wright. It's easy to make such a comparison. Dean has amassed quite a video log on YouTube of ultra right wing conspiracy theories about New World Orders and made bigoted remarks directed at the LGBT community, Muslims and President Barack Obama. In Dean's world Hitler was gay and Obama is, of course, equal to Osama bin Laden.

Dean refused to comment about his association with Bachmann. A representative told The Huffington Post: "We're not tying ourselves with her... He's not interested in doing an interview."

The Bachmann campaign also had no comment.

But unlike Obama's connection with Rev. Wright, Bachmannn has raised cash for Dean, appeared on his TV show, and, well, prayed for God to significantly increase the number of schools Dean gets to visit.

I can't wait...

Send it from here.

Bachmann HOPES for high unemployment

Michele Bachmann let the cat out of the bag about the Republican strategy for 2012 -- stand in the way of job growth while blaming Obama for lack of job growth.

She admits she "hopes" high unemployment helps her chances.

Republicans cheer when we get bad news for America. Whose side are they really on? It’s certainly not America’s.

Appearing on CNBC this morning, presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was asked about this morning’s dismal jobs report and whether higher unemployment rates might help her chances of winning in 2012. “Does it strike you that as the unemployment rate goes up, your chances of winning office also go up?” host Carl Quintanilla asked. “Well, that could be. Again, I hope so,” Bachmann replied. Watch it:

While it’s of course acceptable for Bachmann to campaign on wanting to turn the economy around, it’s another matter entirely when she actively pursues policies that make the economy worse — while hoping it will help her campaign.

Bachmann pledges to ban all porn

Michele Bachmann has signed a pledge to ban all pornography if elected. (Somehow I don't think family-values Republicans will want to give up their porn, though.)

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) became the first presidential candidate to sign a pledge created by The Family Leader, a conservative, Iowa-based Christian group that opposes same sex marriage, Sharia law and pornography.

By signing the pledge (PDF), Bachmann vowed to support a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage, as well as agreeing that same sex marriage was akin to polygamy.

The document also implies that homosexuality is a choice. "No peer-reviewed empirical science or rational demonstration has ever definitively proven, nor has even shown an overwhelming probability that homosexual preference or behavior is irresistible as a function of genetic determination or other forms of fatalism," according to the Christian group.

With her signature, Bachmann seemed to be implicitly agreeing that black children were better off during slavery. "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President," the document said.

Bye bye, News of the World

The vile hacking scandal brings down Rupert Murdoch's News Of The World. And with NOTW operating on stories in the US, I don't think it's irrational to suspect they've hacked private phones here, too.

LONDON (Reuters) - In a breathtaking response to a scandal engulfing his media empire, Rupert Murdoch moved on Thursday to close down the News of the World, Britain's biggest selling Sunday newspaper.

As allegations multiplied that its journalists hacked the voicemails of thousands of people, from child murder victims to the families of Britain's war dead, the tabloid had hemorrhaged advertising, alienated millions of readers and posed a growing threat to Murdoch's hopes of buying broadcaster BSkyB.

Yet no one, least of all the 168-year-old paper's 200 staff, was prepared for the drama of a single sentence that will surely go down as one of the most startling turns in the 80-year-old Australian-born press baron's long and controversial career.

"News International today announces that this Sunday, 10 July 2011, will be the last issue of the News of the World," read the preamble to a statement from Murdoch's son James, who chairs the British newspaper arm of News Corp.

White House pushes back on Social Security

The White House is pushing back against stories that Obama is planning to cut Social Security.

Corporate-owned media does not really equal free press

Can you imagine the uproar on Fox News if MSNBC hacked into someone's phone? Why isn't Fox News reporting on this? (Of course, it's because it involves their owner, which illustrates why corporate-owned media does not really equal a truly free press.

If we wouldn’t trust a state-owned media to tell us the truth, why do we think we can trust corporate-owned media?

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron condemned the alleged hacking of a murdered schoolgirl's voicemail by the News of the World, part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, as the scandal closed in on a top News Corp executive and Murdoch protegee.

That the prime minister should find time to comment while on a visit to troops in Afghanistan was a measure of the uproar at home over suggestions that the tabloid might have hampered police and added to the torment of the family of a 13-year-old, abducted in 2002, whose killer was convicted only last month.

Thomas Jefferson

For your July 4th, here's Thomas Jefferson on the subject of religion and Christianity:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

Murdoch paper hacked into murdered girl’s phone

The scandal about Rupert Murdoch’s paper hacking into private phones isn’t getting a lot of play stateside, but it should be. It’s a huge story. And with today’s revelation that News Of The World hacked into a missing, murdered girl’s phone, it’s taken a sickening turn.

LONDON -- A lawyer for the family of a murdered British girl has claimed that The News of The World tabloid hacked into her cell phone after she went missing.

Mark Lewis said Monday that the parents of 13-year-old Milly Dowler, who was abducted and slain in 2002, are pursuing a claim for damages from the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid.

Lewis says the hacking occurred when Dowler was first reported missing and could have jeopardized the police investigation.

The News of The World is at the center of a widening phone hacking scandal that so far mainly involved celebrities and public figures. The paper has admitted wrongdoing and reached cash settlements with some of the victims, including actress Sienna Miller.

Fox News tweets out that Obama is dead

A Fox News Twitter account was apparently hacked, and sent out tweets that President Obama had been assassinated while campaigning in Iowa, giving graphic details of how he had been shot and “bled out.” A little while later, Fox News posted a brief statement that the reports weren’t correct and apologized “for any distress the false Tweets may have created.”

The fake tweets were finally taken down about nine hours after being posted.

Bachmann says she’ll help Obama get a “real job”

At a sparsely-attended teabagger rally, Michele Bachmann snarked that if she's elected she'll create "real jobs" for President Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. Which makes you wonder why she's running for something she doesn't think is a "real job." Can any teabagger reconcile this irrational nonsense?

Where feeding the homeless is a crime

Orlando and the entire central Florida region is extremely religious. It’s very Christian, but it’s that form of Christianity that’s turned Jesus into a gun-loving, warmongering prophet of right wing politics and hatred of anything it deems “not normal.”

And now, the mayor of Orlando is demonstrating the victory of Ayn Rand over the Jesus Christ who reportedly spent much time talking about the poor. The mayor has declared that people who feed the homeless are “terrorists.” Yes, you read that right, feeding homeless people is terrorism, and those who are doing it are being arrested for the crime.

The mayor, locking up people for feeding the homeless, looks pretty damn well-fed himself.

Think of “food terrorism” and what do you see? Diabolical plots to taint items on grocery-store shelves?

If you are Buddy Dyer, the mayor of Orlando, Fla., you might be thinking of a group feeding the homeless and hungry in one of your city parks. That is what Dyer is widely quoted as calling the activists with the Orlando chapter of Food Not Bombs — “food terrorists.” In the past few weeks, no less than 21 people have been arrested in Orlando, the home of Disney World, for handing out free food in a park.

Food Not Bombs is an international, grass-roots organization that fights hunger. As the name implies, it is against war. Its website home page reads: “Food Not Bombs shares free vegan and vegetarian meals with the hungry in more than 1,000 cities around the world to protest war, poverty and the destruction of the environment. With over a billion people going hungry each day how can we spend another dollar on war?”

The Orlando chapter sets up a meal distribution table every Monday morning and Wednesday evening in the city’s Lake Eola Park.

Lately, the Orlando police have been arresting those who serve food there, like Benjamin Markeson. He was perplexed, telling me: “We think that it’s terrorism to arrest people for trying to share food with poor and hungry people in the community to meet a community need. And all we do is we come to the park and we share food with poor and hungry people. I don’t know how that qualifies as terrorism.”