Gingrich supporter Rick Tyler debated Newt’s racist codespeak and race-baiting with Rachel Maddow and Al Sharpton on MSNBC Tuesday night. Among his many idiotic comments, Tyler tried to defend Newt’s claim that black people have no role models.
Funny how they never seem to mention that President Obama is a GREAT role model. Not just for black people, but for all Americans.
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Michael Reagan is joining in the hateful, violent and dehumanizing political rhetoric the right has adopted.
I'm reminded of another historical political figure who compared people he didn't like to insects. In fact, dehumanizing them in terms like this was very important to his long-term goals. Maybe Michael Reagan is dreaming the same dreams.
Former President Ronald Reagan’s oldest son on Monday compared liberals to termites who are “eating away at the foundations” of America.
Appearing a campaign event for Newt Gingrich in Florida, Michael Reagan encouraged attendees not to “go home and forget about it.”
“If you can think of the liberals, think of them as termites eating away at the foundations of your home each and every day,” he advised. “See, that’s what they do every day. See, we can’t afford to let them keep doing that. We can’t just go home and forget about and pick up the torch three days from now or four days from now. We have to be involved each and every day if we’re going to stop all that.”
Atheism is on the rise in the developed world, and is growing faster than religion.
First, as to the distribution of atheism in the world, a clear pattern can be discerned. In sub-Saharan Africa there is almost no atheism (Zuckerman, 2007). Belief in God declines in more developed countries and is concentrated in Europe in countries such as Sweden (64% nonbelievers), Denmark (48%), France (44%) and Germany (42%). In contrast, the incidence of atheism in most sub-Saharan countries is below 1%.
The question of why economically developed countries turn to atheism has been batted around by anthropologists for about eighty years. Anthropologist James Fraser proposed that scientific prediction and control of nature supplants religion as a means of controlling uncertainty in our lives. This hunch is supported by data showing that the more educated countries have higher levels of non belief and there are strong correlations between atheism and intelligence (see my earlier post on this).
Atheists are more likely to be college-educated people who live in cities and they are highly concentrated in the social democracies of Europe. Atheism thus blossoms amid affluence where most people feel economically secure. But why?
It seems that people turn to religion as a salve for the difficulties and uncertainties of their lives. In social democracies, there is less fear and uncertainty about the future because social welfare programs provide a safety net and better health care means that fewer people can expect to die young. People who are less vulnerable to the hostile forces of nature feel more in control of their lives and less in need of religion.
Allen West, whose former chief of staff said, "If ballots don't work, bullets will," and himself said that his followers should make his political opponent "scared to come out of his house," now says that anyone who disagrees with him shouldn't stay in America.
West believes that anyone who disagrees with him should either leave the country, threatened, or shot.
This is what freedom means to right wingers like Allen West: NO political opposition allowed.
The sad thing is that kicking liberal opponents out of the country is actually a “softening” of his rhetoric.
“We need to let President Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and my dear friend the chairman of the Democrat National Committee (Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz), we need to let them know that Florida ain’t on the table,” he said. “Take your message of equality of achievement, take your message of economic dependency, take your message of enslaving the entrepreneurial will and spirit of the American people somewhere else. You can take it to Europe, you can take it to the bottom of the sea, you can take it to the North Pole, but get the hell out of the United States of America.”
So. The USA is a country that arrests reporters for covering protests. If you don’t feel a sense of horror at that, there’s something wrong with you.
Stupid people gravitate to conservative ideologies, according to a new scientific study. Well, duh. Anyone who’s been watching the Republican primaries, the teabaggers, and the audiences they draw, should have already figured that out.
The research finds that children with low intelligence are more likely to hold prejudiced attitudes as adults. These findings point to a vicious cycle, according to lead researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario. Low-intelligence adults tend to gravitate toward socially conservative ideologies, the study found. Those ideologies, in turn, stress hierarchy and resistance to change, attitudes that can contribute to prejudice, Hodson wrote in an email to LiveScience.
Polling data and social and political science research do show that prejudice is more common in those who hold right-wing ideals that those of other political persuasions, Nosek told LiveScience. [7 Thoughts That Are Bad For You]
Jan Brewer has a big problem. She was seen berating the President, jabbing her finger in his face and yelling at him. But she claims the only reason she did that was because Obama was "threatening" to her. Yeah, look at the photo: Obama really looks "threatening." What it REALLY looks like is a photo from another era -- a Plantation owner's wife berating an errant slave.
She's been trying to cover her ass by claiming that Obama was "tense" and prickly with her. The only problem is that her story is NOT holding up, as other eyewitnesses to the encounter weigh in with their version.
Out of the three officials who met President Obama on an airport tarmac near Phoenix earlier this week, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) is now the only one who has characterized the president as anything other than cordial.
In numerous TV and radio interviews since the meeting, Brewer has said the president was “tense to say the least” and took issue with a book she wrote last year. She said Obama walked away from her while she was in mid-sentence and even told one Phoenix television station she felt “a little bit threatened” by the encounter.
But Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, who was standing just feet away from the president and the governor on Wednesday during their now-infamous encounter, told TPM that Obama seemed calm the whole time.
“He wasn’t tense at all,” Stanton said on Friday. “The guy’s a pro.”
That backs up the story from another eyewitness.
Newt Gingrich attacked Ronald Reagan on the House Floor. And it's, like, on the record and stuff.
It would be easier for Newt to recover from a tape of him saying, "Fuck Jesus Christ, that pussy!" than this.
The Republicans want big government to stop doing stuff, like killing bin Laden and Somali pirates.
Teabaggers, religious nuts and hardcore right wingers... Sometimes they reach levels of insanity that make you just have to laugh.
One idiot is convinced evil hordes of liberals and feminists are putting aborted fetuses into our food supply. And he wants it STOPPED!
(Or, most likely, he's proposing a bill as a back-door method of banning stem cell research.)
An Oklahoma lawmaker is convinced that some food coming into his state contains portions of human fetuses.
According to the KGMG talk radio, state Sen. Ralph Shortey (R) has filed a bill that bans foods or products using aborted human fetuses.
“There is a potential that there are companies that are using aborted human babies in their research and development of basically enhancing flavor for artificial flavors,” he said.
Shortey said the decision to file was based on his own research. However, he didn’t provide any examples of food companies engaging in the practice.
Newt Gingrich is threatening to boycott any further debates unless audiences are allowed to applaud and cheer how awesome he is.
In any other era Obama would be the most successful president in history. He's latched onto truly bipartisan ideas and common sense issues that appeal to the vast swath of the great American majority, of both Democratic and Republican persuasions.
But because of the poisonous political culture created by the right, especially since the end of the Fairness Doctrine in broadcasting, the Republicans would rather destroy the country than even agree with their own proposals Obama's adopted.
A judge in Georgia has ordered President Obama to appear in court this week in a lawsuit challenging whether he is a natural-born US citizen qualified to be president.
Fine. I want Mitt Romney to appear in court to prove he is not a robot. I want Newt Gingrich to appear in court to prove he didn't get a blowjob in a parked car from one of Sarah Palin's daughters. After all, I have as much evidence backing those claims as the birthers do that Obama is not a citizen.
Mitt Romney earned 12 times as much as the President, but only paid nearly half the tax rate.
I hereby formally and officially endorse Newt Gingrich for the Republican nomination. And here's why I'm so excited to endorse him:
As he prepares for his third State of the Union address--and, he hopes, not his last--Barack Obama's likelihood of reelection has soared in the last few days to 56.8 percent, the highest it has been since last July. This movement is correlates with Newt Gingrich's increased likelihood of gaining the Republican nomination, now at 29.7 percent, up from about 5 percent. But, this upward trend is also correlates with a simultaneous downward movement of Mitt Romney's likelihood of winning the presidency if he wins the nomination, now at 44.0, down from about 48 percent. We utilize prediction market data for these likelihoods.
Likelihoods from 2012 Presidential Election
Sources: Betfair and Intrade
A Democratic campaign staffer came home with his family one night and found the family cat on the porch. It had been murdered, its head bashed in, and the word "LIBERAL" written on its body.
(WARNING: GRAPHIC AND DISTURBING PHOTO AT THE LINK. BE PREPARED.)
If this is a true story, I do not wish to say publicly what I think should be done to the person or persons who did this, as I would probably get arrested.
I need a very long vacation from humanity now.
Why do the hardcore right wingers and teabaggers love Newt? Because he ratchets up the violent rhetoric and appeals to the sex dream fantasies they have of killing or lynching Obama and his family.
Fox News knows this too, that's why they use the violent imagery they do. They know the faithful get massive erections from it.
"Give a man a fish" vs. "Teach a man to fish."
What, I'm just supposed to teach a man for free? Hell no! If I teach a man to fish, I want him to pay me all his fishes for the rest of his life! Goddamn socialist!
Newt blasted "dictatorial religious bigots" during his speech. Apparently, that's anyone who doesn't believe in the threesome-loving, car blowjob getting, serial adulterer Jesus he believes in.
The emerging new meme from the right is that the poor, powerless religious "minority" is being "persecuted" by liberals and President Obama. Yeah, that poor 80% majority of people in this country, thank the gods Newt's going to protect them. Newt is going to stand up (provided he's not getting a blowjob in his car at the time) against religious bigotry.
By, you know, stopping Muslims from building a mosque.
Mitt Romney says he'll release only one tax return, 2010, on Tuesday, along with his estimated taxes for 2011. Will he change his mind on releasing returns a fourth time before then?
"I was planning on releasing them in April when they have been released by other candidates in the past," Romney said to the show's host Chris Wallace. "But given all the attention that has been focused on tax returns, given the distraction that I think they became in these last couple weeks -- Look, I'm going to make it very clear to you right now, Chris. I will release my tax returns for 2010, which is the last returns that were completed. I will do that on Tuesday this week."
"I will also, release at the same time, an estimate for 2011 tax returns," Romney added. "So you will have two years, people will have a good look at it. We will put it on the website. And you can go through the pages. I think we just made a mistake in holding off as long as we did. It was a distraction. We want to get back to the real issues in the campaign."
For historical comparison, here are the released tax returns for a few presidents.
Watching Mitt-bot speak after losing South Carolina to Newt Gingrich.
Lots of evil laughter. He loves that.
Mitt keeps talking about decline, but every indicator shows improvement. Are Republicans blind, or just blinded by hate of Obama?
GOP: "Fuck Obama for trying to make sure more poor people can have access to health care! THIS MUST BE STOPPED!"
That's right, Mitt. President Obama does not have the experience in firing people and destroying companies like you have. You've certainly got him beat in that department.
OH GOD YES! LET'S COMPARE OBAMA'S RECORD OF JOB CREATION NEXT TO ROMNEY'S! ANY DAY!
Good lord, could right wingers get any more stupid than they are? Mike Huckabee is still out there promoting, with a straight face, something from a very old APRIL FOOL'S JOKE!
Obama Derangement Syndrome makes you stupid, Mike.
Huckabee appeared on The O’Reilly Factor Friday evening to discuss the growing story of Mitt Romney unveiling his tax returns, saying the GOP candidate should do that based solely on one condition.
“Let him make this challenge,” he said. “I’ll release my tax returns when Barack Obama releases his college transcripts and the copy of his admission records to show whether he got any loans as a foreign student.”
Huckabee’s bizarre view of Obama stemmed from a 2009 email, based on an Associated Press April Fools joke, claiming Obama received a scholarship for foreign students while he attended Occidental College.
Has anyone asked Newt Gingrich yet if his current marriage (his third) is an open one?
Technicians in Florida have recovered dashcam video of a white Melbourne police officer beating a black 66-year-old man who suffers from dementia. The officer had apparently tried to disable or damage the recording.
An attorney for beating victim Albert Flowers told Florida Today that his client was prepared to sue the city of Melbourne.
“He should be fired,” attorney Paul Bross said of Officer Derek Middendorf. “Anyone who’s being pulled over by this officer should be terrified.”
“It’s clear (Officer Middendorf) tried to destroy all the video in this case. He thought he had turned off the camera, and that’s why he acted the way he did.”
The video clearly shows Flowers calmly walking towards the police cruiser before Middendorf suddenly delivers a kick to his midsection. Before Flowers is able to get up, the white cop drops to his knees and pounds his fists into the African-American man’s face.
President Obama sings some Al Green at the Apollo Thursday night. Watching the current crop of Republican candidates, he’s got reason to sing.
Romney was signing autographs outside his campaign headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina when a man asked, “What will you do to support the 99 percent, seeing as how you are part of the 1 percent?”
Romney quickly turned and pointed his finger towards the man’s face. “Let me tell you something,” the candidate said angrily. “America is a great nation because we’re a united nation. And those who try to divide the nation, as you are trying to do here and as our president is doing, are hurting this country seriously.”
MSNBC host Martin Bashir suggested that the exchange could be a sign of things to come for the former Massachusetts governor.
“Is it possible that a candidate worth close to a quarter of a billion dollars, who refuses to release his tax returns and who reportedly has millions stashed away in the Cayman Islands, is having trouble connecting with the common man?” Bashir wondered.
Other presidents have spoken at Disney World. But when Obama does it, OMIGOD OMIGOD IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!! GAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!
Republican candidates and congressmen don't care about jobs. They don't even care enough to PRETEND to care.
WASHINGTON -- Nearly 250 of the nation's mayors will be in Washington, D.C., this week to discuss some of America's most pressing issues, including jobs and the economy. These men and women are on the front lines of figuring out how to encourage job creation with limited resources.
"Mayors have an interesting outlook because one thing that is true is that at our level of government, you cannot kick the problem down road," said Scott Smith, the Republican mayor of Mesa, Ariz., and second vice president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, which represents cities with populations exceeding 30,000. "Mayors have to act, we have to deliver services and we have to do it within a budget."
Yet at the 80th Winter Meeting of the Conference of Mayors this week, none of the Republican presidential candidates -- all of whom are going around the country and talking about how they would create jobs -- will be there to share ideas and listen to the mayors' advice. Neither, for that matter, will the House GOP leadership be in attendance.
Release the Kraken! tax returns!
Chris Christie, who recently endorsed Romney and defended him with a misogynistic slapdown of a female voter who dared to ask a question, is now calling on him to release his tax returns now.
WASHINGTON -- Gov. Chris Christie is urging political ally Mitt Romney to immediately release his tax returns rather than waiting until April.
The New Jersey governor told NBC's "Today" show Romney should "put them out sooner than later because it's always better to have full disclosure."
On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Christie expanded on the tax returns issue. "I've released all of my tax returns, and I did it during the campaign," he said. "I think that's the right way to go and that's what I'd tell Gov. Romney to do. He says going to release them in April--I'd hope he does."
Of course, Mitt is now saying he's only going to release his CURRENT tax return, the one his huge legal & accounting staff his working on now – presumably giving them time to "pretty it up" before release. He's steadfastly refusing to release any of his earlier returns.
Email your Representative and Senators.
Tell them you don’t support SOPA/PIPA or the politicians who do.
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Stephen Colbert illustrates by example why the Citizens United ruling is bad for our electoral process. In this Super PAC-funded commercial, he calls Mitt Romney a serial killer. (Actually, he makes a good rhetorical point: If Mitt really believes corporations are people, and Mitt has engaged in destroying corporations to make himself rich, then yes, he is a serial killer.)
The Colbert Report
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President Obama has revealed proposals to sharply reduce the size of the federal government.
Watch the Republicans suddenly pledge their lives to oppose them.
A devastating expose on how Mitt Romney got rich has been released on the web, produced by a former Romney campaign strategist.
It is claimed that Mitt Romney's Bain Capital (a company-destroying, job-killing company) created 10,000 jobs.
But President Obama's bailout of the auto industry (which Republicans say they oppose, and Mitt Romney said we should have let the auto industry go belly up) has created 170,000 jobs since 2009.
You say you're for job creation? There's only one candidate for you, then. And it ain't Richie Rich Romney.
Allen West, teabagger, is once again talking sedition. He says our military should be “very careful about blindly following a commander in chief…” In other words, he’s suggesting that our soldiers not follow the orders of our president.
Why do teabaggers love talking sedition and insurrection? Why do they hate America so much? I just don’t get it, and I don’t get why they’re not being called on it.
Last week, Rep. Allen West (R-FL) said that President Obama didn’t consult with the military when formulating the new global strategy he announced last week. “I have heard some rumination” that Obama ignored military leaders, West said (of course this is not true).
The next day, talking with right-wing radio host Mark Levin, West went a bit further, saying that military commanders should consider whether or not they follow the president’s orders:
LEVIN: Seems to me if I’m one of the highest ranking generals or admiral in the Navy, and this was being done to my force structure – that is, to my men and women in uniform, I might think about stepping out. You know what I mean? Moving on to another career.
WEST: I absolutely understand what you’re saying. And you know I’ve had a lot of people ask me about that because the responsibility of our senior generals has to be to the men and women in uniform. They have to be very careful about blindly following a commander in chief that really does not have the best intent for our military. And I think that when you understand that President Obama said he was going to fundamentally transform the United States of America, you’re seeing him destroy our economy, and now you’re seeing him destroy our military capability.
Mitt Romney will say anything to get elected. He'll even flip flop in the space of a few seconds. First, he denies seeing the Super PAC attack ads on Newt Gingrich. Then, seconds later, he describes them in detail, point by point, these ads he says he's never seen. And all in the space of 14 seconds.
No one says anything.
I wondered just how many lines Pat Buchanan had to cross with his blatant racism before MSNBC realized he needed to go. It appears that he has crossed that final line.
Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan has been suspended indefinitely from MSNBC, according to a statement from that network’s President Phil Griffin. An Associated Press article on CBSNews.com blames reaction to Buchanan’s latest book Suicide of a Superpower for his ouster from the cable network, as well as a campaign by the advocacy group, Color of Change.
The former Nixon aide has long courted controversy. In April of this year he said that President Obama’s path to the White House was the result of “Affirmative Action all the way.” In 2009, he asserted that the U.S. “has been a country built, basically, by white folks.”
MSNBC’s Griffin apparently believes, however, that Buchanan’s newest work has crossed a line. Suicide of a Superpower came out in October and features chapters with titles like “The End of White America” and “The Death of Christian America.”
The AP quotes Griffin as saying, “Because of the content of the book, I didn’t think it should be part of the national dialogue, much less part of the dialogue on MSNBC.”
Irony meters all over America just exploded when Rick Santorum criticized Iran for being a theocracy.
And Mitt Romney just bemoaned the fact that under Obama labor relations boards actually include people who represent the needs of laborers. I guess he wants the only people to have any say at all be corporate CEOs.
And seen on Twitter this morning: "Taking a cue from the Cylons, the GOP will have a debate every 33 minutes until we all die."
Rick Santorum is playing the “uppity” card against Obama. But that’s not the most outrageous thing – you won’t believe WHY Santorum says Obama is uppity. Rick is accusing the President of “hubris” and “snobbery” for wanting all American kids to attend college.
I was so outraged by the president of the United States for standing up and saying every child in America should go to college. Well who are you? Who are you to say that every child in America should [go to college]? I mean, the hubris of this president to think that he knows what's best.
I have seven kids. Maybe they will all go to college. But if one of my kids wants to go and be an auto-mechanic, good for him. That's a good paying job: using your hands, using your mind. This is the kind of snobbery that we see from those who think they know how to run our lives. Rise up America, defend your own freedoms. And overthrow these folks who think they know how to orchestrate every aspect of your lives.
I love how Santorum decries Obama allegedly wanting to “run our lives” and “thinking he knows what’s best” for us, when little Ricky wants government to ban birth control, abortion, pornography and gay sex.
Chrysler is adding 1100 jobs and another shift at their Detroit plant as demand for Jeep surges. Just imagine, that wouldn’t have happened if Romney were president. He opposed the auto bailout.
This news is a stab in the heart of Republicans this morning, who have pinned their electoral hopes on the economy remaining bad so they can blame it on Obama.
Employers added 200,000 jobs last month, and the jobless rate has fallen to 8.5%. Those figures surpassed economists' expectations and it's the lowest unemployment rate since February 2009. This also marks a 6-month stretch in which the economy added 100,000 jobs or more -- and that hasn't happened since April 2006.
Republicans really do want to take us back to the 13th century... 1215 to be exact.
New Hampshire Republicans are set to introduce a bill that would require all bills and laws to find their origins in the Magna Carta.
Yes, you read that right.
"All members of the general court proposing bills and resolutions addressing individual rights or liberties shall include a direct quote from the Magna Carta which sets forth the article from which the individual right or liberty is derived," is the bill's one sentence.
The Magna Carta, while famed as the first major declaration of rights under English monarchy, is a bit outdated in its actual prose. The overarching idea of personal freedoms and liberties served as a benchmark for framers of the American Constitution, but most of the feudal barons' 63 demands of King John of England dealt with the tedium of the day. The document, translated from its original Latin, includes such passages as:
"If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age."
Obviously, President Obama won the Democratic caucus in Iowa last night. But who could have imagined that he'd win the GOP caucus too?
With Mitt Romney squeaking by with a win margin of only 8 votes, the eventual nominee is the weakest party standard-bearer ever. And if the teabaggers have their way and manage to make Santorum the nominee, that's yet another win for Obama.
The Obama camp has to be in high spirits so far in this election. That's not to say it'll be easy, or that Obama supporters can relax, but the election season does indeed look brighter for the president, whether the weak Romney takes the GOP crown or the religious extremist Santorum does.
Pat Robertson says God told him who the next president is going to be, but conveniently he says he's supposed to keep it a secret. That way he can say "I was right!" after the election.
But he sure makes it sound like God doesn't like Obama much. How odd that God's political leanings EXACTLY match Pat's!
Newt Gingrich's pledge to not engage in any negative campaigning has apparently the same value as any of his multiple wedding vows.
DAVENPORT, Iowa -- Onetime Republican presidential frontrunner Newt Gingrich called on campaign rival Mitt Romney Tuesday to "just level with the American people" about his moderate political views.
Asked point-blank in a nationally broadcast network interview if he was calling the former Massachusetts governor "a liar," the former House speaker replied, "Yes."
Stahl then mentioned to Cantor how his “idol” Reagan compromised his principles by raising taxes during his presidency. Cantor tried to deflect the focus by mentioning that Reagan cut taxes, but Stahl reiterated her point.
Upset at the reporter, Cantor’s press secretary yelled off camera, “That’s not true, and I don’t want to let that stand.”
No matter if Cantor, his staff or conservatives at-large want to deny that Reagan raised taxes, what Stahl said is completely true.
After his huge tax cut in 1981 slashed all tax rates to 23 percent, sparking a budget crisis, Reagan realized he’d also have to raise taxes in the years that followed. He raised taxes four times between 1982 to 1984, increasing the payroll tax, broadening the base of Social Security payees, applying the income tax to higher earners and rolling back corporate and individual tax breaks.
Reagan’s historic tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, whose rate went from 70 percent to 28 percent during his administration, ultimately forced the president to raise taxes on more people than any other U.S. president during a time of peace, according to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.
In total, Reagan raised taxes 12 times during his two terms in office.
Rick Santorum: "I don't want to make black people's live better..." To him, welfare = black people.
Speaking to Republicans in Iowa on Monday, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) said his administration would reform welfare to the point that it would offer no welfare at all.
After suggesting that an expansion of Medicare is really just a plot to make voters more “dependent” on Washington, Santorum added: ”I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them other people’s money.”
“I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn their money and provide for themselves and their families,” he added. “The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling.”
One thing he likely overlooked: white Americans account for the largest percentage of welfare payments each month, mostly because they make up the largest sector of the population.
