March 2012
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Explain to me States' Rights
I’ve posted about this before, but with all the recent state-specific news, what with the contraception banning and abortion ultrasounds and such, it keeps nagging at me.
I understand, during the formation of the country, that the idea of a huge, central government was scary to these people who had just fought to leave the biggest empire in the world. When we declared independence from...
February 2012
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Texas Tea
Set aside the reasons for the current spike in oil prices. Yes, US demand is historically low, and yet prices are skyrocketing. Blah blah speculators blah blah Obama’s fault.
So the GOP uses the price at the pump to say ‘drill baby drill, here and now’, suggesting that if we just make our own oil, we don’t have to pay these crazy OPEC prices that are driven up by...
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“‘Oh what about the Virginia rape? The rapes that, the forced rapes of...”
– Classy, Dana Loesch.
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This Whole Birth Control Bullshit
John Holbo has a great article on the religious liberty argument being used by Republicans. The whole thing is worth a read, but here are some excerpts:
Sticking just with the medical case, getting specific: suppose the Muslim owner of a large company that employs Muslims and non-Muslims (or even just Muslims) wants to be exempt from insuring medical stuff except in cases where male...
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Too Optimistic?
I’ve said before, I think the biggest problem with the economy right now is lack of demand. That’s why government stimulus spending, injecting billions into the economy via infrastructure projects (that need to be done, anyway), is the way to go. It’s how we got out of the Depression - WWII was a MASSIVE government stimulus project.
Anyhow, the GOP keeps saying the the reason...
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“They are taking faith and crushing it. Why? Why? When you marginalize faith in...”
– Rick Santorum, at a town hall in Plano, TX.
All those horribly persecuted Christians in America. It hurts so much when people refer to Xmas as “the holidays”!
Another example of my long-held belief: religion does more harm than good.
UPDATE: Here’s Santorum’s Hanukkah...
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Abortion is a legal medical procedure. The fact that a certain percentage of people think it’s wrong should mean nothing to the medical system that can offer it. There are also people who think appendectomies are wrong, or plastic surgery, or taking prescription medication to treat a particular illness. But we don’t worry about them, even if their belief in the “wrongness”...
January 2012
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“Now, I think we need to have a government that respects our religions. I’m a...”
– Newt Gingrich. Considering the man is in the running to lead a country of 300 million different types of people, one wonders which religion is “our” religion.
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Uniquely American
The following is an exchange at a public appearance by then-President George W. Bush on Feb. 4, 2005 in Omaha, NE:
WOMAN: I work three jobs, and I feel like I contribute. BUSH: You work three jobs? WOMAN: Three jobs. Yes. BUSH: Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.
From what I remember, a lot of people at the time pointed to this as a...
Slow Facepalm Days
I haven’t posted in a while. Namely because there’s so much silliness that I don’t know which to focus on first. So I just wave my hands and walk away.
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Newt: Diddlin' is LEADERSHIP!
The following “analysis” by “Doctor” Keith Ablow on Fox “News” is dripping with unbelievable desperation and pretzeling.
To start, the article is called “Newt Gingrich’s three marriages mean he might make a strong president - really”. I have to imagine the “really” was forced on there by the editors, who thought this was pretty...
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Double Tax
Explain to me this: the whole reason the GOP wants to drop the capital gains tax entirely is because it’s investment income and it’s already been taxed. A company makes profit, pays taxes on that (assuming they’re not dodging or sheltering, but that’s another story), and then the shareholders/investors get a return on their investment in the form of a percentage of that...
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Romney's Firing
Lots of people are talking about Romney’s seemingly insensitive line about firing people (emphasis mine):
I want individuals to have their own insurance. That means the insurance company will have an incentive to keep people healthy. It also means if you don’t like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If someone doesn’t give me...
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Another Way to "Bailout"...
I read this little blurb from Atrios the other day:
…there was a way to hand [out] free money which would benefit all of us and the banksters. I’m partial to the “just drop money from helicopters” way of giving out free money, but there were other ways. The “here’s a $20,000 voucher to pay off your mortgage and/or credit card” would have been a...
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“… it seems to me that if you’re broke enough that you’re not paying any...”
– Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone. Read the whole thing here.
December 2011
14 posts
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“Every barrel of oil that comes out of those sands in Canada is a barrel of oil...”
– Rick Perry, in Iowa. Did we invade Canada and take it over? Hard to keep track.
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“There is nothing — nothing — in what we see suggesting that this current...”
– Amen, Paul Krugman. Amen.
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Think Progress: 11 Facts From 2011 →
ithacamafia:
1. The CIA is monitoring up to 5 million tweets per day.
2. Income inequality in America is worse than in Ancient Rome.
3. Twenty-three straight polls find Americans overwhelmingly want to raise taxes to pay down debt.
4. 68% of millionaires support raising taxes on millionaires.
Your daily dose of frustration-inducing factoids, courtesy of ThinkProgress.
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Quantity not quality
I grow exhausted with the health care argument in which someone claims that America has the greatest health care system in the world as a reason to oppose Obamacare. “People in Canada who need major surgery come to the US because our health care is so good.”
The fact that our health care providers - doctors, surgeons, hospitals - are great at stuff like brain surgery and organ...
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Fox Primary
Is it too cynical for me to think that, while it’s obvious Fox has a vested interest in Republican politics, deep down the bigs at Fox News are probably hoping for an Obama victory in 2012? I mean, I get the feeling their ratings are a whole lot higher when they have a Dem president to bitch about day in and day out (just a feeling, and a very small amount of Googling led me to no reliable...
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“The only reason you didn’t become a career politician is because you lost...”
– Newt Gingrich, “blasting” Romney in last night’s debate. How does no one point out that the only reason Gingrich didn’t become a career politician is that he was found guilty of ethics violations by his own party, becoming so unpopular among his own that they tried to unseat...
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Perry Irony
Along with the funny little fact that the jacket Perry wore in his “Strong” ad was very similar to the jacket worn by Heath Ledger’s gay cowboy in Brokeback Mountain, comes this little tidbit from the Harvard Political Review:
Just realized this: the music in Rick Perry’s new anti-gay ad is by Aaron Copland, a famous 20th Century American composer…who was an outspoken gay...
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Small Bizness Benjamins
Republicans continue to rally against taxing the wealthy, claiming that taxing the “job creators” would hurt the economy: it’ll hurt small business owners. NPR decided to look around for some of these millionaire small business owners and see what they said. Turns out it was a difficult search. My two cents:
As I’ve said here time and again, the problem is not...
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Poor Gaydar
As I mentioned before in this post (the video has, strangely, been pulled by Google, but it was the clip of Santorum discussing DADT), here’s a short transcript from ThinkProgress of an interview between Michele Bachmann and Jane Schmidt (my emphasis):
JANE SCHMIDT: Then, why can’t same-sex couples get married?
BACHMANN: They can get married, but they abide by the same law as everyone...
November 2011
14 posts
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Memories
Dubya’s Presidential Library is set to open in 2013, in Dallas, TX (my hometown, poor bastards). According to the Daily News, “…a solitary jagged, twisted reminder of New York City’s worst day will unquestionably become the centerpiece of the 43,000 artifacts available for display at the library and its adjoining institute”. Yes, a piece of the WTC’s steel...
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“I don’t say this lightly, but the consumer is simply an income stream and...”
– Former JPMorgan executive David Mooney.
This is the kind of thing George Bailey would disagree with.
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I Have A Note....
A tweet from the Associated Press’s Katie Hunt today:
Romney suggests possibility of using a voucher-type system for health care for vets to allow them to use private insurance instead.
Paul Ryan proposed replacing Medicare with vouchers.
What is it with vouchers? I’m honestly asking, because I don’t pretend to understand all these health care positions. But it seems to...
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Packing Heat
In Wisconsin, you used to have to take a minimum of four hours of firearms training in order to obtain a concealed-carry permit. That meant that if you wanted to have a Glock under your shirt at all times, the permit required to do so was only obtainable after a training course.
Until yesterday. Wisconsin Republicans got rid of that nuisance of a requirement. HOORAY!
You know, if I want to...
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Not Just Income
Boehner was on ABC this morning, talking about the OWS movement, and had this to say:
The top 1 percent pay 38 percent of the income taxes in America. You know, how much more do you want them to pay? Let’s take all the money the rich have, it won’t even put a dent in our current budget deficit, much less our debt.
Another example of how the GOP reframes the debate to suit their...
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But It's Getting Cooler!!
Sure it is, dummy.
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WatchMaddow did a great examination of Cain’s non-campaign campaign last night. Here it is.
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Making it Rain
I’m not the first one to say this, but I’m just adding my voice:
I don’t think Cain is really running for president. I think he’s pulling a Palin*, trying to up his visibility enough that when he doesn’t get the nomination, he can sell books, get paid to speak, and probably join Fox News as a paid contributor.
The scary thing that I don’t even think Cain...
October 2011
15 posts
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