The Senate health care reform achieved the first of several critical milestones on the road to passage tonight: The bill achieved the 60 votes needed to move forward to debate:
At its core, the legislation would create insurance exchanges beginning in 2014 where individuals, most of them lower income [...]
Pap Attack: Teabaggers and Boomers don’t matter.
Headzup: Glenn Beck and the Nutters:
Liz on a Dick Cheney run for 2012.
Jon does VP Joe Biden (via Leftinabotie).
Once again…Bill-O the Clown doubles up as Worst Person in the World!
Teabaggers get punk’d (via HorsesAss).
Papantonio and [...]
The term seems apt for the apparent majority of Republicans who believe that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Barack Obama.
Seriously. The original poll results are here:
Q5 Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election last year, or do you think that ACORN stole [...]
These FAUX News “errors”, like a couple of recent episodes of the wrong video from an old Palin event suggesting a larger crowd at a recent event, happen with such frequency now, it is becoming increasingly difficult to believe they are all accidents.
Previously, FAUX News went through a [...]
There was something distantly resembling near-courage exhibited by Senate Democrats today when they “bullied” their way to a successful cloture vote on the nomination of US District Judge David Hamilton to the Seventh US Circuit Court of Appeals—Obama’s very first judicial nomination made way back in March of this [...]
The Wingnutosphere is all atwitter over Obama bowing to Japanese Emperor Akihito.
Of course Obama bowed. What the right wing wackjobs have failed to realize is that, all along, Obama was never a secret Muslim. They’ve never uncovered the truth…until now.
Obama is a secret Buddhist.
And he [...]
Jon: Men who stare at votes (via OneGoodMove).
Headzup: Fred Phelps & Westboro Baptist Church protest Obama’s kids and military funerals:
Maddow: Recap of CBS Expose’ On Rep. Buyer.
Palin Around with Crazy:
Young Turks: Sarah Palin’s idiotic coin conspiracy. Even FAUX News is fact-checking Sarah Palin [...]Steve Benen at Political Animal gets right to the heart of inanity and hypocrisy of Republicans over abortion and health insurance (my emphasis):
As we talked about this morning, all the RNC has done here is opt out of abortion coverage for RNC employees. [...]
But more important is the [...]
Is it just me, or does anyone else think that Texas Gov. Rick Perry has gone completely ape-shit crazy?
Speaking at a luncheon for a Midland County Republican Women’s group, Perry said that “this is an administration hell-bent toward taking American towards a socialist country. And we all don’t [...]
Dear Senators,
There is an important lesson to be learned from the lower house of your august body:
Democrats who thought a vote against the sweeping health care package would inoculate them from political attack are facing serious blowback from angry constituents and interest groups on the left—fierce opposition that [...]
Today’s Tomorrow about last year.
[...]Even though the good citizens of Washington state voted last week to approve a law granting equal civil rights to same-sex couples, I was disappointed by the rather anemic margin of 52.6% to 47.44 %. On Friday, my friend Steve and I were looking up the late afternoon election [...]
Cool. President Barack Obama achieved a major victory today when the House passed a health care reform bill by 220 to 215.
As an added bonus, it is a bipartisan bill—one Republican voted in favor.
I wonder if Republican have any creeping sense of foreboding that their obstructionism will come [...]
Young Turks: Boehner’s big boner.
Pap: The showdown in Chicago.
The Week in Health Care and Scare:
Headzup: The Republican Health Care plan. Young Turks: Rep. Grayson reads number dead with no health insurance in GOP districts. Andy Cobb is The Spokes-jerk: Shuster: Rep. Tancredo storms off set after [...]Via Politico:
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday that the day’s tea party rally outside the Capitol is a sign that a “rebellion” is occurring in the United States.
Boehner, who spoke at the rally, made the comment during an online town hall being put on by the Republican [...]
Granted, the Teabaggers make a few minutes of video clipped ranting seem like an eternity, but I still don’t come-up with 365 days since Barack Obama moved into the presidency. So what’s with the anniversary headlining party in the MSM?:
Obama’s One-Year Anniversary [Time]
Obama: One Year Later, What’s [...]
On the one hand, there is the view that a Teabagger victory in NY-23 could have encouraged Teabbagers to launch more suicidal attacks on moderate Republicans in 2010. That the Democrat won the election may discourage this angle somewhat. But this assumes that Teabaggers think rationally.
And it assumes the Teabaggers [...]
It is worth breaking the summary down into “national” to me and “local” to me. Local means interesting stuff in Washington state.
On the national front, things didn’t quite go like I expected, but not too far off. In Virginia, it has been clear for some time that McDonald (R) [...]
A new KING-5/Survey USA poll in the Seattle Mayoral Race was released today. This race has Mike McGinn facing off against Joe Mallahan. Just last week, a Washington Poll poll had Mallahan leading McGinn by 44% to 36% with 20% undecided. The results suggested that Mallahan had an [...]
The non-partisan King County executive race has proud Democrat Dow Constantine squaring off against bashful Republican non-partisan Susan Hutchison. Last week’s Washington Poll gave Constantine a 47% to 34% lead over Hutchison.
A new King-5/Survey USA poll released today essentially confirms last week’s findings. The poll of 614 likely [...]
The USA Today article seems to be trying for outrage in stating:
Nearly half of the $55.6 billion that has gone to airports in the 28-year-old Airport Improvement Program has gone to airports used exclusively or mostly by private planes. That includes $1.5 billion since 2001 for specific projects, known [...]
A few days ago, I reported on two new polls in Washington state that both suggested voters would vote down Initiative 1033, a measure that would shrink state, county and local revenues over time down to a size where you could “drown it in a bathtub” (sensu Grover [...]
My first reaction upon hearing the news that Republican Assemblywoman Dierdre Scozzafava dropped out of the race for NY-23’s special election was one of annoyance—Democrat Bill Owens would now almost certainly lose. But I thought about it while raking leaves this afternoon and changed my mind. I now think [...]
Maddow: The F-22 debacle.
Young Turks: Pat Robertson want to kill with extreme prejudice.
Obama comments on Matthew Shepard/James Bryd Jr. Hate Crimes Act.
The Week in Health Care:
Billions for Wealthcare: Public Option Annie. Maddow: On the Public Option. Jon: It’s alive (via The Political Carnival). Olbermann goes after [...]Townhall wingnut media critic Greg Hengler comes off as a little indignant with the headline “MSNBC Airs Uncensored Breast Self-Exam”. It was on a mid-day medical show called, Dr. Nancy.
Oh! The humanity!
Indignation didn’t, however, prevent Mr. Hengler from embedding the offending video.
An awful lot of Townhall [...]
I have no idea what the Reverend Pat Robertson is getting at when he says:
The noose has tightened around the necks of Christians to keep them from speaking out on certain moral issues. And it all was embodied in something called the Hate crimes bill that President Obama [...]
Via The Washington Independent:
Central District of California Judge David O. Carter has dismissed Barnett et al v. Obama et al, Orly Taitz’s most successful lawsuit — that is, the one that got the furthest through the legal system — demanding proof of the president’s citizenship. The entire decision [...]
Washington state Initiative 1033 is anti-tax initiative huckster Tim Eyman’s latest attempt to starve state, county and local governments of the revenue needed to be effective. If approved by voters next week, the initiative would enact laws that would re-index government revenue caps to the worst economic years and prevent [...]
President Barack Obama has honored the war dead in a way that George W. Bush could never bring himself to do: He attend the arrival of military and governmental personal killed in Afghanistan:
The trip was a symbolic one for Mr. Obama – intended [...]
There were some polls released today that should be of interest for Washington state folks.
The Washington Poll released some key results for the upcoming ongoing election. Initiative 1033 and Referendum 71 were polled statewide on a sample of 724 individuals. They also polled the King County Executive race [...]
Susan Hutchison is running against Dow Constantine for King County Executive here in Washington state. One of the odd things about this race is that it is called a “non-partisan” race. That’s simply nonsense.
The Democratic candidate, Dow Constantine, is a self-avowed progressive.
Susan Hutchison? She is a closet Republican. [...]
The latest anti-government initiative, I-1033, from professional initiative huckster Tim Eyman would, if passed, cause severe damage to the state of Washington and our way of life:
Vote “NO” on I-1033. Seriously…this is very important.
[...]How odd is that. Something over a month ago, Iran announced that they were 1.5 years away from completing a uranium enrichment plant near Qom that they claimed was for producing reactor-grade nuclear fuel. Now, seemingly instantaneously, IAEA has been granted access to the facility.
But notice the inaccurate [...]
Olbermann: Going Rogue versus Going Rouge.
Maddow: Federal hate crimes bill passes! (Via Crooks and Liars.)
Countdown: Richard Lewis (via Crooks and Liars).
Newsy: Feds will limit prosecution for medical pot.
Olbermann goes after Dick Cheney.
Headzup: Glenn Beck on net neutrality.
Wingding Frank Gaffney gets demolished [...]
Dick Cheney closed his big “foreign policy” speech before an audience of Wingnuts yesterday saying:
We cannot protect this country by putting politics over security, and turning the guns on our own guys.
He’s right. But he obviously learned both lessons the hard way!
Leaving aside my juvenile attack on Cheney [...]
What I reject is when some people sit on the sidelines and root for failure on health care, or they root for failure on reforming our energy system, or they root for failure on getting the Olympics. I mean, who’s against the Olympics? What’s up with that? You [...]
Jack Cafferty asks “At what point should President Obama stop blaming the Bush administration?”:
When it comes to Afghanistan, the Obama White House keeps pointing fingers at President Bush. Although the war is in its ninth year – they make it sound like things are back to square one.
What an [...]
My first thought upon reading the headline John Ensign: I’ll stump for Harry Reid’s opponent was, “Ensign really ought to keep his stump to himself.”
I have a hunch the sentiment is bipartisan….
[...]The headline from the new WaPo–ABC poll is that the public option is gaining support. There are a few other interesting findings—here are the highlights:
A large fraction of Americans still approve of Pres. Barack Obama. He is at 57% approval and 40% disapproval this month, up from 54% [...]Notice the primary findings of an ethnographic study of “conservative Republicans” conducted by Democracy Corps:
First and foremost, these conservative Republican voters believe Obama is deliberately and ruthlessly advancing a ‘secret agenda’ to bankrupt our country and dramatically expand government control over all aspects of our daily lives.
The two fears [...]
Young Turks: Crazy woman Orly Taitz sanctioned for $20,000.
Nobel Peace Prize:
Newsy: A Nobel for Obama Current TV: Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Young Turks: Hannity’s odd definition of peace. Headzup: Obama wins! Sunday loon watch: Obama’s prize shame (via DailyKos). Mark Fiore: Preemptive prizes. Pap Attack: [...]Let me say a few words about my friend and valued colleague Michael Grimes.
Mike and I met as postdoctoral fellows at Penn State in the late 1990s. Shortly thereafter, we found ourselves in a friendly debate about the underlying mechanisms of postpartum amenorrhea. Yet, we found a common interest [...]
It’s good that Rush Limbaugh is out of the partnership offer, if for no other reason that, if successful, he’d hold the designation “minority owner.”
[...]The Senate version of health care reform is on its way to the Senate floor.
Olympia Snow did good today. The rest of the Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee reaffirmed their membership in the Party of Death.
Update: Let’s call it, “One small step for health care, one giant [...]
Via Salon:
When the patron saint of the Tea Parties lets his freak flag fly, seemingly normal right-wing functionaries have been known to line up and salute. Republicans parrot Beck’s crackpot notions and pet issues routinely — sometimes running with his manias the morning after he first airs them.
The [...]
An airport called Souther Field has been renamed to Jimmy Carter Regional Airport:
An airport about 20 miles from Jimmy Carter’s hometown of Plains has been named after the 39th president despite some people opposing the change.
Souther Field Airport in Americus was renamed Jimmy Carter Regional Airport on Sunday.
The [...]
My airplane has been in the shop for a couple of weeks getting a minor overhaul of one cylinder (among other things). It was ready to fly today. After a “top end” overhaul, the engine manufacturer specifies a break-in program that involves several hours of continuous flying while sequencing through [...]
Young Turks: Sen. Franken’s first amendment.
Gibbs shows photo of Obama blocking Reggie Love’s shot (via TalkingPointsMemo).
Newsy: Another “Czar” targeted by Wingdings.
Daily Show: The recession, everywhere (via OneGoodMove).
Secretary Clinton intervenes in the feud between Conan and Mayor Booker (via TalkingPointsMemo).
Not so much anymore:
Meleanie Hain, the pistol-carrying Lebanon [, PA] mom who received national attention for taking a loaded gun to her daughter’s soccer game, was shot to death Wednesday night with her husband in an apparent murder-suicide, police said.
Hain, 31, and her husband, Scott, 33, were pronounced [...]
What is the most obvious implication of this?
US President Barack Obama and his wife have decorated their private rooms and the Oval Office with a range of modern and abstract art, the White House says.
Clearly, Glenn Beck will go absolutely bonkers showing how modern and abstract art play important [...]
For the last decade, Washington state has been cursed with a small group of people, led by a Mr. Tim Eyman, that has exploited the state’s liberal initiative constitutional provisions in order to push a strong anti-government agenda.
For example, when I moved to Washington state in the summer of [...]
Here in Washington state, the legislature recently passed an “all but marriage” law that grants equal states rights to homosexual couples and older heterosexual couples as found in the state laws for married couples. The religious fundamentalists responded by collecting signatures to qualify a referendum for the ballot.
So this [...]
So, I am sitting here reading away blissfully on my snazzy Samsung NC10 netbook (with a new Crucial 2 Gig memory upgrade), and sipping a delicious mug of insta-coffee from my Philips Senseo coffee maker, and I come across this article:
The FTC will require that writers on the Web [...]
The Daily Beast has produced a list of America’s smartest cities. They weighted a handful of smarts-oriented indicators for each metropolitan area of over a million people:
Per capita Bachelor’s degrees — 35% Per capita graduate degrees — 15% Per capita nonfiction book sales — 25% Number of institutions of higher education — [...]The read-o-the-day comes from Juan Cole, in a post titled Top Wrong Beliefs About Iran. Among other myths, Cole dispels on the notion that Iran has threatened to attack Israel and is developing an atomic bomb.
Here is a small sample of the debunked myths:
Belief: Iran is aggressive and [...]
Wingnut Manufactured Fears About Education:
FAUX News anchor mistakenly believes that you can’t say Pledge of Allegiance in school anymore. Ann Coulter’s Pussy moment.Young Turks: Crazy conservatives at “Take Back America” conference.
Headzup: Asking Obama about sound cannons at the G-20 summit.
No Chicago Olympics:
Obama with a few words. Maddow: [...]A little over a year ago, I took to task one Bradley Marshall, Seattle’s “lawyer to the stars,” for threatening a liberal blogger (and my friend) Michael Hood of Blatherwatch.
Mr. Marshall’s letter to Michael was riddled with errors, perhaps reflecting some rust accumulation during an 18 month [...]
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has “issues” with Obama’s overseas trip—a trip that might help bring the Olympics to the U.S.:
…Boehner torched President Barack Obama Wednesday for his European trip to pitch the Chicago Olympics bid, criticizing the president for “going to go off to Copenhagen when we’ve [...]
When I learned that Palin’s book would be titled “Going Rogue,” the first thing that came to mind was satirically renaming it “Going Rouge.” But then I thought the better of engaging in a childish, sexist attack. Me??? Never!
Anyway, it’s not clear to me that anyone would even understand….
Okay…so maybe the plan isn’t exactly, “Republicans want you to die quickly”. Perhaps we could leave it at: “Republicans want you to go bankrupt quickly.”
Or maybe Republicans haven’t thought much about the underlying problems of millions of Americans who can’t afford insurance. And maybe they are ignoring the dreadful [...]
I can’t believe I am about to say this.
Former Senator Dr. Bill Frist (R-TN) has written a remarkably sensible piece on health care reform:
The argument for an individual mandate centers on three principles.
First, it would achieve fairness. No family in America should fear bankruptcy because of an accident, [...]
Public Policy Polling examined their most recent nation-wide poll to address whether or not Obama has been getting hammered by the health care reform debate. The result:
The number of Obama voters who’ve abandoned him because of health care and the number of McCain voters who’ve joined him because of [...]
President Obama is sure sounding like former President George W. Bush these days. He needs to chill on the Qom nuclear processing facility that Iran recently declared. The hardline (and rather misleading) rhetoric has made this non-event the talk of the nation over the last several days. This is all [...]
Today is “Glenn Beck Day” in Mt. Vernon, Washington. In celebration of this “special” occasion, I’ve collected my favorite Glenn Beck-themed media clips.
Glenn Beck becomes the “Dumbest man on the Planet” by misunderstanding the Constitution.
The Phone Call:
The Conversation: Get Off My Phone! InfoMania: Blood shooting [...]The new Senator from Massachusetts.
Olbermann: Palin rails against the U.S. on foreign soil.
Even Hugo Chavez thinks FAUX News is a joke.
Maddow: A day of good and bad at the U.N..
Defining “Glenn Beck Crazy”:
Young Turks: Glenn Beck’s surprising presidential choices. Stranahan: Glenn Beck makes some connections. Headzup: [...]During the 2008 election season, I reported on just about every head-to-head general election poll produced. Throughout the year I tried to remain objective and just stick to the number. I resisted all temptation to offer critique of legitimate polls and the pollsters that conducted them.
There was one big [...]
Sen. Al Franken gets right to the core of an issue that has been driving me nuts since the illegal wiretapping stuff first came out:
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) decided to read the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution to David Kris, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s National Security [...]
The Hammer tries to dance away his problems and make everything groovy:
(For a more Democratic take on this song, here is a version by the Hardlyworthit Players.)
[...]Ok…this is getting weird. Here is the video of Glenn Beck being interviewed by Katie Couric; and, the transcript:
KC: Let me do a quick name game thing: Hillary Clinton.
GB: Ah…I Can’t believe I’m saying this. I think I would have much preferred her as president and may have voted [...]
The Bush smear machine is alive and well, and remaining ever vigilant against the “traitors” from the previous administration.
Recall how they smeared former “terrorism czar” Richard Clarke, former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, and former Bush Spokesman Scott McClellan upon the respective releases of their tell-all books. Now former junior [...]
The Wingnuts have been trying to frame ACORN for awhile now. Is this purely politically motivated, or is it a manifestation of Wingnut racism?
My suspicion is that it is mostly politically motivated. But, what else can you call it when there’s a concerted effort to crush an organization [...]
Czar madness.
White House Tell-all:
Young Turks: What did George Bush say about Palin, Obama, and Hillary? James Carville smacks down tell-all author.Jon does Bill Clinton (via OneGoodMove).
Sick and twisted Pastor Steven L. Anderson wants gays to die of brain cancer.
Bill Maher: Real Time opening [...]
Oh brother…I guess this was inevitable. Unhappy about being called racists by Nobel Peace Prize awardee President Jimmy Carter, the angry fringes of the Wingnuts have respond, in turn, by claiming Carter is racist.
Their evidence? Last year he referred to Obama as “this black boy.”
Well…it’s true. [...]
In, yet, another blow to the Birfer movement, U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land tossed out a case involving an Army captain refusing orders from an “illegitimate” Commander in Chief:
Land also put attorney Orly Taitz, who represents Capt. Connie Rhodes and is a leader in the national “birther” [...]
The blogosphere erupted this past weekend with dueling estimates of the number of teabaggers at the 9/12 rally in D.C. And almost as suddenly, the controversy was over. I though that was odd. At the same time, I decided to use what evidence was available to come to independent conclusions. [...]
Nope. Not even close.
From a new Gallup poll:
Americans come down strongly in opposition to South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” outburst during President Obama’s address to Congress on healthcare last Wednesday, though majorities on both sides of the issue do not seem passionate in their views. Sixty-eight percent [...]
I wonder how many of those anti-government, tea-bagging bigots will be gladly accepting the “government-run” flu vaccines this year?
…Shouldn’t we require proof of not employing illegal alien domestic help and other undocumented workers as a prerequisite to receiving a government-run flu vaccine?
Fair is fair. Why should my taxes [...]
Andrew Sullivan points out “why I am not a tea-partier”. After displaying two fairly offensive signs being hoisted by teabaggers, Sullivan suggests:
So what we have here is unhinged hysteria. I certainly think pent-up anger at Bush (which partisanship and religious devotion meant they could never vent) is a part [...]
Pap: Swine flu conspiracy!
Remembering 11 September 2001
Obama speaks on 9/11 A White House moment of silence. Joe Biden at ground zero. September 11th brothers. ONN: Remembering 9/11 by not touching themselves. Maddow: Exploitation of 9/11 Olbermann: Palin falsely accuses Obama of demonizing 9/11 victims. Maddow goes after Glenn [...]How did Obama do in the polls just one day after his address before a joint session of Congress?
From CBS News:
The day after Mr. Obama’s congressional address, CBS re-interviewed 678 adults first questioned in a poll conducted August 27-31.
Last week, just 40 percent of these adults approved of [...]
The number of people without health insurance in the U.S. is suddenly of great interest to political junkies. The 46 million estimate for the number uninsured in 2007 has been kicked around, disputed, and debated in the comment threads of political blogs. From my reading, the participants in these discussions [...]
Just this morning, I was reading an Associated Press article that began:
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — There may be a lesson plan for grown-ups in the contrived controversy about Barack Obama’s back-to-school pep talk to students. It would be to do your homework, just as the president told the pupils.
That [...]
You probably heard it…a pause while Obama was pointing out that the proposed legislation would not cover illegal immigrants. Someone yelled out “you lie!”
Here is the video:
Yikes!!! That was Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) calling the President a liar in the middle of his Joint Address before Congress.
I [...]
A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor had a minor stroke and is in the hospital. Apparently he is doing well and will be released soon.
What kind of sadistic plot is it where a person suffering cardivascular problems ends up at a Mayo Clinic? Where do they take him…to [...]
This morning on NPR’s Morning Edition, Renee Montagne interviewed former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. After Gingrich gives a can’t do it, slow down, do it in steps “advice,” the topic turns to “fabricated claim that proposals would create death panels.”
Here is the exchange (at 2:23):
Gingrich: Look, [...]
The best talk radio I heard all day was produced by my local NPR affiliate station. KUOW’s, Ross Reynolds interviewed WaPo correspondent T.R. Reid on his new book The Healing of America (starting at 14:06).
This lucid conversation frames our healthcare issues from an international perspective. This is [...]
Kos Diarist, blue meme, makes an interesting suggesting:
But what if President Obama could stand before the country and the Joint Session on Wednesday and endorse a plan with impeccable Republican bona fides that promised universal coverage, a public plan, and subsidies for low-income participants?
Ladies and gentlemen, may I [...]
Jack Turner hits many nails on the head with this essay called, “When Will This White House Learn You Cannot Negotiate With Terrorists?” I’ll highlight one point:
Too often, this White House has sent the signal that it seeks common ground and conciliation with parties interested in its total [...]
Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) is freaking crazy.
Listen, beginning at 1:45, as she suggests that Democrats are trying to prevent a Republican woman from becoming president before a Democratic woman. She mentions Sarah Palin as a target. And she offers herself as another.
I think the two should pair up [...]
