The FBI is obviously quite pleased with itself over its arrest of a 19-year-old Somali-American, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, who -- with months of encouragement, support and money from the FBI's own undercover agents -- allegedly attempted to detonate a bomb at a crowded Christmas event in Portland, Oregon.This is Greenwald doing what he does best-insinuating that the evil government creates terrorist where none exist. But he goes way beyond insinuation:
But it may also just as easily be the case that the FBI -- as they've done many times in the past -- found some very young, impressionable, disaffected, hapless, aimless, inept loner; created a plot it then persuaded/manipulated/entrapped him to join, essentially turning him into a Terrorist; and then patted itself on the back once it arrested him for having thwarted a "Terrorist plot" which, from start to finish, was entirely the FBI's own concoction. Having stopped a plot which it itself manufactured, the FBI then publicly touts -- and an uncritical media amplifies -- its "success" to the world, thus proving both that domestic Terrorism from Muslims is a serious threat and the Government's vast surveillance powers -- current and future new ones -- are necessary.Those evil bastards!
We hear the same exact thing over and over and over from accused Terrorists -- that they are attempting to carry about plots in retaliation for past and ongoing American violence against Muslim civilians and to deter such future acts. Here we find one of the great mysteries in American political culture: that the U.S. Government dispatches its military all over the world -- invading, occupying, and bombing multiple Muslim countries -- torturing them, imprisoning them without charges, shooting them up at checkpoints, sending remote-controlled drones to explode their homes, imposing sanctions that starve hundreds of thousands of children to death -- and Americans are then baffled when some Muslims -- an amazingly small percentage -- harbor anger and vengeance at them and want to return the violence. And here we also find the greatest myth in American political discourse: that engaging in all of that military aggression somehow constitutes Staying Safe and combating Terrorism -- rather than doing more than any single other cause to provoke, sustain and fuel Terrorism.So there you have it. We are the terrorists.
One of my theories is that the best chance to defeat Obama in 2012 is to make the election about Obama, not about the Republican candidate. The Obama record is so abysmal, and the Obama aura so shattered, that 2012 could be a repeat of 2010.I want 2012 to be about issues and solutions and I want my next president to be Obama's polar opposite.
Each of the current top 4 Republican contenders (Palin, Romney, Newt, Huckabee) has issues of public perception which would make the race, to varying degrees, about the Republican.
Her face and voice are everywhere. She engages every critic. I'm getting tired of her the way a consumer gets tired of an over-advertised product or a commercial that plays four times an hour. She's exacerbating my counter-will. Enough already. Remember what familiarity breeds.Anymore when I think of Sarah Palin I think of the line from P.S. Your Cat is Dead, “…do you have any unuttered thoughts at all?” And I like Palin.
The problem with Obama’s incompetence is not that Obama has suddenly, magically become incompetent but that he’s been incompetent all along. And the problem for respectable conservatives (i.e. those who set themselves above the unwashed blogosphere masses) is that to admit this may lead to uncomfortable questions about their smart kids’ club.Obama suffers from a depressing lack of competence. He depresses Liberals who are left to wonder whatever happened to The One-the man/god who was going to heal the earth and unite her people. He was going to create a Utopia and bring us peace. Those of us on the Right are depressed (and more than a bit angry) that it has taken the Left so long to figure out what we knew all along-that Obama is just talk and he is really not all that good at that.
Murkowski: "It's time they met one Republican woman who won't quit on Alaska"Tacky, tacky, tacky.
Lisa Murkowski is now re-elected to office to be the thorn on our side in Washington.
Instead of being a gracious winner, she is giving us a preview of things to come from this "independent."
She trashed Sarah Palin, the tea party, and the establishment GOP, because she claims to be an "outsider." You have to be kidding me.
SEN. JAY ROCKEFELLER (D-WV): "There's a little bug inside of me which wants to get the FCC to say to FOX and to MSNBC: 'Out. Off. End. Goodbye.' It would be a big favor to political discourse; our ability to do our work here in Congress, and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and more importantly, in their future."Somebody should tell the honorable Sen. Rockefeller that the government has done enough to the American people. Oh, wait. We told him on November 4th. Perhaps he has a short attention span.
Via Bare Naked Islam and Jawa Report:They may find out the hard way that there are worse things than having your tires slashed at a protest.
PICKET SCHEDULE
Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, MI November 18, 2010 8:00 AM – 8:30 AM
Fred Phelps and the WBC will picket the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, MI, the largest mosque in North America, to remind the idolatrous, doomed Muslims that Mohammed was a pedophile and a false prophet. Like most other false religious systems of modern doomed america, Islam teaches rebellion against the Lord Jesus Christ. Muslims claim Christ was merely a prophet and that He did not die and live again. They claim His blood is not sufficient or even necessary for salvation. They shall learn the truth when Christ himself returns!
The President and his family — preferably with DHS Secretary Janet “The system worked” Napolitano — should show up at Dulles or Reagan airport on a weekday with a camera crew in tow, as airport pat downs are typically done in full view of hundreds of travelers. All of America will to see the TSA handling the President’s crown jewels. Then a rubber-gloved federal agent will run his hands all over his wife and daughter’s privates while he watches. Then I want him to turn to the camera and tell all of America that this is no big deal and we should all be good citizens and comply with the necessary security procedures.Well, I guess “fair” don’t feed the puppy. The One and his family are not subject to the rules of mere mortals and neither, it would appear, are Muslim women, who according to CAIR, should be exempt from TSA feel-ups on religious grounds. I have no such qualms. I simply prefer to pick and chose whom I allow to get touchy feely, and call me old fashioned, but I refuse to be groped unless I’ve been treated to a decent dinner and movie first. A girl has to have standards.
It only seems fair.
Heaven help me, I'm starting to feel sorry for this vain, petty man. William Kristol:Remember, this the man who referred to himself one hundred and thirty-two times during the State of the Union address. This is a man who never met a talk show he wouldn't appear on. He is da bomb, the bag of Cheetos and President who put the sexy in the bee's hot little knees. Just ask him. You don't like ObamaCare? Barry just needs to talk to you-some more.
At his November 12 press conference in Seoul, President Obama was asked the following question by CBS’s Chip Reid: “What was the number-one complaint, concern, or piece of advice that you got from foreign leaders about the U.S. economy and your stewardship of the economy?”Pair that with another recent "But let's get back to me" moment and you might detect a pattern:
Whereupon the president began his response with a complaint: “What about compliments?” he asked. “You didn’t put that in the list.”
MR. KANSAGRA: Thank you. Welcome, Mr. President, to India. As a fellow Kenyan, I’m very proud to see that you have made –
THE PRESIDENT: Made something of myself. (Laughter.)
MR. KANSAGRA: — India as the focus of your drive for exports out of the U.S.
"If the president goes down the reelection road, we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can ill afford it," Caddell and Schoen write in Sunday's Washington Post. "But by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, Obama can deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity and common purpose."Does anyone really believe that Obama's ego would allow him to forgo a possible second term? Granted, walking away beats the hell out of losing but the likelihood of it occurring to Obama that he could lose is somewhere between zip and nada.
You might think that by announcing he will not run, Obama would be telling the world that he is too weak even to try for re-election. Not so, say Caddell and Schoen. "Forgoing another term would not render Obama a lame duck," they write. "Paradoxically, it would grant him much greater leverage with Republicans and would make it harder for opponents such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- who has flatly asserted that his highest priority is to make Obama a one-term president -- to be uncooperative."
But do we really have to pee on our phone? Come on!Ah, romance. It is a beautiful thing.
We hear more and innovative uses for Apple's smartphone everyday, but an application that detects whether you've got the clap? Well that's taking things to a whole new level.
The proposed app, which had us thinking we'd by-passed winter and gone straight to April 1st, will require users to urinate on their pride and joy like a pregnancy test and plug it in to get the dreaded verdict on whether last week's sexual faux-pas gave you a gift that keeps on giving.
The £5.7m eSTI2 project, being overseen by a team of University of London scientists, will apparently use nanotechnology and software to analyse the sample.
If the news is bad, then you can book an appointment with your GP using the app, and pick up the ready-prepared prescription and get to work on relieving that itch.
The team working on the eSTI2 app reckon the technology is close to becoming a reality. It remains to be seen whether Apple is thinking of incorporating a "p**s here" sensor into its new iPhone 5.
Project Leader Dr Sadiq Tariq says: "Currently, if you want to know if you have an infection, your sample is usually sent to a laboratory and the results come back in a few days. Imagine how much more likely you would be to get tested if you could test yourself away from a clinic and have an on-the-spot, accurate result, but still let a doctor or pharmacist know within minutes that you may need treatment."
You say you want a revolutionFor all we hear about scary Teaba**ers who are clinging to their guns and Bibles as they suit up for the last battle it seems that the real threat to the Republic may be those cuddly, enlightened Liberals whose talk of tolerance is really just so much bong smoke.
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
Wealthy, Coddled, Marxist Cartoonist Calls for Violent Workers' Revolution (While Hawking His New Book)You know, I don't think that Ted Rall is the first to suggest that "workers" should rise up and kill their fellow Americans. That other fellow, Barry's buddy Bill Ayers and his Weather Underground had similar thoughts:
Does anyone else find this hilarious?
The economically illiterate cartoonist known as Ted Rall appeared on (where else?) MSNBC to hawk his latest book, which preaches a socialist revolution of sorts. He says the system's broken and the only solution may be a violent overthrow of the government by the workers. Because they need jobs.
Yes, those would be the same jobs that the private sector could create, if it weren't being suffocated by the federal leviathan, that is.
I asked, "well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?" and the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated.I wonder what Rall's thoughts are on that? Is twenty-five million dead a little extreme or just right?
And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers.
And when I say "eliminate," I mean "kill."
Twenty-five million people.
I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people.
And they were dead serious.
You say you got a real solutionVerum Serum has an excerpt from Rall's book:
Well, you know
We'd all love to see the plan
You ask me for a contribution
Well, you know
We're doing what we can
But when you want money
for people with minds that hate
All I can tell is brother you have to wait
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right
Ah
Christian fundamentalists, the millennial end-of-theworlders obsessed with the Left Behind series about the End Times, neo-Nazi racists, rural black-helicopter Michigan Militia types cut from the same inbred cloth as Timothy McVeigh, allied with “mainstream” gun nuts and right-wing Republicans, have been planning, preparing, and praying for the destruction of the “Godless,” “secular” United States for decades. In the past, they formed groups like the John Birch Society and the Aryan Nations. Now the hard Right has a postmodern, decentralized non-organization organization called the Tea Party. . . .
The government, the corporations, and the extreme right are prepared to coalesce into an Axis of Evil. . . .Paranoid, anger issues, wacko or all of the above? Stacy interprets:
The millions of partisans who follow Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and right-wing televangelists . . . will act to stop teenage sluts from getting abortions, teach n—–s a lesson, and slaughter those spics, dots, and everyone else who doesn’t fit into their vision of what and who is right.
You — the millions of people who listen to Limbaugh and vote Republican — are bloodthirsty totalitarians who endorse the genocidal “slaughter” of everyone who disagrees with you. So says Ted Rall, providing a handy guide to how he sees the two sides in the political Armageddon that looms:Bottom line: a grossly under-talented, overpaid cartoonist is trying to sell a book filled with bile and aimed at a niche market-ever frothy Liberals. This particular niche group will snarl and growl as the foam runs down their chins but they will not bite. They enjoy violent fantasies but in reality they will not act. No balls.
Us: Hard-working, underpaid, put upon, thoughtful, freedom-loving, disenfranchised, ordinary people.See? That’s who the Left thinks you are, and how they think of their “thoughtful” selves. Only they are “hard-working.” Only they are “underpaid.” You? You’re stupid, overpaid and greedy. (Elsewhere, he calls you “parasites, vampires, hideous monsters.”) And who is promoting Ted Rall’s insightful analysis? Who else, but MSNBC?
Them: Reactionary, stupid, overpaid, greedy, shortsighted, exploitative, power-mad, abusive politicians and corporate executives
You say you'll change the constitutionTed Rall was only five years old when John Lennon wrote Revolution in 1968. Lennon was not impressed by the tactics of protesters who advocated change through violence. Who would have imagined that the lyrics would be relevant all these years later? I guess every generation has its spoiled punks.
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You better free you mind instead
But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
Come on Charlie light our fireKiller quote:
One thing Doors fans should take from the entire Florida Senate race was that whatever Charlie says today has no bearing on what he will say or do tomorrow.So very true.
California: The Lindsay Lohan of StatesHere’s the deal-California deserves its very own category at the Darwin Awards. The state has become too useless to survive and astonishingly, it is proud of its idiocy. One can imagine the meetings that take place in the various government halls throughout the state: “We simply must have a Commission for the Study and Improvement of the Eleven Known Auras. We’ll fund it a special tax on Happy Meals.” “But we’ve outlawed Happy Meals.” “Then we’ll increase the taxes on energy consumption.” “All agreed. Motion passed!”
Listen up, California. The other 48 states—your cousin New York excluded—are sick of your bratty arrogance. You're the Lindsay Lohan of states: a prima donna who once showed some talent but is now too wasted to do anything with it.
After enjoying ephemeral highs and spending binges, you suffer crashes that culminate in brief, unsuccessful stints in rehab. This cycle repeats itself every five to 10 years, as the rest of the country looks on with a mixture of horror and amusement. We'd feel sorry for you if you didn't constantly flip us the bird.
Instead, we're making bets on how long it will be before your next meltdown. Oh, wait—you're already melting down.
Meep @ POWIP:California has been a joke for years. It was a joke back in 1980 and ’81 when I lived there. But now the state has gone from being a joke to being a parody of its stereotypical self. California will survive. What’s the alternative? But once the bottom falls out and there is no bailout to prop up an utterly unprepared citizenry, what will they do? Will they adjust or worse, go East? I say we act pre-emptively and build a border fence between them and the rest of us.
California, living up to its reputation as the land of fruits and nuts, has re-elected two retreads, and neither is going to be able to save California from its self-inflicted issues.
Could California pensions implode? You betcha. They are not in the death spiral that Illinois is. Yet. But there has been bad behavior for the past decades, in terms of goosing the benefits at the pinnacle of the market, right before it collapsed.
Even if California as a state can weather it’s bad decisions with respect to retroactive benefit increases and contribution holidays, the municipalities might not do so well. And while there’s no official way a state can go bankrupt and drop its liabilities (though they can definitely default on bonds), municipalities can definitely go bankrupt. And stop paying all sorts of bills. Here’s a separate projection of when the money runs out.
AS the United States recovers from this recession, the biggest mistake we could make would be to rebuild our economy on the same pile of debt or the paper profits of financial speculation. We need to rebuild on a new, stronger foundation for economic growth. And part of that foundation involves doing what Americans have always done best: discovering, creating and building products that are sold all over the world.As tempting as it may be to snark about the president’s “pile of debt” comment, I will set that aside. I am struck by the president’s ability to write 763 words without mention two of the biggest impediments that US manufacturer’s face-taxation and regulation. The United States has the second highest corporate tax rate in the world. According to a 2010 World Bank study our effective rate is 27.9 percent while the average among the world’s developed nations is 16.8 percent. This country walks in to the global market place at a severe disadvantage. The disadvantage is compounded by the fact that our government has become downright slap happy when it comes to piling on regulations.
We want to be known not just for what we consume, but for what we produce. And the more we export abroad, the more jobs we create in America. In fact, every $1 billion we export supports more than 5,000 jobs at home.
Sink blames loss on Obama White HouseSink is not a "centrist". She is who she is and now that the voters have rejected her brand governance she wants to whine and finger point. Not a very attractive trait in someone who wants to be a leader. On the other hand, seeing her taking swipes at Obama certainly is entertaining. Party on, Alex.
Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. But what comes after a fall? Recriminations, as Alex Sink reminds us in Florida. Politico interviewed the erstwhile gubernatorial candidate from Florida, who puts a large part of the blame for her loss on Barack Obama’s shoulders, and the rest on Rick Scott’s checkbook:
In the wake of the party’s worst election drubbing since 1994, the deep frustration felt by many centrist Democrats toward the White House and the national party is now out in the open. And it’s being aired in the battleground state that’s the biggest prize in presidential politics.Oddly enough, Sink doesn’t mention the fact that the DNC and Obama’s organizing wing OFA poured resources into Florida on her behalf to keep her competitive with Scott. Sink also neglects to mention that she had leads in polls in the final days of the election until she got caught cheating in a debate — and then lied about it. That didn’t do anything for her relationship to Florida voters, either.
Florida Democratic gubernatorial nominee Alex Sink pointed an accusatory finger Friday at what she called a “tone-deaf” Obama White House to explain why she narrowly lost her campaign.
In an interview with POLITICO, Sink said the administration mishandled the response to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, doesn’t appreciate the political damage done by healthcare reform and argued that her GOP opponent’s strategy of tying her to the president did grave damage to her candidacy in the state’s conservative Panhandle.
“They got a huge wake-up call two days ago, but unfortunately they took a lot of Democrats down with them,” said Sink of the White House.
She added: “They just need to be better listeners and be better at reaching out to people who are on the ground to hear about the realities of their policies as well as politics.”
In 2009, the AARP argued that the health care law was a good deal for seniors. That remains to be seen, and a large number of seniors seem to disagree. Regardless, it appears it’s less of a good deal for employees.Well, what goes around really does come around doesn't it? AARP's employees have my sympathy, I know exactly how they feel. Many of us do. Unfortunately, I doubt that we will be hearing a "We screwed up" coming from the leadership of AARP. In any case AARP's credibility is taking a well deserved hit.
AARP's endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Now the seniors' lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law.
In an e-mail to employees, AARP says health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.
And AARP adds that it's changing copayments and deductibles to avoid a 40 percent tax on high-cost health plans that takes effect in 2018 under the law. Aerospace giant Boeing also has cited the tax in asking its workers to pay more. Shifting costs to employees lowers the value of a health care plan and acts like an escape hatch from the tax.
Another high-profile senator went even further, placing the blame for the Senate GOP’s failure squarely at the feet of Graham’s South Carolina colleague, DeMint.I admit I am completely mystified by “THE PARTY”. It seems that they couldn’t care less whether the Senate is filled with a hundred Arlen Specters so long as they each have an (R) after their names. “THE PARTY” doesn’t care how they vote, doesn’t care what they stand for. It doesn’t matter to them. Those of us that it does matter to are rubes, too ignorant to understand the “right” way to do things.
This Republican senator said that the tea party was the “big winner” by helping bring enormous energy behind GOP candidates Tuesday, but he said that “Sen. DeMint was the big loser.”
“It’s like you’re on the five-yard line ready to score and the quarterback calls the play and some member of your team tackles one of your members and keeps you from scoring,” the senator said. “We came tantalizingly close to a majority.”
“I’m completely mystified by it,” the senator said of DeMint’s tactics.
The senator credited House Speaker-in-waiting John Boehner for keeping House Republicans unified behind a common purpose but he said that DeMint took a selfish path that hurt the party’s common cause.
(The Hill)- On the day after Republicans reclaimed control of Congress, a Democratic lawmaker said he will introduce a measure that would “disavow” the impeachment of former President Clinton.First of all, strike the words "allegedly" and "supposed" from the paragraph above. William Jefferson Clinton did indeed commit perjury by lying in a deposition in the Paula Jones case and he did, after some prodding, admit that he did indeed have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky. Facts is facts and history is history. Neither can be changed by some ridiculous House resolution. But the bigger question is why is Fattah looking back to 1998 instead of working towards solving the problems of 2010?
Rep. Chaka Fattah (Pa.) said that the resolution is necessary so that Democrats and Republicans can work together in a bipartisan fashion.
“As we enter a period in which bipartisanship will be a major priority for the Congress, it is vital that we disavow the most highly partisan example of the politics of personal destruction in the recent history of this House,” Fattah said in a statement.
The last time they were in power, House Republicans impeached Clinton for allegedly perjuring himself over his supposed affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Clinton, only the second president in history to be impeached, was eventually acquitted at trial in the Senate.
The scalp taking doesn't end on November 2. But they really don't understand that. They think they're simply seeing a surge thanks to Obama. If they genuinely understood the depth of anger focused more on them, than, say, specific support for Palin, they'd realize they won't really be on offense in the sense they believe they will be after election day.Simply put, the days of top down party power are over. At a recent townhall Mike Prendergast was asked what is the greatest threat to our country. He had a single word answer, "Complacency." We have paid, and will continue to pay, for our complacency. We know the price. It stops now.
It isn't simply about Palin. Taken as a whole, the people coming for this particular GOP establishment are less invested in protecting, or pushing, Sarah Palin, than they are determined to take them down. Palin supporters are only one brigade of a much larger army that has no intentions of standing down post-November.
