"If this NY-23 election is truly a microcosm
of the "debates" within the Republican brain, perhaps Joe the Plumber was less unrepresentative
of the party's intellectual center than I hoped." -- former crazy Okie
Representative-turned-semi-sane Mickey Edwards Link
Excerpt: Independents who swept Obama to a historic 2008
victory broke big for Republicans on Tuesday as the GOP
wrested political control from Democrats in Virginia
and New Jersey, a troubling sign for the president and his party
heading into an important midterm election year.
The outcomes of Virginia and New Jersey were sure
to feed discussion about the state of the electorate, the status
of the diverse coalition that sent Obama to the
White House and the limits of the president's influence — on the
party's base of support and on moderate current
lawmakers he needs to advance his legislative priorities.
There was some good news:
Democrat Bill Owens captured a GOP-held vacant
23rd Cong seat in New York in a race that highlighted fissures in
the GOP and illustrated hurdles theu could face
in capitalizing on any voter discontent with Obama and Democrats next fall.
Will Obama learn that hew can't be Mr Nice Guy and coast in his second
year?
If Obama is seen as not willing to work, the voters might put
more Rethugs back in power.
"It's been one year since Obama rode into office
promising "change we can believe in." So – what has he done in the first
year? Some say Mr. Obama's biggest accomplishments
have been keeping the financial crisis from becoming worse... and improving America's image abroad...Meanwhile
he's has done nothing to regulate Wall Street or close the nation's borders.
The deficits are beyond absurd. The wars continue –
as does most of the government secrecy left over from the Bush administration."
-- Jack Cafferty, Link
Even if you have a list of Obama's accomplishments,
do regular voters think he's done anything for them?
Totally agree Bart. I’ll never forgive them
or trust them after they piled on Hillary.
As you said, fine they support Obama over Hillary,
but don’t make up all this stupid, batshit crazy crap
about a Democrat, and the wife of the best Democratic
president we’ve had in 50 years, plus a US Senator to boot.
I can’t figure out - what’s in it for Huffington?
I guess she wasn’t getting enough attention being a right wing nutcase,
so she jumped ship and became a left wing nutcase.
I’ll read some of the articles on Huff Po, depending on the writer,
but I take anything she says with a grain of
salt. Just last week she wrote an article asking Joe Biden to resign!
What’s up with that?
Excerpt: This past weekend the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops instructed pastors at parishes across the country to distribute
material
urging Catholics to oppose the health reform
bills making their way through Congress for allowing public funding of
abortions.
Priests were to insert the Bishops Conference
leaflets and letters into parish news bulletins, distribute them at church
doors or
place them in pews. They were also directed to
read a statement at mass to reinforce the message.
The Conference of bishops reportedly sent the
orders out last Thursday, the same day Pelosi presented the mammoth
2,000-page House reform bill to lawmakers and
the public.
The material explains that the Catholic Church
supports reform that will 'protect the life and dignity
of all people from the moment of conception until
natural death.'"
"Can you
hear me?"
"We hate
f-ing health care!"
How do the Catholics keep their IRS designation as "non-partisan?"
They love Bush and his wars of choice and they hate all Democrats.
Is it their hatred of women that bonds the GOP and Catholics together?
"Prior to The Huffington Post, Huffington's
first foray into the Internet was a website which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton
and was a rallying place for conservatives opposing Clinton." -- from Arianna's Wikipedia
entry, Link
...and now she claims to be on our side?
Maybe Arianna wants to lead the revolt,
but she can't decide which side to go with.
Bart, when I was a little girl in Texas, I had
a swing. After it rained, the impression on the ground from my feet
pushing to swing was always filled with tadpoles.
Tadpoles were everywhere after a rain. At night, the sound of frogs
croaking after the rain was everywhere and the
loud honk of a bullfrog could be heard for blocks. Then, there were
the horned toads. All sizes from babies to adults.
I had to tread carefully to keep from stepping on them.
They say the horned toads were killed of by newly
introduced fire ants that competed with the harvester ants that they ate.
But, they also ate crickets and other ants, so
that sounds kind of hokey. Today, it's been awile since I've seen tadpoles
and
we have a creek on our property in the Texas
hill country. We sometimes have small frogs that show up after a rain,
but we've only seen a few adult ones. And the
horned toads? Gone. I've not seen one since the 70's.
We've seen species extinction, but never the loss
of an animalia class, such as amphibiae.
But, frogs and other amphibians are on the chopping
block. And I don't know the story on the horned toads.
But, I sure miss them both. And the singing of
frogs after a cool rain.
Rosa Lee
Excerpt GM reported its first monthly gain in U.S. sales
in almost two years while Toyota and
Ford also improved, a sign the auto industry
it starting to crawl back from a yearlong slump.
Ford returns
to profit for first time in four years
Excerpt Ford reported earnings of $1.1 billion
for the third quarter and raised its forecasts, suggesting they
would be ''solidly profitable'' in 2011 instead
of merely breaking even as previously predicted.
The company lost more than $14.6 billion last
year.
Obviously Obama's Clunker program had a lot, or everything, to do with
their comeback,
bur we stopped the Clunker program because the Rethugs said "it
was working too well."
"To DEFEAT OBAMA-NATION, we must
take a close look at all of the "Social Engineering" contained in the so called 1964 Civil Rights
Act, and remove this "Social Engineering" contained in the so-called 1964
Civil Rights Act."
-- George Hutchins, racist, religious-insane congressional candidate from
North Carolina, Link
Really?
Things have gotten so bad the Rethugs wants to repeal the Civil
Rights Act of 1964?
They want to take the vote away from Black people?
They want to strip Black people of their civil rights?
I feel bad for my Black brothers and sisters.
Their strongest allies are the Democratc Party.
It's kind of weird seeing the news media
declaring the Republicans the winner
in Tuesday's election and that it's some
sort of referendum on Obama.
Perhaps the news media is living in some
alternate universe where everything is backwards?
The Republicans won the governor's races
in two state elections, while the Democrats won all
the federal elections increasing their
majority in Congress where it counts. In one race the Republican
candidate dropped out of the race and endorsed
the Democrat.
Seems to me that if you can't even get your
candidate to vote Republican
then it's the Republicans that should be
worried about the next election.
Marc Perkel
Excerpt: Progressives hoping the Senate will be able to
pass a public option had reason to hope on Tuesday morning.
The source of that hope was the Hill's Alexander
Bolton, who reported:
Lieberman has reached a private understanding
with Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform,
according to two sources briefed on the matter
.... Reid’s staff is telling liberal interest groups that Kissyface has
assured Reid
he will vote with Democrats in the necessary
procedural vote to end debate, perhaps with intentions to change the bill.
Problem is, for now, both sides are denying the
story.
"If you believe this story is true, you will also
believe that I am replacing A-Rod in Game Six of the Series," Lieberman
spokesman
Marshall Wittmann said, trying to be cute. "The
suggestion that Senator Kissyface has made a 'private understanding' on
his votes
on health care reform is absolutely not true.
Kissyface will vote for the motion to proceed to the health care bill because
he supports
health care reform that will control costs and
insure people, but will oppose cloture on a final bill if it contains a
public option."
It seems like every election boils down to the
racist crooks vs. the incomptent stooges.
Apparently people feel safer with the crooks
in charge because the stooges are so inept.
Think how dominant the Democrats could be if they
had a sliver of a clue.
Think how dominant the Democrats could be if
they had a sliver of loyalty.
We've been joking that Bush was so bad, the nation chose to gamble on
the newbie Black Muslin from Kenya.
What will it say about Obama and the Democrats if the nation wants
a return to GOP rule a year from today?
Excerpt: Asked if health care will pass this year, Harry
Reid bravely said "we're not going to be bound by any timelines."
Translation: Sounds like "No" to me. People don't really
need
health care reform, do they?
Maybe we can get some more cash from the insurance
bastards if we stall this thing.
"We need to do the best job we can for the American
people," he said.
"We want quality legislation, and we're going
to do that."
Blah, blah, blah. Does anybody believe anything Spineless
Harry Reid says?
Obama had set a deadline of the end of the year
to pass health care reform, (and then trusted
Pelosi and Reid),
and advocates fear that further delay could hamper
the legislation's chance of passage.
"We're going to do this legislation as expeditiously
as we can, but we're going to do it as fairly as we can, also,"
Reid said. He later added that "Democrats want
to screw this up terribly, not do things the right way."
Just wondering what it is you have against those
polls.
Was it the site polls that showed Obama dominating
Clinton in the primaries last year?
ha ha You're kidding, right?
When Hillary was ahead by 20-40 points, Kos had
her at less than one percent. That's not a statistical anomoly, that's a bald-faced
lie and Kos knew it when he ran it.
According to Wikipedia
On March 17, 2008, Moulitsas wrote Hillary "doesn't deserve fairness on
this site." and, by God, Kos delivered on his promise
not to be fair to the Democratic front-runner.
Possibly worse, CNN ran stories saying "Even
at Daily Kos, the biggest of the Lefty sites, Hillary runs at less than one percent
so maybe Kos is right - she's unelectable."
Like I said, after-the-fact, I'm glad
she didn't win, but wouldn't a fair fight have been better?
Those polls only measured the support of
Daily Kos readers,
nobody claimed they represented the Democratic
party as a whole.
How is it possible that 99% of Kos readers
rejected the Democratic front-runner?
You can't smell a lie when it's that obvious?
What if 99% of them preferred Pepsi to
Coke - would you buy that, too?
We live in a world where 55% is a landslide.
Pretending Hillary had less than one percent
of Democrats was insulting in its stupidity.
You can't get 80% of Democrats to agree that the sun is hot.
I think he just wanted to gauge where his
readers were at.
The polls you are now citing are run by
Research 2000, a legitimate polling outfit.
Yes they are sponsered by daily kos, but
their methodology is public knowledge and recognized as valid.
Andy in Bakersfield CA
Andy, you're free to believe everything Kos publishes.
Excerpt: Once you whip up a mob, can you control it? That
may be Sarah Palin's next problem.
Before the votes were counted Tuesday night, she
was already something of a winner. Though her candidate lost
in an area that hasn't sent a Democrat to the
House since the 1800s -- Palin, by intervening, had established herself
as a successful ideological power broker.
Successful in that her candidate's 20-point lead
disappeared in a matter of days?
At first, Hoffman was merely a third-party conservative
candidate. Yet when Palin backed him over the official Republican,
Scozzafava helped turn this contest into an intra-party
clash, which ended with the right wing of her party chasing Scozzafava
out of the contest and forcing the GOP establishment
to swing behind Hoffman. On a night when the Republicans won the goober
races in New Jersey and Virginia, Hoffman's defeat
was almost anti-climactic. But for Palin, who previously had been in the
news
mostly for the wrong reasons -- think Levi Johnston
-- this episode made her seem relevant and influential.
I like David Corn but I seem to be disagreeing
with him lately.
Is this whole column a stack of heavy sarcasm?
If Palin went to Jersey, Virginia and NY-23 and
she lost NY-23, you could say her efforts were "mixed."
But from the coverage I saw, she was all over
NY-23.
So how does killing the front-runner's momentum
make her a winner?
"I felt like I went to sleep as Rihanna and
woke up as Britney Spears,"
-- Rihanna, on her unwanted publicity after Chris Brown beat the hell out
of her, Link
"We thought we were getting a man of action.
Instead, we got someone who’ll spend six hours playing golf. If voters had known about the
golf, they would have been less surprised by his lack of urgency on many
issues.”
-- Joe Mathews, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation,
Link
It's really too bad there isn't a term equivalent
to "conspiracy theorist" to hurl at the kind of person
who instinctively believes government accounts
of events even when they are clear whitewashes.
Unless you have a suggestion?
Wes in Baltimore
"Kosovo unveiled an 11-foot tall statue of
Bill Clinton. The Clinton statue is so life-like,
it's already been slapped 12 times." -- Conan, slitting NBC's
throat with curdled 12-year old jokes
Bart - I just tried a new (for me) tequila at
my band practice last night.
Corzo Silver is the best I've ever had, so I
wanted to share that with you.
My local store has just gotten Chinaco in, so
I'll be trying that next.
Mick
Mick, it's just my opinion, but don't ever buy
anything but the Anejo - unless you're making margaritas.
If you're making margaritas, anything but Cuervo
Gold will work because the limes overpower the tequila flavor.
If you're sipping for that super-great taste,
gotta go with the Anejo.
Wait, you drink tequila at band practice?
How do you guys sound? :)
Excerpt: Obama and Rahm Emanuel know better what they're
doing than I do. They certainly know things I don't know.
I think we have the same general goals and beliefs.
And this is what they do for a living -- I wouldn't even try it.
But I will never stop having this doubt: that
maybe if they had really charged in there riding the forceful energy of
the historic election, and acted like it was
an emergency moment -- which it was -- they could have gotten some
big victories right up front, and there really
could have been an historic "first hundred days" for this administration
and the country.
Instead, the Obamas got a dog.
It could have worked -- the country had given
its endorsement to "...and now for something completely different."
There might have been a way to knock the Republicans
back on their heels right away, with the argument that
"The American people demanded we make these changes,
and you are unpatriotic to stand in their way."
"Not only will we have to repent for the sins
of bad people; but we also will have to repent for
the appalling silence of good people"
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Excerpt: Genuine leadership means setting the agenda.
It means taking tough stands. It means telling people the truth forcefully
and evocatively in a way that makes them want
to listen and act. It means drawing lines in the sand when you must,
and refusing to compromise your values even if
you have to compromise on some of the policies born of those values
when you have no other choice. It means fighting
for what you believe in and taking on powerful vested interests when
people's lives and livelihoods are at stake.
And it means looking backward at the past so you don't make the same mistakes,
looking sideways at alternatives so you know
your options, and using that vision to move the nation forward.
Leadership is a quality Obama showed on the campaign
trail.
It is a quality he has failed to show as president.
Obama could still be a great president.
But he's got to work for it - he can't expect greatness to knock
on the White House door.
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Subject: Cameras and presidents
And didn't Saint Raygun place a wreath on a monument
dedicated to Nazi war dead?
Sure should not have had a camera there that
day.
Oh that's right, he was a republican so it doesn't
matter,
Tom
Excerpt: This planned visit caused a great deal of anger
outside of Germany. Many prominent government officials and U.S. Army officers
protested
the planned visit. Fifty three senators
(including 11 Republicans), signed a letter asking the president to cancel,
and 257 representatives
(including 84 Republicans) signed a letter urging
Chancellor Kohl to withdraw the invitation. Former Army S/Sgt. Jim Hively
mailed his
World War II silver star and bronze star, to
Reagan in protest.
Reagan's defense?
These [SS troops] were the villains, as we
know, that conducted the persecutions and all. But there are 2,000 graves
there, and most of those, the average age is about
18. I think that there's nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where
those young men are victims of Nazism also, even
though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into service to
carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis. They were
victims, just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps"
But can't we say the same about the teenagers
that kicked our ass in Baghdad for 5 years?
"President Obama is getting bad advice from
those clowns in the White House. We should be ending those wars now.
America should be providing food instead of bombs from drones that kill
innocent civilians."
-- John Conyers, Link
Besides "getting revenge for 9-11,"
can anyone tell me why we're in Afghanistan?
The war in Iraq is "bad," but the war in Afghanistan is "good?"
"How can anyone say that Tuesday's elections
don't reflect Obama's unpopularity? He may not be to blame for the bad
candidates, but it's also fair to say that his coattails don't seem to be long
enough to lift them..."
-- Matt Lewis, Link
I would give Obama a grade of "Incomplete" as opposed to an "F."
We won't know how good a student he'd be until he comes to class.
Use this Amazon
portal and they'll send bartcop.com pennies from each dollar.
Special offer from Amazon.com
G.I. Joe:
The Rise of Cobra I hear it's a very noisy movie.
The Rise of Cobra is not your grandfather's G.I. Joe. It's more like
C.G.I. Joe with explosive special-effects that provide the film with "Boom
Boom Pow."
"The older generation needs to understand that
my generation does not respond well to anger, hate,
and personal attacks."
-- Meghan McCain, saying Rush, Beck and FOX News aren't successful,
Link
"Joe Lieberman's name is not Benedict."
-- Meghan McCain,
Link
Excerpt: Carrie Prejean demanded more than a million dollars
in settlement negotiations with Miss California Pageant officials
-- that is, until the lawyer for the Pageant
showed Carrie an XXX home video of her handiwork.
The video the lawyer showed Carrie is extremely
graphic and has never been released publicly.
We've seen the tape - let's just say, and Carrie
has a promising solo career.
ha ha
We're told it took about 15 seconds for Carrie
to jettison her demand and essentially walk away with nothing.
I've heard that the Miss California Pageant officials want their breast
implants back.
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