OBAMA AND HOUSE REPUBS

Today, President Obama addressed and took questions from House Republicans. What ensued was an excellent look at where the two sides happen to stand. You can view it, and read it all right here.

After you have heard or read the whole thing, please feel free to leave your comments. Only on-topic comments will be allowed to stand, however.

THE BEST DAMNED DEMOCRACY MONEY CAN BUY

Well, now that the SCOTUS has told us that corporations are people, it stands to reason that they have the same rights as everyone else in America. So, I guess we shouldn't be surprised to see the seats in congress filled by these people.

Following the recent Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission to allow unlimited corporate funding of federal campaigns, Murray Hill Inc. today announced it was filing to run for U.S. Congress and released its first campaign video on www.youtube.com/user/murrayhillcongress

“Until now,” Murray Hill Inc. said in a statement, “corporate interests had to rely on campaign contributions and influence peddling to achieve their goals in Washington. But thanks to an enlightened Supreme Court, now we can eliminate the middle-man and run for office ourselves.”

Murray Hill Inc. is believed to be the first “corporate person” to exercise its constitutional right to run for office. As Supreme Court observer Lyle Denniston wrote in his SCOTUSblog, “If anything, the decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission conferred new dignity on corporate “persons,” treating them — under the First Amendment free-speech clause — as the equal of human beings.”


Murray Hill Inc. agrees. “The strength of America,” Murray Hill Inc. says, “is in the boardrooms, country clubs and Lear jets of America’s great corporations. We’re saying to Wal-Mart, AIG and Pfizer, if not you, who? If not now, when?”


Murray Hill Inc. plans on spending “top dollar” to protect its investment. “It’s our democracy,” Murray Hill Inc. says, “We bought it, we paid for it, and we’re going to keep it.”

You can find the rest of the story here

IS RACE STILL OBAMA'S DEFINING FACTOR?

Racism in Obama's America One Year Later


One Year into Obama Presidency, Some Still Use Race to Define First Family

By SARAH NETTER

Jan. 27, 2010—

In the year since President Obama smashed barriers to become the country's first black president, his tenure at the top has been punctuated by racial taunts and innuendos that have slyly, or sometimes blatantly, been circulated on the Internet, in e-mails and cartoons.

The offenses have ranged from crude to subtle, and offenders have ranged from the unknown to elected officials. Even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, an Obama ally, had to apologize for what many considered to be insensitive, denigrating language while referring to Obama.

Poll numbers suggest most voters are not judging Obama's presidency based on the color of his skin, but the issue has continued to surface in Obama's presidency with disheartening regularity.

The president's image has been altered to look like an African witch doctor, his wife's to look like a gorilla. The idea of having a black family in the White House was initially so sensitive to some that even simple acts like a fist bump or a pat on the behind between husband and wife, were analyzed for possible racial undertones.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, said he has seen evidence, albeit anecdotally, that Obama's race has become significantly less of a factor for most Americans since he took office, "in spite of an increase in vicious, mean comments from a small minority."

Poking fun at the president is an inevitable tradition, almost a national pastime. President George W. Bush was skewered by opponents who believed him to be unintelligent and inarticulate. And for years, President Clinton's libido was the prime target for late-night comedians.

But for many, criticism based solely on the color of Obama's skin crosses a line...CONTINUED HERE

TEABAGGER TROUNCED

Some teabagger over on Facebook has been sending out the following email to liberals:

If you've ever wondered what side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!

If a conservative doesn't like


guns, he doesn't buy one.... See More


If a liberal doesn't like guns,


he wants all guns outlawed.


If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't


eat meat.


If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat


products banned for everyone..


If a conservative is homosexual, he quietly


leads his life.


If a liberal is homosexual, he demands


legislated respect.


If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks


about how to better his situation.


A liberal wonders who


is going to take care of him.


If a conservative doesn't like a talk show


host, he switches channels.


Liberals demand that those


they don't like be shut down.


If a conservative is a non-believer, he


doesn't go to church.


A liberal non-believer wants any


mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion,


of course!)


If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping


for it, or may choose a job that provides it.


A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.


If a conservative reads this, he'll forward it so his


friends can have a good laugh.


A liberal will delete it because he's "offended".

In response to that stupidity, Shawn Mitchell Show issued the following reply:

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.


With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employers medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance now Joe gets it too.


He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joes bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.


In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.


Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.


He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.


Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joes employer pays these standards because Joes employer doesnt want his employees to call the union.


If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didnt think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.


It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joes deposit is federally insured by the FDIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joes money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.


Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.


Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.


He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers’ Home Administration because bankers didn’t want to make rural loans. The house didn’t have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn’t belong and demanded rural electrification.


Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn... Read More’t have to.


Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn’t mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: “We don’t need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I’m a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have.”


Just thought I would remind everyone WHY I am a Proud Liberal!

DITTO THAT!

Al Qaeda Opens Office In Washington???

The consequences of last week’s ruling by the Supreme Court are becoming more noticeable as corporations move to interpret and exploit the new environment for political engagement. Some surprising players are jumping into the game now that the restrictions from funding electoral activities have been removed. Take, for example, this press release from from Al Qaeda:


Press Release: The United States Supreme Court opens the door for greater expansion of commerce, civic participation, and freedom of speech. Al Qaeda International, Inc. and it’s worldwide affiliates applaud this decision and look forward to engaging more with the American infidels people.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Parachinar, Pakistan, January 25, 2010, Al QaedAmerica, Inc.

The executive committee of Al Qaeda International (AQI) is enthusiastically supportive of the recent United States Supreme Court decision in the case of Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission. In a narrowly argued case involving political advertising, the Court wisely expanded the scope of their deliberations and ruled 5 to 4 that almost all legal proscriptions on corporate spending on behalf of candidates and issue advocacy were null and void. The prohibition on direct corporate condtributions to candidates will remain in place, but virtually every other spending constraint has been struck down. CONTINUED HERE

HISTORIANS TAKE ISSUE WITH BECK'S USE OF LIBERAL FASCISM

OH I JUST LOVE IT WHEN THIS HAPPENS!!! YEAH!!!


Well, Glenn Beck's special "documentary" -- at least, that's what he calls it -- "The Revolutionary Holocaust: Live Free Or Die" aired Friday, and it was pretty much exactly what we predicted: A long promotion for Jonah Goldberg's fraudulent Liberal Fascism and its underlying thesis, to wit, that fascism is "properly understood" as "a phenomenon of the left."


In Beck's hands, of course, this mishmash of a theory gets mashed even more, so that fascism is indistinguishable from communism and socialism, and that all are essentially identified in the bundle of the progressive movement, which is Beck's ultimate target.

On Friday, Beck worried that "the academic bloc" of the progressive movement would be arraying its forces to attack him for this piece of work (and it is a real piece of work). Probably, most of them will dismiss it as just another piece of lunacy from the nation's fearmonger in chief.
But it's obvious that, despite the cold reality that Goldberg's thesis is profoundly dishonest and the most odious kind of historical fraud, right-wingers like Beck not only believe it but have embarked on avidly promoting it -- especially among the Tea Party set, where the signs calling Obama a fascist are almost as common as those decrying his tax increases.

As I mentioned Friday, I began some months ago organizing some of the more authoritative historical experts -- historians and political scientists -- in an effort to finally produce a serious response from academics to Goldberg's traduced version of history...REST OF THE STORY & VIDEO

Vote Down Bernanke - the world ends.

Wow! Guess we better keep him around???

This is from the Daily Kos - HERE

Vote down Bernanke, the world ends


by kos

Share this on Twitter - Vote down Bernanke, the world ends Mon Jan 25, 2010 at 08:30:03 AM PST

That's apparently the message from the Associated Press' "economics writer".

A defeat of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's quest for another four-year term could raise the risk of a "double dip" recession if political jousting over a successor were to drag on for months, economists warn.

Wow, that's what economists say? Like who?

Lynn Reaser, chief economist for the National Association for Business Economics, is among them.

Okay, that's one. Who else?

Um, that's it. Great journalism, AP!

The piece quotes another economist, but that one is whining about the Senate's role in confirming Bernanke for another term.

"Do we get to the point where instead of having an independent Fed chairman who keeps his hand on the wheel and does what is right for the economy, we have a Fed chairman spinning the wheel at the behest of Congress?" says Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland.

Mercy me! Who knew that once George Bush nominated Bernanke, we'd be stuck with him forever and ever, even though he was asleep at the wheel when the economy imploded and is more concerned about keeping inflation down than trying to get unemployment down below 10 percent! That would mess with his "independence"!

The Bush Administration already made a mistake with Bernanke, and the Obama Administration appears desperate to follow suit. In fact, it would've been nice to see Obama fight for real health care reform with the energy and

But when the White House is incapable of finding a Fed chief interested in Main Street, rather than his pals over at Morgan Stanley, then it's the job of Congress to show that it is still awake and engaged co-equal branch of government.

And it's time to stop pretending that anything but a Bernanke re-confirmation will somehow lead to economic armageddon. Such fear campaigns were the staple during the Bush years. I have little appetite to see the Obama team follow that same ridiculous path.

COLD SHOT TONIGHT

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lunatic-fringe-usa

TUNE INTO COLD SHOT TONIGHT @ 8:00 EST.

TOPICS TO BE DISCUSSED:

* Don't feed the strays
* From democracy to corpocracy in one fell swoop - what the next few years will look like
* The power of intuition
* A hateful celebration
* Blue vs Gray - Democrats & Progressives = the next civil war?

Program will begin at 8:00 EST. Phone lines will open around 8:30. All topics will be entertained. Bring your opininons and your news. The number to call is (347) 857-3972

WHAT IS UP WITH THIS?

Veterans of our wars being deported?

"When your tour ends," Obama said to those now serving, "when you touch our soil, you will be home in America that is forever here for you, just as you've been there for us. That is my promise."

There are more than 30,000 non-citizens currently serving in the US army. Anslem Ifill, a native of Trinidad and legal US resident, served in the first Gulf War. He was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder PTSD. After his service, he got in trouble with the law and spent a number of years in prison. His story is not that unusual because almost half of the Vietnam veterans with PTSD have been arrested or jailed. What is unusual is that after serving his time he was detained by the immigration service for an additional three years and finally told he was to be deported. Anslem Ifill has spent 25 years in the US and served this country by putting his life on the line.

THE CORPORATIONS OWN AMERICA...

In what has got to be one of the most unpopular rulings ever, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision that has the blogosphere reeling.



Citizens United Decision: ‘A Rejection Of The Common Sense Of The American People’


In what could prove to be the most consequential Supreme Court decision in decades, all five of the Court’s conservatives joined together today to invalidate a sixty-three year-old ban on corporate money in federal elections. In the process, the Court overruled a twenty year-old precedent permitting such bans on corporate electioneering; and it ignored the protests of the four more moderate justices in dissent. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the dissenters:



Today’s decision is backwards in many senses. It elevates the majority’s agenda over the litigants’ submissions, facial attacks over as-applied claims, broad constitutional theories over narrow statutory grounds, individual dissenting opinions over precedential holdings, assertion over tradition, absolutism over empiricism, rhetoric over reality. Our colleagues have arrived at the conclusion that Austin must be overruled and that §203 is facially unconstitutional only after mischaracterizing both the reach and rationale of those authorities, and after bypassing or ignoring rules of judicial restraint used to cabin the Court’s lawmaking power. … At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics....CONTINUED HERE

OUTRAGEOUSLY TRUE...

Basketball league for white Americans targets Augusta


By Billy Byler
Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 19, 201047 commentsPRINTShareEmail


A new professional basketball league boasting rosters made up exclusively of white Americans has its eyes set on Augusta, but the team isn't receiving a warm welcome.

The All-American Basketball Alliance announced in a news release Sunday evening that it intends to start its inaugural season in June and hopes Augusta will be one of 12 cities with a team.

"Only players that are natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race are eligible to play in the league," the statement said.

Augusta Mayor Deke Copenhaver, who has publicly expressed his support for minor league teams in the past, said he would not do the same for this team.

"As a sports enthusiast, I have always supported bringing more sporting activities to Augusta," he said. "However, in this instance I could not support in good conscience bringing in a team that did not fit with the spirit of inclusiveness that I, along with many others, have worked so hard to foster in our city."

Clint Bryant, athletic director at Augusta State University, laughed when he heard the news.

"It's so absurd, it's funny, but it gives you an idea of the sickness of our society" he said. "It shows you what lengths people will go to just to be mean-spirited. I think at any basketball level, no matter if it's all black, all white, all Hispanic, all Asian or anyone else, the players should just be a basketball team." CONTINUED HERE.

I am disturbed and disgusted by so much negativity and misinformation being thrown around concerning Haiti and the current situation. I found this article to be absolutely fascinating.

Time for America to repay Haiti's historic gift to us


by: Paul Rosenberg

Sat Jan 16, 2010 at 15:00

Haiti's successful slave revolution and its defense against the French attempt to re-enslave them was directly responsible for France's abandonment of its claims in the New World, including the sale of the Louisiana Purchase, without which the US would have been permanantly hemmed in to the Eastern Seaboard. Thus, America owes more to the people of Haiti than any other people on Earth--but, with few exceptions, we have only repaid them with suffering and sorrow.

The earthquake in Haiti is terrible natural disaster, but it's also a man-made disaster as well-both the built environment of urban slums and the social environment of dysfunction and non-functional government are the products of hundreds of years of imperialist exploitation. While similar patterns are seen throughout the world, the US and Haiti have a unique relationship that's been systematically hidden from the American people. Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all is that the tremendous heartfelt outpouring of concern by the American people, a genuine representation of what is best about America, is so utterly disconnected from the historical reality, and so terribly unlikely to make any difference in how that history will almost certainly be replicated, so that countless future generations of Haitians will continue to suffer, not for the sins of their ancestors, but for their exemplary acts.

Paradoxically, while the news coverage is so relentlessly focused on the immediate horror, for most Americans it's left to rightwing opinion-mongers such as Rush Limbaugh-and especially Pat Robertson-to remind them of the true historical context, albeit not by discussing it, but instead by vividly acting it out. When Pat Robertson credits Hatian liberation to a pact with the Devil (and who's a better expert than he on such pacts?), he is accurately resurrecting the roots of Euro-American attitudes toward Haiti that have never been fundamentally reset since the Haitian people pulled off the only successful slave revolution in recorded history...CONTINUED

Move Your Money = REVENGE!

Yeah...What Keith Said...

IF YOU HAVE WATCHED ANY OF THE COVERAGE AND YOUR HEARTSTRINGS ARE STILL IN TACT - YOU AREN'T HUMAN. PLEASE HELP BY DONATING TIME, MONEY, EXPERTISE, OR GOODS. A GOOD PLACE TO START IS "DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS."

It Ain't Over Til It's Over

Just when you think the fat lady has sung, you find out that the ongoing saga really has no end.

Bill White has been convicted on four counts and awaits his fate. But, that's not the end of the story. On the 20th of this month - next Wednesday, another hearing will be held where White's attorney will attempt to persuade the judge to overturn the verdicts. But, that's not even the end of the story. Now, it appears that a three-judge panel is looking into the dropping of those charges in Chicago.

Federal prosecutors are not satisfied with the original court ruling and, it appears, that the charges claiming that White used his website to incite violence against a juror could be reinstated. It should be obvious to even the casual observer by now that the federal government has a real hard-on for Bill White and they aren't going to rest until he is deeply embedded in the prison system.


FULL STORY HERE

ANOTHER CREEP GOES BYE-BYE

Robert N. Joos, cohort of the Mahon Brothers, had his day in court - and got himself convicted. He's looking at about 20 years - that might just finish this creep off. But then...there are a lot more like him out there.

FULL STORY HERE

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A former Eagle Scout and U.S. Air Force Academy cadet was convicted Tuesday on federal weapons charges after being caught up in an undercover sweep of white supremacists who claimed they used his 200-acre Ozarks spread for survival training.




Robert N. Joos Jr., 57, was arrested at his home in rural McDonald County in June, when brothers Daniel and Dennis Mahon were taken into custody in Illinois and charged in a 2004 mail bombing that injured a black city official in Scottsdale, Ariz.



Joos was not charged in the bombing, but the Mahons told investigators members of the "movement" used Joos' isolated home for training. They described Joos as a "longtime white supremacist associate and an expert on weapons, explosives, bomb making and general survival skills."...CONTINUED

Justice For Amber

I have been following the case of Amber Cummings for quite sometime now and today it happened - JUSTICE PREVAILED. She walked away.



Maine Woman Who Killed Husband Won't Go to Prison


Friday , January 08, 2010

A woman who shot her white supremacist husband while he slept — leading to the discovery of Nazi memorabilia, an arsenal of weapons and bomb-making materials in their home — won't have to go to prison for killing the man she said subjected her and their daughter to years of extreme abuse.

Amber Cummings, 32, was allowed to go free Thursday after being handed a suspended sentence in the death of James Cummings at their house in Belfast.

Cummings used a battered-woman defense, claiming she killed her husband to protect herself and their daughter, who was 9 at the time. Defense lawyer Eric Morse graphically described how James Cummings lived in a sadistic world of darkness and hate where he ridiculed, abused and debased his wife during their decade-long marriage.

"James Cummings in my mind truly personified evil," Morse told Justice Jeffrey Hjelm.

The killing drew the FBI's attention after Nazi mementos, radioactive materials and instructions on how to build a "dirty bomb" were found in their home.

Her husband was angered by Barack Obama's election as president and the bomb-making materials were discovered near the time of Obama's inauguration, but law enforcement officials said the public was not at risk...CONTINUED

WHITE POWER IN AMERICA

VON BRUNN IS DEAD...

Too bad...he'll never be tried for his crime. What a sad day it is when an 88 year old man never learned to live in this world and remained bitter and contemptable even on his deathbed.

Story Follows

88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn is finally dead. On December 7, 1981 Brunn was arrested in 1981 for attempted kidnapping and hostage-taking of members of the Federal Reserve Board, after approaching the Federal Reserve’s Eccles Building armed with a revolver, knife, and sawed-off shotgun. He had strange reason to justify his acts.He said he was mad about the high interest rates. He reportedly claimed he had a bomb but it was proved to be a spoof later. He was sentenced in March, 1983. Having served six and a half years in prison, his sentence was completed by September 15, 1989


After 20 years of his release, at about 12:49 p.m the man entered the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, shot security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns who opened the door for him, and finally got shot by two other security guards, Harry Weeks and Jason “Mac” McCuiston.

He was a white supremacist and wrote the following email to a list serve complaining about the recent arrest of a Finnish man:...CONTINUED HERE

GETTING CREATIVE WITH WHITE MAN'S BIBLE...

Ben Klassen will be immortalized - just not in the way he might have wanted to be. While he formed the Church of the Creator, others who are a whole lot more creative have decided to turn his brand of hate into something, perhaps, a little more worthy of a society that really doesn't value hate and prejudice.

Making a positive statement out of the trash so endeared to Creators, just makes my 2010 even brighter. It's a great step forward.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When life gives you 4,000 books full of racist aspersion, make art.


That’s the simple logic behind “Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate,” one of the most ambitious, diverse – and unlikely – art projects in the modern history of Montana. A joint project of the Holter Museum of Art in Helena and the Montana Human Rights Network, the widely traveled exhibit arrives in Missoula this week – the closest it has yet come to where it all began, in a storage locker near Superior.

That’s where, back in 2003, Montana Human Rights Network director Ken Toole was taken by a disaffected member of the white supremacist group, World Church of the Creator. The locker contained thousands of copies of 13 books written by Ben Klassen, the infamous author of the “White Man’s Bible” and founder of the so-called Creativity Movement. All that the impoverished defect or asked in exchange for the books was a bus ticket out of town...CONTINUED

Obama Wants End to Political Sniping.

Obama seems to have grown weary of all the political barbs and sniping. However, I doubt that we can look for an end to it any time soon. Just as I don't look for an end to these senseless wars any time soon.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/01/02/obama-pins-plot-on-al-qaeda-in-yemen-calls-for-end-to-political/

President Obama today urged an end to political sniping over the handling of efforts to prevent terrorist attacks,saying that Americans should not succumb to "partisanship and division" in the face of the enemy such as the al Qaeda group in Yemen that plotted the bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day.


Get the new

PD toolbar!Obama used his weekly radio address to pin the blame on the al Qaeda group, describing the journey of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be bomber, to Yemen where he "he joined an affiliate of al Qaeda ... (who) trained him, equipped him with those explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America.  Continued...