Monday, February 1, 2010
SNL: Scott Brown shakes up the Democratic leadership
Well, Scott Brown's election wasn't funny, but the SNL skit sure is.
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Gallup: Obama Approval Hits 50% After Stretch of Sub-50 Ratings
President
Barack Obama’s job approval rating is 50% in Gallup Daily tracking from
Jan. 29-31. This follows 11 straight days of Gallup reporting in which
Obama’s approval rating was below the 50% mark.
Rush Limbaugh lamented that the Haiti earthquake would be good for Obama, but the president actually received some of the lowest ratings of his presidency. As usual the conservative blow hard was wrong again.
Rush Limbaugh lamented that the Haiti earthquake would be good for Obama, but the president actually received some of the lowest ratings of his presidency. As usual the conservative blow hard was wrong again.
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Chris Matthews roots for Obama
Golly, is anybody surprised that MSNBC's Chris Matthews is rooting for Obama? or that Matthews is a Democrat?
Certainly, MSNBC Cable news has a partisan tone, but it lacks the irrationality and pettiness that pervades Fox News. Rightardia looks at MSNBC as a well-needed counterpoint to Fox News.
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Three different creation stories
by Secular Human
Nightline (ABC) marked the first "Nightline Face-Off," in which, according to a press release, "hot topics get discussed among prominent voices in their field."
This inaugural segment also came billed as the first network-news debate about the existence of God. If he or she does exist and is just, it will be the last. Representing the Supreme Being were evangelical minister Ray Comfort and actor Kirk Cameron—Mike Seaver on 123 episodes of the sitcom Growing Pains and, more recently, Buck Williams in three films adapted from the apocalyptic Left Behind novels.
Together, Comfort and Cameron host The Way of the Master, a syndicated show most notable for discovering distasteful ways to combine street preaching and getting belligerent. Nightline dug up some footage of Comfort and Cameron trying to save the soul of an overtanned transvestite.
Comfort and Cameron came up with an interesting analogy about God. They view the Earth as a painting and therefore there must be a painter: God. Of course, anyone who understands basic logic knows that although an analogy may be useful in making a point, analogies aren't necessarily logical and there are many false analogies.
Let's take a deeper look. If the painter, God, painted, the Earth, who painted the painter? This argument eventually leads to the conclusion that either the painter or the painting evolved spontaneously. If you are religious, you would prefer the former as the solution. If you believe science offers a better explanation, you would prefer the explanation that evolution offers; life evolved on the Earth slowly over billions of years.
Of course, the clerics suggest God has always been there, but that is a matter of faith. At one time scientists believed the universe had always been here, too, but red shifts in stars made it clear all of the stars are moving away from each other that supported a 'big bang' theory.
The third explanation is the one that Secular Human prefers. Men invented God. Think about it!
source: Democratic Underground
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Nightline (ABC) marked the first "Nightline Face-Off," in which, according to a press release, "hot topics get discussed among prominent voices in their field."
This inaugural segment also came billed as the first network-news debate about the existence of God. If he or she does exist and is just, it will be the last. Representing the Supreme Being were evangelical minister Ray Comfort and actor Kirk Cameron—Mike Seaver on 123 episodes of the sitcom Growing Pains and, more recently, Buck Williams in three films adapted from the apocalyptic Left Behind novels.
Together, Comfort and Cameron host The Way of the Master, a syndicated show most notable for discovering distasteful ways to combine street preaching and getting belligerent. Nightline dug up some footage of Comfort and Cameron trying to save the soul of an overtanned transvestite.
Comfort and Cameron came up with an interesting analogy about God. They view the Earth as a painting and therefore there must be a painter: God. Of course, anyone who understands basic logic knows that although an analogy may be useful in making a point, analogies aren't necessarily logical and there are many false analogies.
Let's take a deeper look. If the painter, God, painted, the Earth, who painted the painter? This argument eventually leads to the conclusion that either the painter or the painting evolved spontaneously. If you are religious, you would prefer the former as the solution. If you believe science offers a better explanation, you would prefer the explanation that evolution offers; life evolved on the Earth slowly over billions of years.
Of course, the clerics suggest God has always been there, but that is a matter of faith. At one time scientists believed the universe had always been here, too, but red shifts in stars made it clear all of the stars are moving away from each other that supported a 'big bang' theory.
The third explanation is the one that Secular Human prefers. Men invented God. Think about it!
source: Democratic Underground
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Why you should vote Republican
This is an oldie, but a goody.
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Democratic Underground: John Boehner says Pentagon Should Be Part Of Spending Freeze
Rachel Slajda | February 1, 2010, 9:45AM
House Minority Leader John Boehner said Sunday that defense spending should not be exempt from President Obama's proposed spending freeze.
"I think the president's proposal on freezing non-security domestic spending is a good first step, but it's only $15 billion for each of the next three years," Boehner said on Meet The Press.
I think we can do much better than that. I don't think any agency of the federal government should be exempt from rooting out wasteful spending or unnecessary spending.
And I, frankly, I would agree with it at the Pentagon. There's got to be wasteful spending there, unnecessary spending there. It all ought to be eliminated, and we should be going through this budget line by line and, and asking the question, is this spending worth having to borrow money that our kids and grandkids are going to have to pay back?
That's the real question. And if we went through the budget line by line like that, I think there's a lot more spending that we could cut.
Obama has proposed freezing non-defense discretionary spending for the next three years, which should save $250 billion from the national deficit over the next 10 years, according to the New York Times. But the Pentagon -- as well as some non-defense areas such as the Department of Education, Medicaid and Medicare -- is exempt from the freeze.
Boehner apparently agrees with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who last week said the defense budget "should not be exempted" from the freeze.
Rightardia: The Major was involved in defense budgeting and knows billions could be cut from defense spending form little impact on the mission. One way to do this would be to stop the spending surge at the end of the fiscal year. If you don't spend your budget by the end of the year, you lose it and the accounting office pools all of the excess funds to so they can be spent before the end of the fiscal year. This practice should be discouraged.
Of course, a lot of this end of year spending is rolled into local economics to purchase new office furniture, personal computers and office supplies using local purchase procedures. So changing this policy could be good news for American taxpayers, but bad news for the local economy that is near a defense facility.
Source: Talking Points Memo
Read more: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/boehne...
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House Minority Leader John Boehner said Sunday that defense spending should not be exempt from President Obama's proposed spending freeze.
"I think the president's proposal on freezing non-security domestic spending is a good first step, but it's only $15 billion for each of the next three years," Boehner said on Meet The Press.
I think we can do much better than that. I don't think any agency of the federal government should be exempt from rooting out wasteful spending or unnecessary spending.
And I, frankly, I would agree with it at the Pentagon. There's got to be wasteful spending there, unnecessary spending there. It all ought to be eliminated, and we should be going through this budget line by line and, and asking the question, is this spending worth having to borrow money that our kids and grandkids are going to have to pay back?
That's the real question. And if we went through the budget line by line like that, I think there's a lot more spending that we could cut.
Obama has proposed freezing non-defense discretionary spending for the next three years, which should save $250 billion from the national deficit over the next 10 years, according to the New York Times. But the Pentagon -- as well as some non-defense areas such as the Department of Education, Medicaid and Medicare -- is exempt from the freeze.
Boehner apparently agrees with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who last week said the defense budget "should not be exempted" from the freeze.
Rightardia: The Major was involved in defense budgeting and knows billions could be cut from defense spending form little impact on the mission. One way to do this would be to stop the spending surge at the end of the fiscal year. If you don't spend your budget by the end of the year, you lose it and the accounting office pools all of the excess funds to so they can be spent before the end of the fiscal year. This practice should be discouraged.
Of course, a lot of this end of year spending is rolled into local economics to purchase new office furniture, personal computers and office supplies using local purchase procedures. So changing this policy could be good news for American taxpayers, but bad news for the local economy that is near a defense facility.
Source: Talking Points Memo
Read more: http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/boehne...
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CREW To Obama: Skip The National Prayer Breakfast
1 Feb 2010
A prominent good government group is demanding that President Obama and members of Congress skip this year's National Prayer Breakfast, calling its organizer "shadowy" and "cult-like."
The group, Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington,
lashed out at the fundamentalist Fellowship Foundation, which has
organized the breakfast with presidents and prominent Washington and
world leaders since 1953.
"The National Prayer Breakfast uses the suggested imprimatur of the elected leaders who attend to give the Fellowship greater credibility and facilitate its networking and fundraising," CREW director Melanie Sloan said in a statement.
"The president and members of Congress should not legitimatize this cult-like group -- the head of which has praised the organizing abilities of Hitler and Bin Laden -- by attending the breakfast."
The White House confirmed to the Huffington Post that Obama plans to attend the breakfast, scheduled for Thursday, but had no response to CREW's letter. The Fellowship is closely connected to the now-notorious C Street House near the Capitol -- essentially a dorm for ethically-troubled Republicans.
"For those who have been housed in or sought refuge at C Street House," says Sloan's letter, "a shocking pattern of unethical behavior has emerged, sparking public outrage.
For example Senator John Ensign (R-NV), who lived in the house, is being investigated by the FBI and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics for events surrounding an affair he had with a former campaign staffer and his efforts to cover up that affair by helping her husband, his former chief-of-staff, become a lobbyist in violation of federal law."
The letter also mentions ethical troubles for C Street House guests Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).
Very little is known about the Fellowship.
As Newsweek reported last September, "Nothing about its organizational structure is visible to the public: not its board of directors, nor its executive team, nor its mission statement, nor its 200 subsidiary ministries, nor its national or global membership."
Click here for a PDF of CREW's letter.
Rightardia comment: Obama has already skipped one of these prayer breakfasts. He should skip this one as well.
In 1942, Abraham Vereide founded Fellowship Foundation Inc. in Chicago as the middle United States headquarters for the growing prayer cell and prayer breakfast planting ministry. Vereide was openly sympathetic to European fascist movements in the World War 2 era. Doug Coe, the stealth evangelist, now runs The Family and the C Street retreat.
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A prominent good government group is demanding that President Obama and members of Congress skip this year's National Prayer Breakfast, calling its organizer "shadowy" and "cult-like."
"The National Prayer Breakfast uses the suggested imprimatur of the elected leaders who attend to give the Fellowship greater credibility and facilitate its networking and fundraising," CREW director Melanie Sloan said in a statement.
"The president and members of Congress should not legitimatize this cult-like group -- the head of which has praised the organizing abilities of Hitler and Bin Laden -- by attending the breakfast."
The White House confirmed to the Huffington Post that Obama plans to attend the breakfast, scheduled for Thursday, but had no response to CREW's letter. The Fellowship is closely connected to the now-notorious C Street House near the Capitol -- essentially a dorm for ethically-troubled Republicans.
"For those who have been housed in or sought refuge at C Street House," says Sloan's letter, "a shocking pattern of unethical behavior has emerged, sparking public outrage.
For example Senator John Ensign (R-NV), who lived in the house, is being investigated by the FBI and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics for events surrounding an affair he had with a former campaign staffer and his efforts to cover up that affair by helping her husband, his former chief-of-staff, become a lobbyist in violation of federal law."
The letter also mentions ethical troubles for C Street House guests Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Gov. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), and Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.).
Very little is known about the Fellowship.
As Newsweek reported last September, "Nothing about its organizational structure is visible to the public: not its board of directors, nor its executive team, nor its mission statement, nor its 200 subsidiary ministries, nor its national or global membership."
Click here for a PDF of CREW's letter.
Rightardia comment: Obama has already skipped one of these prayer breakfasts. He should skip this one as well.
In 1942, Abraham Vereide founded Fellowship Foundation Inc. in Chicago as the middle United States headquarters for the growing prayer cell and prayer breakfast planting ministry. Vereide was openly sympathetic to European fascist movements in the World War 2 era. Doug Coe, the stealth evangelist, now runs The Family and the C Street retreat.
Source:
Arthur Delaney // Huffington PostRelated Documents
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White House support of Middle Class Families in the 2011 budget
Having steered the economy back from the brink of a depression, the Administration is committed to moving the Nation from recession to recovery by sparking job creation to get millions of Americans back to work and building a new foundation for the long-term prosperity for all American families.
To do this, the 2011 Budget makes critical investments in the key areas that will help to reverse the decline in economic security that American families have experienced over the past decade with investments in education, clean energy, infrastructure, and innovation.
But even as we meet the challenge of the recession and work to build an economy that works for all American families, we must also change the way Washington does business – ending programs that don’t work, streamlining those that do, cracking down on special interest access, and bringing a new responsibility to how tax dollars are spent.
The President’s Budget takes the steps to help jumpstart job creation, works to strengthen the economic security of American families, and makes the tough choices to put our Nation back on the path to fiscal responsibility.
To support middle class families, the Budget will:
Spur Job Creation. The economy is back from the brink and is showing signs of health, but this positive news has barely been felt in the labor markets. While we are no longer hemorrhaging jobs at the rate we were last year, unemployment is still unacceptably high.
Looking to the future, the investments made in the Budget in education, clean energy, infrastructure, and in several other areas will lay a new foundation for economic growth and job creation. But in the short-term, it is clear that the some targeted measures are required to spur private sector job creation.
The Administration will work with Congress to implement a jobs creation package along the lines the President announced in December of 2009. It will include immediate steps to help small businesses grow and hire, to upgrade and build infrastructure, and create jobs through energy efficiency and clean energy investments.
In addition, to help those most affected by the recession, the Budget will extend emergency assistance to seniors and families with children, Unemployment Insurance benefits, COBRA tax credits, and relief to states and localities to prevent layoffs.
Tampa Bay's Self-destructing Economy: Part 1
St. Petersburg has been a Republican stronghold as long as Rightardia can remember. In this video the show multiple vacant prime location commercial properties located throughout the greater St. Petersburg area.
Please forward the video to your contacts. The State of Florida has also been run by Republicans for nearly 12 years. Florida's unemployment rate for December hit 11.8 percent, inching closer to breaking the state record of 11.9 percent set nearly 35 years ago.
In the Tampa Bay area, the jobless rate was 12.4 percent, driven in part by Hernando County's whopping 14.9 percent rate, second-highest in the state.
In past decades florida was able to withstand recessions because of the tourism industry. Initially this industry did not do well when the Bush recession stated because galoine prices were high. Gas prices have recovered, but tourism is till lagging.
In additon, the Republicans cut takes back while Jeb Bush was governor and have now been forced to layoff teachers, police and fire fighters as a result of their wayward tax policy.
Democrats needs to hang the Florida recession onto the Republicans. They can win in Florida with this strategy.
source: http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/workinglife/florida-unemployment-hits-118-shrinking-labor-pool-masks-deeper-problem/1067308
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Al Jazeera: Israel 'disciplines' army officers for using white phosphorous in urban areas
Rightardia comment: White phosphorous is now used in bombs and artillery shells because napalm got bad press in Vietnam. The use of napalm and other incendiaries use against civilian populations was banned by the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) in 1980.
Two Israeli army officers have been "disciplined", but not demoted, for firing artillery shells towards a densely-populated area near a UN compound during its war on Gaza last year.
The two officers were named on Monday as Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg and Colonel Ilan Malka by the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, but have not been officially identified by the military.
The army did not say what form of discipline the men faced, but both were accused of "exceeding their authority in a manner that jeopardised the lives of others" during the shelling of Tel al-Hawa on January 15, 2009.
The report documented how Israeli troops "fired several artillery shells in violation of the rules of engagement prohibiting use of such artillery near populated areas".
However, Israel's military advocate general ruled there was no basis to order a criminal investigation into the incident.
Credibility issue
Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera's corrrespondent in Jerusalem, said that the credibility of the military investigation is being called into question, especially as the January 15 incident was well-known for the Israeli military's widely-condemned use of white phosphorus.
"This is yet another case of the army investigating itself. The government is now under increasing pressure, both from within Israel, and from overseas, to establish an independent commission".
So far only one Israeli soldier has been prosecuted for misconduct during the war – for stealing a credit card from a Palestinian house - even though hundreds of Palestinian women, children and elderly people died in the war.
Israel's 22-day offensive between December 2008 and January 2009 on the coastal territory resulted in the deaths of about 1,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children. It also left Gaza in virtual ruins following indiscriminate bombing and shelling by Israeli forces.
Some 13 Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed in the conflict.
Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said the two officers disciplined had not committed any crime, they had only "breached guidelines" and would have an official reprimand put into their file.
"Some 36 Israeli soldiers and officers are currently under criminal investigation over conduct during the Gaza conflict. But in this incident, there was no evidence of any criminal behaviour", Regev said.
Tel al-Hawa attack
However, a UN Board of Inquiry report in 2009 that investigated Israeli attacks on UN buildings and staff during its war on Gaza accused the Israeli army of "negligence or recklessness" in its use of white phosphorus munitions.
And a report by the South African judge Richard Goldstone, commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, found that three high-explosive shells and seven white phosphorus artillery shells had hit the compound at Tel al-Hawa.
It concluded that the Israeli military violated customary international law by firing toward a warehouse, run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, that was the biggest food storage depot in Gaza.
In the past two weeks, Israel has paid $10.5m in compensation to the UN for the damage.
source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/2010211622611316.html
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Two Israeli army officers have been "disciplined", but not demoted, for firing artillery shells towards a densely-populated area near a UN compound during its war on Gaza last year.
The two officers were named on Monday as Brigadier General Eyal Eisenberg and Colonel Ilan Malka by the Israeli Haaretz newspaper, but have not been officially identified by the military.
The army did not say what form of discipline the men faced, but both were accused of "exceeding their authority in a manner that jeopardised the lives of others" during the shelling of Tel al-Hawa on January 15, 2009.
The report documented how Israeli troops "fired several artillery shells in violation of the rules of engagement prohibiting use of such artillery near populated areas".
However, Israel's military advocate general ruled there was no basis to order a criminal investigation into the incident.
Credibility issue
Jacky Rowland, Al Jazeera's corrrespondent in Jerusalem, said that the credibility of the military investigation is being called into question, especially as the January 15 incident was well-known for the Israeli military's widely-condemned use of white phosphorus.
"This is yet another case of the army investigating itself. The government is now under increasing pressure, both from within Israel, and from overseas, to establish an independent commission".
So far only one Israeli soldier has been prosecuted for misconduct during the war – for stealing a credit card from a Palestinian house - even though hundreds of Palestinian women, children and elderly people died in the war.
Israel's 22-day offensive between December 2008 and January 2009 on the coastal territory resulted in the deaths of about 1,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children. It also left Gaza in virtual ruins following indiscriminate bombing and shelling by Israeli forces.
Some 13 Israelis, including three civilians, were also killed in the conflict.
Mark Regev, an Israeli government spokesman, said the two officers disciplined had not committed any crime, they had only "breached guidelines" and would have an official reprimand put into their file.
"Some 36 Israeli soldiers and officers are currently under criminal investigation over conduct during the Gaza conflict. But in this incident, there was no evidence of any criminal behaviour", Regev said.
Tel al-Hawa attack
However, a UN Board of Inquiry report in 2009 that investigated Israeli attacks on UN buildings and staff during its war on Gaza accused the Israeli army of "negligence or recklessness" in its use of white phosphorus munitions.
And a report by the South African judge Richard Goldstone, commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, found that three high-explosive shells and seven white phosphorus artillery shells had hit the compound at Tel al-Hawa.
It concluded that the Israeli military violated customary international law by firing toward a warehouse, run by the UN Relief and Works Agency, that was the biggest food storage depot in Gaza.
In the past two weeks, Israel has paid $10.5m in compensation to the UN for the damage.
source: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/02/2010211622611316.html
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