25 July 2010

...but does O dare run the risk of causing widdle timmy geithner to have a tantrum?

Left Pushes Hard for Elizabeth Warren

although i earnestly disagree with making this about gender, i do agree she's the best person for the job. that said, the article does make a valid point that women control more discretionary spending than men and, therefore, their voices should be heard.

In her clear-eyed and earnest way, Warren has broken through in testimony on Capitol Hill and on television as a voice for the people, ticking off powerful business interests and irritating the boys' club that Obama has entrusted to steer the economy. If Obama chooses her to head the new consumer agency, she would have to be confirmed by the Senate and would likely provoke a partisan battle on the scale of a Supreme Court nomination. On Friday morning, three Republican senators warned the White House not to use a recess appointment to fill the new position. For Obama, it's a classic political choice: how much of a fight does he want or need going into the fall elections?

His base is telling him that Warren is what the left needs to believe in him again. Obama loves the woman; there have been articles written about how he sought her out, and how admiring he is of her. As the financial-reform legislation made its way through Congress, she was consistently named as the likely head of the first consumer-protection bureau. If Obama backs down now, he looks like he's afraid of a fight, which is not a good perception for a president who needs to burnish his leadership cred going into the November election. Warren is the voice of Main Street, and if the Republicans want to block her, Obama's attitude should be "Bring it on."


make no mistake, timmy and his buddies on wall street DO NOT want a "mommy" to keep an eye on the cookie jar. for that matter, they don't want ANYBODY (regardless of gender) upsetting their ramshackle, roughshod disdain for anyone that doesn't reside on wall street... that's average, every day, middle class americans like you and me, folks.

24 July 2010

please, call it "marriage equality" magazine...

...other than that, right on!

Equally Wed Magazine, The Nation's Premier Same-Sex Wedding Magazine, Gay Weddings, Lesbian Weddings, LGBT Weddings, Gay and Lesbian Honeymoons

disillusioned, indeed! good reporting judy woodruff!

For Democrats, Concern About Momentum as Midterms Approach | PBS NewsHour | July 23, 2010 | PBS

hey, axelrod, 2 words for ya': BITE ME.

DAVID AXELROD, Senior White House Adviser: So, while we were handling that, we were passing comprehensive health insurance reform that we have been fighting for, for a century. While we were doing that, we passed the credit card bill of rights and other financial reforms.

You know, we have done myriad things that will make a difference, including in the areas -- we haven't completed all our work in all these areas, but we have made progress in all these areas, and we're going to keep working at that progress.

we've been trying to pass health INSURANCE reform for a century? BS. the administration can only claim a victory out of semantics. when they caved on health CARE reform they adopted the health INSURANCE reform talking point. f'ing cowards.

"progress in all these areas"? ORLLY? the so-called "progress" for LGBT non-equal citizens is laughable, AT BEST.

now, now kerry...i *really* like you. your reporting is generally spot on and i thank you for taking this administration to task...*most* of the time, but i can't believe you gave them a freaking pass on DADT (see notes about health "insurance" reform capitulation regarding axe above).

Kerry Eleveld is Washington correspondent for "The Advocate," a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender news magazine. She credits the president for progress on don't ask, but says the effort on the other priorities has been lacking.

KERRY ELEVELD, washington correspondent, "The Advocate": His administration has not pushed on those. Don't ask, don't tell is still in the making. We're going to see where that goes. But -- but he has not pushed in any way, other than in some speeches.

If you look at him coming in, what he talked about, what he promised again and again, and also the majorities that he came in with, I would say he is woefully behind at this point.

what part of allowing the pentagon to commission a useless, bigoted, homophobic "survey" that is transparently designed to be used AGAINST the repeal considered "progress"? huh? what part of the compromise that requires the sign off of "fierce advocate, gates and mullen is "progress"?

23 July 2010

My last conversation with a Republican...by flyfish100

From Daily Kos: one of the best snarkalicious responses to republicant's i've EVAR seen.

Hey, Dick, thanks for sending me the email telling me all about Obama refusing to sign any congratulatory letters for Eagle Scouts and Gold Girl Scouts. I didn’t know about that one. That Snopes guy says it ain’t so, but you know how all the Snopeses lie. Anyway, you asked if I was still a liberal after all the travesties that have happened, so I figured I might as well jump the snark or whatever and tell you the whole plan right up front. You’ve been getting it piece by piece on Fox anyway, so what the hell, here’s the stuff we liberals are up to and I’m going to put it all in one place so it will make sense, you betcha’. Just read below.

The first thing we’re going to do is take away all your guns. I don’t know what we’re going to do with them, since most of us liberals don’t like guns all that much. I suppose we could melt them down into plowshares, but that sounds like a lot of work and you know how liberals feel about work. Anyway, we’re going to take away all your guns so there won’t be any trouble when our Death Panels come after you when you reach 65. You already know that Social Security is being paid out now by only three workers for one retiree and if we don’t use our Death Panels, everybody would live longer and then the actuarial guys say we’ll run out of money in 2049 instead of 2050 like we planned. Anyway, be nice to the Death Panel guys because they have a hard job, especially when they’re coming for their own grandmothers.

The next thing we’re going to do is take away all your birth certificates. Hell, if our president doesn’t have one, then no one else needs one either. That way it will make our immigration policy easier. I know it comes dangerously close to being a Republican ideal and all, but we figure if no one has a birth certificate, then the only ones who will get jobs will be those who want to work, not just those who own stuff. Those guys who own stuff are going to be taxed into oblivion so we can pay for the free healthcare we’re going to give to all the illegal immigrants who don’t have birth certificates. If you want to keep your insurance you’ll get to go to Cook County Hospital or some big place like that where they’re used to dealing with paperwork, but everybody else will have to be satisfied with Johns Hopkins or one of the Mayo places where there won’t be any paperwork, only health care.

After we fix the birth and health and death thing, we’re going to go after religion. We’re not going after all religions, just the Christian ones. The way we liberals figure it, the Christian ones have gotten too soft with all the televangels raking in the money and starting up tax-free corporations ands that “C” Street House and all, so we think it would be a good idea to help the Christian religions grow strong by persecuting them a lot the way the Romans got them to grow so fast. It will be a little tricky since so many liberals are secretly Christian, but we think we can pull it off. We’re going to ban Christmas and church basement pot-lucks and we’ll make sure the churches grow real fast by outlawing all women ministers and only allowing signs in secret. If this plan works, we can export it to the Middle East and use it on the Jews. God will thank us later.

Next, we’re going to fix education. After all, some of us think that’s where we got the word “liberal.” Others think it came from “library,” but it doesn’t matter. Instead of funding schools and deciding what’s important in education and nurturing natural talent and all, we’re going to start by giving kids lots more tests rather than trying to teach them anything. That way we’ll make them feel really stupid so we can train them to do what we want, mainly just learn how to play nice. Maybe that’s what we should do with all the guns we took away – put them in schools so some kids can learn how to play nice. Anyway, as liberals, we only care about creative stuff like music and dance and art, so the way to turn out great musicians and dancers and artists is to ban them in all schools, kind of like the way rock and roll works. I mean, look at how rock and roll grew when it was banned. The other thing we’re going to do to fix schools is make everybody join a union, including the kids. Liberals like unions, even though they’re the most god-awful things to try to control and bend to our liberal wills, seeing as how everybody gets to vote on stuff, but we think requiring unions is worth a shot (pun intended). The last thing we’re going to do to fix education is declare all schools private and give every kid a voucher for $42.00 he can use any way he wants on his education. This may sound like a Republican idea, but it’s one of our sneaky liberal ones. After we give each kid $42.00, we going to use the rest of our budget changing all the signs on all schools from “Public” to “Private.” We know there will still be good schools and bad schools depending on where a kid lives and nothing else will change including all the stuff that gets in the way of learning, but as liberals, we want their parents to think they’re giving their children a good, private education, and the $42.00 will make the kids happy because that’s all that matters to liberals.

As liberals, we’re still upset that you guys killed ACORN, which was part of our perfect plan to get everybody registered to vote, so we’re going to do a new plan. We’re calling it NUT JOB, and the only way you can register to vote is if you’re an ex-con, an illegal immigrant, or some minority without a birth certificate. How else can we liberals keep control of the country unless all our votes come from felons, illegals, and minorities? Hell, even Fox News knows that. We should thank those nice folks for helping us develop this aspect of our liberal plan.

Finally, as liberals, we hate all corporations with the possible exception of Apple. Since the Supreme Court has decided that all corporations are persons, we’re going to require them to do everything a person does. As liberals, we want everyone holding hands, so every corporation is going to be paired up with another corporation. For example, every power company is going to be paired up with a waste management company so they’ll have to learn how to play nice. Every mining company will be paired up with a private hospital or a life insurance company. Every credit card corporation will be paired up with a divorce court. (In ten years, we plan to make every court a nicety-nice family so courts will actually be just like persons as well.) Every car company will be paired up with a modeling agency so they can sell more cars. As liberals, we just want to save time and effort. Then we’re going to put a stranglehold on every business by regulating it to death. We’re going to pass really draconian measures like “You evil businessmen can’t run plants that blow up, especially in the middle of an ocean.” Here’s another one. “You can’t make products that make people sick.” Here’s my favorite anti-corporation rule to choke businesses. “We’re not going to allow you to run a business that steals money from people, gambles it away on bad bets, and then asks the government to fix you back up again.” THAT ought to really strangle business. After 65 years maximum, every corporation will be done in by one of our Death Panels the same as all persons, and its assets will go into our liberal coffers to give each kid a voucher for $42.00 to use on his education. Voila, a balanced budget, and you said it couldn’t be done.

Anyway, this is the whole liberal plan. It was pretty much secret until Fox News came along, but now I figured I might as well leak the whole thing at once. Say hello to Molly Ivins when you see her after the Death Panel comes, won’t you? God, I miss that woman. I wish she were here now.

manufactured outrage that's all about race but don't you dare say it's about race: megyn kelly edition

Kelly's obsession with phony scandal is just the latest "hint of her political outlook" | Media Matters for America

way too much to read on this fauxrage to even blockquote a teaser here.

22 July 2010

Mock, Paper, Scissors...or pimpin' the blogfather...

Mock, Paper, Scissors

because i can.

big gay post of the day...because i can.

Mel Gibson is Dating a Gay Man - Towleroad | #gay #news

BEYOND funny.

AMERICAblog News: Politico executive editor says those who attack Teabaggers as racist are creating a dangerous political climate

AMERICAblog News: Politico executive editor says those who attack Teabaggers as racist are creating a dangerous political climate

It seems the Politico has now bought into the religious right's favorite insult: You're intolerant of intolerance. Yes, we are.

this story is as long as the nose on breitbat-nocchio

Big Falsehoods: An updated guide to Andrew Breitbart's lies, smears, and distortions



Big Falsehoods: An updated guide to Andrew Breitbart's lies, smears, and distortions | Media Matters for America

our military loses another brave patriot

Pam's House Blend:: Lt Dan Choi's statement on his discharge

dan's statement:

My Statement on DADT Discharge

This morning I received notification of my honorable discharge from the army under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." After 11 years since beginning my journey at West Point and after 17 months of serving openly as an infantry officer this is both an infuriating and painful announcement.

But my service continues. To all those veterans who have endured similar trials and injustices or prematurely ended their military service because of the unjust policy: our fight has only begun.

The true honor and dignity of service does not come from a piece of paper, a pension or paycheck, a rank or status; only an unflinching commitment to improve the lives of others can determine the nature of one's service. From the first moment we put on our nation's uniform and swore our solemn oath, we committed ourselves to fight for freedom and justice; to defend our constitution and put the needs of others before our own. This is not an oath that I intend to abandon. Doing so at such a time, or remaining silent when our family and community members are fired or punished for who they truly are would be an unequivocal moral dereliction that tarnishes the honor of the uniform and insults the meaning of America.

Lt. Dan Choi

question du jour.

Why Does Fox News Have More Power Than Any Progressive in the Country? | The Smirking Chimp:

As we can all see now, when Fox says jump, the Obama administration asks how high? (Then jumps one inch less and considers it a progressive victory). Is there anyone Obama won't fire or throw under the bus if Fox asks him to? What if they ask Obama to fire himself? Would he do it? Or would he just fire Biden and say he met them halfway?


you tell 'em, cenk!

Washington Times: not even worthy of being used as fish-wrap.

Wash. Times uses discredited allegations to accuse DOJ of "rigging" elections | Media Matters for America: "

my, oh, my...this story just gets more and more racist as the days drag on.

the best laid plans of mice & men...or...

...i promise to try to be better at this blogging thingy.

my last post was on 5/19...on 5/22 my partner, jan, had a massive heart attack and spent 12 days in ICU. a week later, he developed sepsis and spent another 3 days in icu (sepsis quickly resolved but IV antibiotics for bacteremia necessitated a full-week's stay)... *sigh*

as a result, the last couple of months have been a bit, shall we say, florence nightengallian (ok, if caribou barbie can make up words, so can i).

through it all, i've been trying to maintain my sanity by not neglecting my OCD facebook tendencies, which is where a lot of stuff that *should* have ended up here wound up...SO, thanks to teh googlez teh awesome "share" button, i'm gonna try to start filling up the dump with the stuff that i find compelling enough to click on and read every day.

y'all LOVE each other. that's not a request.