"Is the Vatican going to be the pirate state that gives refuge for pederasts and molestors and rapists?"
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Hitch On The Church
Christopher Hitchens on Bill Maher last night discussing the Church, religion and legality of the Pope and the Vatican.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Maddow v Brown Timeline
A multi-source time line of the Maddow v Brown fakeness brought on by the male model. Classic example of how your Conservatives twist information to suit their needs.
Source: Newsy
Source: Newsy
NYT's TimesCast: Daily Summary In Video Form
NYT has a new feature called TimesCast: "An inside look at the top stories The Times is following, available weekdays from 1 to 2 p.m".
Source: NYT
Source: NYT
Congress Ups College Aid. GOP Looks To Repeal Hopey-Changey
"More needy college students will have access to bigger Pell Grants, and future borrowers of government loans will have an easier time repaying them, under a vast overhaul of higher education aid that Congress passed Thursday and sent to President Barack Obama."
I love this quote:
"The Democratic majority decided, well look, while we're at it, let's have another Washington takeover," said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and a former federal education secretary. "Let's take over the federal student loan program."
It's the FEDERAL Student Loan Program. You're accusing the Federal Government of running a Federal program. Lamar got used to passing the buck and outsourcing everything under Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld he forgot the Government's responsibilities.
Rachel Maddow's Boston Globe Ad: Sen. Brown Makes Sh*t Up
Typical of the Republican's to make up a story in order to influence their base. This time it's Sen. Scott Brown [R-MA] sending out a fund raising letter across the country claiming Rachel Maddow is running against him in 2012.
Honesty was never a part of this letter. It was a lie purported as truth that Brown was using to scare people into giving him money. Fake threats are the MO of the GOP. Wasting time and money on rumors.
7 weeks on the job and Brown is already a coward. Maddow has respectfully invited Brown onto her show on MSNBC. See if Brown has the balls.
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Tipping Point For "Just Say No" GOP?
Scott Brown, prepare to be teabagged.
Source: Balloon Juice
The conventional wisdom was that if the Dems did get Health Care Reform through, that would be it. The solid phalanx of No would clamp down even harder. But it’s not looking that way. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) says that post-Health Care a number of his Republican colleagues have had enough.Looks like the ship is abandoning the sinking rats.
“The health care thing kind of changed the atmospherics around here,” Dodd told reporters today. “I think, frankly, there are a number of Republicans who went along with the strategy of ‘just say no’ who were never really happy with it, but if it worked they would go along. They saw it fail. And now they’ve had enough of it. and they really want to be involved in crafting things.”
Source: Balloon Juice
The Pope and the Pedophilia Scandal
"It was hard to see how Vatican officials did not draw the lessons of the grueling scandal in the United States, where more than 700 priests were dismissed over a three-year period. But then we read Laurie Goodstein’s disturbing report in The Times on Thursday about how the pope, while he was still a cardinal, was personally warned about a priest who had molested as many as 200 deaf boys. But church leaders chose to protect the church instead of the children. The report illuminated the kind of behavior the church was willing to excuse to avoid scandal."
via nytimes.com
200 deaf kids? That is some cold blooded kiddy fiddling. How many Hail Mary's do you get for that?
Orchestrated cover-ups leading directly to the current Pope. WTF? It's not just a sin, it's a crime. As German chancellor Angela Merkel said, we need “truth and clarity about everything that took place.”
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
The Church Scandal Has Just Begun
A cover-up just makes it worse when the facts come to light.
Source: Daily Dish
"But the crucial line in Vatican investigator Mgr Charles Scicluna's evidence comes much earlier. He says that between 1975 and 1983, there was not a single case referred to his office from anywhere in the world. This is astonishing."Not one case? Look at what was really happening. [Graph is for America] The period when nothing at all was reported to Rome was also when the abuse was most frequent and widespread.
"There were never fewer than 350 priests reported in any of the years between 1975 and 1983. None of those cases reached Rome for judgement. All of them were covered up spontaneously, almost unconsciously, by the local bishops. "Pure evil.
Source: Daily Dish
Celibacy Should Not Be A Catholic Issue
Did you know the Vatican allows Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests to marry? Money quote from Father Yuriy Volovetskiy:
Source: NYT
“Having a family gives a priest a deeper understanding of how to relate to other people and help other people. It is more natural, it makes more sense, for a priest to have a wife and children.”With all these predator priests in the West, it's time the Vatican really thinks about letting celibacy end and have married priests. They've already spent over $1,000,000,000, that's a billion, denying they have a problem by paying off families of the abused.
Source: NYT
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
HCR Signed Into Law
Great day for the future health of America. Those who opposed it have to question their humanity and understanding of how a country cares for itself.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Clinton, McCain, Now The GOP
"I watched Obama's rise from Hyde Park over the last 15 yrs. Two things stand out: his political rivals almost always, and fatally, underestimate the guy's abilities. I sense there's some racism there, and his opponents always try to smear him as a "radical black guy" but Obama has always positioned himself above racial street fighting. The fact is, Obama is not just smart, he's brilliant.
Second, the guy constantly fights a war of attrition, staying the course, keeping his cool, but applying constant steady pressure to the abutments of the opposition, and over time almost all of them crumble.
I don't think conservatives have yet figured this out about a guy, who now, is their biggest danger to future political relevance. He's grinding them, slowly, into dust."
Obama is always underestimated. Works twice as hard. Does it with class.
John McCain Declares Himself "No-Show" Senator
"There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year," John McCain said during an interview Monday on an Arizona radio affiliate. "They have poisoned the well in what they've done and how they've done it."
Mr. Country First, AKA Grampy McCain, claims the Dems have poisoned the well? They ran on a platform of Health Care Reform, got elected across the board, and then passed it.
Did the Dems hurt your feelings, John? Should they be punished? With more obstructionism? Are you the "Party Of No Work"?
Your sense of duty and responsibility has vanished. You're serving the people who live in your State, not yourself. You sung, I mean cooperated, in Hanoi, why not now?
Listening To Right Wing Pundits Is Bad For You
"The health care bill, ObamaCare, is dead with not the slightest prospect of resurrection.... Democrats have talked up clever strategies to pass the bill in the Senate despite Brown, but they won’t fly.... ObamaCare went into the emergency room in Massachusetts and didn’t make it out alive." - Fred Barnes, Jan. 20, 2010.
Famous last words, Fred Barnes. But like all Right Wing talking heads, he will be on Fox every week predicting complete bullshit. Do you think he will ever address this 100% wrong prediction? Nope. Keep on shoveling the shit, don't look back.
The Top Ten Immediate Benefits From HRC
As soon as health care passes, the American people will see immediate benefits.
The legislation will:
- Prohibit pre-existing condition exclusions for children in all new plans;
- Provide immediate access to insurance for uninsured Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition through a temporary high-risk pool;
- Prohibit dropping people from coverage when they get sick in all individual plans;
- Lower seniors' prescription drug prices by beginning to close the donut hole;
- Offer tax credits to small businesses to purchase coverage;
- Eliminate lifetime limits and restrictive annual limits on benefits in all plans;
- Require plans to cover an enrollee's dependent children until age 26;
- Require new plans to cover preventive services and immunizations without cost-sharing;
- Ensure consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to appeal new insurance plan decisions;
- Require premium rebates to enrollees from insurers with high administrative expenditures and require public disclosure of the percent of premiums applied to overhead costs.
I had a Right Wing friend on Facebook write "Traitors". Really? Health care for kids? How far off course can you get.
This is the first step. No one thought this would pass. Any pessimist can call himself a prophet. Well, you were wrong. "Hope" is coming back to America. Go Obama!
Newt Gingrich Is A Moron
From the inner id of the conservative movement:
Former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich said Obama and the Democrats will regret their decision to push for comprehensive reform. Calling the bill "the most radical social experiment . . . in modern times," Gingrich said: "They will have destroyed their party much as Lyndon Johnson shattered the Democratic Party for 40 years" with the enactment of civil rights legislation in the 1960s.
This comes via Mike Lillis, who headlines his post, "Gingrich: Civil Rights Laws Weren’t Worth the Political Price." But the problem here isn't that Gingrich is some kind of stone racist (though he's certainly racially tone deaf), it's that Gingrich is an idiot. The old Democratic Party got torn apart in the 60s when racist southern congressmen abandoned it in favor of a Republican Party that was more tolerant of their views. But who exactly does Gingrich think is going to leave the party today over healthcare? Bart Stupak? Aside from abortion, Stupak would be a pariah in the Republican Party. Ditto for virtually everyone else in the Democratic caucus. If Dems lose even two members over healthcare, I'll personally buy Gingrich a beer and let him write my blog for a day. As for the public at large, passing healthcare will make the party more popular in the fairly near future. Gingrich knows this perfectly well, which is why healthcare reform terrifies him so.
Kevin Drum via motherjones.com
What has Newt been right about in the last 10 years? Obama winning? Health Care passing? Newt wishes he could back to the 1960s and avoid all the Civil Rights changes and not deal with young voters who are not interested in his outdated racist ways.
The country is moving forward without you.
Frum: Waterloo For Republicans
"I’ve been on a soapbox for months now about the harm that our overheated talk is doing to us. Yes it mobilizes supporters – but by mobilizing them with hysterical accusations and pseudo-information, overheated talk has made it impossible for representatives to represent and elected leaders to lead. The real leaders are on TV and radio, and they have very different imperatives from people in government. Talk radio thrives on confrontation and recrimination. When Rush Limbaugh said that he wanted President Obama to fail, he was intelligently explaining his own interests. What he omitted to say – but what is equally true – is that he also wants Republicans to fail. If Republicans succeed – if they govern successfully in office and negotiate attractive compromises out of office – Rush’s listeners get less angry. And if they are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.
So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours."
David Frum via frumforum.com
Fox and Right Wing talk radio have made it impossible for Republicans to deal or negotiate with Democrats.
They even talk about a dream scenario where the GOP repeals the Reform. Re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? Re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? Never going to happen. Yet another illusion peddled by the Republicans.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Health Care Reform: Done
Obama delivers on CHANGE. Democrats delivered. Legislative majorities come and go. This health care bill is forever. Yes We Can.
Republicans went for all the marbles and ended up with none.
Republicans went for all the marbles and ended up with none.
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