The GOP Loves Their Party, Hates America

"House Republicans are making brutal spending cuts to domestic and foreign priorities, ostensibly because they’re worried about the deficit, while at the same time trying to destroy a health care law that lowers the deficit." - Steve Benen

FACT: the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office delivered a revised estimate on what repealing the Affordable Care Act would do to the federal budget: the federal budget deficit would go up $210 billion in the first decade, and roughly $813 billion in the second decade.

You have to give the nasty GOP credit for their consistency. At every opportunity, they stick a knife in the back of average Americans.

Source: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/

Fox Narrative

via liberalsarecool.tumblr.com

“They deceive, the viewers believe.”

Let’s start calling Fox what it really is: entertainment for the paranoid. It’s a predetermined narrative for the willfully ignorant.

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The Bottom 90% Income Shrinkage

Let the corporate world plunder as the middle class wonders. Trickle Down FAIL.

The Paranoia Of The Right

That goes a bit too far, but it's true that Lowry has published lots of indefensible work by Andy McCarthy. And every so often you'll see something at NRO that makes you wonder what exactly they're about:

That's telling, isn't it? An ideological adversary has a strange but substantively irrelevant habit – putting ice in beer – and the NRO reaction is an assertion that he hates the United States. In this iteration of conservatism, being a real American isn't about fealty to the Founding principles. It's all about cultural cues. Just like when the right trashed Barack Obama for putting mustard on his hamburger. (Yes, seriously.)

via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

America is built on the idea of different people living together. Then, the Right Wing spends all its time telling you that anyone different is un-American.

Bloomberg puts ice in his beer = He hates America. The coded language is getting lame.

And you want to be half the political debate? I think not.

Reagan-itis

via azspot.net

The Right has really forgotten who Reagan was. The folklore has eclipsed the facts. Largest tax hikes in US history = Reagan. Would Palin know this, let alone, admit this?

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More Brains And Fewer Bullets

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Defense and Entitlements [Social Security/Medicare] are untouchable to any politician. There weakness to address these serious issues translates into our crumbling education system.

The safety net of entitlements is under attack constantly, but defense spending is never scrutinized. This has to change. The Military Industrial Complex is in the War Business. They want conflict. They want the Government to wage wars.

As we see with recent histories in the Middle East, diplomacy trumps wars. We need more brains and less bullets.

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"Curveball" Lied And Americans Died

Iraqi defector Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi (codenamed Curveball by German and American intelligence officials who dealt with his claims) admits he fabricated tales of a secret biological weapons program in Iraq, then watched in shock as it was used to justify the war.

“Maybe I was right, maybe I was not right,” he said. “They gave me this chance. I had the chance to fabricate something to topple the regime. I and my sons are proud of that and we are proud that we were the reason to give Iraq the margin of democracy.”

Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations eight years ago was based almost entirely on these lies. Most of al-Janabi’s claims were discredited well before the landmark speech.

via liberalsarecool.tumblr.com

Watch the video. Know how you were lied to. Never forget what Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld did to or country.

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The Pitiful Republican Field

"The Republicans have two candidates in Ms. Palin and Mr. Gingrich whose net favorability ratings are actually  in the double-digit negatives, something which since 2000 had only been true of Pat Buchanan and Al Sharpton." - Nate Silver

via andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com

Obama 2012.

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Obama 2012 Landslide Victory Odds Looking Good

Sarah Palin has hired Michael Glassner as her chief of staff. Given Glassner's long history in Republican campaigns, the move suggests the former half-term governor may be eyeing a presidential campaign.

via washingtonmonthly.com

Not saying this be be over-confident. Just the truth.

The horse race style of political races is meant to create ratings to sell advertising. The final headline on that November day next year: Obama Wins 2012 Elections

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The Dark Origins Of Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a time to celebrate romance and love and kissy-face fealty. But the origins of this festival of candy and cupids are actually dark, bloody — and a bit muddled.

Enlarge Hulton Archive/Getty Images

A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine — one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

A drawing depicts the death of St. Valentine — one of them, anyway. The Romans executed two men by that name on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D.

Though no one has pinpointed the exact origin of the holiday, one good place to start is ancient Rome, where men hit on women by, well, hitting them.

Those Wild and Crazy Romans

From Feb. 13 to 15, the Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia. The men sacrificed a goat and a dog, then whipped women with the hides of the animals they had just slain.

The Roman romantics "were drunk. They were naked," says Noel Lenski, a historian at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Young women would actually line up for the men to hit them, Lenski says. They believed this would make them fertile.

The brutal fete included a matchmaking lottery, in which young men drew the names of women from a jar. The couple would then be, um, coupled up for the duration of the festival – or longer, if the match was right.

The ancient Romans may also be responsible for the name of our modern day of love. Emperor Claudius II executed two men — both named Valentine — on Feb. 14 of different years in the 3rd century A.D. Their martyrdom was honored by the Catholic Church with the celebration of St. Valentine's Day.

Later, Pope Gelasius I muddled things in the 5th century by combining St. Valentine's Day with Lupercalia to expel the pagan rituals. But the festival was more of a theatrical interpretation of what it had once been. Lenski adds, "It was a little more of a drunken revel, but the Christians put clothes back on it. That didn't stop it from being a day of fertility and love."

Around the same time, the Normans celebrated Galatin's Day. Galatin meant "lover of women." That was likely confused with St. Valentine's Day at some point, in part because they sound alike.

via npr.org

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Clarence Thomas Has Not Spoken In Five Years

A week from Tuesday, when the Supreme Court returns from its midwinter break and hears arguments in two criminal cases, it will have been five years since Justice Clarence Thomas has spoken during a court argument.

If he is true to form, Justice Thomas will spend the arguments as he always does: leaning back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, rubbing his eyes, whispering to Justice Stephen G. Breyer, consulting papers and looking a little irritated and a little bored. He will ask no questions.

In the past 40 years, no other justice has gone an entire term, much less five, without speaking at least once during arguments, according to Timothy R. Johnson, a professor of political science at the University of Minnesota.

via nytimes.com

Way to earn that Supreme Court robe.

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