Act Blue Turned Conservadem

I was reading a post on Crooks and Liars about Maddow blasting Conservative Democrats when a familiar name popped up (source TPM): “Conservadems like Jon Tester and Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman are siding with the Republican senators, who are siding with no voters — not even their own!” Maddow exclaimed, noting a recent CNN [...]

Fun With Rhetoric, Communism and the Far Right

Its been far too long since we’ve checked in with SPLC’s Hate Watch, and there’s a wealth of new stories (quite the uptick in insane sovereign citizen stories).  But today I want to talk about an extraordinary piece of ultra conservative insanity. Anti-Muslim crazy from SPLC (emphasis mine): Frank Gaffney, an anti-Muslim activist who in April told [...]

Outlaw Arbitration

The recent Supreme Court decision against arbitration was yet another victory for corporations over the rights of citizens.  The case was decided along partisan lines, with Republican nominated justices providing the majority pro-corporate opinion. It is time we fight back. Arbitration is, in essence privatized justice where the legal ball is always in the corporation’s [...]

There Are No Fiscal Conservatives

Quick Hit: We need to kill the term Fiscally Conservative, and replace it with Fiscally Responsible. Because Fiscal Conservatives are never Fiscally Responsible, and its Fiscal Responsibility that we need.  That means not cutting off your source of funding with tax cuts, not cutting off programs that provide social services and ignoring the negative long [...]

The Liars That Get Away

Professional liars like James O’Keefe are able to successfully manipulate the media into damaging their targets.  Amanda Marcotte writes: At this point, he releases a video, everyone knows up front that he’s a liar, and everyone will just pretend that he’s not for the 12-24 hours it takes for the video to ruin someone’s life.  [...]

Pocket Guide to the Budget Debate

Here’s what you need to know when engaging with Republicans and ConservaDems on the budget. Our deficit is about $1.2 trillion a year. We are spending just over $1.2 trillion a year on our military.  We are basically spending our deficit every year on our military. Extending the Bush Tax Cuts is costing us $860 [...]

Exposing Tort Reform as a Sham

It sounds reasonable: “People are suing for crazy-pants reasons!  Its out of control and we all pay for it!”.  Except its all bullshit. Pajiba is more of a place for excellent movie reviews than politics, but when they do dive in damned if they don’t get it perfect.  On Tort Reform: Tort reform is a [...]

Tea Party vs Abortion – The New Fight

The exceptions for the health of the mother, rape, and incest are under attack.  As the anti-abortion movement exposes its true face – a theocratic desire to control women’s reproductive options in all circumstances – they are also removing all pretense at compromise.  The newly invigorated anti-abortion movement is going to oppose contraceptions.  They are [...]

The New Republican Rhetoric and Bachmann

Buzzfeed has a collection of the best (craziest) Michele Bachmann quotes.  So a friend – understandably – posts this on Facebook wondering how someone this stupid is in office. Stupidity isn’t at play here, malicious intent is.  Michele is lying to push her agenda forward.  One might reasonably presume she is making effective use of [...]

Thoughts On Tunisia

There’s a lot to process.  In seeing fellow humans push back against tyranny and succeed – even if only for a moment – you are filled with rush of happiness and contentment.  Upon looking closer – other observations present themselves. The LA Times has a pretty good run down of the run up to revolution.  [...]

First They Came for the Muslims

And then they stopped, because we said ENOUGH. You come for the Muslims you come for all of us and we will not stand silently by and just let you: Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has promised to launch a series of investigations of Muslim Americans beginning in [...]

Obama: Campaign Promises vs Actions

Clarence Jones has a thoughtful piece over at the Huffington Post on whether Obama has lived up to his campaign promises.  My friend Marco asked me to take a look at it, and a rather long email turned into this post. The article itself suggests Obama’s achievements with the stimulus, health care reform, and DADT [...]

Protest the TSA, and Avoid Flying

A lot of this bullshit article by the AP doesn’t add up. Written with an anti-populist sneer, the article states: Despite tough talk on the Internet, there was little if any indication of a passenger revolt Monday at many major U.S. airports, with very few people declining the X-ray scan that can peer through their [...]

Democrats Aren’t Democrats

Hahahha, time for a dose of reality dear readers! From the daily WTF pile over at Digby’s residence: Quick question for those who believe that criticism of the the president and the Dem leadership is what’s depressing the Democratic base: is this criticism a problem? House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is giving Democratic candidates a free [...]

Quick Thoughts on Abortion, Choice and Language

I was browsing the America Speaks Out website (created by the Republican party at taxpayer expense).  Its a goldmine of funny.  But it also offers up some rather useful insights.  Take these two quotes: the sanctity of life should support whatever of woman wishes to do with her body. Without this right freedom is meaningless [...]