Hey, fiscal conservatives…how many of these can you get behind?
I counted nine, and could imagine many more methods along those lines (e.g. end Drug War). Of course, I’m a liberal therefore I cannot be fiscally responsible. The teabaggers would quarrel with just about every one of those budget control [...]
Every once in awhile, people explain how the world works (hat tips to Sullivan and some other dude who netted it):
Remember too that when you have a progressive tax system, especially when there are surcharges on people making seven-figure incomes, you also have a system where for [...]
WEAK WEAK WEAK! “They’ll wait us out!”
This is why we have to let our empire crumble for another three years? Sending blood and money overseas because it’s just so darn scary that Dick “Deficits don’t matter” Cheney might smirk at us and utter some new catchphrase?
Really, is it [...]
Some people blog continuously. We don’t. We expect that you read lots of blogs and that we don’t need to repeat everything being said out there. We blog when we think it will be interesting on its own merits and as an art form. It’s a reserved, contemplative style. I [...]
Jeromy and I were talking the other day about how we’re glad that it wasn’t a Democratic governor who pardoned Maurice Clemmons, the Arkansas parolee that shot four cops earlier this week in suburban Tacoma. I understand that might be construed as highly cynical but to those who would think [...]
Grassley gets the nanny state:
GRASSLEY: For the first 16 years I made $3,000 every other year as a state legislator. Now do you expect me to live on $3,000 every other year? No I was a factory worker for 10 years and I was a farmer for that period [...]
There’s the stupid coverage of news items. There’s the not covering what should be news items. And then there’s the desperately covering non-items in the hopes that they’ll become items.
I normally could give a rat’s ass about jocks. The media always tries to put a sheen of [...]
I always used to hate when completely non-weird people would declare that about themselves because they liked pickles on toast or something equally inane.
Well, I’ve become everything I hated, so I’m weird because I don’t enjoy blogging while home sick. Reading and storing tabs for later use, watching movies in [...]
Sullivan gives the pious both barrels:
It’s staggering really that modern American Christianism supports wealth while Jesus demanded total poverty, fetishizes family while Jesus left his and urged his followers to abandon wives, husbands and children, champions politics while Jesus said his kingdom was emphatically not of this world, defends [...]
Don’t be afraid. My checking account balance as of today: $0.05
I’ve always been ready to stack jobs, and have usually done so. I’m always the most responsible person on a crew of nutsacks with no direction or work ethic, a by-product of my Iowa upbringing. I have a reasonable [...]
Sullivan recalls:
I remember very vividly a heated argument with Karl Rove over eight years ago in which I worried about spending and deficits. “Deficits don’t matter!” Rove kept repeating in that nasal world-weary tone he has. After a bit, I said, “What do you mean, deficits don’t matter? Don’t [...]
Obama forbids lobbyists from being appointed to federal agency advisory boards and commissions.
Oh, also, forty-one Republican Senators are dead set against his health care bill that insures 36 million people because they were gonna do it under Bush II but they forgot and they really will do it next [...]
Gosh, somebody besides a crazy liberal hippie is noticing that Republicans have overseen the massive inflation of the filibuster, transforming the Senate into a 60 vote body rather than the foreagreed majority vote requirement.
According to research by UCLA political scientist Barbara Sinclair, there was an average of one filibuster [...]
I thought they were going to start firing staff for on-air flubs?
I hadn’t been paying attention to the semantics but it’s no surprise that the Republican party’s cable network would try to assert that George W. Bush’s tenure began after September 11th and that the Fort Hood shootings constituted a [...]
The announcement won’t be for a few days. I’m sure it’s because they’re still trying to figure out how to get those fiscally minded Blue Dogs on board with the decision.
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[...]Coralville Courier’s Group2012 (who is probably also commenter Liberal Shark), one of the Thayer boys, offers somebody else’s work (one sample link, this is circulating all over the right-o-sphere) as his own without citation.
Of course, NO IT IS THE DEMOCRATS WHO ARE THE LIARS, but the problem [...]
The Republicans were ready to ban the filibuster after we tried to block the most extreme of Bush’s judicial nominations.
Since the Democrats regained control of the Senate, Republicans have abused the filibuster rule like never before. Until 1970, no session of Congress had more than ten votes on [...]
If you say a beauty queen who couldn’t hack it as governor of Alaska or tell a scrap of truth to save her life shouldn’t be president, the teabaggers get upright and angry because they “identify” with her.
If you point out “Joe the Plumber” was completely wrong in his attack [...]
This has to break some kind of record for number of insanely wrong and empty-headed statements in a row.
Republicans are for good things! Democrats for bad things!
Do we really deserve to be the most powerful country in the world at this rate? Not if these people are calling the shots. [...]
…with roughly a quarter of the stimulus money out the door after nine months, the accumulation of hard data and real-life experience has allowed more dispassionate analysts to reach a consensus that the stimulus package, messy as it is, is working.
The legislation, a variety of economists [...]
Guess what? Republicans think ACORN stole the election for Obama. Not just the wacky teabaggers. 52% of all Republicans. Now Doug Hoffman, pathetic as he already was, has retracted his concession of the race, because he says ACORN stole that election too. Does he have any evidence? Of [...]
The incomparable Ezra Klein:
But what’s the alternative? No one wants an individual mandate. But the folks who spend all their time trying to solve the first problem Ross describes have concluded that you can’t do it without an individual mandate. After all, why do people get priced out of [...]
Man-on-the-street ignorance footage is easy to come by but the above video demonstrates a log on the tea-bagger fire that’s been crackling since election day. In the span of a few weeks it became part of accepted right-winger lore that TARP and its related bailouts were a product of the [...]
It just occurred to me that Matt Foley has all it takes to become a right wing media personality. He comes from a humble background and has a checkered past. He’s not much to look at but has a resonating baritone voice. And most importantly, he’s one of us! A [...]
Full comic here.
All religious fundamentalists have a few characteristics that they share in common; one of them is their view of a woman as a purely biological entity whose sexuality must be studiously controlled. The issue of abortion then comes down to punishing women for [...]
That’s upper peninsula for the uninitiated; land of guns guns guns! We fished for trophy walleye on Little Bay de Noc until the wee hours of the morning with terrific success. Here’s a twenty eight incher I caught earlier in the evening:
I almost got seasick this [...]
Europe on track to meet or exceed Kyoto goals.
Meanwhile, if you favor doing anything about carbon emissions in America, you’re now a treehugging liberal, despite the fact that rightwingers have lost the argument everywhere except within their own hermetically sealed media environs.
-jb
[...]Caught five minutes today while running to Subway due to an unexpected work break, as I’m not usually on the road when he’s on.
So Genius Republican Party Leader tells me that Democrats want terrorists kept prisoner in the U.S. because that means more prison guards. Union member prison guards, [...]
May Congress follow the lead of Blizzard Entertainment, and vote on the health care bill “when it’s ready.” Ezra Klein, who’s essential reading on health care reform, points out some of the cost control measures being considered.
The first comes from the excise tax on high-cost health insurance plans. The [...]
Mike was out fishing in Michigan this weekend. While you eagerly await his return, enjoy my favorite Stereolab song via a terrible placeholder video (so you can surf and listen!):
-jb
[...]Republicans and their flagrant abuse of the Constitution for whatever political ends suits them show no signs of stopping soon. Whether it be ignoring the 9th and 14th Amendments (abortion, gay equality), calling perjury over sex “high crimes and misdemeanors,” or tossing out the whole thing over scary brown [...]
Would it surprise you that the Bush administration tried to puff itself up after 9/11 and pretended they responded quickly?
Yet both Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Vice President Dick Cheney, (John) Farmer says, provided palpably false versions that touted the military’s readiness to shoot down United 93 before [...]
DougJ at Balloon Juice:
I did some searchers on “dithering” in the New York Times and Washington Post archives. In the Times, there were eleven uses of the word post-Cheney out of a total of 47 in the past year. In the Post, there were 36 post-Cheney out of a [...]
Ruth Marcus wonders why Republicans continuously make things up abouth health care reform.
Georgia Republican Tom Price: “This bill, on Page 733, empowers the Washington bureaucracy to deny lifesaving patient care if it costs too much.”
Not true. The bill sets up a Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research “in order to [...]
One expects this from middle schoolers. Presidential wannabes?
Even Ann Althouse gives up and declares Palin a hopeless dummy. Her comments thread comes alive with accusations of elitism. Of course, none of them question that a bunch of Ivy League chickenhawks casually manipulate the masses to thirst for [...]
With the next military appropriations bill. Only a tiny minority of Americans anymore believe in hating gays more than defending the country.
Today we salute the veterans, with a special nod to those who served while forced to hide who they really were.
-jb
[...]The Democrats swept two elections across the country, in the West and the South, because they stopped being afraid of being Democrats. As a general rule, Democrats who do their best to impersonate Republicans don’t win races. Democrats who stand up and make the case for voting for a Democrat [...]
Boehlert points out that the libruls as the root of all evil jive has diminishing rates of return.
Doug Hoffman was, first and foremost, a media candidate (a media creation), which means we are entering a very new and different realm in American politics. We’re entering a sort of [...]
If Maddy doesn’t have health insurance and gets sick, though, she may have to die so we don’t become Commies.
-jb
[...]Republican representatives mutate into town hall screamers, trying to drown out voices of opposition instead of challenging them.
-jb
[...]The Catholics endorse the health care reform bill.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops delivered a critical endorsement to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Saturday by signing off on late-night agreement to grant a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions.
“Passing [...]
I really don’t hear many Republicans bragging about their health care plan lately. Seems they were forced to finally come up with one, confirming what everybody already knew, that they had no real plan to change anything.
There’s no question that the Republicans’ bill is cheaper because it does so [...]
Kos with some EPIC pwnage:
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UPDATE: Crooks and Liars links to a Denver Post article detailing Tancredo’s 1-Y Vietnam deferment.
[...]A man stands up and speaks with real authority to the fake authorities in Iran. Yet they have reacted interestingly. Mahmoud Vahidnia was, of course, immediately arrested, but now Khameini is projecting a humane image by sparing him further punishment.
“Vahidnia showed a new atmosphere which is the true [...]
It is my contention that were we dealing with a genuine opponent in Republicans, instead of a gang controlled by the know-nothing musings of the Beck/Palin/Limbaugh Idiot Trinity, this piece by the Brookings Institution may carry some weight.
The proposal starts from the conclusion that the standard short-term measures to [...]
Except when they shove a broomstick up their asses.
Earlier this fall, Coburn placed holds on S 252, the Veterans Health Care Authorization Act of 2009, and S 728, the Veterans’ Insurance and Benefits Enhancement Act of 2009, which led to the introduction of S 1963, which combines key [...]
I don’t believe Dick Armey raped a woman in 1980 and another in 1994 (both in Fargo), but I’m okay if other people do.
-jb
[...]1. Enough of the trembling in your boots already Democrats, you damn lily-livered cows. Never be afraid to run against a teabagger candidate who Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are excited about. If you can’t take down a politician beholden to those idiot kings, you suck. Obama has earned the [...]
j/k!
Just wanted to beat them to it.
-mg
UPDATE: Holy smokes…not even close to being a referendum on Obama. Scorecard here.
UPDATE: More bad news for Democrats: CNN uncovers the shocking truth about Republican domination of the angry, white and aged demographic.
UPDATE: It’s not over yet, but Bill Owens [...]
Ouch. Especially considering he’s scientifically proven to be the most LIBRUL PRESIDENT EVER!!!
But not too bad for an ambitious first year:
Another factor that may be boosting Obama’s overall rating is the inevitable comparison with the man he replaced in the Oval Office. Fifty-seven percent say Obama has [...]
Question for our right-leaning friends who argue that the information we might get from torture (or, as they’d have it, “enhanced interrogation” – double-plus good, right?) offsets the underlying moral issues: if I told you I could prevent an attack on Americans by kidnapping a terrorist’s pregnant wife and threatening [...]
For those of us who remember the daily announcements of new things Bush was screwing up, only to be told his presidency would rest on how some country on the other side of the globe turned out (not that that criteria worked out so well for him)…details matter.
While President [...]
The past week or so we’ve been visited by a couple commenters who have come here to condemn us. My mistake, apparently, is in not throwing up my hands and surrendering immediately.
Let me be clear: at Iowa Liberal, we have a feisty spirit but a respect for the principles of [...]
Liz Cheney tried slamming Obama for greeting and honoring the newly dead of war. Except to do so, she claims Bush did the same thing regularly, without cameras.
Except Bush never went.
One could surmise that Liz Cheney simply recognizes that this is how one rises to the top of the [...]
The Dean Lord of Washington CW, David Broder, come up with a unique angle to attack the opt-out public option and Harry Reid: Nobody should be denied health care based on where they live!
Then maybe no goddamn states should opt-out, should they, Broder? Why is Harry Reid being blamed [...]
A perfect member of the Beltway, Hiatt never needs to be right, he just needs to serve powerful interests:
Or consider the remarkable exchange that took place this week between Peter Orszag, the White House budget director, and Fred Hiatt, The Washington Post’s opinion editor. Mr. Hiatt had criticized Congress [...]
Everything is bad news for Democrats. DougJ states the rule:
There is nothing, nada, zilch, zero, nothing, that is bad news for conservatives. When they win elections, it proves we’re a conservative country. When they lose, it proves it. When we pass health care bills, it proves it. When [...]
Palin wants $100K to speak to Iowans. This is assuming she’d even follow through which, considering her resume, could be a crap-shoot.
The situation speaks for itself. As several GOP leaders in Iowa have pointed out, if you’re serious about a presidential bid you don’t charge audiences to hear [...]
FIRST! Fellow conservatives, I charge you to rewrite this story from notorious liberal-media mavens at Forbes and excise any mention of the stimulus. Clearly the hero here is our great President Bush! His zombie econ recovery powers are without peer! Tell the world how President Bush had to first [...]
It’s not so much betrayal as being plain wrong on the public option. But that doesn’t stop Joe Lieberman, who acted like a Republican until Obama came into office, minded himself, and waited for the perfect moment to declare himself the most powerful person in the country.
Lieberman doesn’t have [...]
The title intrigued me until the video turned all after school special:
I’m hoping the complete National Geographic episode gets a little more technical and scientifically compelling than the trad “look out kids!” vibe the above video gives off. Human consciousness is an area of physiology we know the absolute least [...]
However it was done, the public option (with opt-out) is in the bill. Holy smokes.
Harry Reid may have sensed that the only way forward for him was to get strong on a popular bill. If it took an electoral threat to put some steel in his spine, may the [...]
In the United States, the Obama administration is in the process of appealing a sound federal appellate court ruling last April in a civil lawsuit by Mr. Mohamed and four others. All were victims of the government’s extraordinary rendition program, under which foreigners were kidnapped and flown to [...]
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They’re right about Fox. No need to make a big fuss about it…just keep Fox swearing they’re doing journalism, and let people look for themselves.
-jb
[...]Wow, something good the Obama administration has done, and I actually found out about it from a conservative.
When Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan came to office, they created a $4.3 billion Race to the Top fund. The idea was to use money to leverage change. The administration [...]
Asked on CNN a few minutes ago, “President Obama is leaving medical marijuana alone but just had a huge crackdown on illegal drugs. CAN HE HAVE IT BOTH WAYS?”
Well, since medical marijuana is legalized in 14 states, of course he can. The same way he can also not arrest [...]
Invade the remains, rape the women, behead the men. Sell the body parts. Make bone scalpels and perform abortions with them. Etc.
More details in our ongoing war against Fox News. Turns out Fox hadn’t asked for the Ken Feinberg interview.
The network pool crew noticed Fox wasn’t on the [...]
This video clip sums up every right wing blog post written over the past ten months:
[...]GOP’s favorability worst it’s been in a decade.
Only 36% of people view the GOP favorably, with an outright majority of 54% viewing them unfavorably. By comparison, the Democratic Party is at 53% favorable to 41% unfavorable — hardly a good omen for the Republicans if they want to make [...]
Hugh Hewitt demonstrates why he’s better at being a hack radio host than a lawyer, trying to get some kind of win on Richard Dawkins. Dawkins is remarkably patient with Hewitt’s constant attempts to find holes in evolutionary theory. At one point, Hewitt suggests that the fact that evolutionary [...]
Long (but fascinating) article for a guy who says he ain’t got no more attention span.
The human brain is almost infinitely malleable. People used to think that our mental meshwork, the dense connections formed among the 100 billion or so neurons inside our skulls, was largely fixed by [...]
The Obama administration authorizes drilling in the Beaufort Sea…and energy futures increase. So much for the instant gratification predicted by these guys.
Among the headstones in the graveyard of right-wing slogans one is sure to come across “Drill, Baby, Drill”. A chant recited and popularized by she who [...]
Just imagine if we had a counter-insurgency strategy against gangs, one conceived with as much brainpower and lateral thinking as the military could generate. What if we actually had enough armed forces on watch in our troubled areas to stamp out crime? Not as killers, as peacekeepers. Coupled with the [...]
People like to remind us that unemployment hasn’t been this bad since…most of Ronald Reagan’s first term. Those who gloat about that, strangely, worship Reagan. Nevertheless, any Republican would tell you that Reagan took care of Wall Street, and the economy exploded.
Anybody can figure out why the market [...]
Sullivan posts a picture of a guy who had the gay-hatin’ passage from Leviticus tattooed on his arm. A pastor offered a corrective citation:
Too bad the guy with the passage from Leviticus tattooed on his arm didn’t read the next chapter:
“You shall not make any gashes in [...]
I thought this was a joke when I first read it:
Earlier this evening, as most of you now know, one of our own, Rush Hudson Limbaugh, while taking withering fire, crashed and burned.
Tonight, Rush is no longer ‘just’ a radio personality.
Tonight, Rush is no longer ‘just’ a [...]
Swiftboater Jerome Corsi (have I mentioned that I have a) Ph.D provides the opening for a return to the classic figment of rightwing paranoia, the “black helicopters” business, and Sean Hannity gladly hosts.
He starts right off the bat by joining two rightwing talking points, the blacks at ACORN [...]
My right wing blog reading is fairly limited but has anyone else come across any “where’s the outrage?” type commentary from the perpetually outraged wing of the political [...]
Edroso on Dreher on Maher winning the Richard Dawkins Award:
That’s right: Jesus freak Dreher and his fellow Jesus freak Mark Shea are saying that the atheists picked the wrong atheist to honor. That’s like a vegan telling me I didn’t tenderize my pork chops well enough to suit his [...]
Yeah, that Vander Plaats. He of Nussle/Vander Plaats 2009 fame.
Rev. Keith Ratliff Sr., registered Democrat and president of the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP announced his support for anti-gay Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats on Monday. If elected, Vander Plaats has pledged to pass an executive order [...]
The 2010 defense authorization bill has cut some high profile projects (corporate subsidies) and whittled the bill of goods and services down to $680.2 billion dollars (which is roughly $175 billion short of what the Baucus health plan would cost over ten years).
Some of this years cuts are listed [...]
Obama has been collecting scalps in Pakistan, even avenging the death of Benazir Bhutto.
How can this be? We aren’t torturing anybody!
-jb
[...]My friend Neils from Holland was just telling me how Europeans will put a trailer hitch on anything regardless of how small. He was right!
It looks like a Ford Festiva with a failed head gasket but it could be a Yugo.
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[...]Just read the headline, but you know what they’re going to say. I mean, nobody has found the limits of who rightwingers want to invade, bomb, and kill, but we should listen very carefully to their opinions on a prize for peace.
-jb
This is what good government is about; protecting those that can’t protect themselves.
[...]Sounds like a terrific idea to me. It also seems a heckuva lot more plausible than all of these rooftop gardening schemes. (I honestly don’t see the benefit in hauling thousands of pounds of dirt and water onto your roof, essentially jeopardizing the longevity of the structure, just to [...]
Bunker-busters being prepped for…???
I’m sure this will please the villagers and the winger bloggers alike since the only foreign policy action they seem to be able to wrap their brains around is ESCALATE THE VIOLENCE.
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[...]If you thought that gang rape was something that Democrats and Republicans could both agree was a bad thing you’d be wrong. Thirty senators, all of them Republicans, voted against an amendment to the current DoD appropriations bill that would forbid defense contractors to require employees to sign mandatory arbitration [...]
NEW BUZZ OBAMA IS A NARCISSIST HE USES “I” IN HIS SPEECHES…
…less than George W. or Clinton. Dammit!
-jb
[...]Fred Armisen may have done his funniest Obama skit Saturday night, in the way one might say, “I just had my best root canal.” It was good medicine, but a little ouchy-ouch. Obviously the mouth-breathing goons out there have taken some delight in the skit, but they forget the opening [...]
