Political News Bits of the Day

[tmiller51]

"While finding Glen Beck a bad joke I cannot but wonder how much rolling over in their graves our Founding Fathers would
be doing over the Robert's court ruling that corporations are now people and have the unlimited right to campaign donations
hence shaping who and what will guide our national destiny."

Fundamentally I can't understand why the court felt it had to make this decision. Corporations have many fewer interests than "people"--really their only interest is in making money (and mostly just making money today, not 20 years from now). "People" have many more concerns--civil rights, reproduction, leaving a clean environment for children, healthcare, etc., etc. Why is the need to grant this limited entity the same rights as people?

Tim

[tmiller51]

ACORN 'gotcha' man arrested in attempt to tamper with Senator Mary Landrieu's office phones:

Alleging a plot to tamper with phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu's office in the Hale Boggs Federal Building in downtown New Orleans, the FBI arrested four people Monday, including James O'Keefe, 25, a conservative filmmaker whose undercover videos at ACORN field offices severely damaged the advocacy group's credibility.

Last fall, O'Keefe was hailed as a conservative hero for dressing as a pimp and taping ACORN employees offering advice on how he and a partner could get away with running an international underage prostitution scheme.

Full Article

Tim

[L.Wood]

.

dressing as a pimp

Except when the sleaze artist entered the Baltimore ACORN office he was dressed in slacks and a pressed dress shirt. The pimp outfit was edited in later. See wikipedia account under ACORN.

.

[Dardedar]

.

dressing as a pimp

Except when the sleaze artist entered the Baltimore ACORN office he was dressed in slacks and a pressed dress shirt. The pimp outfit was edited in later. See wikipedia account under ACORN.

DAR
That would be REALLY hard to do. I read the wiki blurb and don't see anything about editing in the outfit later. Apparently they were messing with the audio and dubbing things in. That's easy to do.

UPDATE: I see what you meant, you're right, he spliced in some bogus shots. Here is what happened:

"ACORN spokesman Kevin Whelan said the arrest calls O'Keefe's credibility into question, and used the opportunity to point out that he "edited (ACORN videos) to make things look as bad as possible." He said, for instance, that O'Keefe actually wore a normal dress shirt when he was in the ACORN offices, but spliced in shots of him dressed as a pimp in the final videos." Link

[Dardedar]

The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll [PDF file]:

7b. Do you generally approve or disapprove of the way that Republicans in Congress are handling the issue of health care reform?

Approve ............................... 26
Disapprove ............................ 64
Not sure................................ 10

[kwlyon]

The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll [PDF file]:

7b. Do you generally approve or disapprove of the way that Republicans in Congress are handling the issue of health care reform?

Approve ............................... 26
Disapprove ............................ 64
Not sure................................ 10

I would like to know what percentage of that 26% are democrats and what percentage of that 64% are republicans...that would be a telling statistic.

[Doug]

China Overlooks Obvious Solution...

Beijing police shut down "Mr. Gay China" pageant

BEIJING (Reuters) - Beijing police Friday shut down what organizers had billed as China's first gay pageant, saying it did not have a license. The winner of "Mr. Gay China" was supposed to represent China at a global event to be held in Norwegian capital Oslo next month, which has never before featured a mainland Chinese representative.

"It's heart-breaking," said gay rights activist Xiao Gang, who was to have been one of the judges.

"They've done this kind of thing before, not giving any explanation, just saying you have not applied. Of course, there is an element of homophobia to this. But there's nothing political about this event."
See here.

And in unrelated news..?
China sees sexual frustration causing social problems

BEIJING (Reuters) - Sexual frustration amongst migrant workers in China's booming southern province of Guangdong is leading to a host of social problems and must be tackled, state media on Saturday cited a local official as saying.

Guangdong, China's export powerhouse, is home to about 30 million migrant workers, the most in the country. Many leave wives, husbands or children in their native villages to seek the higher wages factories pay compared with agricultural work.

The China Daily quoted Zhang Feng, head of Guangdong's provincial commission of population and family planning, as saying these migrant workers suffered from "severe sexual repression."
See here.

[Dardedar]

South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford also explained to [Barbara] Walters that her husband was frugal, even "cheap." ABC:

"He drew me a picture of a half a bike, and then for the next birthday or Christmas I got the picture of the other half a bike, and then he delivered the $25 used bike," she recalled.

For another birthday, Mark Sanford gave her a diamond necklace, which she adored, but then he took it back."

Jenny Sanford: 'Cheap' Mark Sanford Dropped 'Faithful' From Wedding Vows

[Doug]

DOUG writes:
A friend send this. He got it from his conservative brother. Note how this is NOT for discussion:

======== e-mail ===========

Will NBC be surprised??*

Here's your chance to let the media know where the people stand on our faith in God, as a nation.

NBC is presently taking a poll on "In God We Trust" to stay on our American currency.

Please send this to every Christian you know so they can vote on this important subject.

Please do it right away, before NBC takes this off their web page. Poll is still open so you can vote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/

This is not sent for discussion.

If you agree please forward it, if you don't, delete it..
By my forwarding it, you know how I feel. I'll bet this is going to be a surprise to NBC.

[Dardedar]

Public Health Tab to Hit Milestone

For the first time, government programs next year will account for more than half of all U.S. health-care spending, federal actuaries predict, as the weak economy sends more people into Medicaid and slows growth of private insurance.

The figures show how federal and state spending is taking a bigger role while Congress hesitates over a health-care overhaul.

Government health programs are a growing burden on the federal budget, which is running annual deficits of more than $1 trillion, and rising health costs continue to batter private industry.

By 2020, according to the new projections, about one in five dollars spent in the U.S. will go to health care, a proportion far beyond any other industrialized nation...

Government spending on health care in the U.S. is estimated to have accounted for 8.4% of GDP in 2009.

That is nearly equal to total health spending—public and private—in some European countries such as Britain and Italy, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data."

WSJ

DAR
That last sentence is astonishing [underline mine].

[Dardedar]

Obama Is Creaming Bush When It Comes To Jobs



Link

[Doug]

Gerard Alexander has a column in the Washinton Post titled, "Why Are Liberals So Condescending?"

He claims that liberals are too arrogant to listen to conservatives. Bad liberals! There is a little poll you can take to voice your opinion of who is more condescending. Liberals are at 63% right now, conservatives at 26%.

Vote here.

[Dardedar]

It's okay to be condescending if you actually are better.

As a tee shirt says:

You say "Intellectual Elite" like it's a bad thing

[Dardedar]

One way bi-partisanship. Look who supports the other side, and look at the goose-steppers:



Link

[Doug]

As a tee shirt says...

Conservatives should get T-shirts that read:

You Say "Dumb Motherfucker" Like It's a Bad Thing!

[Doug]

Here's what I wrote to the Washington Post:

"Why Are Liberals so Condescending?" is harmful propaganda. It is just another attempt to make liberals look bad. Alexander says that liberals do not take conservative ideas seriously. No, they just don't take seriously the policies that almost destroyed the country under Bush. But they don't dismiss these ideas on ideological grounds. They dismiss them because the cause and effect relationship has been observed, and those conservative ideas are harmful to our country.

Condescending? That's just name-calling. There is a reason that the Republican party is shrinking. The GOP has systematically evicted moderates from its ranks, and the failed ideas that it steadily promotes do not appeal to those who are readily able to see through the propaganda. This ability to see bad ideas for what they are, and dismiss them accordingly, can be called elitism by the GOP, but this is just a ploy. It is not elitism, it is reality-based problem-solving.

[Dardedar]

LINK

[Dardedar]

Unscientific Fox poll on the Tea Baggers:

HERE

Currently 80% (with 200k polled) say:

"Fruitless mix of racism, conspiracy theories"

[Dardedar]

Even Boulder Finds It Isn't Easy Going Green

WSJ

"BOULDER, Colo.—This spring, city contractors will fan out across this well-to-do college town to unscrew light bulbs in thousands of homes and replace them with more energy-efficient models, at taxpayer expense.

City officials never dreamed they'd have to play nanny when they set out in 2006 to make Boulder a role model in the fight against global warming. The cause seemed like a natural fit in a place where residents tend to be politically liberal and passionate about the great outdoors.

Instead, as Congress considers how to encourage Americans to conserve more energy, Boulder stands as a cautionary tale about the limits of good intentions.

"What we've found is that for the vast majority of people, it's exceedingly difficult to get them to do much of anything," says Kevin Doran, a senior research fellow at the University of Colorado at Boulder."

and:

"Mr. Karakehian knows he's wasting energy. He doesn't care."

DAR
And to this I say, hey, stop subsidizing energy and raise the price. He'll care.

[Dardedar]

Some on the right like to claim that health insurance companies only make a 2% profit. Hmmm...

"These are huge, massive rate increases, very concerning to me and my team," Poizner said.

In a letter he sent last Monday to Angela F. Braly, president and chief executive of Anthem's parent company, WellPoint, Inc., and Larry C. Glasscock, WellPoint's chairman, Poizner said the an "outside actuary" will determine if the rate hikes are excessive and if Anthem Blue Cross was spending 70 cents of every dollar on premium medical care as required by state law.

Link

Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to make them spend 85% on medical care and they fought it tooth and nail (and won). This kind of makes hash of the 2% claim. A whole lot of medical money going down the tubes.