I Hope You're Happy

The GOP Budget: More of the Same

Let’s see here, Repeal all of the stimulus spending that just about every economist in the world says we need, makes the Bush Tax cuts for the rich permanent, and the worst plan for health care since the employer based system we have now. It also puts another nail in the coffin of the GOP, as it illustrates hwo unrealistic and out of touch they are.

The Poisonous Queen

The Republican blogosphere is having a heyday about Michelle Obama touching, yes, touching the queen, and calling it a major political faux pas (and probably calling for Obama to resign amid the growing scandal). The tale of the tape, however is quite different, and I want to use this to illustrate how quickly anything gets taken out of context in Washington, and to be fair, both sides do it.

Now, long ago, I remember a commoner hugged the queen. Gasp! A Commoner? Off with her head! The media had a tittering about it, and the incident was mostly forgotten.

In this case, the Queen touched first. Maybe she was feeling overawed at the Obama mystique, or maybe she was feeling like Han Solo talking to Greedo, either way, don’t think this is a gotcha moment.

After all, it isn’t like she gave the Queen a backrub, or tried to leave a press conference through a locked door, or, threw up in the prime minister’s lap, or made up insulting nicknames for other heads of state, or got snubbed for a handshake at a world summit, or walked off with a “goodbye from the world’s largest polluter!” or using a racial slur for hispanics in reference to the Italian delegate, or……

Really, we need to grow up over this petty bullshit. There’s an economic crisis on, and the people throwing the shit are largely responsible.

Gay Marriage in the Heartland?

Suddenly Iowa is hipper and more progressive than California?

Iowa’s gay marriage ban “is unconstitutional, because the county has been unable to identify a constitutionally adequate justification for excluding plaintiffs from the institution of civil marriage,” Cady wrote in the 69-page opinion that seemed to dismiss the concept of civil unions as an option for gay couples. “A new distinction based on sexual orientation would be equally suspect and difficult to square with the fundamental principles of equal protection embodied in our constitution,” Cady wrote. The ruling also addressed what it called the “religious undercurrent propelling the same-sex marriage debate,” and said judges must remain outside the fray. “Our constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve these types of religious debates and entrusts to courts the task of ensuring that government avoids them,” the opinion says.

“Next year, 2010, which is, obviously, going to be a signature year because it will establish, first of all, the power of this presidency and this president, all that he is embraced by at least the national media, he still didn’t receive a majority of the votes in this country, just those cast.”

Lou Dobbs everybody, Lou Dobbs.

US Spy Agencies still Plagued by the problems that led to 9/11

You mean like Republicans who want to put their agenda on shaky data?

The Dirty dozen of the financial apocalypse

Rolling Stone’s list.

These guys are getting charged for hoaxing

Of course they did point out the gullibility of humanity.

Peter Orszag, the author of the budget on the Daily Show

Funny how a comedian can ask the hard questions that newsmedia can’t.

How compromised can a politician get?

Chris Dodd can tell you. First he got a special mortgage from Countrywide. Then he has been underreporting the value of a home in Scotland to get out of some interesting investigations into his relationships with the witness to the sale. Now he was having a $1,000 dollar a head fundraiser with the head of Hedge Fund manager John A Paulson while being Senate Banking Committee Chairman. Of course he had to move it because it was at a club that excluded minorities. Can we not vote this guy back in during the next election in 2010.

Texas Board of Education votes to not put the age of the universe into textbooks, just to appease creationists

And there’s others for the whackadoo set.

I’m just going to have to disagree with Penn Jillette on politics and his Libertarian crap, and just enjoy Bullshit!

The rest of the world wants to spend now to get things going

So why don’t the Republicans?

The Trouble with the Obama stance on lobbyists is a lack of qualified people

I’m quite a bit more supportive of Obama than this commentator, so this is kind of a contrarian viewpoint to my own. Lobbyists are compromised by money, how many have lobbied for say, petrochemical companies, then gone to work for, say the Bush Administration EPA, then gone back to lobby for big petrol? Far too many. It’s a double edged sword, to skewer a cliche. Then again, the rate that he is appointing people is awfully slow…

The House passed the Obama budget

But the Senate is no sure sell….

Republicans almost unanimously vote against the largest tax cut in history

Funny how that works out. So much for standing up to principles.

And now they’re nationalizing banks

Lindsey Graham talks about the impending nationalization of the banking system.

An oral history of the Bush Administration

This is pretty fascinating. An insider look at everything that went on.

Obama is fearmongering….yeah….sure…..

The pot calls the kettle black

Alexandra Pelosi’s experiences documenting the McCain campaign

Yes, she’s the daughter of THAT Pelosi, but she did an honest documentary that you can see soon.

Check out this spin:

Republicans who voted against the stimulus bill are taking credit for points in it.

Bush no longer protecting Rove

So much for Loyalty

Eight people arrested…..

For smoking a little weed with Michael Phelps. No one arrested yet for 8 deaths and 575 illnesses due to tainted peanuts that had been knowingly sent out since 2007.

This is just way too cool…

5 soldiers who made Rambo look like pussies.

The C-Word is now defending white supremacists

The throw-away article of the day. Ann Coulter is a racist. Who woulda thunk? Here she is defending the Council of Conservative Citizens.

Federal Judge Quits For not getting a Pay Raise

Probably better off not having somebody this out of touch with the state of the world as a judge. $169k wasn’t enough this year I guess.

Cleric who said Hurricane Katrina was God’s punishment for homosexuality is made bishop by Vatican

Obama might not be the anti-christ, but this Pope is sure showing signs. I love people who believe this, because it shows how hateful and blind to reality they are. The gays got out of New Orleans before Katrina, and poor Christians were the ones left to suffer, and people like this won’t even recognize this. It’s about as intelligent as not believing in the holocaust.Perfect! He also calls the Harry Potter books Satanic. What a winner.

It’s official, it’s a meme

Protester throws a shoe at Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

Christina Romer responds to the Republican’s use of her arguments

She says that they interpreted her wrong, and that spending on projects produces far more jobs than tax cuts. Here’s the way I see it. Taxes get cut, money is spent on things made overseas, meaning money goes overseas, and jobs are made elsewhere. Spend on infrastructure, well, it’s not like you’re going to make a bridge in China and put it on a boat.

Well, Kentucky is a RED state

Kentucky’s ice storm is not being responded to fast enough.

This is the guy the RNC picked to lead them?

Oh, please let this be true. Oh Please let this be true. Oh Please let this be true.

Please check this out

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As part of my ongoing efforts to challenge stereotypes, I give you this new feature to my website: Republicans are Pussies. Republicans enjoy the cowboy mystique, a man and a horse alone against everything in the world. But I feel that this persona hides a darker secret, that the cowboy is afraid of participating in the larger world. Hiding behind their guns, their bibles and a façade of the rough and ready, the Republican secretly clings to a teddy bear hoping the world doesn’t cave in on him and his beliefs. And here is another reason why.

The Economic Stimulus Bill

While this bill passed, not a single Republican voted for it. At issue was the large amount of spending that would increase the national debt (surprisingly now they feel that running a deficit is a bad thing), the tax cuts which the Republicans ironically opposed (I’m guessing because they couldn’t claim them as their own), what they called pork (They manufactured this, but we’ll get to that), and funding for contraceptives (thems ain’t biblical). They used a torrent of arguments discussing whether infrastructure projects would actually increase employment, and mumbling things about socialists and communists.

Let’s look at these individually, and why they make Republicans pussies.

Republicans are pussies because when handed a budget surplus, under George W. Bush, they ran up 5 trillion dollars in fresh debt, nearly doubling the national deficit, all the while using the Karl Rove argument that deficits don’t matter. The Democrats warned of this kind of spending, clamored for spending responsibility, but without the majority, could do nothing. Then of course they won, and to the winner goes the spoils. Now they whine and cry about spending. Now they do, when it isn’t going to no-bid contracts for Republican allies. Now they pay attention to the debt. Own up to your mistakes, don’t be a hypocrite, be a good loser. Pussies.

Tax cuts. All throughout the campaign, Obama preached middle class tax cuts while the Republicans tried to make tax cuts to the rich permanent and claimed Obama’s plan would raise taxes on the middle class. It went like this:

Obama: I’m going to cut taxes on the middle class.
McCain: He’s going to raise taxes. That’s what Democrats do. Think of us poor rich people. He’s raising our taxes, too.
Obama: I’m going to lower taxes on the middle class.
McCain: (pulls out a straw hat, bamboo cane a starts a dance to ragtime music.)

Now Obama is making good on a promise and lowering taxes. Republicans are against it because it is a Democrat doing it, and they can’t take credit for it. And for him fulfilling another campaign promise in the first two weeks of his administration. And for not being able to say he lied. And because Obama made them look like the bad guys for trying to vote this down. Pussies.

Pork. There was this story that the Republicans passed around about millions being spent on a sculpture garden by the NEA as spelled out in the bill, except that it wasn’t actually in there. What they were complaining about was ANY money going to the arts (Republicans: Let the creative people starve!!!). How they arrived at the sculpture garden? They looked into past spending found something that would instill fear in the hearts of America and chose…a sculpture garden. It had better have been an H.R. Giger garden with a slime fountain. It was a lie. Pussies lie.

Funding for contraceptives. The question was a headline: What do contraceptives have to do with stimulus? Umm, because fucking is stimulating? I know this works against financial stimulus. If you’re doing the bump and grind, you aren’t out spending money. But come on, money spent is money spent, and in this case we’re giving it to our Republican friendly pharmaceutical industry. Think of all the babies we won’t have to provide jobs for. This is preemptive jobless rate reduction. Besides, only pussies get in the way of people fucking.

Infrastructure and jobs. It makes little sense to say that spending money on infrastructure won’t create jobs. It’s like saying all this stuff just appears one day, these freeways, and dams and things. While people who don’t have jobs sit around and watch. All the Republican financial guys will tell you, the Works projects in the Depression employed people and built the economy back up. Pussies refuse to listen.

But the biggest reason Republicans are pussies on this one is not a single one of them broke ranks to say that they should try to work with the Democrats on this one. Not a single one of them listened to their constituents to see if America wanted this bill, or that America might want to see a bipartisan gesture. Not a single one with the balls to man up and break from the pack. Pussies. Every single one of them.

Let’s see, According to this, Obama is leading us all to Paganism due to his stance on gay couples rights, his decision to close Guatanamo, and releasing tax dollars for abortions abroad. Because apparently, Pagans all have gay marriages, prisoners in illegal prisons and want people from other countries to have abortions. Really. You’ve got to read the arguments here. They are out of the gourd crazy. The loonies make it so easy. Unfortunately, the author is too much of a coward to enable comments. But you can email him, and I think you should. Maybe school him on exactly what paganism actually is.

NRO: Obama’s first week by Michael Novak

McCain is now standing in the way of Obama’s tax cuts (you know, the cuts he said would raise everybody’s taxes during the elections?). I thought McCain wanted to be all, you know, bipartisan, and cut spending, and the government burden on the tax payer. John McCain, why do you hate us? Maybe that’s why you didn’t get elected.It’s funny how Republicans keep saying spending money to hire people to do infrastructure projects doesn’t create jobs. That must be the new math.

McCain wants a Stimulus ReWrite

The party goes on with Blagojevich. I’d love to have a countdown on his administration, but he could drag this out past the next election.

Impeachment trial to proceed without Illinois Governor

A nice artistic video for all of you.

As far as the site is concerned, I’ll have podcast tomorrow, and an artice or two by the weekend. Have an idea for some larger works, but I have so many larger works, it might take time to get to them, unless of course, you donate to gearsecure.net and help me get rid of the day job.