This Blog is created to stress the importance of Peace as an environmental directive. “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” – Harry Truman
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John Roberts Says State Of The Union Has "Degenerated To A Political Pep Rally" (click title to entry - thank you)
Mar. 9, 2010, 5:45 PM
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says the scene at this year's State of the Union address
by President Obama was "very troubling," and he wonders if justices should attend in the future.
Obama chided the court during his speech for its decision that corporations and unions could freely spend money
to run political ads for or against specific candidates.
Obama said the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests to spend without limit in elections.
Roberts told law students at the University of Alabama that anyone is free to criticize the court, but he was troubled the remarks came during that setting. Roberts says the State of the Union address has "degenerated to a political pep rally."
Has Liz Cheney ever heard of an ethics investigation? What the heck is this? Treason? More than likely. She is making allogations no different than her media moguls without any facts and without any other purpose except to build hate of the current administration that is trying to finalize the proceedings of 9-11 terrorists that her father couldn't.
Jealous?Somehow one would expect more integrity from a Vice President's daughter, but, then the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. She needs to apologize. Sincerely and overtly apologize OTHERWISE there needs to be an investigation to the activities of these folks.
In this hyper-partisan age, the bipartisan outrage being expressed over the reprehensible television ad from the fearmongers at Keep America Safe is encouraging. The organization run by Liz Cheney, a state department official under President Bush and the daughter of the former vice president, is attempting to sow seeds of distrust by raising doubts about the loyalties of attorneys who once volunteered to handle the cases of suspected terrorists and are now working in the Justice Department. Wanting to know the identities of the lawyers is one thing. Smearing them as the "the al Qaeda 7" is over the line by a mile.
As The Post editorialized on Saturday, the ad gives the impression the attorneys "had committed a crime or needed to be exposed for subverting national security." And, sadly, it sought to remind folks that part of this nation's grand legal tradition is volunteers taking on cases of suspects who aren't popular or necessarily innocent but who need representation. Despite the Supreme Court ruling that detainees at Guantanemo Bay can challenge their detentions, groups like Keep America Safe is determined to ignore that fact....
What lifetime award did Frist earn, lack of addressing insurance reform for the entire time he was a Senator and contributing to the deaths of Americans ?
Baker and Gokey will perform at the gala along with Dave Mason and the Fisk Jubilee Singers. McGraw will join Nashville Mayor Karl Dean to present the Lifetime Humanitarian Award to Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen. Big Kenny and Ross Perot Jr. will recognize Senator Bill Frist with the Lifetime Medical Achievement Award.
Throughout the evening, Brooks & Dunn, Michael Bolton and Susan Simons will also be acknowledged for their humanitarian and industry work.
The failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq damaged President George W Bush's reputation, his former strategist Karl Rove says. Karl Rove admits mistakes during the Bush years.
The GOP attack on unemployment benefits is based in bigotry. They view it as a welfare payment to the constituency.
That is not correct. I don't know a State in the Nation that isn't requiring 'job searches' to be posted online or at least an endorsement to sign every week of a claim for their auditors to see, especially, when it comes to extended benefits.
Rather than taking responsibility for their economic collapse of 2008 that drove unemployment into incredible numbers, forced businesses into bankruptcy and caused the closing of hundreds of banks, they want to deflect that responsibility on 'the lazy American.'
NOT !!
If there jobs that remained vacant equal in numbers to the unemployed the benefits would be unjustified. That is not the case. Unemployment benefits aren't that generous either. It forces economic decisions that actually shrink the economy rather than expand it, but, it does prevent a greater housing crisis and higher crime rates. Is there something wrong with the government taking responsibility for Americans forced into poverty because they trusted the investment banks with unregulated ? finance options ?. No, there isn't.
The brevity of the cost of these benefits to the federal government is a stimulus itself. It requires the federal system to create and force job creation in the economy. It is far more advantageous for the federal government to build a wider tax base by job creation than simply paying out benefits.
I don't believe any American that is out of work really wants to be. I don't believe that for a minute. Are they doing other things, like trying to start their own enterprise? I hope so. Are they returning to school for training? You betcha. But, are they eating bon-bons in front of the television? I sincerely doubt a majority are doing that.
Depressed? Despondent? I am sure they are. They have probably lost their homes or on the brink of it. These Americans are not hard to find. Some are waiting their 'turn' at working on temporary assignment hoping to be hired permanently. That won't happen, because the businesses that are hiring them are rotating temporary workers through their jobs and eliminating the payment of benefits and long term obligations such as retirement plans.
Oh, the businesses are having a good old time with their profitable edge now and a saturated job market.In Japan there exists 'deflation.' Why? Because their saturated job market has created 'opportunities in cheap labor.' The jobless rate is less, but, so are the paychecks. Then Japan wants to try to figure out why it can't stimulate more consumer confidence. I don't think there will be, not with people working two or more jobs to make ends meet.
The Major Recession of 2008 won't stop overnight. The jobs and businesses that were demised while the investment banks were saved are gone. They aren't coming back. There are permanent set backs to the economies of the world and that is a fact. The banks that were rescued did nothing to save the small businesses where job creation takes place in many instances nor did they save homeowners from default. They saved their own stockholders and nothing more. Literally, the Great Recession of 2008 did a great deal of damage and that is the truth of the circumstances the USA faces. Abandoning the jobless or under employed is not the answer.
No one asked for this, but, many involved with the investment banks planned for it. Knock it off.
What is the political calculus behind Republicans' arguing against the extension of unemployment benefits? Steve Benen rounds up the latest outbreak of heartless demagoguery at the Washington Monthly. The newest GOPer to climb on the bandwagon -- former House Speaker Tom DeLay.
"You know," DeLay said, "there is an argument to be made that these extensions of these unemployment benefits keeps people from going and finding jobs." When CNN's Candy Crowley described his argument as "a hard sell" to the public, DeLay replied, "It's the truth."
You can append almost any wacky assertion after the preliminary phrase "there is an argument to be made" but I'll give Tom DeLay at least this much: The notion that some fraction of workers might be dissuaded from hustling for a new job by the comfort offered from an unemployment check is not completely goofball. Even Paul Krugman concedes "that really generous unemployment benefits, by reducing the incentive to seek jobs," can cause some unwanted economic problems under certain conditions....
The GOP is really scraping the bottom of the barrel this time !
Joy Behar had on her regular guests (click here)Ann Coulter and Hilary Rosento discuss, among other things,Karl Rove’s controversial new bookCourage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. When the subject came to Rove’s nickname of “Bush’s Brain,” the analysis turned to that of a Good Cop/Bad Cop scenario between Rove and George W. Bush. Unfortunately for Behar, instead of “bad cop” she inadvertently referred to Rove as “bad c*ck,” which earned an in-studio chuckle.
The slip was edited out for broadcast, but the unedited version can be viewed below and comes in around the :35 mark in the clip.
In Pauken's view, the former president and "Bush's Brain" not only hijacked conservatism, they nearly destroyed it.
"Republican politics is barely recognizable to many of us who were grassroots activists in the early days of the conservative movement – especially after eight years of a Republican administration headed up by George W. Bush, who claimed to be a conservative," Pauken writes in Bringing America Home.
He adds: "The results were not pretty."
Pauken's critique is what a lot of traditional conservatives are saying – the Bush administration spent too much, drove up the national debt and engaged in a reckless foreign policy.
Conservatives like Pauken have little use for liberal politics and Barack Obama, but they see in Bush a betrayal of principle...
Denying America is a Christian nation raises troubles for GOP despite Democrat's poor showing
by Mark Vogl (libertarian)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Rove's comment explains GOP secularism and its possible demise.
Speaking at length about his new book on Limbaugh's talk show, former President George Bush II's top adviser Karl Rove made a single statement which explains how the Republican Party left me, and tens of millions of other Americans. During their discussion Karl Rove said he questioned President Obama, than Senator Obama personally when Obama in one of his books credited Karl Rove with saying that America was a Christian nation.
On Limbaugh's show, Rove denied he ever said that, and denied that America was a Christian nation!
Rove said that if we called America a Christian nation, Jews, Sikhs, Moslems, atheists, et. al. would be offended.
So historical reality is jettisoned by Karl Rove. But not just him, many other senior people in the Republican Party are uncomfortable with Christ in politics... And it is the reason I am no longer a Republican....
LIMBAUGH: (click here) I -- actually, from the moment this thing started yesterday, I suspected a rope-a-dope; and I still think a rope-a-dope's going on. And I still think that anybody out there who embraces this guy is in for big trouble. Anybody who embraces this guy is -- is -- is gonna -- you're gonna get caught.
David Iglesias, the former U.S. Attorney for New Mexico who was dismissed in the U.S. attorney firings in 2006, shot back at former White House adviser Karl Rove Tuesday, calling the former Bush official’s allegations “a complete fabrication,” reported the Washington Independent.
In his memoir “Courage and Consequences” released Tuesday by Simon and Schuster, Rove said he did not put Iglesias’ name on the DOJ firing list. But Rove did cop to forwarding three complaints about Iglesias to the Justice Department. The complaints alleged that Iglesias of failed to investigate claims of voter fraud in Albuquerque after the 2004 election, “bungled” a high-profile corruption case involving state treasurers and that he declined to file an indictment against several prominent state Democrats allegedly involved in a kickback scheme until after the November 2006 election.
Iglesias took issue with Rove’s assertion that he “bungled” the corruption investigation, noting state treasurer Michael Montoya plead guilty and he won a conviction against a second treasurer, Robert Vigil.
But Iglesias saved his most harsh criticism for Rove’s description of the kickback scheme, which involved construction contracts for a courthouse in Bernalillo County.
“That’s a complete fabrication,” Iglesias told the Independent. “That indictment didn’t get filed until three weeks after I left office — in March 2007. Look, here’s where Rove’s lack of knowledge of DOJ policy hurts him factually. It’s standing policy that you can’t file an indictment right before an election if you think it will effect the outcome. But I’m sure Rove heard from local Republicans that I was intentionally keeping my powder dry.”
Iglesias also denied that he had planned to run for the Senate in 2006. Rove suggested in his memoir that the prosecutor held off on the indictment because he wanted to run for the Senate seat and needed the support of local Democrats.
Read Iglesias’ complete response at the Independent.
Karl Rove, the architect of George W. Bush's presidency, says the "Tea Party" movement could have lasting influence in the nation's politics if it remains decentralized but could hurt Republicans if it backs third-party candidates who siphon votes from GOP candidates. "There's a danger from them, particularly if they're used by political operators ... to try and hijack" elections, he says.
Rove says Tea Party activists, who want to limit taxes and government's reach, could expand their clout if they emulate the 1960s civil rights movement, the gun rights movement and abortion opponents. Those groups grew "from the bottom up" and found "a raggedly unified voice," he said in an interview with USA TODAY about his memoirs Courage and Consequence: My Life As a Conservative in the Fight, out Tuesday....
That's all for today, folks.
Save the USA Constitution and the rights of the American people when you place your vote, please.
Organizers of the protest said about 5,000 people from across the country marched Tuesday in downtown Washington. (Photos By Gerald Martineau For The Washington Post)
...Clad in a painter's smock, Holliday, (click title to entry - thank you) whose uninsured husband died of cancer in the summer of 2009, waved an image of him and her two sons.... Write your House and Senate Representatives to pass health care reform.
April 26, 2010 Federal Hiring Event for Americans with Disabilities
Have you explored opportunities to work for the Federal government, but were overwhelmed by the application process?
Do you want to work in an environment that embraces diversity and inclusion and the talent you offer?
Are you interested in a career opportunity with benefits and the potential for career progression?
Are you a Veteran with a 30% or more disability rating who wants to extend your service to your Nation?
If so, now is the time for you to begin your career of service. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the U. S. Department of Labor’s Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) are sponsoring a historic day-long Federal Hiring Event for People with Disabilities. Representatives from many agencies will be reviewing resumes prior to the event, and inviting prospective candidates for interviews....
The mission of Vice President Biden was very successful and I thank Mrs. Biden for being the breath of fresh air the people needed. Thank you, both.
His Majesty King Abdullah is greeted by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown (click title to entry - thank you) ahead of their meeting in London yesterday (Photo by Yousef Allan)
...The King and Brown discussed the latest developments in the peace process, including the start of indirect talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, as well as the next steps that should be taken to guarantee the needed progress is made to end the conflict within a regional context to reach a comprehensive peace in the Middle East....
...His Majesty also met with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and discussed steps to be taken to guarantee tangible progress in the peace talks....
The diplomatic efforts are only beginning. There is every reason to believe the Israelis will have to remove more than 16oo settlements in East Jerusalem before all is completed. The path to peace was not facilitated by the Bush Administration what so ever at all.
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Israel apologized Wednesday (click here) for disrupting the visit of Vice President Joe Biden with its announcement of 1,600 new homes in disputed east Jerusalem, but made clear it had no intention of reversing the order that has cast a shadow over the latest U.S. push for Mideast peace.
As Biden held talks with top Palestinian leaders in the West Bank, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, whose office announced the new construction on lands Palestinians claim for a future state, said the problem was about timing, not substance....
Jill Biden (centre), wife of US Vice President Joe Biden, visits Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesday. The Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall are seen in the background (Reuters photo by Gali Tibbon/Pool)
Beck is arrogant, self-righteous, inhumanly angry, disregarding and that is only the beginning with the word 'dangerous' among the superlatives.
Michael Tomasky stated something very interesting. (click title to entry - thank you)
One might have thought that Glenn Beck and Eric Massa would have merged last night on Beck's show into some two-headed reptilian hydra dedicated to the destruction of Nancy Pelosi. Massa's appearance was tailor made for that, with all the attendant potential impact on the healthcare impact implied....
The Glen Beck Show is the masterpiece of the Murdoch Hate Machine. He was mentored by them to produced EXACTLY what Mr. Tomasky stated he would produce. A faux reality based on irrational anger (Tea Baggers) that would be garnered by bigotry and bias allowed by the ? First Amendment ?.
Glen Beck is more of a liar than Massa could ever hope to be, because, his lies are to achieve a faux goal and lots and lots of money in his pocket.
Glen Beck is the star performer in the Republican Right Rant for power regardless of what is best for the American people through' the truth' with honest legislation.
Beck was endorsed prior to the show by every Right Wing politician and media mogul on the planet.
What was more astounding than even the honesty and compassionate answers by Former Representative Massa was Beck's closing statement to his hour long circus.
He apologized for not delivering the goods. He didn't apologize for attempting to lie and deceive the American people, he apologized for bringing them the truth. Oh, he didn't say it in those words, but, that is what he did.
He stated, "I apologize to the American people for wasting a hour of their time." He apologized for not being able to lie as good as Rush or O'Reilly. He apologized for not getting Massa irrational enough to destroy the USA government.
Glenn Beck, no different than any of the others, is a jackass for wealth and will stop at nothing to achieve it. Beck's big moment resulted in an apology to an audience seeking to destroy their own country through facilitated lies of a demented anchor. What are these people doing with a permit to broadcast at all?
