Labels: American Idiots, bloggers, wingnuttia

At yesterday's tea party rally on Capitol Hill, at least one protester brandished a large graphic photograph of the victims of the Dachau Nazi concentration camp, comparing health care reform to Nazi policies. Today, Rep. Eric Cantor's (R-VA) spokesman called the photograph "inappropriate."

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) has also condemned the poster.

Cantor, in an interview today with Bloomberg, also offered some criticism of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh's comparison of President Obama to Adolf Hitler.

"Do I condone the mention of Hitler in any discussion about politics?" said Cantor, who is the only Jewish Republican in Congress. "No, I don't, because obviously that is something that conjures up images that frankly are not, I think, very helpful."

In a climate where Republicans who criticize Limbaugh come crawling back on their knees (see TPM's "Forgive Me Rush" photo feature), Cantor's office has pointed reporters to the story, emailing the link to Glenn Thrush's post on Cantor's remarks.

It's worth noting that Limbaugh made the comment in question -- "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate" -- on Aug. 6. Cantor at the time did not respond publicly to calls from Jewish groups to condemn the remarks.

Labels: Anti-Semitism, Eric Cantor, House Republicans, shandeh far di goyim, wingnuttia

Labels: bloggers, Republican id-driven two-year-olds

Can’t believe that they’re actually going to pass a bill where prayer is covered but abortion isn’t.

Labels: bloggers, health care, religion

Labels: assholes, spammers

Labels: Alan Grayson, health care

Today, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) asked Health and Human Service (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to investigate why the Center for Disease Control (CDC) approved the distribution of the H1NI vaccine to Wall Street firms at a time when the vaccine is unavailable to most Americans.

Recent news reports indicate 13 companies, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Time Warner, have been cleared to receive the vaccine.

The CDC is distributing the much sought-after vaccine to Wall Street firms despite reports of vast shortages. In fact, just yesterday CDC Director Thomas Frieden informed Congress that only 32.3 million doses are available, far less than the 159 million needed to cover those at the highest risk. Given the scarce supply, the CDC has recommended the vaccine be directed only to those at highest risk: pregnant women, infants and children and those up to 24 years, those who care for infants, health and emergency services personnel, and adults with compromised immune systems or other chronic health problems.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today, “Although CREW has been unable to uncover the demographic makeup of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and JP Morgan Chase, it seems safe to assume the vast majority of their employees are not pregnant women, infants and children, young adults up to 24 years old, and healthcare workers.”

Labels: just another outrage, swine flu

Labels: mental illness, military readiness, terrorism

Good evening, Pottersville.

Allow me first to apologize for this interruption. I do, like many of you, appreciate the comforts of every day routine- the security of the familiar, the tranquility of repetition. I enjoy them as much as any dude. But in the spirit of commemoration, thereby those important events of the past usually associated with someone's death or the end of some awful bloody struggle or the loss of a Senate majority, a celebration of a nice holiday, I thought we could mark this November the 5th, a day that is sadly no longer remembered, by taking some time out of our daily lives to sit down and have a little chat.

There are of course those who do not want me to speak. I suspect even now, ad hominems are being shouted at Fox TV cameras, and anonymous men and women with laptops will soon be logging onto tell us to shut up and suffer in silence. Why? Because while the verbal truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power.

Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?

Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and, as usual, they will not be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror.

I know why you did it in 2000 and 2004 and 2008. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense. Fear got the best of you, and in your panic you turned to George W. Bush then to Barack Obama. They promised you order, they promised you peace, and all they demanded in return was your silent, obedient consent.

More than four hundred years ago a great citizen wished to embed the fifth of November forever in our memory. His hope was to remind the world that fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives. However, on that date seven years ago today you chose to give back our Congress to those very same fiends who conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.

So if you've seen nothing, if the crimes of this government remain unknown to you then I would suggest you allow the fifth of November to pass unmarked. But if you see what I see, if you feel as I feel, and if you would seek as I seek, then I ask you to stand beside me one year from tonight, outside the gates of Congress, and together we shall give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever be forgot.

Labels: wingnuttia

Since the 2006 campaign for Senate, I have continued to meet with citizens across our state — as co-chairman of the Obama campaign in Connecticut, founder of a state policy institute at Central Connecticut State University, and as an outspoken advocate for health care reform. I have been constantly reminded during these conversations that Connecticut is not living up to its potential and that too many of our families are still being left behind.

Labels: Election, lamonte

As soon as Mebrahtom Keflezighi, better known as Meb, won the New York City Marathon on Sunday, an uncommon sports dispute erupted online, fraught with racial and nationalistic components: Should Keflezighi’s triumph count as an American victory?

He was widely celebrated as the first American to win the New York race since 1982. Having immigrated to the United States at age 12, he is an American citizen and a product of American distance running programs at the youth, college and professional levels.

But, some said, because he was born in Eritrea, he is not really an American runner.

The debate reveals what some academics say are common assumptions and stereotypes about race and sports and athletic achievement in the United States. Its dimensions, they add, go beyond the particulars of Keflezighi and bear on undercurrents of nationalism and racism that are not often voiced.

“Race is still extremely important when you think about athletics,” said David Wiggins, a professor at George Mason University who studies African-Americans and sports. “There is this notion about innate physiological gifts that certain races presumably possess. Quite frankly, I think it feeds into deep-seated stereotypes. The more blatant forms of racial discrimination and illegal forms have been eliminated, but more subtle forms of discrimination still exist.”

There are few cases parallel to Keflezighi’s in American sports. Some are noteworthy because of how little discussion, by comparison, they generated over the athlete’s nationality. For example, the Hall of Fame basketball player Patrick Ewing (Jamaica) and the gold medal gymnast Nastia Liukin (Russia) were born abroad, but when they represented the United States in competition, they seemingly did not encounter the same skepticism that Keflezighi has.

Labels: just another outrage, racism, wingnuttia, You can't make this shit up

If it weren’t for Doug Hoffmann, a Lake Placid accountant running on the Conservative Party line, the battle to represent New York’s 23rd Congressional District would have been a Tweedle-Dee-Tweedle-Dum affair, featuring a Republican, Dede Scozzafava, who’s arguably more liberal than her Democratic opponent, Bill Owens.

Daggett has annoyed conservatives. By positioning himself as a policy-oriented centrist, he’s peeled away enough independents to play the spoiler in a race that seemed like Christie’s to win.

Hoffmann has irritated liberals. Scozzafava was their kind of Republican, and by derailing her candidacy — which she suspended over the weekend after polls showed her slipping to third place — he’s turned a sleepy contest between two left-of-center politicians into an ideologically-charged election.

But both men deserve the public’s gratitude. They’ve injected real substance into their races, and they’ve given voters a much more interesting choice than they would have otherwise enjoyed.

I'm running for Congress because I sense the America I love is being taken away from us. I want to tell Washington: No more bailouts. No more taxes. No more trillion dollar deficits. That's what I'm fighting for.

My opponents have bought and paid for $876,000 in TV ads. I urgently need to raise $125, 000. Immediately.

My opponent is a Nancy Pelosi Democrat. Defeating him comes down to one cold, hard fact – money.

In 1980, I helped Lake Placid with our Olympics when the US beat the Russians in hockey – the same year Reagan was elected. It’s time to send Washington a new message now.

Labels: hack journalism, wingnuttia

Labels: bloggers

Labels: perverts, Republicans, sick motherfuckers

Labels: Christian Dominionism, feminism, paternalism

After he announced his willingness to filibuster health care reform that includes a public option, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) defended his position by arguing that if the public option paid lower reimbursement rates than private insurers, medical providers would shift costs to Americans with private coverage. He also called the proposed plan “a new entitlement program.” As ThinkProgress and others have pointed out, Lieberman either doesn’t understand the details of the public option proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) or he is misrepresenting them. But in a conference call with Connecticut reporters yesterday, Lieberman claimed that it is the more than 60 percent of state residents that back a government-run insurance option that are confused:

What about the more than 60 percent of state residents that back a government-run insurance option, according to a Quinnipiac University poll last month?

Some of those respondents are confused about what such a plan entails, Lieberman said. And he added, “you can’t make a decision like this based on polling,” he said. Ultimately, he he said he has to do “what I think is right and hope in the end the people of Connecticut will respect me for that.”

Describing how his openness to derailing reform affected his role in the health care debate, Lieberman told the reporters, “I feel relevant.”

Labels: assholes, Joe Lieberman, just another outrage