Thursday Later PM Stuff

post from The Liberal Doomsayer on 09 August 2012 11:50:00 PM. © The Liberal Doomsayer

I meant to get to this a few days ago, but I know I'm a little late - sorry (have to relish the good news when we can...hat tip for the pic to bluegalfran at Crooks and Liars)...

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...and this video should be completely unnecessary, but unfortunately it isn't (here - never occurred to me the toll that job has taken on him until I watched this clip)...

...and for the next installment of the countdown, it's time to journey to the primordial swamps of Florida, where misbegotten creates emerge from the unholy ooze...

#9, Joe Pitts
#10, Jack Kingston
#11, Patrick McHenry
#12, Spencer Bachus
#13, Jim Gerlach
#14, Cliff Stearns
#15, Jean Schmidt
#16, Phil Gingrey
#17, David Schweikert
#18, Virginia Foxx
#19, Pete Sessions
#20, Charlie Dent
#21, Cathy McMorris Rodgers
#22, Chris Smith
#23, Todd Akin
#24, Buck McKeon
#25, Kristi Noem
#26, Hal Rogers
#27, Lou Barletta (Two bonus selections: Boren and Ross)
#28, Paul Broun
#29, Mary Bono Mack
#30, David Dreier
#31, Marsha Blackburn (including backgrounder)

?and that brings us to #8 on the list of U.S. House Repugs opposed to health care reform, and that would be Allen West of The Sunshine State.

Now before I say anything else, I should note that Alan Colmes, among others, has said something to the effect of ?well, West has actually said that there are some parts of health care reform that he likes,? or whatever. If so, then please explain this.

(Also, I should probably say something about my thoroughly unscientific method of compiling this list as long as I?m thinking of it. There are people who you probably aren?t going to see on this list, though I can?t totally guarantee it, such as Peter King, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Dana Rohrabacher, and others. I definitely have disagreements with these individuals, but on the issue of health care reform, I?ve done a bit of research and haven?t found anything worth trying to nail them. Ros-Lehtinen and Rohrabacher are really bad on foreign policy as far as I?m concerned, but they?re actually a lot better on HCR than some of their same-party counterparts. And as awful as Peter King is on the ?OMIGOD, SCARY MUSLIMS!!!? stuff, he actually said to Eric Cantor that we should, in essence, just move on after the recent Supreme Court ruling on the mandate, which I think showed some notable common sense...of course, that sleazy weasel Cantor ? who definitely is coming later ? has no intention of doing that.)

Now, back to West...

With the possible exception of Joe Walsh of Illinois, I don?t know anyone else remaining on the list who has said and done so many provocative ? and just about always mind-numbingly stupid ? things in less than two years in Congress (though it?s not as if we weren?t warned by folks such as Keith Olbermann, who we?ll hear from a little later). Race baiting, class baiting, questioning or trying to outright destroy the patriotism of those with whom he disagrees?none of that matters to West. I cannot recall a single episode where he has decided to refrain from demagoguery and adhere to the simplest possible standard of common decency (here, in response to a vote trying to hold President Obama to a timetable of troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, West said some of those in Congress advocating for troop withdrawal should ?get shot at a few times??and this came just a few months after the carnage in Tucson in January 2011).

Here, West said the Congressional Black Caucus was ?racist? for supporting Attorney General Eric Holder in the wake of all of that ?Operation Fast and Furious? business, in which Holder honestly tried to get to the bottom of that utter fiasco, with no help from House Oversight Committee Chair Darrell Issa (with ?F&F? predated by the similar ?gun-walking? idiocy of Operation Wide Receiver, though I don?t hear a word of complaint about Bushco AG Michael Mukasey). Also, West said that President Obama wants ?you? (??) to be his ?slave? here (nice ? I?ll let you, dear reader, try and unpackage the crazy of that one). Oh, and among other things, West also said that drivers with Obama bumper stickers are ?a threat to the gene pool? here (takes one to know one, I guess).

West also said here that student loans were ?communist? here, and harking back to that once career-fatal but now laughable slander, he said here that there were ?80 communists? in the House. He also said that early voting was an ?unconstitutional entitlement? here (speaking of voting, he wanted to withhold foreign aid to Egypt to protest that's country's democratic election here). He added that Obama?s refusal to deport the children of ?undocumented? workers who would have been covered under the DREAM Act, had it been passed, constitutes ?voter fraud,? or something here (with West thinking they would be inclined to vote for Obama which, the last I checked, wasn?t a crime). And just to make sure that West is keeping his utter wingnuttery current, this tells us that he sent ?chicken and biscuits? from Chick-Fil-A to a recent Congressional Black Caucus meeting and offended just about everybody.

As long as this post is, I should note that there?s a lot more that I could point out to show that West is an utterly craven life form that (you could argue) doesn?t deserve the company of respectable human beings, let alone a career in public life. Instead, I?ll just include this link and let you read the evidence for yourself (oh, and as noted here, count West as yet another elected official who has played the teabaggers for fools).

I wonder if he had that same insipid, half-smiling smirk on his face when he tortured his Iraqi prisoner in 2003, avoiding a court-martial even though he had to pay a $5,000 fine and accept non-combat duty (K.O. gets into that and other stuff shortly). Also, if you?ve had enough of West (haven?t you?), click here to support Florida?s Patrick Murphy, thus restoring a bit of sanity and plane decency to the House?

...and I have a feeling that this tune will be appropriate for a little while.

Read The Full Article:
http://liberaldoomsayer.blogspot.com/2012/08/thursday-later-pm-stuff.html

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Aug. 9: National Polls Shouldn't Panic Romney

post from FiveThirtyEight on 09 August 2012 11:49:36 PM. © FiveThirtyEight

President Obama received favorable polls on Thursday from CNN and Fox News, the importance of which could easily be overstated.

Read The Full Article:
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/aug-9-national-polls-shouldnt
-panic-romney/

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Open thread for night owls: 50 Greatest Films of
All Time

post from Daily Kos on 09 August 2012 11:30:03 PM. © Daily Kos

Open Thread for Night Owls And now, after a day of watching Mitt Romney did himself into an even deeper hole, something even more fun. This is the 60th year that Sight & Sound magazine has run a poll on the best movies of all time. The poll appears in the magazine's September issue now on the newsstands in the United Kingdom as well as digitally if you're a subscriber. But, happily, the list itself (without the complete commentary that the magazine itself contains) is available to all comers.

Teaser. For the first time in half a century, Citizen Kane is not at the top of the list.

S&S did things a little differently this year:

Sorry, this one didn't make the cut.

About a year ago, the Sight & Sound team met to consider how we could best approach the poll this time. Given the dominance of electronic media, what became immediately apparent was that we would have to abandon the somewhat elitist exclusivity with which contributors to the poll had been chosen in the past and reach out to a much wider international group of commentators than before. We were also keen to include among them many critics who had established their careers online rather than purely in print.
To that end we approached more than 1,000 critics, programmers, academics, distributors, writers and other cinephiles, and received (in time for the deadline) precisely 846 top-ten lists that between them mention a total of 2,045 different films.
As a qualification of what ?greatest? means, our invitation letter stated, ?We leave that open to your interpretation. You might choose the ten films you feel are most important to film history, or the ten that represent the aesthetic pinnacles of achievement, or indeed the ten films that have had the biggest impact on your own view of cinema.? [...]
[O]ne important rule change compared to 2002 was that The Godfather and The Godfather Part II would no longer be accepted as a single choice, since they were made as two separate films.

By the way, The Godfather and The Godfather Part II came in at #21 and #31 respectively in the survey.

There are two separate lists:

The Top 50 Greatest Films of All Time (as chosen by 846 critics, programmers, academics and distributors)

The Directors? Top Ten (as chosen by 358 directors from around the world)

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:

Leaving aside the pollution and the politics, the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics, from the more than 2000 drummers that started the show, to gymnastic gold medalist Li Ning soaring around the top of the stadium before lighting the torch, were nothing short of spectacular. Simply unbelievable pagentry.
And throughout the coverage, the advertisements were positive and upbeat, and often playing on the theme of the Olympics, "One World, One Dream." And then, on a break during the Parade of Nations, there was John McCain introducing himself to a huge, non-political audience by running an attack ad on Barack Obama. Proving once again that he is willing to do or say anything to win, McCain chose to inject politics into the Olympics with a negative ad. Unfortunately for McCain, the unspoken and unintended message was:
Vote for the old mean nasty guy you thought you admired eight years ago. I'm John McCain and I approved this message.

Tweet of the Day:

"gee, i dunno. which one is going to make pizza more expensive?" - undecided voter, probably
? @evanmc_s via TweetDeck

Tune in Monday to Friday from 9-11 AM ET for Daily Kos Radio, hosted by David Waldman a/k/a KagroX. You can listen here. DemFromCT and Armando both analyze our own Daily Kos/SEIU State of the Nation poll results on public opinion of the political media. Plus, a dissection of a piece in The Hill lamenting the withering of the Blue Dogs. No wonder people hate the political media!

Non-Flash link

High Impact Posts. Top Comments.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/i36IMNHqJRU/-Open-thread-for-night
-owls-50-Greatest-Films-of-All-Time

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C&L's Late Night Music Club With Vic Chesnutt

post from Crooks and Liars on 09 August 2012 11:00:50 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Title: Stay InsideArtist: Vic Chesnutt

There was nobody like Vic Chesnutt and this song gets me every time. Got a song that really moves you?

Silver Lake

Artist: Vic Chesnutt Price: $6.99 (As of 08/09/12 05:43 pm details)

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/jared-shade-reynolds/cls-late-night-music-club-vic

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Down the Tubes

post from Firedoglake on 09 August 2012 11:00:13 PM. © Firedoglake

My 30-year high school reunion is this weekend, and the occasion has given me cause for reflection, in addition to the dieting. Although Reagan had been in office for two years, leading to a grinding recession that hit Oregon particularly hard, the[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/Vd85ezk3px8/

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Today on The Stars Hollow Gazette

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 09 August 2012 10:38:12 PM. © Docudharma - Front Page

Our regular featured content-On This Day In History August 9 by TheMomCatPunting the Pundits by TheMomCatAnd these featured articles-XXX Olympiad- Day 16 by: ek hornbeckDouble O O by: ek hornbeckWhat to Do When Liberal SCOTUS Justices Think Corporations[...]

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http://www.docudharma.com/diary/30563/today-on-the-stars-hollow-gazette

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Usain comes up golden and Mitt cries foul.

post from field negro on 09 August 2012 10:00:44 PM. © field negro

Let me start this post by saying congrats to my yawdie family for going 1-2-3- in the men's 200 meters earlier today. Usain, you are the truth.

Staying with the Olympics, I have to rip my man Yohan Blake, --the world's second fastest man-- just a little bit.

Yohan, WTF were you doing wearing a $500,000 watch? Do you know how many families in Jamaica that kind of money could feed for a year? Look, I know it was an endorsement, and you probably didn't pay a dime for it, but next time tell Richard Mille and the Tourbillion folks to donate the cost of that watch to a needy charity on the rock.

OK, so let's talk a little politics.

Mitt Romney's camp has been going crazy about an ad. that's set to run which seems to imply that he cost a woman to lose her fight with cancer. The wingnuts have been crying foul, and they claim that this is the lowest of the low. Even dumbocratic turncoat, Lanny Davis, has been critical of the ad.

"Davis says both Romney and Obama, and their supporters, have sponsored ads ?that make us all want to take a shower.? But when it comes to the cancer ad, he said the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action has gone too far.
?Bill Burton needs to go back to ethics school,? Davis said of the group?s senior strategist, who is a former Obama White House spokesman. ?He knows perfectly well that the ad is misleading and disgusting and he needs to apologize for it.? [Source]

Why should he? Maybe Lanny hasn't been hearing some of the stuff coming from Mitt and his supporters, lately. I have some news for you Lanny, politics is dirty business, so you and the wingnuts crying a river better get used to it.

Anyway, maybe Mitt Romney didn't cause that woman in the ad. to lose her life, but is there any doubt that he did business with people who caused the death of others?

"When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region.
Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globe reporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney." But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank.

It was a lucrative trip. The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. And they became valued clients.

"Over the years, these Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings, and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital," Strachan wrote in his memoir in 2008. Strachan declined to be interviewed for this story.

When Romney launched another venture that needed funding -- his first presidential campaign -- he returned to Miami.

"I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent," he said at a dinner in Miami in 2007. "When I was starting my business, I came to Miami to find partners that would believe in me and that would finance my enterprise. My partners were Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira." [Read more.]

Mitt, there is one little problem; your partners were also financing death squads in El Salvador.

Of course you probably won't hear anymore about this story, because the PACS supporting Obama are probably now afraid of folks like Lanny Davis condemning them for playing dirty politics. But is it dirty politics if it's the truth? Shouldn't the American people know everything about Mitt? He won't show us his tax returns, so let's keep digging about his past business practices.

Finally, speaking of dirty politics, I am glad to see that a former republican came out and admitted that they were trying to suppress minority votes down there in Florida. He should know, he was in the room when they were plotting to do it.

Jim Greer was a republican party chairman in Florida and is always the case with these types of situations; he started singing like Aretha Franklin when he found himself in some hot water.

"In the deposition, released to the press yesterday, Greer mentioned a December 2009 meeting with party officials. ?I was upset because the political consultants and staff were talking about voter suppression and keeping blacks from voting,? he said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. He also said party officials discussed how ?minority outreach programs were not fit for the Republican Party,? according to the AP."

Yes Mitt, politics is a dirty business, but I am sure that you and your peeps already knew that.

Read The Full Article:
http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2012/08/usain-comes-up-golden-and-mitt-cries.html

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GOP purges moderates in Kansas

post from US Politics | AMERICAblog News on 09 August 2012 10:00:38 PM. © US Politics | AMERICAblog News

Interesting article on how Kansas conservatives are purging their party of moderate Republicans, with the help of the Koch brothers and the Chamber of Commerce.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/cGzsIBgzcfc/gop-purges-moderates-in
-kansas.html

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New Romney Ad Accuses President Obama of
"Declaring War on Religion"

Romney: Obama's Declared a War on Religion

Click here to view this media

Willard's new ad begins,

President Obama used his health care plan to declare war on religion, forcing religious institutions to go against their faith.

Or, put another way, "President Obama's health care plan requires religious institutions that run secular businesses which employ and provide health insurance to lots of people who don't practice said religion to comply with federal regulations."

But "War on Religion" is much snappier!

Anyway, this ad is clearly targeting Catholics, with the little Lech Walesa/John Paul II pander at the end.

But wingnuts should be outraged that Willard credits Pope John Paul II's words ("Be not afraid,") for the destruction of the Soviet Union. After all, we've been told for years that after hearing Ronald Reagan say "Tear down this wall!" the Soviet Union's leaders realized in an instant that communism was an unworkable system and they just gave up on the spot.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/new-romney-ad-accuses-president-obama-d

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The Chronicles of Mitt: Aug 9, 2012

Hello, human diary. It is I again, Mitt Romney, your better.

Outrage over my press secretary's suggestion that a law I once passed may have been of benefit to sick people continues to grow. We are receiving condemnations from all quarters. I have been told that a Fox News guest was so agitated over the gaffe that they nearly died, right there in the studio. I am not entirely sure what is going on, but none of these people seemed to know about my Massachusetts law until the moment my press unit mentioned it, even though I personally quite clearly remember it coming up repeatedly before. Or, perhaps, they just did not realize that the law might have provided actual assistance to someone? By and large these are very stupid people, so it is sometimes difficult to ascertain what they are going on about.

Regardless, we have still not decided how to respond to these accusations that I once tried to provide help to sick people. Our latest idea for quelling party outrage is to promise to introduce a bill allowing all sick people to be immediately fired, thus combining the required cruelty towards sick people with the uproariousness of firing people. The idea has promise, but my staff believes such a bill has already been introduced, possibly by Rand Paul(?), and that it therefore may not be original enough.

In more positive news, my foreign policy training has continued apace. With the help of that Bolton fellow I am now able to inject insults towards other nations into nearly any given conversation. He may be an exceedingly odd person, but I continue to be impressed by his encyclopedic knowledge as to how the various other nations of the world should best be ridiculed.