British far right party to allow non-whites

post from AMERICAblog News on 15 February 2010 04:01:48 AM. © AMERICAblog News

They're surely lining up already to join a party that exists because of racism. The Guardian:

The British National partytoday voted to scrap its whites-only membership policy in a move dismissed by anti-racist campaigners as "cosmetic".

At an extraordinary general meeting held in Essex, members of the far-right party voted in favour of changes to its constitution that would theoretically allow black and Asian people to join.

Following the result, the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, said he expected a "trickle, rather than a flood" of applications. "Anyone can be a member of this party. We are happy to accept anyone as a member providing they agree with us that this country should remain fundamentally British," Griffin told Sky News.

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-to-allow-non.html

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Bayh Bayh Bayh-- And Good Riddance

post from DownWithTyranny! on 15 February 2010 04:00:00 AM. © DownWithTyranny!

The Confederate flag tie & the eagerness to listen to any lobbyists with open checkbooks indicates he may run for presidnet against Obama
Last week polls showed ConservaDem Evan Bayh with a nearly insurmountable lead over lobbyist Dan Coats for the Indiana Senate seat. And this morning Chris Cillizza broke the news that Bayh had decided not to run for re-election. That must have been kind of sudden since he spent the last 6 years sucking up to every lobbyist on K Street, raised $8,911,690 and has a hefty $13 million in his campaign account. Beloved of Goldman Sachs, Eli Lilly, Allianz and dozens of corporations with anti-working family agendas, Bayh's fundraising looked extremely... Republican. But then, so does his voting record. Since Obama was elected president only Ben Nelson was a less dependable vote for Democrats when they were needed most-- on crucial, substantive roll calls where Democrats either lost or almost lost. The 3 worst scores among Democratic senators for the 111th Congress:

Ben Nelson- 47.76
Evan Bayh- 53.73
Blanche Lincoln- 59.70

The IndyStar, which earlier today highlighted Dan Coats' disgraceful record as a sleazy K Street lobbyist, writes that Bayh's decision-- just 4 days before Indian's filing deadline-- will shock Democrats and Republicans alike. He claimed "excessive partisanship that makes progress on public policy difficult to achieve as the motivation for his decision."

Only days ago, Bayh?s staff, close associates and Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker, who was manager of Bayh?s re-election campaign, had assured an Indianapolis Star reporter hat he would definitely seek a third term in the U.S. Senate. And Democrats recently released a poll showing Bayh easily ahead of both former Sen. Dan Coats and former U.S. Rep. John Hostettler, two of the four Republicans seeking the GOP nomination.

When I got the news from an Indiana Democratic activist under the subject line "Uncork the Champagne," he pointed out something the mainstream media will never report: "a stealth campaign amongst Democrats in Indiana to withhold their active support from him this year probably had a lot to do with it."

There are a whole slew of equally awful Democrats who could run for Bayh's seat-- Blue Doug Baron Hill was almost guaranteed to lose his House seat this year so he could go for a Hail Mary pass. Blue Dog Brad Ellsworth is being talked up as the one most like Bayh.

If you click on the image of this mess o' tweets, you'll be able to read them

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http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2010/02/bayh-bayh-bayh-and-good-riddance.html

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Late Night Karaoke

post from Docudharma - Front Page on 15 February 2010 03:18:46 AM. © Docudharma - Front Page

[...]

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Tea Party Theatre

post from Lyle Lahey on 15 February 2010 03:10:00 AM. © Lyle Lahey

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http://lylelahey.blogspot.com/2010/02/tea-party-theatre.html

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Monday Morning Open Thread

post from AMERICAblog News on 15 February 2010 02:57:00 AM. © AMERICAblog News

Good morning.

It's Presidents Day. When I was a little kid, we didn't have Presidents Day. In New England, this was usually a school vacation week anyway. We honored Lincoln's birthday on Feb. 12 and Washington's birthday on Feb. 22. In 1971, the holiday was established as the third Monday in February and named Presidents Day. I'm against including some of the duds in the holiday. For example, there's no way George W. Bush should ever be honored with a holiday, even 1/44th of a holiday.

The current President has a low key schedule on the holiday. He was supposed to be at Camp David with the family. But, they came back last night because we're getting a little snow in DC later today.

Congress is in recess all week. Obama could and should make some recess appointments, including the nominees for the National Labor Relations Board: Craig Becker and Mark Pearce. Last week, the AFL-CIO did an action alert to its members, asking them to call the White House to urge recess appointment of those positions. It's a sad state of affairs when one of the biggest supporters of the Democratic Party has to resort to that type of action. Good for the AFL-CIO for doing it. Most D.C.-based organizations still won't publicly challenge this White House even when they're getting screwed. They might not get invited to meetings and parties. That's putting personal interests ahead of organizational missions. Happens all the time.

Anyway, let's get it started...

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ead_15.html

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The Ponzifying of America

post from Connecting.the.Dots on 15 February 2010 02:54:00 AM. © Connecting.the.Dots

Presidents Weekend brings reminders of how history's most productive economy of goods and services was brought to its knees by glorified paper pushers, crafty clerks who make nothing but money.

On CNN, Obama adviser Paul Volcker complains, "We've got to produce something that somebody else wants to buy."

According to the former Fed chairman, "we spent 20 years inducing some of our brightest people, our most energetic people to go to Wall Street. And nobody wants to be a mechanical engineer or a chemical engineer or a civil engineer. They want to be a financial engineer."

Citing failure of government regulation, Volcker recalls that "a whole school of thought said you don't have to worry about a breakdown. These smart mathematicians are taking care of it. And all the risks have been dispersed to the point where they won't upset anything. Well, when the screws became loose, we found out a lot of the risks were pretty concentrated."

Last week, Volcker recommended "euthanasia, not rescue" for financial manipulators who overreach, but members of the Senate Banking Committee who depend on them for campaign contributions are balking.

Meanwhile, a 60 Minutes segment on financial fraud examines the economic meltdown as "a monsoon of gullibility colliding with a tidal wave of greed."

A financial analyst calls it "a massive Ponzi scheme...the biggest crime against the American economy in our lifetimes" arguing that "the bad mortgage loans that fueled the crisis were repackaged by investment banks, sliced into increasingly complex derivatives and resold to other investors, even though the underlying mortgages were often virtually worthless.

"You had various traders buying each others' products to artificially keep the prices up so that the bubble didn't collapse."

Those mortgage derivatives, 60 Minutes concludes, "were so mind-numbingly complicated, nobody understood them fully. Certainly not...the buyers at banks, mutual funds, pension funds and insurance companies who wound up holding a bag full of worthless paper."

Despite rising public rage and such new revelations that Wall St. helped Greece hide debt that fueled Europe?s banking crisis, the Ponzifying of America goes on in a climate of political paralysis.

Insurance paper pushers continue to siphon one out of every three dollars in the $2.5 trillion health care industry from doctors, hospitals and others who treat patients while bank bailout recipients, hedge funds and private equity funds make record profits and pay themselves huge bonuses for manipulating the money of people who do actual work in the society.

If nothing changes soon, it will not be just the Tea Party people and Sarah Palin who tell government guardians of our interests to "get real" in November.

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http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2010/02/ponzifying-of-america.html

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Happy President's Day

post from MyDD on 15 February 2010 02:53:14 AM. © MyDD

Happy President’s Day! Here’s a Presidential trivia quiz, some easy, some rather obscure ones. Each President is the right answer only once. Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln were each elected from Illinois but neither was born[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/mydd/~3/qi-wHgVzG-s/happ

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Bill Maher on the Tea Baggers Pining for the
1950s.

I do love this guy. Here he talks of the racism behind the birther theories and the "reverse racism" that certain right wingers appear to see everywhere.

MAHER: The only racism they can see now is reverse racism.

[...]

Yes, that's the problem. For too long Puerto Rican women have had their boot on the neck of the white man.

And I love his statement that the 1950's weren't so great unless you were white and male. It wasn't so great if you were Mexican or Black or Jewish or gay or disabled or a woman.

And Maher points out that when the tea baggers complain that Obama is "taking away our freedoms", the only freedom he has actually removed is their freedom to live under a white president.

Tags: Bill Maher, Tea Party protests, Obama

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http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com/2010/02/bill-maher-on-tea-baggers-pining-f
or.html

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USA Hockey Olympic Schedules

Watch Men's/Women's Olympic Hockey on USA Channel, MSNBC or NBC. (Network is unpredictable, as our exact times.)

2010 Olympic U.S. Men's Schedule

Date - Opponent - Time (Central Standard Time)
Tues., Feb. 16 - Switzerland -- 2 p.m.
Thurs., Feb. 18 - Norway -- 2 p.m.
Sun., Feb. 21 - Canada -- 6:40 p.m.
Tues., Feb. 23 - Qualification Games -- 2 p.m.
Wed., Feb. 24 - Quarterfinals -- 2 p.m.
Fri., Feb. 26 - Semifinals -- 2 p.m.
Sat., Feb. 27 - Bronze-Medal Game -- 9 p. p.m.
Sun., Feb. 28 - Gold-Medal Game -- 2:15 p.m.

2010 Olympic U.S. Women's Schedule

Date - Opponent - Time (Central Standard Time) - TV Network
Feb. 14 - China [Result W, 12-1]
Feb. 16 - Russia 4:30 p.m. MSNBC
Feb. 18 - Finland 4:30 p.m. MSNBC
Feb. 20-22 - Playoffs TBA TBD
Feb. 22 - Semifinals TBA TBD
Feb. 25 - Bronze medal TBD
Feb. 25 - Gold medal 1: p.m. 5:30 p.m. TBD

Read The Full Article:
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/2010/02/usa-hockey-olympic-schedules.html

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Bill Kristol Claims That Republicans Haven't
Politicized National Security.

Bill Kristol wants us to know that he is outraged- outraged - by the suggestion that the Republicans are playing politics with the subject of national security.

They Republicans have actually been playing that card - that the Democrats can't be trusted to keep the country safe - for as long as I can remember.

JOHN BRENNAN: On Christmas night, I called a number of-- senior members of Congress. I spoke to Senators McConnell and Bond. I spoke to Representative Boehner and Hoekstra . I explained to them that he was in F.B.I. custody. That Mr. Abdulmutallab was in fact talking. That he was cooperating at that point. They knew that in F.B.I. custody means that there's a process then you follow as far as mirandizing and presenting him in front of the magistrate.

None of those individuals raised any concerns with me, at that point. They didn't say, "Is he going into military custody? Is he going to be mirandized?" They were very appreciative of the information. We told them we'd keep them informed. And that's what we did. So, there's been-- quite a bit of an outcry after the fact. Where again, I'm just very concerned on behalf of the counterterrorism professionals throughout our government that politicians continue to make this a political football. And are using it for whatever political or partisan purposes.

The Republicans are effecting outrage for Obama treating the "Underwear Bomber" exactly the same as Bush treated the "Shoe Bomber" and, as Brennan points out, they did not have any complaint at the time of his arrest.

This is simply playing politics with national security and what's annoying Kristol is that, at last, they are being called on it.

Tags: Bill Kristol, Fox News, National Security

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http://the-osterley-times.blogspot.com/2010/02/bill-kristol-claims-that-republica
ns.html

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