Open Thread

post from Crooks and Liars on 21 November 2011 11:30:56 PM. © Crooks and Liars

enlarge Credit: Blue Gal

Three, three, three memes in one! [The latest of which is pepper spray everything cop.]

Open thread below....

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Open thread for night owls: It's War on
Christmastime already

post from Daily Kos on 21 November 2011 11:30:02 PM. © Daily Kos

Open Thread for Night Owls It seems like the War on Christmas is starting earlier and earlier each year. We're not even through Thanksgiving yet, and we already have to worry about who's destroying our precious holiday. As usual, Bill O'Reilly is on the case:

Then Bill got to his Christmas holiday threat: ?Am I an extortionist for telling merchants and companies that if you refuse to say ?Merry Christmas? or tell your employees you are not allowed to that I will put you on the air and hurt your business. Am I an extortionist??
I'd say yes. But Carlson thought not. ?That?s giving your personal opinion,? she insisted.
O'Reilly warned his audience, ?If any retailer tells their employees you?re not allowed to say ?Merry Christmas? that, that?s gonna be on The Factor and that?s gonna cost ?em, there?s no doubt about it.?

So be warned: if you say Happy Holidays to someone instead of Merry Christmas, Bill O'Reilly will hunt you down. If you refuse to say Merry Christmas, Bill O'Reilly will hunt you down, hunt your family down, and possibly dress your pets up in uncomfortable holiday-themed clothing without your permission. Oh, it's on.

I have to admit, the War on Christmas is my most favorite holiday. It combines the two things America is best at: declaring war on something, and engaging in insincere public displays of piety.

Top Comments for today are here.

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-owls:-Its-War-on-Christmastime-already

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Obama issues new pardons with real mercy

post from Daily Kos on 21 November 2011 11:27:30 PM. © Daily Kos

Presidential pardon ... it's not just for turkeys! (Larry Downing/Reuters)From the AP:

President Barack Obama on Monday pardoned five people convicted of charges ranging from intent to distribute marijuana to running an illegal gambling business.
And he issued his first commutation, ordering the release of a woman next month after serving 10 years on a 22-year sentence for cocaine distribution.
The actions mark Obama's third set of pardons. He pardoned eight people earlier this year, and issued nine pardons in December 2010.

Some of you might remember my hard but absolutely fair criticism of President Obama's previously rather timid use of the pardon power. This year he has seriously stepped his game up, issuing his second group of pardons this year.

A few things are notable about these pardons:

It isn't Christmas. President Obama is returning to the historical tradition of issuing pardons when they cross his desk, rather than at times most politically convenient.
The crimes are serious. What I really liked about these pardons is that it appears the president reached down in the stack a bit to get some regular folks. Since the "War on Crime" era, presidents have largely pardoned people convicted of minor, rather insignificant offenses or their politically connected buddies. These pardons are all of real people who have gambling, marijuana and other drug war convictions.
There is a commutation! Perhaps the best possible news is that President Obama has actually released someone from jail:
Obama commuted the 2001 prison sentence of Eugenia Marie Jennings of Alton, Ill. Jennings was convicted in 2001 for distributing cocaine, and sentenced to 22 years in prison. The president ordered her to be released next month, but kept intact her eight years of supervised release.

The pardon power was given a very bad name after Ford pardoned Nixon. Since then, politicians have put their own political interests above the capacity to show mercy. It has gotten so warped and twisted, presidents and governors now pride themselves on how little mercy they are willing to demonstrate.

But mercy is what the pardon power was all about from the very beginning. In England, the monarch's pardon power is called the "prerogative of mercy." It is literally called mercy! The Founding Fathers wanted to keep this power in their own new constitution and bestowed it on the president without any check whatsoever. Finally, we have a president willing to use it properly.

As Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount:

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Bravo, Mr. President!

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ons-with-realmercy

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Monday Stuff

post from The Liberal Doomsayer on 21 November 2011 11:22:00 PM. © The Liberal Doomsayer

Kudos to Josh Fox, Debra Winger, and everyone who helped to make this happen (a long way from being settled, but progress)?

?and even though this tune from RT was aimed at our supposed financial geniuses on Wall Street, I still want to dedicate it to this alleged ?super committee? anyway (still waiting for that ?jobs? commission, Mr. President).

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Late Night FDL: Hating Twilight = Hating Women

post from Firedoglake on 21 November 2011 11:00:55 PM. © Firedoglake

There is nothing romantic about a relationship in which you have to sublimate everything you are in order to be with someone else. There is nothing romantic about misery and despair and pain and being vaguely afraid of somebody you live with. Yes, when[...]

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C&L's Late Night Music Club With The Golden Gate
Quartet

post from Crooks and Liars on 21 November 2011 11:00:04 PM. © Crooks and Liars

Title: HushArtist: The Golden Gate Quartet

Shhh...

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Romney's Making the Right Play in Iowa

post from FiveThirtyEight on 21 November 2011 10:46:39 PM. © FiveThirtyEight

By embracing the battle in Iowa, Mitt Romney is taking a risk that just might be worth the effort.

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-in-iowa/

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Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer may attempt to re-impeach
redistricting commissioner Colleen Mathis

Colleen Mathis

Of course they have no shame:

Gov. Jan Brewer may make another attempt as early as this coming week to fire the chairwoman of the Independent Redistricting Commission.
The governor said Friday her attorneys are studying the brief order issued late Thursday by the Arizona Supreme Court voiding the governor's Nov. 1 decision to fire Colleen Mathis. She said all options are on the table - including recrafting the letter she sent to Mathis firing her in a way that might pass court muster.
And Brewer said she also is weighing whether to ask the high court for a restraining order to block the commission from giving final approval to its draft maps - the ones she and other Republicans find objectionable - while she considers what to do next.

The report goes on to mention that Republicans are also considering a plan to push a ballot measure early next year that would repeal the IRC?which voters approved (via the ballot box, of course) just a decade ago by a 56-44 margin. If successful, that would allow the GOP-dominated legislature to draw its own maps, which is pretty much the only way these whiners will ever be happy.

Regardless, if Brewer tries to impeach Mathis a second time, Arizona Democrats seriously need to start thinking about an effort to recall their governor. This kind of abuse of power can't go unpunished.

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r-may-attempt-to-re-impeach-redistricting-commissioner-Colleen-Mathis

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The Radical History of Bloomingtons Peoples Park

In the autumn of 1968, Rollo Turner opened the Black Market in Bloomington, Indiana on land owned by businessman and antiwar activist Larry Canada. Located on the corner of Dunn Street and Kirkwood Avenue, the Black Market sold LPs, books, artwork, and[...]

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The [not so] "Super committee".

There must be a lot of kryptonite in Washington these days. It sure seems like it took out that so called "Super committee". The "Super committee" wasn't so super after all, and after months of wrangling they did not come up with a way to cut 1.2 trillion (that's trillion with a T) from A-merry-ca's deficit.

There is no bipartisanship in Washington these days, elections are just around the corner and we have to get that beige dude and his Afrocentric wife out of the people's house.

"Obama said Republicans in Congress rejected what he called a balanced approach to deficit reduction that included tax increases on the wealthy.

"Despite the broad agreement that exists for such an approach, there are still too many Republicans in Congress that have refused to listen to the voices of reason and compromise that are coming from outside of Washington," Obama told reporters after the super committee announced its failure.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Democrats "were prepared to strike a grand bargain that would make painful cuts while asking millionaires to pay their fair share, and we put our willingness on paper," but Republicans "never came close to meeting us halfway."

His GOP counterpart, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, argued that an agreement "proved impossible not because Republicans were unwilling to compromise, but because Democrats would not accept any proposal that did not expand the size and scope of government or punish job creators."

Somebody is lying, and I suspect that it's my man from Blue Grass Country. I am no Phi Beta Kappa from the London School of Economics, but it doesn't take an economic genius to figure out that you have to do more than just cut government programs to reduce the deficit. You have to raise revenue as well, and in order to do that we have to....wait for it...wait for it....yep, raise taxes.

But republicans will not do that, because they have pledges to keep. If you want to find where all the kryptonite is kept in Washington you might want to look under Grover Norquist's bed. This dude has some serious powers. Let's just call him Lex Luthor.

"Steve Kroft: A lot of people think you're the most powerful man in Washington.

Grover Norquist: The tax issue is the most powerful issue in American politics going back to the Tea Party. People say, 'Oh, Grover Norquist has power.' No. Grover Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform focus on the tax issue. The tax issue is a powerful issue.

Grover Norquist is trying to be modest. Since creating Americans for Tax Reform at Ronald Reagan's behest back in 1985, Norquist has been responsible, more than anyone else, for rewriting the dogma of the Republican Party.

Norquist: The Republicans won't raise your taxes. We haven't had a Republican vote for an income tax increase since 1990.

Kroft: And this was your doing?

Norquist: I helped. Yeah.

It began with the simple idea of getting Republicans all over the country to sign an oath called the "Taxpayer Protection Pledge," promising their constituents that they would never, ever vote for anything that would make their taxes go up."

But we will see how serious these republicans are when it comes to sticking to their pledge. Come midnight tomorrow night the fallback plan kicks in, and that could mean cuts in...(*Gasp!*) defense. Not to mention other programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, and Veteran's benefits.

Lex Luthor, you are a baaaad man.

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http://field-negro.blogspot.com/2011/11/not-so-super-committee.html