The Onion’s Obscene View of the Republican
Convention in Tampa

post from TaylorMarsh.com on 22 August 2012 08:00:30 PM. © TaylorMarsh.com

This video contains graphic language
and is not for everyone.

REMEMBER FOLKS, it’s The Onion!

Don’t laugh too hard.

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The Economy Election

post from TaylorMarsh.com on 22 August 2012 08:00:30 PM. © TaylorMarsh.com

Charts from CBO's August 2012 Budget and Economic Outlook from Congressional Budget Office

The report notes that debt held by the public will reach 73 percent of the economy this year, ?the highest level since 1950 and about twice the 36 percent of GDP that it measured at the end of 2007.? [The Hill]

IF THE LAST CBO report doesn’t wrench the political debate back from the dregs of abortion politics we’re doomed. At least that’s the prediction of CBO Director Doug Elmendorf.

Under the current-law baseline, the deficit next year would shrink to $641 billion.
This assumes that a series of policies known as the fiscal cliff take place. They include automatic spending cuts triggered by the August 2011 deal to raise the debt ceiling; expiration of the Bush-era tax rates; a sharp cut in Medicare doctor payments; and the failure to index the Alternative Minimum Tax for inflation, which would raise taxes for many households.
The $641 billion budget deficit estimate is larger than the $585 billion deficit CBO had projected in January.
[...] Democrats last month threatened to let the nation go over the fiscal cliff unless Republicans agree to a ?balanced? deficit package that includes some tax increases. The GOP has so far doubled down on its insistence that a deficit solution include only cuts to non-defense social spending.

Next stop, a “deep recession,” according to today’s report.

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Rape: Great Moments In Political Branding

post from Firedoglake on 22 August 2012 08:00:25 PM. © Firedoglake

You almost have to admire the GOP?s courage in staking out a position that, if not exactly pro-rape, is not entirely anti-rape either. And emphatically not pro-rape victim. So far, I?ve counted three ways in which Republicans act as rape apologists..[...]

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The Only Indicator You Need to Beat the Market

post from Jutia Group on 22 August 2012 08:00:21 PM. © Jutia Group

Individual traders can succeed in the markets if they know their edge. That edge should include knowing what time frame to trade and which indicator to use. Some simple trading strategies can deliver . . . → Read More: The Only Indicator You Need to Beat the Market

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http://jutiagroup.com/20120822-the-only-indicator-you-need-to-beat-the-market/

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Nuns On The Bus Tour Stops In New York To Protest
‘Devastating Romney-Ryan Budget’

post from ThinkProgress on 22 August 2012 08:00:04 PM. © ThinkProgress

Faith leaders, community groups protest GOP budget in Syracuse, NY

The Nuns On A Bus tour that made stops at 10 congressional offices in nine states in July is back on the road protesting the House Republican budget’s damaging cuts to programs that benefit the poor and middle class. The tour, comprised this time of a different set of faith leaders and community action groups, made its second stop in upstate New York today, visiting Syracuse, New York to again draw attention to the “devastating” budget authored by Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee and the GOP’s vice presidential nominee.

The budget came under fire from religious leaders for its substantial cuts to food assistance programs, Medicare, Medicaid, and other safety net programs — overall, 62 percent of its spending cuts come from programs that benefit the poor and middle class. In a release, the religious leaders blasted the budget for “eviscerating…programs that provide pathways out of poverty for millions of families”:

“The proposed cuts of Representative Ryan in the Ryan?s Budget are immoral and unjustifiable and will be putting the burden on the poor,? said Father Fred Daily of All Saints Church. ?I think that all people of faith should be in the streets proclaiming the immorality of these proposed cuts.”

The protest also called on Rep. Anne-Marie Buerkle (R), who represents Syracuse and the surrounding area, to repudiate the budget cuts. Buerkle voted for the budget’s passage in April. “I ask you Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle, as a graduate of Saint Joseph School of Nursing; whose mission is to follow the gospel message and to be at one with the poor and marginalized, to consider your vote and vote against the Romney/Ryan budget. If this budget does go through many of our friends and neighbors here in Syracuse will have drastic cuts to their services,” Sister Pat Bergan of Saint Lucy’s Church said in the release.

The House budget, which GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney called “marvelous” earlier this year, has been roundly criticized by faith leaders as an “immoral disaster” that contains cuts to food assistance and other programs that, in the words of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, are “unjustified and wrong.” The nuns recently challenged Romney to spend a day with them in order to see what those spending cuts would mean for the poor, but his campaign has yet to respond.

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Elliott Abrams says now is the time for Congress
to authorize the use of military force against Iran

post from Daily Kos on 22 August 2012 07:31:35 PM. © Daily Kos

07.02.2009 - Elliot Abrams,former deputy national security adviser to president George W. Bush,..currently Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.....Photo:Ariel Jerozolimski.... Ultra-hawk Elliott Abrams wants Congress to give Iran a great big warning.The odds that Elliott Abrams would get some foreign policy slot in a Romney-Ryan administration are certainly better than 50-50. Since switching from Democratic hawk to Republican ultrahawk, this charter member of the neo-conservative wing of the GOP has served in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. His intimate involvement in crafting bloodthirsty policy in Central America in the 1980s and in the Middle East in the 2000s (including criminal behavior in the Iran-Contra affair) ought to be enough to make him as toxic as any emeritus death-squad commander. Instead, he keeps getting a forum for his poisonous views in the media, the lecture circuit and the classroom.

A leading warmonger?for the purpose of spreading democracy and peace, of course?Abrams's latest argument is that tough talk on Iran coming from tough talkers like fellow neo-conservative Dennis Ross and former Israeli military intelligence Gen. Amos Yadlin just isn't tough enough.

Abrams isn't suggesting the United States bomb-bomb-bomb Iran tomorrow. He just wants Congress to pass an authorization to use military force resolution. You may recall two recent AUMFs and what's been done with them. There was (and is) the AUMF passed on Sept. 18, 2001, for the president to use force against the terrorists of Sept. 11 and those who aided or harbor them, and the AUMF passed Oct. 16, 2002, for the president to use force to "defend" the United States from Iraq.

An AUMF laid out against Iran, Abrams says, is the only way, short of an actual attack, to prove to both the Tehran government and the Israeli government that the United States will definitely stop Iran from gaining the capacity to build nuclear weapons. Negotiations and sanctions have not accomplished that, he says. Israeli officials, who have stepped up their talk of striking Iran's nuclear facilities?possibly before the November election, but certainly before mid-2013?will only be persuaded of U.S. seriousness by passage of an AUMF. And Iran, too, will only be persuaded by such a move.

(Continue reading below the fold.)

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ow-is-the-time-for-Congress-to-authorize-the-use-of-military-force-on-Iran

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Rep. Steve King opines on minorities and their
'victims groups'

post from Daily Kos on 22 August 2012 07:30:03 PM. © Daily Kos

(via Mother Jones)I really don't have the energy to deal with this racist, thick-headed little twerp right now, so let's get through this quickly. Rep. Steve King is the same person who just got through telling a reporter that he never "heard of" anyone getting pregnant from statutory rape or incest, so apparently he's just given up entirely on controlling his own mouth, relying on his press people to clean it up afterwards. Well, here ya go, Steve King's press person. Knit a silk purse out of this pile of crap:

King, who recently sponsored a bill to make English the national language, launched into an extended rant on the perils of multiculturalism?which was only reinforced by a visit to Iowa State University, where he says he encountered 59 different student groups rooted in the idea. Merlin's pants! As he put it, "It started with Asians and it ended with Zeitgeist. So from A to Z. And most of them were victims groups, victimology, people that feel sorry for themselves. And they're out there recruiting our young people to be part of the group that feels sorry for themselves."

Keep in mind, this is the kind of Republican who's considered perfectly acceptable to both the party base and higher-ups. Where the line gets drawn between Akin's "unacceptable" misogynistic theories and Steve King's near-daily "acceptable" venom against pretty much everyone on the planet who isn't Steve King, I have no idea.

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-on-minorities-and-their-victims-groups

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Justice Party Presidential Candidate Rocky
Anderson on Transparency and the Rule of Law Under Obama

Below is a transcript of Kevin's interview with Justice Party presidential candidate, Rocky Anderson. He addresses the importance of having a candidate with a commitment to the rule of law, along with why prosecutions of people who commit financial or[...]

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Corbett Administration Asks Court To Delay Voter
ID Hearing

See what happens when Democrats don't run a strong candidate against a former attorney general for the gubernatorial race? No good. Tom Corbett is quite clearly willing to do anything he can to crush Democratic opposition by any means necessary - including suppressing our votes:

The state of Pennsylvania doesn't think it is necessary for Pennsylvania's Supreme Court to rush into a hearing on the state's controversial voter ID law next month, writing in a filing on Tuesday that the hearing can wait until just a few weeks before the election.
Pennsylvania wrote in the court filing that scheduling arguments for the October 2012 term in Pittsburgh "is more realistic than attempting to schedule it for the September term in Philadelphia, which is less than three weeks away and which has already been extended to include a full day of argument regarding the redistricting cases." The state suggested that the hearings be scheduled for the week of Oct. 15, just three weeks before the election.
ACLUPA's Vic Walczak told TPM that the state knows that October would be too late for anything to change before Election Day.
"Mid-October is too late and I'm sure the state realizes that. They would justifiably come in and say 'regardless of what you do, court, it's too late to change anything now'." Walczak said. "The closer you get to Election Day, the harder it is to make any changes."

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http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/corbett-administration-asks-court-del

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"Jungle Fever" and American politics.

"Rare is the time that a poll number makes me gasp. But there is one in the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll that elicited one. While it was no surprise to see that President Obama snared 94 percent of African Americans surveyed, the presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney got nuthin?, zilch, niente, a big fat 0 percent. " [Source]

Yes Jonathan, but this could all change. Turns out that Mr. Ryan was honey dipping back in the day. That is, of course, until he met his future wife. (?Your mother left you with how much??!!? ) I kid.

Anyway, some folks believe that this could actually help Mr. Ryan with the black vote and that it could change those low numbers with us folks for the Romney ticket. Personally, I am not too sure about that. (Do you really think that those boys on the Duke Lacrosse team loved black people? Just sayin.) But we won?t get into our history with this subject which is rife with all types of issues. We have evolved as a nation, and,(with all due respect to the folks who can?t get over the slow speed Bronco chase) thankfully, getting a little ?Jungle Fever? has become the norm. Well, with most people. (Sorry "Kossacks", I have to talk about it.) I suspect that they would deny it, but I am willing to be that there are more than a few people under that republican tent who would not be willing to vote for the republican version of Robert DeNiro. Heck, they are just getting used to the fact that Romney is a part of that Joseph Smith religion.  I think when Paul Ryan says some of my best friends are black it might have a deeper meaning that when his boss at the top of the ticket says it. I mean I don?t think Flipper has ever even dated a brunette. And, to be fair to Mr. Ryan, I don't think he has ever gone there.  Goff is getting a lot of heat in conservative circles for her article, (and with others as well) but she does make an interesting point with her Lou Dobbs analogy: "For years Lou Dobbs was the face of the anti-illegal-immigration crusade. As a result of his seeming obsession with the issue, he became in the eyes of many the face of xenophobia and racism, not to mention public enemy No. 1 of Mexican immigrants. There's just one hitch to this narrative: Dobbs is married to a Mexican-American woman, meaning that he is the father of Mexican-American children. (His Mexican-born mother-in-law even lives with his family.)
When I discovered this I was surprised, and not for the reasons you may think. While I was somewhat surprised to learn of his wife's heritage, given his own politics on issues that overwhelmingly affect a community of which she is a member, I was even more surprised that I'd never heard him mention it on his program or prominently in interviews. He certainly didn't hide it, but my point is, if anyone could have benefited from a "But my best friend -- in fact, my wife -- is Latina, so I can't be bigot" defense, it was Dobbs, and yet he chose not to hide behind that."

Actually Keli, he didn't have to say it, others said it for him, but I get your point.
Still, at the end of the day, it?s not what he (Ryan) does in his personal life; it?s how his policies in his public one that shape the various issues I care about that concerns me. If his black girlfriend causes him to be more sensitive to certain issues when he is crafting legislation, well then that's a good thing. I don't care what's in his heart if the laws he helps to pass are good ones. George Bush seemed like a really nice guy, and he probably had a good heart; look where that got us. Politically, this will put Ryan in a good light with independents. He might have some issues,however,with his Southern base. When 46% of registered republicans in Mississippi say that interracial marriage should be illegal you have to wonder. This is why the conservative bloggers jumping on Goff are being disingenuous when they act as if Ryan getting his swirl on might not be a problem. The truth of the matter is it could be. Keli focused on Ryan himself, I think this is more about his base and how they will react.   The only thing holding this fickle coalition of Mormon worshipers, Negro daters, and Southern Christians together is their intense hatred of Barack Hussein Obama. That's the type of hatred that even a little "Jungle Fever" can't stop.

*The pic that is above this post is NOT Paul Ryan and his ex.

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