8/06/2011

Video: Paul Ryan Runs from Reporter After Being Asked About His Economic Plan

Paul Ryan is so afraid to answer a simple question from an English Al Jazeera reporter, he runs away and calls her rude.  This documentary is about wealth inequality within the United States and is well worth watching. The piece also features economist Jeffrey Sachs stating flatly, "The rich not only became richer they became politically more powerful."  But the highlight of the video is when the reporter asks Congressman Ryan (R) if his budget plan is undemocratic because most of the American people are against it. Rude?

8/05/2011

VIDEO: PLEASE MR. PRESIDENT USE THE CHRIS MATTHEW'S JOB PROGRAM

I turned on my television this evening, as I do every evening in my home in San Antonio, Texas. On Hardball, Chris Matthews was discussing  my Governors Rick Perry's "Christian Prayer" event this weekend in Houston. Governor Perry is asking Texans to come together and "pray" for "God" to solve our problems.  But that's not what caught my eye.  This came next:  




Mr. President I don't believe any one's God will solve our problems.  These problems weren't caused by any God, these problems were caused by 8 years WE have allowed (and for some even encouraged),  Republicans to wreck havoc not only on our own country but on our whole world.  These problems are OUR responsibility to solve NOW.  WE cannot wait. WE are angry because WE are scared and WE are desperate. And now we are screaming out to YOU Mr. President,  Stop listening to your "handlers". Stop playing politics with the Republicans. YOU were blessed with a GREAT mind.  YOU have the opportunity to stop a GREAT deal of pain.  And YOU Mr. President will go down in history as a GREAT man.

Midnight Snack: Harry Potter Puppet Pals

My daughter Maya turned me on to these.  My favorite is  the "Ginny" video and it's not so subtle insinuations about Harry's fascination with freckled red heads. 
Enjoy:

8/03/2011

Midnight Snack: Last Friday Night by Katy Perry

Look for those totally embarrassing 80's fashions and that really cute guy or girl you crushed on-THEN
Play it loud and dance like no one's watching!

8/02/2011

VIDEO- Pat Buchanan to Rev. Al Sharpton: “Don’t throw me into that briar patch… You’re boy, Barack Obama, caved in…”

Buchanan was also responsible for a quote made to the extreme right wing birther conspiracy blog World Net Daily in which he states:
"Mocked by The Wall Street Journal and Sen. John McCain as the little people of the Lord of the Rings books, the Tea Party "Hobbits" are indeed returning to Middle Earth-to nail the coonskin to the wall.".
VIDEO- Pat Buchanan to Rev. Al Sharpton: “Don’t throw me into that briar patch… You’re boy, Barack Obama, caved in…”

Why does MSNBC continue to keep this man on their payroll. He's the same old racist Bircher and member of The Sons of the Confederacy, he was during the civil rights movement? Just because he's old and his ideas are so outdated shouldn't mean MSNBC should take him any less seriously than they would have taken any other member of their news team. Chris "Tweety Bird" Mathews drives me crazy when he lets this man say these kinds of things. Matthews literally just laughs at him and treats him like the joke that he is. So why does MSNBC continue to use him for commentary from the right? Buchanan is so old and set in his way of thinking he can just say whatever he wants.  And we'll all just laugh? - like Chris Matthews?  Apparently at MSNBC, if your name is Pat Buchanan you get a pass for horribly offensive remarks. Now if your name happens to be Keith Olbermann you get thrown off the air for not towing the company line.

Video: DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz Follows Up on Giffords Return and Why Democrats Voted for Bill They Didn't Support

Congresswoman and DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz follows up on the return of Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) triumphant return to the House of Representatives yesterday, in order to cast her yes vote on the raising the debt ceiling.  Wasserman-Schultz is a good friend of Giffords and was even the first person to see Ms. Giffords open her eyes.  A story the President was able to tell during the State of the Union Address, to a teary eyed nation, after just being given the good news by Giffords husband.  Later DNC Chair Wasserman-Schultz explains why so many Democrats voted for the bill though none totally supported it.

DYLAN RATIGAN STFU!!!

Video: Camera Loving Teabagger Congressman Joe Walsh Is A Dead Beat Dad!

According to a story broken by the Chicago Sun Times, Teabagger Republican and freshman Represenative Joe Walsh is a Dead Beat Dad!  Walsh owes $117,437 in child support to his ex-wife and three children and ex-wife Laura Walsh has asked a judge to suspend Congressman Walsh's drivers license until he pays up.  Walsh has loaned his own campaign $35,000  and payed himself back at least $14,200 for the loans, yet Walsh claims he failed to make the payments because he “had no money.”  Many of you remember Walsh as the camera loving "fiscal conservative" Republican member of the Tea Party Caucus.  Or you may remember him as the a**hole who made a video calling on the President to "stop lying" about the the ramifications of defaulting on the nations debt.  Walsh likes to brag about his own frugality, claiming he even sleeps in his congressional office to save money and has been described  by colleagues as “the biggest media hound in the freshman class,”  Recently he has been a prominent voice in the debt ceiling showdown making television appearances almost every day like the one he made on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" in which he felt the need to call Matthews '"Chris" 61 times in a 10 minute interview while denouncing President Obama’s “reckless spending,” which he says has “bankrupted this country.” In one video made by Walsh he states, “I won’t place one more dollar of debt upon the backs of my kids and grandkids unless we structurally reform the way this town spends money!” When confronted with his own hypocrisy, he criticized the media for the timing of this story and then claimed his being a deadbeat dad helped him understand the plight of the average American.

After the story broke Walsh excused his behavior by blaming others for telling the truth about his hypocritical history of poor handling of his own finances which also include the previous foreclosure of his home:
I know that story just broke, and it’s interesting that it just broke right now as I’m out there trying my best to fight this President and fight the Democrats and solve this debt crisis. But look, I’m the most openly vetted candidate in the world. I have had financial troubles and I talked about them throughout the campaign. This is where real America is.

Video: Gabby Giffords Returns to Vote on Debt Ceiling!

The Rachel Maddow Show showed us the only bright moment for Progressives during the Debt Ceiling vote.  As the vote was about to begin Gabby Gifford walked into the Chamber and the House erupted in cheers.  Giffords did vote yes on the deal Democrats were forced to vote for in order to prevent what most economists agree would have been catastrophic for both the United States and the World.  Giffords told reporters, she knew it was important the debt ceiling was raised and she was determined to vote for it.


How Conservatives Act in Public Vs. How They Act in Private is Coming to an End and How Michelle Bachman is a Perfect Example

Everyone should read this excellent article published on pandagon.net. It captures the reasons behind the Conservative hypocrisy, we Liberals have witnessed time and time again.  For example, when we witness Republicans like Michelle Bachman, rail against any Federal spending, yet Ms. Bachman owes everything she's ever made to the Federal government, including her 5,000+ sq. foot home situated on a golf course and much of the medicare reimbursements she's made through her and her husbands "cure the gay" clinic.
I haven't even included the salary she receives through the federal government for her job as a U.S. Congresswoman, which also entitles her to an excellent medical plan as well as a hefty lifetime pension after serving only 4 years. And of course, the epitomy of  hypocrisy has to be her time spent as a prosecutor working for the bain of all true conservatives, the IRS.  Yes, it's true, Michelle 'all government is evil" Bachman once prosecuted American citizens for failure to pay those evil taxes she now bases her whole image on fighting.  Of course I'll bet Bachman only prosecuted your average Joe or Jane and not all those fat cat billionaires she now fights tooth and nail to protect from contributing a dime for the welfare of the country she now represents and claims to love.
pandagon.net

Video David Krugman. Do The Teabaggers Want to Take the US Back to The Stone Ages?

Paul Krugman hit the nail on the head in this clip provided by PBS's Charlie Rose. Even conservative commentator David Brooks seems to have a hard to time defending the insanity taken over by his own party.

ROSE: There are two questions. One, if you look at the dysfunctionality of government in this case, who's responsible for them?
BROOKS: I don't pretend it's symmetrical... I wouldn't say it's symmetrical here. I do think the president and the Democrats have been much more flexible than the Republicans have been. I say that with a little pain maybe, but that's just simply the case. The president, to his credit has made his allies extremely uncomfortable, and if you were around in Washington yesterday when the entire Senate Democratic caucus erupted in fury, you saw that first hand. And so I think the Republicans are... it's a good short term negotiating strategy, but they are not seizing a deal which should be out there for them.
I'm sort of mystified why if the president is offering a $3 trillion in the reduction of government, why they're not seizing upon that and potentially settling either for nothing or maybe $500 million. I mean, it's just mystifying to me why they don't take this deal.
ROSE: Well, then take a guess. What's the answer?
BROOKS: Well, there are a lot of things. One, they will tell you they go home and nobody wants any more taxes. We ran on that, we pledged it. Second, and I think this part is bipartisan, the hatred is so strong, there is great personal resistance to doing a deal with the devil. And they regard Obama, or Boehner and Cantor as the devil. There's just sort of this emotional resistance to getting in a room, shaking their hand and having your picture taken.
And so even beneath the substance of it there's a great deal of emotional resistance, and when... even when the president makes an offer, which is a pretty good offer for Republicans, they're always looking for the weaknesses in it.
(crosstalk)
KRUGMAN: This is a longer term story. It's not just what's happened during these negotiations. The underlying reason we have dysfunctional politics right now is the radicalization of the Republican Party. I mean, Bruce Bartlett, a Republican, or maybe now an excommunicated Republican just said basically Obama is a moderate conservative. He's basically governing to the right of Richard Nixon. But what's happened is that the Republican Party has gone so far off into an extreme right wing position that we have gridlock because basically one party cannot say yes.
They cannot say yes to anything that might be coming from the other party. In a basic sense they don't accept the legitimacy of government by the other party.
BROOKS: To be fair to them, they would say that we've had government at a certain level of GDP for decade after decades, and roughly the same, and over the last couple of years its leapt up significantly, so if we want to bring it back to that level, to the 2008 level (crosstalk) that's the argument they would make.
KRUGMAN: David, all of that is the recession. All of that is that the ratio of government to GDP is higher because GDP is down and safety net programs; unemployment insurance and Medicaid and a few other programs that respond to hard times are up. If you take that out, there has been no increase in the size of government. That's an entire myth.
BROOKS: There is a long term trend of health care spending. I mean this is, and Paul and I have come back to this a couple of times in this conversation...
KRUGMAN: Right.
BROOKS: Health care spending is the problem.
KRUGMAN: Yeah.
BROOKS: And so there are two wildly different views of how you address that issue. And Republicans look out and see health care spending increasing, swallowing up everything else and they say we need something like the Ryan plan in order to fundamentally reform the structure of the program. And that's not a radically irresponsible position. It's a position you can disagree with, but it doesn't make them loons, I would say.
KRUGMAN: Well... we can go on. We should also point out that we have an enormous amount of obstructionism at all levels. Right? There's a tremendous number of unfilled positions. To a large extent Obama is trying to govern now with a hollow administration because he can't get officials approved. We had my former MIT colleague, Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond rejected for the Federal Reserve Board.
This is a crazy... uhh... this is what is making America ungovernable. It is the extremism of one party. You actually have an extremely accommodating, I would say alarmingly accommodating Democratic president, but a Republican Party that just won't deal.I am seriously beginning to believe these loony "no nothing" teabagger Republicans are determined to take down this country so they can go live in their underground bunkers, and subsist on the food "The Fox News Show"(in particular Glenn Beck) they have been warned to hoard while they collect overpriced gold coins celebrity spokesmen have urged them to buy as protection from the downfall of the U.S. dollar. Good bye civilization. God help us all.
For more see: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/paul-krugman-calls-out-david-brooks-playin

Video: Another Former TX Governor? How'd That Work Out for Ya Last time???

Teabaggers will now have a perfect chance to prove how "grassroots" and "independent they are of the Republican party who's last President, George W. Bush, they claim to despise due to his wild spending policies.  For those with short memories, that included the Medicare D package,the No Child Left Behind program and 2 wars  All of these were unfunded (meaning put on credit for the next guy to figure out how to pay for) and which finally forced him to enact the first stimulus package and the bail out of all those Too Big To Fail Wall Street Banks.  Their big chance to prove their authenticity comes in the form of another Cowboy hat wearing Texas Governor named Rick Perry. Like George W., according to Gov. Perry, God speaks directly to him.  God must be a bit indecisive-he can't seem to decide whether he wants Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin and now maybe Rick Perry (come on God decide already). And the similarities certainly don't end there. Both, have a habit of surrounding themselves with controversial Christian ministers, such as Bush's spiritual advisor Ted "Rentboy.com, meth using,Haggard, from the very powerful Christian association "Focus on the Family".  Rick Perry prefers the "American Family Association", who are sponsoring his big "Call to Prayer Event" in Houston Texas next month. Heading this group is Bryan Fischer, who publicly states, among his other beliefs, Adolph Hitler manned his armies with homosexuals because we all know homosexuals fight like crazed animals.  Rachel Maddow recently did a segment on Governor Perry and the ministers he has chosen to speak at his "Call to Prayer" event:


Video:Teabaggers Distrupt Peacful Move On..Org Meeting With Threats

 A local paper in Roseburg, Oragan printed this story about a local group of MoveOn.org members who had peacefully assembled at a local park.  This is particularly disturbing in what it says about the real effects of "The Fox News Show" and it's group of propagandists.  The Teabaggers continually yelled out "Van Jones" and "Communists, Fascists and Marxists" In my opinion, these thugs are indistinguishable to the Nazi Brown Shirts (please forgive the Nazi analogy but when the shoe fits perfectly sometimes making the analogy is important),  They shouted "leave", "we don't want no Communists here" and berated and threatened the mostly older liberals until they did just that.  They left peacefully.  The group of Teabagger thugs were so proud of scaring old ladies and old men out of the park they even bragged about it, as you will see in the video. Even if they were Communists or Marxists (which they are not) or whatever, isn't this still America or is Fox's propagandist rhetoric turning it into something else.  Something scary and something very, very wrong.

A small political gathering of about 18 liberal thinkers at River Forks Park Sunday afternoon erupted in conflict when about 35 members of the conservative tea party intruded upon the meeting, waving flags and holding signs accusing the rival group of being communists, Marxists and socialists.
The liberal group — organized by MoveOn.org — decided to leave the park and move its potluck to a nearby home. Members of the conservative group followed, parking at the entrance of a private lane leading to the home to continue their protest.
Roseburg Democrats Dean and Sara Byers said Monday they told tea party members who followed that they were not welcome to drive down the lane to their home.
The Byerses said they got out of their car to stop vehicles from entering the driveway and one tea party member almost ran them over.
Sara Byers said she was so shaken she called 911. She said a Douglas County deputy called about an hour and a half later and said he had been unable to respond because of other incidents. Byers said she was still considering filing a criminal complaint against members of the tea party for harassment.
A leader of the tea party group, Rich Raynor of Roseburg, disputed the liberal group's version of events.
“They are liars,” said Raynor, director of Douglas County Americans for Prosperity. “That is what communists do
 Watch and you decide: