Randi Rhodes: War Ends; O'Reilly Yawns

Yesterday President Obama announced the end of the Iraq War. It was like watching the final episode of a long-running TV program… only this is a show nobody liked or asked for. And by the end, nobody was watching. Thank God that Obama finally cancelled it. Frankly I can’t even believe anybody produced it in the first place.
On March 20, 2003, when Bush launched the war, Barack Obama was just a state senator in Illinois. Wow. The war took longer to fight than it took for Barack Obama to fight his way from obscurity to become the President of the United States. I wonder how Bush would have reacted if somebody told him when he invaded Iraq that this war wouldn’t be over until a black man was President of the United States. Well, if they told him in a memo, Bush simply wouldn’t have read it.
And Republicans yesterday were criticizing President Obama over Iraq! I guess he just can’t clean up Republicans’ messes the way they want him to. That’s par for the course, really—a bunch of rich white guys are yelling at a black guy for not cleaning up to their satisfaction.
It was a long war, with a lot of memorable images, like that fake turkey that George Bush used for his Thanksgiving, 2003 photo-op in Iraq. That photo captures the essence of the Iraq war as well as any image—George Bush serving up a great big fake turkey! Little did we know then that we’d all be eating leftovers of that fake turkey for the next seven years.
The fake story around Jessica Lynch, the stage managed toppling of the Saddam statue… everything about this war was faked. We would have been better off having James Cameron directing it than Donald Rumsfeld. We would have been better off having Ed Wood direct it than Donald Rumsfeld! And one more thing—even James Cameron would have brought this thing in closer to budget. I don’t care how much his movies cost, James Cameron never spent a trillion dollars to deliver a product that didn’t satisfy anybody.
So how should we mark the end of this war? I just wish we had a statue of George Bush so we could pull it down.
Today’s Homework Discuss



Thom's blog
Beck sets fire to news
Faux News performer Glenn Beck has launched a new "news and opinion" website called TheBlaze.com that he said seeks to "pursue truth." Looks like Beck who made over $30 million dollars last year has noticed that Drudge and Breitbart are making big bucks with their right wing so-called news organizations and wants a piece of the action.

This week, President Obama pushed back on Senate Republicans to "drop the blockade" on the Small Business Jobs bill. This bill will help stimulate the economy by cutting taxes and making available more loans, including $55 billion in tax relief to truly smaller companies. After the Republican minority blocked the bill from coming to the Senate floor in July, Obama is urging Congress to make it the first order of business when Congress returns in September.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) have filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C., demanding to know more about an alleged policy of assassinating Americans thought to be involved in terrorist activities. The groups have sued President Obama, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero added in a prepared statement, "A program that authorizes killing U.S. citizens, without judicial oversight, due process or disclosed standards is unconstitutional, unlawful and un-American." According to the ACLU, the suit was brought on behalf of Nasser al-Awlaki, father of Yemeni-American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who is targeted by the U.S. for assassination.

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Randi Rhodes: They will say ANYTHING!

There are more poll numbers indicating that Republicans live in an alternative universe. These aren’t so much surveys as they are psychological questionnaires. Why don’t they just start giving Republicans those inkblot Rorschach tests? “What do you see here?” “I see Barack Obama sacrificing Christian babies to Satan.” In the latest poll, 52 percent of Republicans agree with the statement that President Obama “sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world.” Hmm… maybe the results wouldn’t be so extreme if they didn’t phrase the questions like a Glenn-Beck-on-cough-medicine rant. On the other hand, I guess they can’t just ask them “Do you believe… basically anything some rightwing nutbag could dream up?” Still, I suspect they would say yes. If you ask Republicans “How many fingers am I holding up?” the answer would be “Obama is the devil.” It saves them from counting. This poll also shows that 59 percent of Republicans said they believed the president favored “the interests of Muslims over other groups of Americans.” That one is a little surprising. I had no idea that many Republicans considered Muslims to be Americans. How can they keep us this level of ignorance? Glenn Beck is certainly doing his part. Beck has launched a new “news and opinion” website. Of course, to Glenn Beck, there’s no distinction between news and opinion. His opinions are wrong, and I’m sure all the “news” on his site is going to be wrong too. Beck said “It’s so hard to find a place that helps me make sense of the world I see.” We’re all with you there, Glenn. I certainly can’t make any sense out of the world YOU see. Gee Glenn, if you can’t make sense of the world you’re seeing, is it just possible that you’re not seeing the real world? Beck’s new site is called TheBlaze.com. Incidentally, The Blaze is already up and, well, blazing. Surprised? It’s not like they had to spend any time researching their stories. The banner headline when I logged on was “Explicit Poetry GPS Phones Help Illegals.” Really. I’m not going to click on the link for the article. I’m going to just let my imagination run wild—which I’m sure is pretty much what the author of that piece did. Check it out for yourself. I’m too busy texting excerpts from Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” to immigrants in the desert suffering from hypothermia and sunstroke.Today’s Homework DiscussNew Left Media took a stroll through the Beck crowd on Saturday...

Thom's blog
Is Newt Gingrich Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy?
For months, far right-wing conservatives have led a hateful campaign against the proposed Park 51 Islamic community center near Ground Zero in New York City. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is even claiming it will be a launching pad for "Sharia law" in America. In an interview with Newsweek magazine, Zabihullah, a Taliban spokesman said, by "preventing this mosque from being built, America is doing us a big favor." The, "...more mosques you stop, the more jihadis we will get." Meanwhile, a new Newsweek poll is showing that most Republicans believe President Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world." Only 33 percent of Republicans said the "allegation" was "probably not true," while 38 percent said it was "probably true" and 14 percent said it was "definitely true." Gingrich's hysterical campaign about the Park 51 community center is hurting Americans in two ways. First, he succeeded in turning a majority of Republican Americans against their own President based on a lie. Second, he's giving aid and comfort to recruiters for the very extremist in Islam whose credibility would be most diminished by the building of this community center.

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Randi Rhodes: They Can`t Even Count Right!

Were you at Glenn Beck’s big rally on Saturday? Even if you weren’t, chances are somebody from Fox News counted you. They counted over 400,000 people who weren’t there. Meanwhile, the company CBS hired to give an accurate estimate of the crowd size said there were about 87,000 people there. Fox News and the people associated with the rally were throwing around numbers like half a million, or even a million. I want those people to balance my checkbook. By way of comparison, there were an estimated 200,000 people at Martin Luther King’s rally in 1963. That’s like 2 million in Fox News numbers! Martin Luther King got his crowd without the internet. But then Glenn Beck got his crowd without a coherent message. All I know is, there was no overcrowding on the Green or Yellow subway lines in Washington.

During his speech, Glenn Beck denied that he was a “fearmonger,” by comparing himself to “the man who saw the iceberg” on the Titanic. Uh Glenn, if we’re going to be using Titanic analogies, you’re the iceberg, OK? Alright, I shouldn’t say that. The iceberg that struck the Titanic had a much clearer agenda than Glenn Beck. Incidentally, that’s an unusual defense against fearmongering. What is Beck saying? It’s not fearmongering—you really do need to be afraid! Right, Glenn. You’re not trying to scare anybody. You’re just saying we’re all gonna die. For the record, if Glenn Beck were on the Titanic, he’d be trying to convince all the people in steerage that the lifeboats are Marxist. Lifeboats are there to keep people from drowning. Hmm… sounds like socialism to me. In a sense, Glenn Beck’s world is like the Titanic. It’s totally dark, he’s WAY out to sea, and the only people who are going to get through this are the very wealthy who are up top.

Glenn Beck evidently wore a bulletproof vest at the rally. Glenn, I don’t think you need a bulletproof vest. After all, nothing ever seems to get through to you anyway. You don’t need a bulletproof vest, you need something that can deflect the facts. Of course, your own thick skull seems to work pretty well for that. The next day Glenn Beck said the FBI put him in the bulletproof vest, explaining “If there’s an event of high risk, the FBI is there.” OK, I agree this was an event of high risk, but the risk wasn’t TO Glenn Beck, it was FROM Glenn Beck.

Today’s Homework Discuss

Thom's blog
Multi-Millionaire Glen Beck is the Anti-Christ
Yesterday, far right wing Faux News Performer & Multi-Millionaire Glenn Beck preached to a reported 87,000 supporters at his "Restoring Honor" rally and then later appeared on Faux News Sunday with Chris Wallace. When Wallace noted that Multi-Millionaire Beck called President Obama's faith "a perversion of the gospel of Jesus Christ" and Wallace wondered who made Multi-Millionaire Beck "the God Squad," Multi-Millionaire Beck called the President "demonic." Multi-Millionaire Beck said, "The pope even said, this is Pope Benedict, that it is demonic not divine when theology crosses into the line of doing that which only the divine can do. He was speaking specifically about liberation theology." Media Matters also notes that during his interview with Wallace, Beck dismissed the economic agenda associated with Martin Luther King's march 47 years ago, and said that Christians don't recognize Obama's faith. The reality is that Martin Luther King and Liberation Theology call for the same things Jesus Christ did 2000 years ago. Jesus fed the masses, and did ask for a co-payment. Jesus said, to his disciples the only way to get into heaven was to feed the hungry, heal the sick, visit those in prison, and make sure people were clothed and housed. Multi-Millionaire Glen Beck, on the other hand, is collaborating with oil billionaires who promote "less government" which really means no regulation of the oil industry; "lower taxes," which really means "don't raise taxes on billionaires"; and "roll back Obamacare," which really means "keep multi-millionaires like Steven J. Hemsley, who took a half a billion dollars as CEO of United Healthcare, in charge of only healing the wealthy." His Mormonism aside, the anti-theology and naked plutocratic agenda that multi-millionaire Glen Beck is promoting makes him not only NOT a follower of Christ but arguably the opposite. Multi-Millionaire Glen Beck is the Anti-Christ.

http://thomhartmann.com/

Randi Rhodes: Honor that needs no restoration

If you’re tired of seeing candidates like Florida’s Rick Scott who make you want to cry, here’s someone who will make you laugh, at least at first. There’s a guy running for mayor of Providence, Rhode Island named Chris Young (pictured left, clinging to the Virgin Mary) who is providing Youtube with the best video since Basil Marceaux came out of nowhere. During a live debate, Chris asked his girlfriend to marry him. It’s not clear if Chris sprang that one on his girlfriend, but she’s his campaign manager. So if she didn’t know, she’s not doing her job. In any case, the marriage proposal has been the closest to normal Chris Young has been in this campaign. During a TV interview, Chris serenaded his interviewer with a song that sounded kind of like Gordon Lightfoot after a severe blow to the head. What I want to know, Chris, is where do you stand on the question of the gold-fringed flag?

On a more serious note, here’s a site with some great videos of the 1963 March on Washington. You might learn a little. And if you’re Glenn Beck, you might learn a lot. You might want to spend tomorrow watching these videos so you don’t have to waste time with Glenn Beck’s rally. And I’m sending that advice out to Glenn Beck too.

Bruce Majors, the Tea Party blogger who warned people coming for Glenn Beck’s rally that 80 percent of Washington DC is dangerous is speaking out. I assume he’s doing it from a safe location. Majors claims his directions weren’t racist. Really? The only way the could have been more racist is if they warned visitors about cannibals and headhunters. Major’s guide to DC is like a 2010 guide to the city for people who are living in 1955. I guess his warning that most waitresses and cab drivers “are immigrants, frequently from east Africa or Arab countries” was just an advisory for visitors who don’t speak Somali or Swahili.

Finally, Sarah Palin’s daughter Bristol Palin seems poised to appear on the next season of Dancing with the Stars. I don’t know. Do we really want someone taking part in a dance contest who named their child “Tripp”? Not a good omen.

Today’s Homework Discuss

Randi Rhodes: War TV

The Navy has OK’d a reality television show about the military bomb squads risking their lives defusing explosive devices. Well that’s one way to make those “Ice Road Truckers” and crab fishermen look like wusses. The show is called “Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan.” I guess it sounds better than “I Enlisted for the College Tuition, Get Me Out of Here!” The show will be on the G4 Network. The problem of course is that this could easily be handled in a tasteless and exploitative manner, or as TV networks call it “business as usual.” The first indications from the G4 Network don’t look good. Their promo material stresses that the soldiers’ patrols “could put an EOD tech wearing a 70-pound protective bomb suit in direct contact with a potentially deadly IED.” At least they’re not calling the show “Survivor: Kandahar.” The problem is that they’re teasing it with the possibility that some of those involved may not survive. This is an abomination. Why don’t they just call this show “Pimp My Military”? Besides, if I want to see an explosion on reality TV, I’ll just watch Teresa on The Real Housewives of New Jersey.
Reality can be ugly, especially when it involves Glenn Beck. This weekend is Glenn Beck’s big “Restoring Honor” rally. Glenn Beck restoring honor? That’s like using Mel Gibson to restore civility. Beck is taking over the Lincoln Memorial on the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech there. If Martin Luther King were still around, this would make him wake up screaming. The rally headliners are Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. It’s kind of like a Woodstock for conservatives, but I’m sure this one will feature a lot more mud. As far as I’m concerned, the mere presence of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin at the Lincoln Memorial qualifies as vandalism to a national monument. Glenn Beck says “we will reclaim the civil rights movement….” Reclaim? I didn’t know conservatives claimed it in the first place. Is that what you were doing with the water cannons and police dogs? Glenn Beck is completely rewriting history for the sake of a bunch of old people—the kind of people who didn’t like that history back when they were forced to live it. These are people who spent their lives hating the legacy of the Civil Rights movement. Now Glenn Beck is telling them they don’t have to hate it—they can co-opt and distort it. The bottom line is clear: Glenn Beck comes not to praise the Civil Rights movement, but to bury it.
Today’s Homework Discuss
The Muslim NYC cab driver describes the horrifying knife attack:



Thom's blog
Libertarian Paradise of Somalia
In some big triumphs this year, the tea party movement has had successful wins against long-time Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT), Tea Partier Trey Gowdy won over "reasonable Republican" Rep. Bob Inglis (SC), and now it looks like Senate candidate Joe Miller (R-AK) will beat current Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in one of the biggest political upsets of the year. As President Bush's former speechwriter Michael Gerson points out today, the Republican party now faces an uphill struggle to rein in the "untested ideology" of these new candidates that is "clearly incompatible with some conservative and Republican beliefs" and may prove "toxic to the GOP." Today on ABC's Top Line, RNC spokesman Doug Heye embraced the radical far right views of GOP candidates like Miller saying, "we embrace whatever candidate needs to do to win." While Bush's speech writer Michael Gerson calls the libertarian tea party concepts of eliminating social security and other social safety net program as untested, in fact the tea party ideology has been tested. If you'd like to check it out, just move to the libertarian paradise of Somalia. No pesky big government bureaucrats, very low taxes, and everyone is free to own all the guns they want.

http://thomhartmann.com/

Randi Rhodes: Time to Vote OUT the Party of NO!

Primary results from last night are in. We still don’t know what’s going on in Alaska, but that’s true in general all the time. In Arizona, John McCain won… and all it cost him was John McCain. He beat JD Hayworth by becoming JD Hayworth. John McCain is a man who wanted to keep his job more than he wanted to keep the qualities that qualified him for his job. One Arizona voter who went for McCain said “I don’t like either of them, but I used to hear JD Hayworth on the radio and he annoyed me.” Wow. Please, JD, go back to the radio. It’s one way to ensure you’ll never hold elective office again. In Florida, the Republican nomination for governor was won by Rick Scott. Or was purchased by Rick Scott. Rick Scott is the closest thing possible to actually having the health insurance industry itself run for office. And I’m sure that’s coming in the wake of the Citizens’ United ruling. Last night New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg offered another passionate defense of the proposed mosque and community center. The Mayor was hosting the annual Ramadan Iftar dinner at his official residence in Gracie Mansion. Gee, maybe he should have checked with the rightwing to make sure Gracie Mansion isn’t too close to Ground Zero for a Ramadan dinner to take place there. But then Gracie Mansion is up around 88th Street. As long as it’s above 59th Street, I guess it’s OK with Newt Gingrich. Some Tea Party people are starting to wonder if Glenn Beck is just using them to promote himself. News to the Tea Party—Glenn Beck didn’t get to be Glenn Beck by concentrating his efforts on anything besides Glenn Beck. Given the things the Tea Party wants to do, I’m actually more than happy to see their energies siphoned off to glorify Glenn Beck. It’s better than doing away with Social Security. A new study says that Adolph Hitler may have had Jewish or African roots. Given Hitler’s racial attitudes, I think he would take the news that he might be Jewish very badly. It would be like telling Glenn Beck he may be descended from open-minded progressives. Today’s Homework Discuss


Thom's blog
Shoot to Kill...Americans?
Frontline, The New Orleans Times-Picayune and ProPublica are reporting that in the jumbled days after Hurricane Katrina an order circulated allowing the New Orleans police to shoot looters, according to present and former members of the department. Some officers who were aware of the order say they refused to carry it out. Some viewed it as fundamental change on the use of deadly force, which only allow police to fire in protect themselves or others from clear physical threat. The accounts of orders to "shoot looters," "take back the city," or "do what you have to do" are fragmentary and it remains unclear who originated them. So far, no officers implicated in shootings have used the order as an explanation. What is clear is that when local government was wiped out, and state government was paralyzed, by a massive hurricane, the "authority of last resort" - the federal government - was ignoring the horrors while President George W Bush first went to a birthday party in Arizona and then a country music concert in California. By the time Bush's advisers finally sat him down and forced him to watch a DVD of news coverage they had assembled, 4 days of horror had passed and almost 2000 American citizens were dead. During this first nightmare week the mostly black citizens of New Orleans hit hardest by the flooding received from all levels of government neglect and bullets rather than food, water and shelter.

http://ThomHartmann.com

Randi Rhodes: Good News for Xenophobes!

Good news for xenophobes who would like to get out more—a tea party blogger has put together a handy guide to Washington, DC for visitors who are coming for Glenn Beck’s rally this weekend. It covers the basics—inexpensive places to eat, and how to avoid black people, Arabs, and other minorities. Really. It’s kind of a Frommer’s guide for racists. The guide warns attendees about which subway lines and neighborhoods to avoid. It doesn’t specify why they should be avoided, but I don’t think it’s because of pricey restaurants. Classic. So Glenn Beck and the Tea Partiers have stolen the Lincoln Memorial for the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. And they mark the occasion with a handy-dandy guide to avoiding black people. Hey Tea Partiers, you don’t have to worry about avoiding black people. Just go out in your crazy colonial outfits, and the black people will avoid you. But then so will any sane person.
This guide basically confines visitors to the area around the National Mall and all the monuments. So if a person follows these directions, they will probably only run into white people—extremely white people, as in “carved out of marble.” And they won’t see any minorities, unless you count Franklin D. Roosevelt in his wheelchair. Tea Partiers are warned that “Most taxi drivers and many waiters/waitresses (especially in local coffee shops like the Bread and Chocolate chain) are immigrants, frequently from east Africa or Arab countries.” So don’t be shocked when your waitress isn’t Flo from Mel’s Diner. And do people really have to be alerted that taxi drivers may be immigrants? I don’t think there’s been a white guy taxi driver since Travis Bickle. I’ll stick with the immigrants, thank you. The guide specifically warns “Do not use the Green line or the Yellow line.” Ahem. You need to use the Green/Yellow line to get to the National Archives, where the Constitution is kept. Is the government aware what a dangerous neighborhood it’s in? Oh, and the guide also gives the home addresses of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, in case any Tea Partiers want to drop in when they’re not busy avoiding Middle Eastern cab drivers.
If Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid want to be safe, maybe they should move to some place off of the Green or Yellow line… where Tea Partiers are afraid to venture.
The weirdest part is that in the middle of all this xenophobia, the guy’s restaurant recommendations include Indian tandoori and middle eastern restaurants. Hate is hate, but it shouldn’t keep you from enjoying a good baba ganoush. Your tour guide also points out that “As a rule, African immigrants do not like for you to assume they are African Americans and especially do not like for you to guess they are from a neighboring country (e.g. Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia) with whom they may have political or military tensions.” Great. Now he’s Emily Post for racists. Something tells me this guy has had a few uncomfortable exchanges while ordering breakfast. “I’ll take the Denver omelet. Where you from anyway? Somalia? Am I right?”
Today’s Homework Discuss
Watch as a Ground Zero construction worker is harassed for looking just a little too Muslim:


Thom's blog
Leave no Billionaire Behind...
Giant U.S. companies and their multi-millionaire CEOs have stepped up their lobbying to block Democrats' plans to let the Bush tax cuts on wealthier Americans expire at year's end. Republicans and business say that letting the Bush tax cuts expire will choke off the economic recovery, and they are demanding that Democrats commit to hearings, a mark-up of legislation and then a movement to the Senate floor for a vote to extend the tax cuts for the very rich. As Paul Krugman notes in his opinion piece yesterday, this would be the equivalent of 120,000 wealthy people getting $3 million each every year. The Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires have added, when including interest, over a trillion dollars to our national debt, money which will have to be re-paid by you, me, and our children. Now Republicans want to extend these billionaire tax cuts for a single and a simple reason: the billionaires fund the Republican party and it's candidates.

http://thomhartmann.com/

Randi Rhodes: Propaganda Opportunity

There were opposing rallies over the mosque near ground zero this weekend. Mosque opponents waved signs with the word “Sharia” written in blood. There’s nothing like promoting religious intolerance by accusing others of religious intolerance. Yes, there are some intolerant and potentially violent Muslims in the world. They’re a very tiny minority… and they’re pretty much the Islamic equivalent of a lot of the people protesting the proposed mosque. Islamic radicals around the world are seizing on protests against the proposed Islamic community center as a propaganda opportunity. If you insist that millions of people who are not your enemy are your enemy, it’s inevitable that some of them will become your enemy. Newt Gingrich sent out an email saying “We will never win a war when we are afraid to even name our enemies.” You’re not naming our enemies, Newt—you’re creating them.
The crazy doesn’t stop in Lower Manhattan. Pat Robertson is worried about a proposed Islamic center in rural Tennessee. This proposed Islamic center is on Veals Road off Bradyville Pike southeast of Murfreesboro. Don’t tell me—is that hallowed ground too?
Shrimpers in Mississippi are refusing to trawl in reopened fishing areas of the Gulf of Mexico because of fear of contamination from oil and dispersants. The fishermen know that those dispersants aren’t made for eating. We don’t know exactly what’s in them, but I don’t think it’s tartar sauce. On August 6th, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality reopened all Mississippi waters to commercial and recreational fishing. I’m shocked. You mean Mississippi actually has a Department of Environmental Quality? I guess the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality is responsible for putting all oil spills into milk jugs. OK, if you want the fisherman to pull seafood out of those waters, let’s just say that the first catch should go straight to the cafeteria of the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. They should at least be honest about this. If any of the seafood from these contaminated areas hits the market, it should be marketed as “oysters a la Corexit.”
Today’s Homework Discuss
In his Weekly Radio Address, President Obama focused on the corporate takeover of our democracy:



Thom's blog
Is there room in Guantanamo for Faux News?
According to a report from Yahoo!News, the second largest shareholder, the parent company of Fox News, Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal in News Corp, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to projects by Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is planning to build a Muslim community center and mosque near Ground Zero in Manhattan. According to the report the Saudi Prince has directly funded the Imam's projects to the tune of more than $300,000." The Saudi Prince's personal charity, the Kingdom Foundation, donated $305,000 to Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, a project sponsored by two of Rauf's initiatives, the American Society for Muslim Advancement and the Cordoba Initiative, which is building the Manhattan mosque. It seems ironic that Faux News' second-largest shareholder, after Rupert Murdoch, has financial links to the "Ground Zero mosque" while the Faux News Performers talking heads attempt to link the mosque to radical Islamism. Does this mean by Faux News standards, Faux News is a terrorist organization? Is there room in Guantanamo for the Faux News Performer hosts and that companies executives?

http://thomhartmann.com/

Thom Hartmann: Iceland is Exporting the Truth

Thom's blog
Iceland is Exporting the Truth
After Iceland's near-economic collapse exposed deep-rooted corruption, the country is looking to become a safe haven for journalists and whistleblowers from all around the world. Their Parliament in June unanimously voted for an Icelandic "Modern Media Initiative" protecting journalists. The project is taking off with the help of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This comes while there is a growing tendency of governments to muzzle secret information on the internet. Birgitta Jonsdottir, the member of parliament behind the initiative, said, 'We took all the best laws from around the world and pulled them together, just like tax havens do, in order to create freedom of information and expression, a transparency haven." Some countries export oil, some countries exports cars, and now Iceland want their main export to be the truth. If George W. Bush was still president the bombing would begin tomorrow.

-Thom

Randi Rhodes: Sacred Ground

It's Friday, ya bastids!
Some of the strippers at the clubs near Ground Zero have spoken out. Give them credit… it’s not easy to take a stand when you’re wearing 8-inch heels. They should survey all of the strippers in lower Manhattan. If there’s anyone who is familiar with the concept of “polls,” it’s strippers.
Here’s some news for opponents of the center—Muslim prayer services have been held since 2009 at the proposed community center site. The new part of the proposal is an Islamic community center with a swimming pool and gym. So are opponents really just opposed to Muslims getting into shape? OK Muslims, you can pray, but don’t do any crunches! Maybe opposition to the gym and the pool would be a clever move. There is a right to freedom of religion in the Constitution, but no specific right to work out. Yes, the Declaration of Independence does mention a right to “the pursuit of happiness,” but in my experience working out has nothing to do with happiness.
Why are 20-somethings taking so long to grow up? People in their 20’s are still searching for themselves. I can tell you where you can find yourself—in the bathroom. At least that’s where you are every time I need to use it. Anyway, for people who can’t commit, kids in their 20’s seem to have no problem committing to having some tramp-stamp tattooed on their upper butts for the rest of their lives. I’m glad I didn’t commit to a tattoo in my early 20’s. I would have spent the past couple of decades explaining to people who the hell Night Ranger is.
On that note, a new study says that the “cougar” phenomenon of older women hooking up with younger guys doesn’t really exist. As soon as they heard that, a bunch of young guys thought “Great. I just learned to dance ‘the Hustle’ for nothing.” A researcher named Michael Dunn says he searched and was unable to find any evidence of cougars. My first question would be “how old is Michael Dunn?” If he’s is over 40, he’s wasting his time looking for cougars. We’re not coming out for him. If you want to find us, Michael Dunn, don’t go looking yourself. Send out Zac Efron. Today’s Homework Discuss

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Extremist Makeover - Homeland Edition
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Fuji Waterproof Digital Camera - NOT!

Fujifilm FinePix Z33WP Waterproof Digital Camera,

I bought ths camera about a year agao. I loved it. It took great Photos, it was real easy to use, download and very portable. We never used the Underwater feature until this year. It claims to be safe to take photos to 3-10 feet below water. We took it to Fetishcon in Tampa Florida - I took it in the Pool I took 2 Photos under 1 foot of water and it froze - it broke - took it into Camera Shop - They say the Camera is Toast/Fried/Broke & cannot retrieve photos - ALL of our Event Photos GONE!!

I do not know what kind of camera to get this time - how do I know if the next one is for SURE Waterproof??? Ummpffttt - Grumble - Grumble!!

oxox, Stacy

Thom Hartmann: Sarah Palin Killed Granny

Thom's blog
Sarah Palin Killed Granny...
In a study by the New England Journal of Medicine that exposes the effects of end-of-life care, doctors have discovered that patients with terminal lung cancer who began receiving palliative care quickly after diagnosis were not only happier, were more mobile and had less pain as the end neared - but they also lived nearly three months longer. Dr. Diane E. Meier, director of the Center to Advance Palliative Care at Mount Sinai School of Medicine said, "It shows that palliative care is the opposite of all that rhetoric about 'death panels,'" and added, "It's not about killing Granny; it's about keeping Granny alive as long as possible - with the best quality of life." Tragically in response to Sarah Palin's hysteria about death panels, advice about end of care options will not be covered by Obamacare.

-Thom
http://thomhartmann.com

Randi Rhodes 'The War in Iraq is OVER!'

Hey, the Iraq war is over!
They really snuck that one up on us. They lulled us into complacency for seven and a half years and then “BAM!” Wow. You just blink… continuously for seven and a half years… and it’s over. It might have been nice for President Obama to have invited George Bush back to do the “Mission Accomplished” thing, in kind of a do-over. He could have ordered a banner for Bush that said “Mission Accomplished, For Real This Time. Honest.” The last U.S. combat troops left Iraq yesterday. We still have 50,000 soldiers there in a non-combat role. So now we don’t have people there who shoot, just people who get shot at. This is being billed as the end of combat in Iraq. From here on out it’s no longer combat, it’s just violence. Oh, and there are still some 100,000 contractors in Iraq. So we still have an army in Iraq… just not THE Army.
At seven and a half years, the Iraq War lasted longer than the Revolutionary War. On the whole I’d say we got more out of the Revolutionary War. We got a nation out of the Revolutionary War. I suppose in a sense you could say we got a nation out of the Iraq war, but not nearly as nice of one. On the other hand there are similarities between America after the Revolutionary War and Iraq after this war. They both had an infrastructure appropriate for the late 18th century.
The quality of life indicators for Iraq are not good. For starters, some 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion began. And as quality of life goes, death is as bad as it gets. Meanwhile, consumer price inflation in Iraq is 50 percent. So even if you manage to stay alive in Iraq, you can’t live in Iraq. 40 percent of professionals have left Iraq since 2003. Great. We went in to get rid of Saddam, and we ended up getting rid of all the doctors, engineers, and architects. Only 37 percent of Iraqi homes are connected to sewer systems. At those numbers the country itself effectively becomes a sewer system. Well, at least if the streets are full of sewage, you can’t see it at night. There are no streetlights. In July Baghdad had five hours of electricity a day. At least when our troops left, nobody had to say “Remember to turn out the lights.” The lights go out on a regular basis on their own.


Today’s Homework Discuss