I often have occasion to question the mental health of several of the people GOP sheeple elect. In this case, there’s no question about it.
Oklahoma State Senator Rex Duncan (R) is pushing for a ballot measure that would prohibit courts from considering international or sharia law when deciding cases. He says the measure is a "preemptive strike" against "liberal judges" who want to "undermine those founding principles" of America.
The "Save Our State" amendment would require Oklahoma courts to use state and federal laws only when ruling, and Duncan explained on MSNBC today that he wants to ensure "that our courts are not used to undermine those founding principles, and turn Oklahoma into something that our founding fathers and our great grandparents wouldn’t recognize."
He said that "Oklahomans recognize that America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles," and that his measure "is a pre-emptive strike to make sure that liberal judges don’t take to the bench in an effort to use their position to undermine" those principles by considering international or sharia law.
When asked if there was a danger of judges doing this, Duncan maintained that though it hasn’t happened yet, "it’s not just a danger. It’s a reality."… [emphasis added]
I have some news for Duncan. Our founding fathers gave Islam equal status with Christianity when they ratified the First Amendment. Furthermore, those Muslims that insist on strict observance of Sharia are not the liberals, just like those Christians who insist on strict observance of Old Testament Law, they are the most rabid right-wingers. Finally, I am completely unaware of any legal case where a US Judge has decided a case based on Sharia.
Run, Mr. Duncan, do not walk, to the closest psychiatrist. You are suffering from Teabuggery Disorder.
At some point we need to cut spending, because it’s healthier, economically, to have a balanced budget. But what do we cut?
A panel commissioned by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is recommending nearly $1 trillion in cuts to the Pentagon’s budget during the next 10 years.
The Sustainable Defense Task Force, a commission of scholars from a broad ideological spectrum appointed by Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, laid out actions the government could take that could save as much as $960 billion between 2011 and 2020.
Measures presented by the task force include making significant reductions to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which has strong support from Defense Secretary Robert Gates; delaying the procurement of a new midair refueling tanker the Air Force has identified as one of its top acquisition priorities; and reducing the Navy’s fleet to 230 ships instead of the 313 eyed by the service.
Shipbuilding has strong support in the congressional defense committees, which write the Pentagon bills. Efforts to reduce the number of ships would run into resistance from the Pentagon and the shipbuilding lobby.
Frank on Friday warned that if he can’t convince Congress to act in the “general direction” of the task force recommendation, “then every other issue will suffer.” Not cutting the Pentagon’s budget could lead to higher taxes and spending cuts detrimental to the environment, housing and highway construction.
The acceptance of the recommendations would depend on a “philosophical change" and a “redefinition of the strategy,” Frank said at press conference on Capitol Hill.
He said the creation of the deficit reduction commission offers the best opportunity for the reduction recommendations. Frank wants to convince his colleagues to write to the deficit reduction commission and warn that they would not approve any of the plans suggested by the commission unless reduction of military spending is included… [emphasis added]
I believe that it is imperative that the US maintain a strong defensive capability, but we’re fielding the wrong mix. The military-industrial complex is in love with big, costly 20th century weapons systems that do not fill the requirements of 21st century conflicts. What good is an Ohio Class boat (shown above) against a dirty bomb delivered by suitcase?
I don’t think Franks will be successful, because of the way defense contractors have embedded themselves. The components of every major weapons system are produced by subcontractors scattered all over the country. Virtually no Senators or Representatives can vote to defund any weapons system without voting to put some of their own constituents out of work. That’s the least efficient way to do it. All the manufacturing for a weapons system should be done on one locality. Can you imaging the extra cost and fuel we waste shipping parts all over the country.
There are also other things we could do. One thing is increase the size of our armed forces and have out troops do the jobs contractors are doing now. Why should the taxpayers pay KBR over $150,000 per year for a kitchen worker to peel potatoes, when a private can do it better for a fraction of that cost. Also, that private is a trained soldier if the need arises. And you can bet our troops won’t be electrocuted in showers built by Seabees.
One more thing. We could save a bunch by bringing our troops home from Afghanistan.
The list of people who do not support the war in Afghanistan just got bigger.
Well, this is fun. The Guardian is reporting that someone finally has given up on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
President Hamid Karzai has lost faith in the US strategy in Afghanistan and is increasingly looking to Pakistan to end the insurgency, according to those close to Afghanistan’s former head of intelligence services.
Amrullah Saleh, who resigned last weekend, believes the president lost confidence some time ago in the ability of Nato forces to defeat the Taliban.
Karzai has lost faith in the nation that has sacrificed so many lives, and wasted so much money and time protecting him. But it’s not exactly a surprise. As McClatchy reported, when Saleh and Interior Minister Hanif Atmar were pushed aside, last week:
Saleh and Atmar were both regarded by many Western officials as strong allies in the push to transform the Afghan government into a respected political force that won’t have to rely on international forces of more than 100,000 troops to prevent the Taliban from again seizing power.
Their removal could weaken security ties between Karzai’s cabinet and the international community, said Thomas Ruttig, a co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, an independent international research organization.
"The sacking of Saleh is a blow for the U.S., which had put a lot of resources into the (Afghan intelligence agency) and apparently had good intelligence cooperation with (it)," Ruttig said.
Karzai is said to be turning to Pakistan and softening his tone against the Taliban. He is said to be not leading the counterinsurgency, even though his leadership was supposed to be a key facet of the latest U.S. escalation strategy. None of this should be a surprise. It’s just the latest examples of Karzai showing no respect for the U.S., and the administration that continues to coddle him… [emphasis added]
I used to support Obama’s policy to continue this war, until I realized that Bush and the GOP had botched it beyond repair. They installed a corrupt puppet from Unocal, who now cannot be controlled. The Karzai government has no chance at gaining popular support, without which the war cannot be won.
Yesterday I got tied up. I did some more work on the volunteer website. I was on the phone for about three hours. I had two visits of about an hour each. I did reply to comments, but had no time to return visits. I had a bad air day and could not sleep for coughing, so how I do keeping up today will depend on how much sleep I can get in the meantime.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today it took me 3:15. To do it, click here. How did you do?
From Crooks and Liars: In an interview that aired Friday on MSNBC, Chuck Todd asked Pelosi if there was a statute of limitations on placing responsibility on President George W. Bush.
"Well, it runs out when the problems go away," Pelosi replied.
In a poll at the old Politics Plus in early 2008, before the economy crashed, the majority of voters agreed that recovering from the damage Bush and the GOP had done to our nation would take from 25 to 50 years. I voted 50 – 100.
From Alternet: A new organization has been formed by the US religious right to attack a program that hasn’t yet reached pilot stage. JC, a Comedy Central cartoon about Jesus trying to live a normal life in New York, does not have a completed script, but Citizens Against Religious Bigotry (Carb) are calling on advertisers to force the channel to abort it.
As a Christian, I look forward to it and think it will be hilarious. But I think I know how the last episode will end. The GOP will crucify him.
From Think Progress: Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson frequently stresses the importance of monogamous heterosexual relationships and is happy to offer his viewers advice on how to maintain them. As Media Matters documents, Robertson fielded a question on yesterday’s edition of the 700 Club from a woman who was concerned that her husband frequently flirts with “other women he finds attractive.” Naturally, Robertson blamed the wife, advising her to “make yourself as attractive as possible,” and to not “hassle him about it,” lest she “drive him away”.
OK, Lisa. Does this little tin god deserve the Mom Voice?
From time to time, any political party will find themselves with a candidate for public office that is, frankly, an embarrassment. Lets take a look at how the two parties deal with such embarrassments. The embarrassment for the GOP is Sharon Angle.
…It’s not at all surprising that National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (R-TX) is trying to make this race about anything but Sharon Angle:
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn on Wednesday downplayed the importance of new Nevada Senate nominee Sharron Angle’s conservative issue positions, saying the race will continue to be a "referendum" on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
… when he gets in touch with Angle, they won’t be talking about issues but rather mechanics.
"We’re going to talk about do you have the campaign manager that you need, do you have the pollster, and those sorts of things," said Cornyn. "Winning an election is not rocket science, but it does take some discipline and it does take some organization. That’s what we will hope to add value to."
Leaving aside Cornyn’s inadvertent acknowledgement that Republicans lack discipline and organization, it’s not surprising that he wants to discuss yard signs and envelope lickers rather than the issues according to Angle… [emphasis added]
So here, the GOP has a candidate that makes Rand Paul seem normal, and they’re trying to hide the extremity of her Teabuggery instead of admitting, as they should, what an embarrassment she is.
The embarrassment for the Democrats is Alvin Greene.
Alvin Greene never gave a speech during his campaign to become South Carolina’s Democratic nominee for Senate. He didn’t start a website or hire consultants or plant lawn signs. There’s $114 in his campaign bank account, he says, and the only check he ever wrote from it was to cover his filing fee.
During a three-hour interview, the unemployed military veteran could not name a single thing he’d done to campaign for political office. Yet more than 100,000 South Carolinians voted for Greene on Tuesday, handing him nearly 60 percent of the vote tally and a resounding victory over Vic Rawl, a well-known former judge who has served four terms in the state Legislature.
"I’m the Democratic Party nominee," Greene said at his father’s rural home in central South Carolina. "The people of South Carolina have spoken. We have to be pro-South Carolina."
Things have gotten stranger since Greene’s win.
First, The Associated Press reported that Greene faces felony obscenity charges for allegedly showing pornography to a University of South Carolina student last November. Greene says he’s "not guilty."
Then, the state’s Democratic Party chairman called on him to withdraw from the general election. And House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-S.C. — who has questioned whether Greene might have been planted in the race by Republicans — is calling for federal and state investigations.
"Here is Alvin Greene, unemployed, he goes into the Democratic headquarters and pays $10,000. That’s no little bit of money for an unemployed person," Clyburn said… [emphasis added]
During the interview, Greene’s lawyer was advising him off camera.
Clearly this man is not Senatorial material, and the Democratic party is doing the right thing, by trying to remove him.
The possibility that he was a GOP plant entered my mine as well, but what baffled me was how he could have managed to get 100,000 Democrats to vote for him. Then I learned that South Carolina is an “open primary” state. That means anybody can vote for anyone. Then I understood. Greene’s votes must have come mostly from Republicans. With DeMint running unopposed on the GOP side, Republicans could cross-over and vote for Greene without risk. I join Clyburn’s call for investigations.
Some of you may remember that I opposed open primaries in the last election. Now you know why.
GOP Representative Paul Broun is a liar. I admit there are times when we all lie. When she asks, “Does my ass look fat in these pants?”, honesty can be fatal. But this whopper is a full size GOP lie.
Speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives yesterday, Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) strained to try to explain the deficit, correctly noting that most of it came from reckless spending during the Bush administration era. Exhibiting his partisan colors, Broun tried to reconcile Bush’s Troubled Asset Relief Program by falsely claiming that Bush administration Treasury Secretary was a “Democrat”:
BROUN: I wanted to put some perspective on 2008, too. That’s when the President’s chief economic adviser — I guess the Treasury Secretary — told him that the sky was falling and that we needed to pass the Toxic Asset Relief Program, or TARP, which many Republicans voted against. I didn’t buy the Democratic Treasury Secretary under a Republican President because that’s exactly what Hank Paulson is. He’s a Wall Street insider, a Wall Street banker. Wall Street believes in big government.
Watch it:
Paulson is a Republican, and was still a Republican when TARP was passed. Broun’s fib is the latest in a long line of conservatives desperately flailing to make up excuses for the Republican-led bank bailout… [emphasis original]
I admit that passing TARP was a bipartisan effort. It could not have made it without support from both parties. The idea was that Treasury would use the funds to buy up toxic assets so Banks could get them off their balance sheets and start lending money again. What happened next was not bipartisan at all. Paulsen took the money, bailed out AIG, not even a bank, and lent the money to the TBTF Banksters with virtually no strings attached. They, in turn, used it to speculate in the market, turned record profits, and did not start lending again. That was a completely GOP idea.
Given everything that has happened, I’m amazed that John “Bad-Tan-Limpy” Boehner didn’t evade this question.
Congressional Democrats and the White House are toying with different ways to force BP to cover the costs of damages from the Gulf oil spill. But they face stiff opposition from industry…and it seems leading Republicans. In response to a question from TPMDC, House Minority Leader John Boehner said he believes taxpayers should help pick up the tab for the clean up.
"I think the people responsible in the oil spill–BP and the federal government–should take full responsibility for what’s happening there," Boehner said at his weekly press conference this morning.
Boehner’s statement followed comments last Friday by US Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue who said he opposes efforts to stick BP, a member of the Chamber, with the bill. "It is generally not the practice of this country to change the laws after the game," he said. "Everybody is going to contribute to this clean up. We are all going to have to do it. We are going to have to get the money from the government and from the companies and we will figure out a way to do that."
So today I asked Boehner, "Do you agree with Tom Donohue of the Chamber that the government and taxpayers should pitch in to clean up the oil spill?" The shorter answer is yes… [emphasis added]
So Limpy is only against big government spending when it benefits the poor and middle classes. When it takes money from the poor and middle classes for the rich, he’s all for it. That makes him deserving of a terrible insult, so here it comes. Boehner is a Republican.
Every Republican in office is one Republican too many.
Oklahoma State Senator Rex Duncan (R) is pushing for a ballot measure that would prohibit courts from considering international or sharia law when deciding cases. He says the measure is a "preemptive strike" against "liberal judges" who want to "undermine those founding principles" of America.
