The sad thing is that people really do want in-depth journalism nowadays, but the big corporate owners of these organizations see these channels as profit making bodies vice public services and would rather keep the people distracted with sensationalism and trivial detritus. The flotsam and jetsam that is the subject of most television reporting these days only serves to keep us in bondage and restricts our freedoms.

The Media Research Center detailed the teabagging references in an informative press release. The Huffington Post noted the references as well as more “jokes” in the same vein (including a video of Cooper’s jape, over which David Gergen cluelessly chortles).

While sitting in for Keith Olbermann on April 15, MSNBC’s David Shuster packed the teabagging puns into his report on the protests. Shuster is like a juvenile student who has commandeered the loudspeaker system at his high school to commit the prank of a lifetime. Maybe it was just a case of Olbermann’s writers feeding Shuster the same good stuff they usually give to Olbermann.

Andrew Sullivan is giddy; he seems to think the phenomenon is a big ball of fun.

There is something funny going on here, if not exactly where Cooper, Maddow and Sullivan find it. Cooper is widely reputed to be homosexual. Maddow and Sullivan are of course public homosexuals. It is funny in an ironic sort of way that these folks choose to disparage the tea party protestors from somewhere inside the homosexual subculture. Why not just call the protestors girly boys and let everyone in on the joke? Or would that spoil the fun?

via Power Line – An obscene insult.

Or Rachel Maddow pointing out the fact that the right-wing over on Fox News actually called their astroturf protest action “teabag the White House” – and that the commentators were only responding to the stupidity.

So, Scott Johnson, just because you didn’t bother to realize that your side actually started this by calling themselves teabaggers, doesn’t make this fault of Maddow, et al. Sometimes when you do something stupid, you laugh at yourself and move on, hopefully learning something in the process.

The Colbert Report makes his own version of the NOM “gathering storm” ad, and he skewers them like a kebob!

Joe Solmonese, the head of the Human Rights Campaign, got his ass kicked by, of all people, Maggie Gallagher, of the National Organization of Marriage. Gallagher was better briefed on the facts that they discussed, and more assertive in pushing her points, and she mopped the floor with Solmonese.

I have a hard time imagining why anyone at all supports the ineffective and utterly useless Joe Solmonese, who’s $340K annual salary, supposedly for “top talent,” is completely going to waste with him.

HRC will never be a respected agency by the gay community until they kick out worthless and less than useless Joe Solmonese.

The Republican Party released their minority party counter-budget this week. At least, that’s what they are calling it; 19 pages of budget “principles,” but not a single detail. House Minority Leader John Boehner promises the details of the plan next week, on April 1st.

Is this some sort of April Fools joke? It sure seems like it – here are their proposals:

• a HUGE tax break for the wealthy.
• Drill, baby, drill.

That’s pretty much it.  No ideas that we haven’t already heard, and rejected.  The mockery going on about this empty piece of propaganda is nearly universal.   I’m pretty amazed that they would release such a steaming load.  And apparently, the GOP is in such disarray that they are fighting amongst themselves in ways that only the Democratic Party used to do!  What a strange and wonderful reversal of fortunes.

“In his egocentric rush to get on camera, Mike Pence threw the rest of the Conference under the bus, specifically Paul Ryan, whose staff has been working night and day for weeks to develop a substantive budget plan,” said a GOP aide heavily involved in budget strategy.

“I hope his camera time was gratifying enough to justify erasing the weeks of hard work by dozens of Republicans to put forth serious ideas,” the person added.

“It’s categorically untrue,” said Pence spokesman Matt Lloyd. “Cantor as well as Ryan and the rest of the leadership have been part of this process for weeks. They not only signed off on it, but their staffs helped edit it.”

Ryan told POLITICO that he didn’t feel thrown under any buses and downplayed the disagreement.

“The problem is that somewhere along the line, someone got the mistaken impression that we were going to roll out a budget alternative today,” he said. “What we all signed off on was a preview—the real [alternative] is coming next week.”

I kind of feel sorry for them.  April Fools!

“Gov. Jindal should know better than anyone that funding for studying and monitoring natural disasters is vital to public safety, ” Louisiana Democratic Party spokesman Scott Jordan said.

Others noted that only a fraction of the $140 million Jindal mentioned was actually being spent on volcano monitoring. The rest was going to other projects, including upgrades to the U.S. Geological Survey stream gauges in Louisiana and other states that will provide emergency planners with better real-time information about storm surge heights as hurricanes hit the coast.

Hasquet said only $7.5 million of the $140 million going to the Geological Survey will be spent on upgrading the equipment used to monitor Mount Redoubt and 32 other active volcanoes in Alaska.

So, yeah, a good chunk of that money is going to help Louisiana monitor water levels in the event of flooding and storm surges from hurricanes.

But wait, it gets better.  Jinda’s spokeman, Kyle Plotkin, tried to defend the governor’s comments in an email.

“Governor Jindal referenced the money spent on volcano monitoring to highlight the fact that a bill that was supposed to be about creating jobs ended up being a package that seemed to spend just for the sake of spending, ” Plotkin said in an e-mail response to questions.

Except that that’s not what he said in his address last month:

“While some of the projects in the bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes … $140 million for something called “volcano monitoring.” Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C.”

The governor and his people seem to forget that we can look up exactly what he said and when he said it.   Keep on truckin’, Bobby!  Someday you might actually say something that makes sense!

Since the Republicans are on a slow implosion, and no one reasonable or rational is allowed to express a view that actually reflects the times in which we live, and are still touting the failed policies of Reagan and the Neo-cons, who never saw a war they didn’t like, I expect that the GOP will continue to be marginalized.

And this is all to the good.

The new standards the board ultimately approves — a final vote on the curriculum proposal is not expected until March — will be in place for the next decade. They also will dictate how publishers handle the topic of evolution in textbooks.

Critics of the “weaknesses” language argue that watering down the teaching standards of origin of man is an attempt to promote creationism in public schools.

Federal courts have ruled against forcing the teaching of creationism and intelligent design.

Citizens who value rational thought and science must remain vigilant to keep the separation of church and state strong.

This site is called Pali(n)ban for a reason, eh?

Here is Alaska Governor Sarah Palin being interviewed at a Wassila turkey farm right after “pardoning” a local turkey from being sentenced to being dinner. Watch in the background as some of that turkey’s compatriots aren’t so lucky.

It’s a little gruesome, but the absurd irony is obvious for all to see.

Current Mood:  silly

When a people believe they have the right to deny civil rights to one group of people, the government takes that idea more steps further.  In a free society, this child would have never been questioned without an advocate present.

Thomas Jefferson was right: 

The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions and incapacitations are removed.

Current Mood:  angry