Please Send Adult Diapers to Congressional Conservatives

And Better Still

Wow, this is getting pretty bad for the National Review and Marc Thiessen. Thiessen of course said that we tried Richard Reid in a regular American court since that was "long before we figured out that we had other options than handing him over" to law enforcement. But as TPM Reader RM points out, President Bush okayed military tribunals a month before Reid tried to blow up the plane.

As I said, there's no spinning this one. There's no reason beside GOP electoral strategy for not trying AbdulMutallab in a regular American Court. But seriously, with National Review's august history, can't we at least get better fake answers?

We have a better record of prosecuting these airline nuts in civilian courts, just as the Bush administration prosecuted shoe bomber Richard Reid. Conservatives seem to be blinded by their paranoia ....or maybe they're trying to score cheap political points. Trying to distract from their failure to stop Al-Queda because they were obsessed with Iraq. Remember Iraq was the "front" in the war on terror that was supposed to frighten terrorists from trying anything more terrorism.

Dems Blame Bush Admin For Terror Attempt

As GOPers begin increasingly using the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner to score political points, 2 Dems are blaming the Bush admin for events that led directly to the failed attack.

While many Dems stay silent and let the WH lead the way, DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) say the previous admin let down their guard.

"In general, we are facing the consequences of the Bush administration's failures to deal with al Qaeda," Van Hollen told Hotline OnCall. "The Republicans have no business in pointing fingers at the Obama administration on terrorism and national security."

"The Obama administration has been much more aggressive about going after al Qaeda than the Bush administration, which turned its focus from al Qaeda to Iraq," he added. The Obama admin has "been on the offense in places where the Bush administration had taken its eye off the ball."

Meanwhile, Massa has taken on ex-VP Dick Cheney, who he says is directly responsible for releasing the top al Qaeda figures in Yemen who aided and trained the Nigerian-born suspect.

"I would remind the American public that the apparent leaders of the al Qaeda cell in Yemen were 2 terrorists who were released by Vice President Cheney in secret. I think there's a level of accountability that has to be levied personally on the vice president," Massa said in an interview. "He is personally responsible for that."

The truth hurts. Cheney the irrelevant failure keeps wandering out of his bunker and in yet another incoherent rant tries to shift blame. So please America send Cheney and Congressional conservatives an adult diaper since they are going to piss themselves every time there is even a minor terror threat. Jacksonville police hunting for suspects in fatal shooting One man slain at Arlington apartment complex. Someone actually killed and no word from conservatives because its not a situation that feel they can score from cheap political points from.

Mary Matalin is Proof Conservatives Lie Whenever Their Lips Move

Quick Fact: On CNN, Matalin falsely claims "Bush inherited" 9-11 attacks and recession

On the December 27 edition of CNN's State of the Union, Mary Matalin falsely claimed that President George W. Bush "inherited a recession from President Clinton, and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history." In fact the 9-11 attacks occurred eight months into Bush's presidency and more than a month after he had received a Presidential Daily Briefing titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," and the recession began in March 2001.

One of the running themes in comic movies over the years about older high school students and college kids is the slacker who start out not taking responsibility for anything. Then over the course of the story they have an epiphany of sorts and start acting like adults. Matalin and most modern conservatives are the slackers that never have an epiphany and thus never learn to take responsibility. Yet they still, straight faced, look into TV cameras and claim they should be the party running the country. Mad Matalin wants to return to the good old days 2000-2008 when Republicans drove the country off a cliff into a war based on lies and the largest deficit in our history.

Obama condemns Iran’s ‘violent and unjust suppression’ of citizens

Obama condemns Irans violent and unjust suppression of citizensPresident Barack Obama on Monday strongly condemned Iran's crackdown on protesters and called on the Islamic regime to immediately free those "unjustly detained."

"The United States joins with the international community in strongly condemning the violent and unjust suppression of innocent Iranian citizens," Obama said in Hawaii where he is on vacation.

"We call for the immediate release of all who have been unjustly detained within Iran," Obama said.

Obama promised to stand behind Iranians during the "extraordinary events," saying that he was "confident that history will be on the side of those who seek justice."

But he said that the events were "not about the United States," which is vilified by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or "any other country."
Story continues below...

"It's about the Iranian people and their aspirations for justice and a better life for themselves," Obama said.

Rightie Libertarians Lie Just Like Conservatives

Reason Editor suggests his own magazine is lying
By Glenn Greenwald

"The Congressional Budget Office now reports that this bill will reduce our deficit by $132 billion over the first decade, and by as much as $1.3 trillion in the decade after that" -- Barack Obama, Tuesday.

"Obama's Latest Health Care Lie: There are actually multiple lies and deceptions in [Obama's] paragraph, beginning with the verb 'reports' to describe what the Congressional Budget Office does. The CBO, as Peter Suderman documented in his foundational Reason feature on the organization, does not 'report,' it 'projects,' in highly speculative fashion, what a proposed piece of legislation may cost" -- Matt Welch, Editor-in-Chief, Reason, yesterday, writing next to a photo of Obama with a Pinocchio nose.

________________

So according to Welch, Obama "lied" because he used the word "report" to describe what the CBO does and because he suggested the CBO's projections are reliable. What, then, does that say about numerous Reason editors and writers, who wrote the following back when Reason loved the CBO because it was reporting that Obama's health care proposal and other policies would increase the deficit? Using Welch's "reasoning," it must mean that Reason's staff is filled with outright liars:

Reason Editor Peter Suderman, July 10, 2009: "I won't dispute that Medicare is popular, or that politicians -- even Republicans -- don't usually criticize it, but it hasn't exactly been an unqualified success. On the contrary, as the CBO reports, the program's fiscal future looks dire."

Suderman, Reason, July 27, 2009: "In response to the Congressional Budget Office's report that current health-care reform proposals were unlikely to solve the country's long-term budgetary problems, the Obama White House put forth a plan to reduce spending it hoped would prove to be a 'game changer'."

Ronald Bailey, Reason, April 7, 2009: "A 2007 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) study reported the results of a hypothetical 23 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions (the Waxman-Markey bill proposes a 20 percent cut by 2020). The CBO found that 'giving away allowances could yield windfall profits for the producers that received them by effectively transferring income from consumers to firms' owners and shareholders'."

Veronique de Rugy, Reason, February 10, 2009: "How bad is the stimulus bill just passed by the Senate? . . . . Don't take my word for it. In a report to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) laid out in plain English—well, economic language—that the Senate bill would eventually cause not a stimulus but a recession in 'the longer run'."

Ronald Bailey, Reason, September 29, 2009: "About half of all growth in health care spending in the past several decades was associated with changes in medical care made possible by advances in technology," declared a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report last year."

Ronald Bailey, Reason, December 23, 2008: "But will comparative effectiveness research really reduce health care spending, as Daschle claims? Not by much and not soon, according to a 2007 report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), if the research is limited to comparative clinical effectiveness. . . . The CBO report makes it clear that comparative clinical research won't significantly cut health care costs."

When it suits them -- meaning when the CBO issues negative findings about Obama's domestic policies -- Reason holds up the CBO as an authoritative oracle not to be questioned. Three weeks ago, Reason's Nick Gillespie warned of "massive premium hikes" based on "the CBO's latest assay of the Senate's health-care reform plan." In March, Reason's Jacob Sullum cited CBO decrees to warn that "federal deficits will total $9.3 trillion during the next decade if Congress implements President Obama's fiscal proposals." Just last month, Suderman himself cited the CBO's conclusions to argue that health care reform was not deficit neutral. In September of this year, Suderman claimed that the CBO had contradicted Obama's statement that "nobody is talking about reducing Medicare benefits" and wrote: "this sort of direct contradiction from an agency as respected as the CBO isn't going to do much to calm seniors' fears." The same month, even Welch himself cited CBO reports -- using the verb "analyzed" -- to argue that Obama "lied" in his claims about health care.

For the first half of the year, Obama's right-wing opponents heaped praise on the CBO's authoritative stature because, back then, the CBO was reporting that the Democrats' health care proposals would increase the deficit. These same individuals then completely and shamelessly shifted gears once the CBO began reporting that the revised iterations of the proposal would actually decrease the deficit. And the "principled non-partisan libertarians" at Welch's Reason led the way in this rank intellectual dishonesty.

Conservatives Fuel Science Denial

Conservatives Fuel Science Denial

From evolution to global warming to vaccines, science is under assault from denialists - those who dismiss well-tested scientific knowledge as merely one of many competing ideologies. Science denial goes beyond skeptical questioning to attack the legitimacy of science itself.

Recent foment over stolen e-mails from a British research group inspired an American creationist organization to pronounce that "a cabal of leading scientists, politicians, and media" has sought to "professionally destroy scientists who express skepticism" about climate change. The Discovery Institute usually uses this kind of over-the-top language to attack evolution, so it was remarkable to see it branch out to climate-change denial.

Despite such misleading hyperbole, science is meritocratic. Once at a minimum level of education and competence, anyone can participate, ask a challenging question of even the most respected scientist, or submit papers to scientific journals, where research is judged by the data and methodology. Esteemed scientists face relentless criticism. This is how science works.

Even when a scientific consensus based on evidence emerges - as it has for evolution and climate change - there is opportunity for dissent. As the great physicist Richard Feynman noted, "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."

Science requires conclusions about how nature works to be rooted in evidence-based testing. Sometimes progress is slow. But through a difficult and often frustrating process, we learn more about the world.

Science denialism works differently. Creationists are unmoved by the wealth of fossil, molecular, and anatomical evidence for evolution. Global-warming denialists are unimpressed by climate data. Denialists ignore overwhelming evidence, focusing instead on a few hoaxes, such as Piltdown Man, or a few stolen e-mails. For denialists, opinion polls and talk radio count for more than thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles.

Denialists often appeal to the ideal of fairness, arguing schools should "teach the controversy" and address "evidence for and against" science, as in then-Sen. Rick Santorum's proposed amendment to the No Child Left Behind bill in 2001. But they apply the ideal selectively to science they dislike: evolution, climate change, vaccines. They hope to cloak themselves in the mantle of science without being restricted by its requirements.

If denialists had evidence disproving global warming or evolution, they could submit it to scientific conferences and journals, inviting analysis by scientists. But, knowing their arguments don't hold water, they spread misinformation in arenas not subject to expert scrutiny: mass-market books, newspapers, talk radio, and blogs.

The 24/7 mindless jabbering of the media - dominated by far right semi-fascists -does not help much. They could make a concerted effort to inform, but chose to misinform instead.

Glenn Beck and the Advance of Idiocracy

Glenn Beck: Misinformer of the Year

Glenn Beck's well of ridiculous was deep and poisonous before he launched his Fox News show, but the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States -- and the permissive cheerleading of his Fox News honchos -- uncorked the former Morning Zoo shock jock's unique brand of vitriol, stage theatrics, and hyperbolic fright, making him an easy choice for Media Matters' 2009 Misinformer of the Year.

When he wasn't calling the president a racist, portraying progressive leaders as vampires who can only be stopped by "driv[ing] a stake through the heart of the bloodsuckers," or pushing the legitimacy of seceding from the country, Beck obsessively compared Democrats in Washington to Nazis and fascists and "the early days of Adolf Hitler." He wondered, "Is this where we're headed," while showing images of Hitler, Stalin, and Lenin; decoded the secret language of Marxists; and compared the government to "heroin pushers" who were "using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state."

Like his predecessor, Beck spat on scruples, frequently announcing his goal to get administration officials fired. He increasingly acted not as a media figure, but as the head of a political movement, while helping to bring fringe conspiracies of a one-world government into the national discourse.

And he all too frequently helped to set the mainstream media's agenda.

Glenn Beck's disturbing use of race and race-baiting

Appearing on Fox & Friends in June to discuss a White House "beer summit" between President Obama, a white Massachusetts police officer, and a black Harvard professor who had been arrested entering his own home, Beck uttered perhaps his most infamous words to date, calling the president a "racist" with "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture." The statement drew widespread derision and condemnation, and Fox News immediately sought to distance itself from the statement. But Beck's divisive commentary was likely no surprise to his followers, coming as it did at the end of a week-long deluge of race-baiting that included the claim that Obama "has real issues with race," and Beck's incessant talk of Obama's policies as a form of minority reparations. Just one month earlier, Beck had agreed that Obama was elected because of race and not policies, and in May he called then Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor a "racist."

In the controversy that followed Beck's inflammatory charge that the president is racist, his Fox News show began to hemorrhage advertisers, and Beck began to beg his viewers to "call a friend and tell them to watch the show this week." By September, Beck, who had become "tired of the race thing" and who claimed he doesn't "think the race thing works anymore," apparently decided it was time to move on. He later would blame politicians for charges of racism and call "false cries of racism" "dangerous." Beck then sat down for an interview with CBS' Katie Couric where he would express regret for the way he phrased the claim that Obama is a racist, but then emphasized that the issue of Obama's racism is a "serious question."

In the months since Beck called Obama a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred of white people," at least 80 advertisers have reportedly dropped their ads from his Fox News show, yet he has faced no apparent repercussions from Fox News. Then again, Rupert Murdoch apparently agrees with Beck that Obama is a racist. (Or maybe not.)

The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio
As this report will document in detail, conservative talk radio undeniably dominates the format:

* Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.
* Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk—10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.
* A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

This dynamic is repeated over and over again no matter how the data is analyzed, whether one looks at the number of stations, number of hours, power of stations, or the number of programs. While progressive talk is making inroads on commercial stations, conservative talk continues to be pushed out over the airwaves in greater multiples of hours than progressive talk is broadcast.

These empirical findings may not be surprising given general impressions about the format, but they are stark and raise serious questions about whether the companies licensed to broadcast over the public airwaves are serving the listening needs of all Americans.

Democrats Set To Pass Historic Health Care Reform Zero Republican Support

The Starter Home

But let’s not kid ourselves: If and when a bill goes to President Obama for signing, it’s not going to look radically different than the measure Reid put forth today. Ben Nelson, the sixtieth vote, made that clear when he warned that he was prepared to change his vote if the bill came back from conference looking radically different.

That's frustrating. But it shouldn't take away from what a huge accomplishment this is. As Dodd reminded people in his remarks, this measure is going to make life better not just for millions, but tens of millions of people. Those without insurance will get it; those with it will have guarantees of financial security they never had before. The government will begin creating an infrastructure for making our health care system focus on better quality care, even as it tries to make the system less expensive.

And that's not the end of the story. There will be opportunities to improve this law even after it becomes law. Social Security evolved that way. Medicare too. Health care reform can too.

When it Comes to Caring About Our Troops Republicans Have No Conscience

Conservatives try to filibuster troop funding

If the filibuster on the $626 billion defense bill had succeeded, Democrats would have had to scramble to find a way to fund the military operations, because a stopgap funding measure for the Pentagon will expire at midnight Friday. Such an effort to come up with another stopgap defense bill might have disrupted the very tight timeline on health care

In 2007 House Republican Leader John Boehner wrote this when Democrats were ready to vote for a similar funding bill, but wanted it tied to some kind of withdrawal date for the troops in Iraq( a timetable Bush opposed, but later agreed to when it would appear to be his idea),

Washington, Apr 18, 2007 -

Last week, House Republicans released a report exposing Democrats’ record of failure on national security and notes “there is still time to do the right thing: fully-fund our troops without strings attached.” Whatever Democrats “tactical” reasons are for delaying funding for our troops in harm’s way, their intransigence is having a real and negative impact on the ability of our troops to wage the Global War on Terror. It is time for Democrats to do the right thing: bring up a clean troop funding bill without strings and without pork.

Boehner is against pork, but he is pro legislative favors for pay,

Boehner hands out 'tobacco checks' on floor of House

In late June of 1995 then-GOP Conference Chairman John Boehner handed out "about a half-dozen" checks from the political action committee of tobacco company Brown & Williamson Corp. to fellow Republicans on the floor of the House.

Boehner's chief of staff Barry Jackson stated, "We were trying to help guys who needed to get their June 30th numbers up, their cash-on-hand numbers up. All leadership does this. We have to raise money for people and help them raise money."

Boehner was forced to stop handed out the checks when two freshmen Republicans, "appalled by it," confronted him and voiced their displeasure. Boehner's reaction was one of tempered apology, "I thought, 'Yeah, I can imagine why somebody would be upset. It sure doesn't look good.' It's not an excuse, but the floor is the only place you get to see your colleagues. It was a matter of convenience. You make a mistake, admit it and go on. I just feel bad about it." (Associated Press, 5/10/96)

Sallie Mae and For-Profit Schools

The single largest contributor to Boehner's leadership PAC since 1989 is Sallie Mae, the student lending giant, with contributions totaling $122,000.[8]

Boehner, until his recent ascension to the Majority Leader post, was the chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. In this position Boehner was able to oversee and push issues favorable to the student loan industry, including Sallie Mae. Boehner recently championed a bill that would "soften [proposed] cuts to lenders" and "deal a serious blow to the competing direct-loan program."[9] The direct-loan program provides loans directly to students through their school, rather than through private lenders and banks. The bill also sought to prevent students from consolidating their loans.

According to The New Republic, "Several GAO and CBO studies have found that the direct-lending program costs taxpayers much less than extending loans through lenders like Sallie Mae. Government watchdogs have estimated that every dollar loaned through these middlemen costs the federal government at least 9 cents."[10]

Prior to pushing the bill, which was eventually passed and signed by President Bush, Boehner delivered this comforting message to the Consumer Bankers Association, "Know that I have all of you in my two trusted hands. I've got enough rabbits up my sleeve to be able to get where we need to."[11]

Boehner has "[o]n several occassions ... been a guest of Albert L. Lord, Sallie Mae's chief executive officer, on the corporate jet, primarily for golf outings in Florida. The company also helped sponsor a party that Mr. Boehner threw in New York at the 2004 Republican National Convention."[12]

Boehner's leadership PAC has also received a large amount of money from for-profit schools, who have gained from Boehner's chairmanship of the Education and Workforce Committee. From 2003-2004 Boehner's PAC received $102,000 from for-profit schools.[13]

There is not much difference between Johnnie Boy and organized crime. A prime example of the Conservative Culture of Corruption.

No Hyperbole, Conservatives Are in Fact the Party of Death

135,000 uninsured Americans will die before health reform takes effect, analysis finds

135,000 uninsured Americans will die before health reform takes effect, analysis finds If Democrats manage to pull off efforts to reform the US healthcare system and ensure coverage for millions who are currently without insurance, the new system -- by design -- will likely still leave tens of thousands to die without insurance before reforms kick in.

A Raw Story analysis, based on a recent Harvard Medical School study, estimates that 135,000 American citizens and over 6,600 US veterans will die due to a lack of health insurance before current proposed healthcare reform measures would take effect.

And beyond irony, Conservatives Co-Opt Christmas: ‘Tis The Season To Kill Health Care Reform

Conservatives turned out on Capitol Hill today for a “Code Red Rally” to “kill” health care reform legislation, organized by groups such as the right-wing Americans for Prosperity (AFP). The Tax Day Tea Party website promoted the event by appealing to Americans to make a “sacrifice” right before Christmas and promised plans for a controversial “die-in“:

Even a Bad Democrat is Better Then the Legendary Conservatives

10 Lessons for Tea Baggers

4. ...Then Bush DOUBLED It Again

Following in Reagan's footsteps, George W. Bush buried the myth of Republican fiscal discipline.

Inheriting a federal budget in the black and CBO forecast for a $5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years, President George W. Bush quickly set about dismantling the progress made under Bill Clinton. Bush's $1.4 trillion tax cut in 2001, followed by a $550 billion second round in 2003, accounted for the bulk of the yawning budget deficits he produced.

Like Reagan and Stockman before him, Bush resorted to the rosy scenario to claim he would halve the budget deficit by 2009. Before the financial system meltdown last fall, Bush's deficit already reached $490 billion. (And even before the passage of the Wall Street bailout, Bush had presided over a $4 trillion increase in the national debt, a staggering 71% jump.) By this January, the mind-numbing deficit figure reached $1.2 trillion, forcing President Bush to raise the debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion.

Tea Baggers take note: the Bush tax cuts delivered a third of their total benefits to the wealthiest 1% of Americans. And the staggering $2 trillion price tag for Bush's giveaway to the richest needing it least dwarfs the estimated $900 billion cost over 10 years of President Obama's health care proposals.

The complete list is at the link. Even Saint Ronnie had to raise taxes to generate revenue. Revenue that was required for all his new spending and expansion of government.

Bush Latest GOPer to Show Democrats Better for the Economy


Jeb Bush's Brother and the GOP Attack on Capitalism

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.

Health Care Reform - Republicans Cannot Read or Add

Gigolo McCain Calls New Report 'Dagger In The Heart' Of Health Care Reform

But Democrats argued the report said something very different. From a White House blog post on the report published this afternoon:

So how did reform's opponents manage to use this report to claim that costs will increase? They cherry-picked total expenditures at a singular, fixed point in time - ignoring the overall rate of cost growth, the impact on Medicare and America's seniors, and the fact that millions of more Americans will be covered.

It's the kind of claim folks here in Washington love. It might be technically "true" but it hardly explains the truth.

A point in time when costs would increase 0.7 percent. Considering that inflation has been averaging 2% a year and a Republican Congress with us with the largest debt in America's history, its just another day of conservative screwballs slinging mud.

Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe Complicit to Fraud in ACORN Videos

The circus of hate and lies otherwise known as BigGovernment.com, Glenn Beck, right-wing nuts Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe and just about every conservative blog and pundit are guilty of libeling and slandering ACORN based on videos edited to leave out important facts,

What the Transcripts Show About the Doctored ACORN Video Tapes
The following is an analysis of the heavily edited videotapes and partial transcripts posted on
biggovernment.com by O’Keefe and Giles based in their undercover visits to ACORN and ACORN Housing
offices. Below the analysis, an Appendix provides key excerpts from the posted transcripts.
1. Transcripts reveal that O’Keefe and Giles said they needed ACORN’s help to protect Giles from a
violent pimp—but they carefully edited this out of their videos1. O’Keefe and Giles used clever editing and
voiceovers to hide a key fact that the transcripts show to be true in each case: In each office, the duo claimed
that 20-year old Hannah was being threatened by a violent abusive pimp. They pleaded for ACORN to help
protect the prostitute (and in some cases underage girls as well) from the pimp by helping her get a place to live.
O’Keefe and Giles edited this out of the video given the news media and the public, but neglected to remove it
from the transcripts.
Remember, for example, the tape of the NY ACORN worker advising the prostitute to hide money in a tin can,
presumably to evade taxes? The transcript shows it was so the pimp “can’t get it from you if he wants to come
and rip up the place.” And the prostitute told the loan counselor that her pimp had “ all these 13, 14,15 year old
girls from El Salvador and that’s what—I need to protect them like I know what its like and I have to protect
them and like give them somewhere to live.” 2
2. While their press releases claim they were posing as a “prostitute and a pimp,” the transcripts show
that O’Keefe consistently introduced himself as Giles’ boyfriend trying to protect her.3 While we have seen
videos of O’Keefe’s ridiculous “pimp” get-up, with Chinchilla cape, hat, and walking cane, these are all outdoor
visuals. In the actual videos in the offices, every view of O’Keefe shows him dressed in normal casual business
attire.
3. In each of the cases, the ACORN staff advised the prostitute to pay taxes, not to evade them. They
correctly advised, as any tax lawyer or properly trained tax preparer would have, that the IRS requires taxes to
be paid even on income from illegal activities, but does not require disclosure of the illegal activity itself. 4 For
over half a century, this is the way the courts and the IRS have reconciled the right not to incriminate oneself
with the obligation to pay tax on illegal activities. Indeed, among the IRS codes from which filers must select,
there is none for prostitution, and the closest codes are for entertainment or personal services.
4. The San Diego office reported the duo to the police. In the San Diego office, where O’Keefe/Giles raised
the topic of smuggling underage prostitutes across the border, the ACORN worker called the police,5as did
Acorn workers in Philadelphia
5. The San Bernardino video was a scam on the duo. In the San Bernardino office, the ACORN worker,
finding their stories ridiculous, met them with her own outrageous tales. The ACORN worker spins tales of a
sordid past, including murdering her husband. While Giles and O’Keefe had the tapes for a month before
releasing them, they never conducted any kind of check of the claims. Within 24 hours of the videos’ release,
the police had confirmed that no such murder had taken place, and that the worker’s two ex-husbands were
alive and well. San Bernardino resident Jim Miller, who lives near ACORN's office and is also featured in the
video giving business advice, said he thought the "whole thing was a preposterous production.

Sorry about the formatting the text was copied directly from the pdf report available at the link above.

Racist Conservative pretend Outrage over Reid Remarks

Conservative hate mongers express outrage over Reid remarks

Limbaugh: "This is outrageous." On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said that Reid's remarks were "outrageous, because Harry Reid knows the Republican Party was born in the fight against slavery." Limbaugh added that Reid's remarks are an indication of what Democrats have "been reduced to."

Malkin: Reid "playing the race card." In a December 7 post, Michelle Malkin wrote that Reid was playing the race card in his remarks, adding: "I'm sure Nevadans appreciate being likened to slavemasters, too."
Conservatives frequently accuse Obama administration, progressives of creating "slavery"

For instance:

* Beck: Recipients of federal aid have been "taught to be slaves"

* Beck: Progressive policies create "slavery"; "slavery to government, welfare, affirmative action, regulation, control"

* After ranting about how "illegal immigration is modern-day slavery," Beck compares himself to Ben Franklin

* Beck says he can "make a case" Rathke brothers are "enslaving people through ACORN"

* Beck: "The government's irresponsible spending is turning us into slaves"

* Tax deduction change latest Obama proposal Beck claims "involves enslaving people"

* Beck: "You know what this president is doing right now? He is addicting this country to heroin -- the heroin that is government slavery."

* Beck says of stimulus package: "It is slavery"

* Beck again compares recovery bill to slavery

* On Fox, Forbes' Ozanian refers to Employee Free Choice Act as "pro-slavery bill"

* Breitbart's BigGovernment.com publishes blog post comparing health care reform proposal to slavery

* In rant on health care, Levin equated Senate Finance bill with "economic slavery"

* Limbaugh: Democratic Party "obsessed with your death," "party of abortion and euthanasia, slavery and not liberty"

* Limbaugh's guest host is latest radio host to compare current policies or proposals to slavery

The Manufactured Doubt Industry and the Hacked Email Controversy

Rumsfeld's Memory and Logic is Cheneyish

Rumsfeld's Memory and Logic is Cheneyish

Perhaps former Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld might want to do some more research as he writes his memoirs about his service in the Bush administration.

Rumsfeld on Wednesday issued a rare statement disputing President Barack Obama's assertion in his West Point speech on Tuesday evening that the Bush administration rejected commanders' requests for additional troops for Afghanistan.

Calling Obama's claim a "bald misstatement," Rumsfeld indignantly declared: "I am not aware of a single request of that nature between 2001 and 2006."

Actually, U.S. commanders asked for an additional 2,000 Marines to help protect voters in Afghanistan's 2004 presidential and parliamentary elections. Rumsfeld approved the request, temporarily boosting the size of the U.S. force there at that time to about 15,000 troops.

A report issued last weekend by majority Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said that Rumsfeld refused U.S. commanders' requests in December 2001 for U.S. troops to deploy on the mountainous Afghan-Pakistan border to prevent Osama bin Laden and his closest followers from escaping into Pakistan.

Instead, Rumsfeld and his top commander for the region, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, chose to rely on U.S. air power, ragtag Afghan militias and Pakistan's ill-equipped paramilitary Frontier Corps.

If conservatives really cared about the U.S. military then why did they let Don the Dummy play games with our troops and let Bin Laden get away.

Does America have the Best Health Insurance Companies in the World

Aetna Forcing 600,000-Plus To Lose Coverage In Effort To Raise Profits

Health insurance giant Aetna is planning to force up to 650,000 clients to drop their coverage next year as it seeks to raise additional revenue to meet profit expectations.

In a third-quarter earnings conference call in late October, officials at Aetna announced that in an effort to improve on a less-than-anticipated profit margin in 2009, they would be raising prices on their consumers in 2010. The insurance giant predicted that the company would subsequently lose between 300,000 and 350,000 members next year from its national account as well as another 300,000 from smaller group accounts.

"The pricing we put in place for 2009 turned out to not really be what we needed to achieve the results and margins that we had historically been delivering," said chairman and CEO Ron Williams. "We view 2010 as a repositioning year, a year that does not fully reflect the earnings potential of our business. Our pricing actions should have a noticeable effect beginning in the first quarter of 2010, with additional financial impact realized during the remaining three quarters of the year."

Aetna's decision to downsize the number of clients in favor of higher premiums is, as one industry analyst told American Medical News, a "pretty candid" admission. It also reflects the major concerns offered by health care reform proponents and supporters of a public option for insurance coverage, who insist that the private health insurance industry is too consumed with the bottom line. A government-run plan would operate solely off its members' premiums.

Aetna actually made a profit in 2009 but not at levels that it anticipated.

Want to bet that none of those approximately 600,000 include Aetna insurance executives or their families.

Conservatives Continue to Dishonor American Values

Conservatives continue to treat integrity like a dog they can kick around whenever the truth becomes inconvenient. What does it say about a political movement's values when they cannot open their mouths and adress a single issue without gross distortions and lies, "Climategate" exposed: Conservative media distort stolen emails in latest attack on global warming consensus

* BECK: But first, let's start with the science that has been so settled for all these years. What are these guys saying behind closed doors about their so-called bullet-proof consensus? Well, Kevin Trenberth, he's a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. He wrote, quote: "The fact is, we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it's a travesty that we can't." Incorrect data? Inadequate systems? Yeah. Travesty, pretty good word for it. [Glenn Beck, 11/23/09]

* In a November 24 Human Events post, James Delingpole asserted that the Trenberth email reveals a scientist "[c]oncealing private doubts about whether the world is really heating up."

* Citing the Trenberth email, Robert Tracinski wrote in a November 24 commentary at RealClearPolitics.com that "[t]hese e-mails show, among many other things, private admissions of doubt or scientific weakness in the global warming theory. In acknowledging that global temperatures have actually declined for the past decade, one scientist asks, 'where the heck is global warming?... The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't.'"

REALITY: Trenberth's email referred to "inadequate" system of observing short-term variability, not long-term trend. In the October 12 email, Trenberth cited "my own article on where the heck is global warming" and wrote: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate" [emphasis added].

Trenberth published similar comments in the journal article he cited. Wired's Threat Level blog reported that Trenberth "says bloggers are missing the point he's making in the e-mail by not reading the article cited in it. That article -- An Imperative for Climate Change Planning (.pdf) -- actually says that global warming is continuing, despite random temperature variations that would seem to suggest otherwise." RealClimate.org similarly stated in a November 23 post that "[y]ou need to read his recent paper on quantifying the current changes in the Earth's energy budget to realise why he is concerned about our inability currently to track small year-to-year variations in the radiative fluxes." Indeed, the Trenberth article referred to what he called an "incomplete explanation" of short-term climate variations, and maintained that "global warming is unequivocally happening."

When the scientifically illiterate like Glenn Beck are worshiped it simply shows that conservatism runs more on bizarre beliefs then wisdom or knowledge.

Conservatives Continue To Claim The Stimulus ‘Failed,’ After CBO Report Said Otherwise

Today, the White House is hosting a jobs forum, “to sound out ideas for accelerating job growth during the worst labor market in a generation,” as Democrats in both houses of Congress are attempting to craft jobs legislation. Yesterday, the administration for the first time expressed support for new legislation, so long as it has a “relatively small deficit impact.”

This effort comes in the wake of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report showing that the economic stimulus package is having its intended effect — creating or saving 600,000 to 1.6 million jobs — albeit in a weaker than anticipated economy.

Republicans, though, have said that additional jobs legislation “would meet resistance.” They’re justifying this position — aided by the conservative media — by claiming that the “failed economic stimulus” has not created jobs, despite the CBO reporting otherwise.

Conservative rule number 1: Don't like reality, invent your own. They don't need to take drugs they're already tripping.

We all have to admit that conservatives are very good at a few things besides lying and corruption. They excel at idolatry, Worshipping Reagan: There's An App For That

Dick Cheney - an abject failure at leadership pleads for attention

Obama Rebuts ‘Dithering’ Charges: None Of The Options Called For Troop Deployments Before 2010

In recent weeks, Republicans have been attacking President Obama for taking too long to settle on a strategy for the war in Afghanistan. The charge has been led by Vice President Cheney, who accused Obama of “dithering” and endangering U.S. troops:

It’s time for President Obama to make good on his promise. The White House must stop dithering while America’s armed forces are in danger.

Make no mistake, signals of indecision out of Washington hurt our allies and embolden our adversaries. Waffling, while our troops on the ground face an emboldened enemy, endangers them and hurts our cause.

Tonight in his prime-time address to the nation, Obama ordered the deployment of 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan and said that the U.S. would begin withdrawing in 18 months. He also pointed out that none of the options put before him were set to occur before 2010, so his review process did not result in any endangerment of U.S. troops — a statement that seemed to be a direct response to criticisms such as Cheney’s:

As your Commander-in-Chief, I owe you a mission that is clearly defined, and worthy of your service. That is why, after the Afghan voting was completed, I insisted on a thorough review of our strategy.

Let me be clear: there has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war. Instead, the review has allowed me ask the hard questions, and to explore all of the different options along with my national security team, our military and civilian leadership in Afghanistan, and with our key partners.

Given the stakes involved, I owed the American people — and our troops — no less.

We can agree or disagree about escalating troop levels in Afghanistan, but it was Cheney and the gang of neocons that squandered victory in Afghanistan to chase nonexistent WMD in Iraq.

From Holidays to Bin Laden, Conservatives Cannot Get Their Priorities Straight

Fox & Friends Promote “Merry Christmas” Billboards – Again!

Yesterday, Fox & Friends second stringer Ainsley Earhardt introduced the bill board ladies as “a group of women who want to keep Christ in Christmas” by urging people to drop “happy holdays.” She emphatically said that “to date they have raised thousands of dollars” for eight billboards but say “their fight is far from over.”

With unemployment at over 10% and the number of people on food stamps at record highs Fox and this special interest group are pleading for money to fight a "war on Christmas" rather then help people. When will conservatives ever get their priorities straight.

Conservatives are the anti-terror experts? That is just as much a fairy tale as the Tooth Fairy, Senate report: Bin Laden was 'within our grasp'

Osama bin Laden was unquestionably within reach of U.S. troops in the mountains of Tora Bora when American military leaders made the crucial and costly decision not to pursue the terrorist leader with massive force, a Senate report says.

The report asserts that the failure to kill or capture bin Laden at his most vulnerable in December 2001 has had lasting consequences beyond the fate of one man. Bin Laden's escape laid the foundation for today's reinvigorated Afghan insurgency and inflamed the internal strife now endangering Pakistan, it says.

Staff members for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Democratic majority prepared the report at the request of the chairman, Sen. John Kerry, as President Barack Obama prepares to boost U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The Massachusetts senator and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate has long argued the Bush administration missed a chance to get the al-Qaida leader and top deputies when they were holed up in the forbidding mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan only three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Although limited to a review of military operations eight years old, the report could also be read as a cautionary note for those resisting an increased troop presence there now.

More pointedly, it seeks to affix a measure of blame for the state of the war today on military leaders under former president George W. Bush, specifically Donald H. Rumsfeld as defense secretary and his top military commander, Tommy Franks.

"Removing the al-Qaida leader from the battlefield eight years ago would not have eliminated the worldwide extremist threat," the report says. "But the decisions that opened the door for his escape to Pakistan allowed bin Laden to emerge as a potent symbolic figure who continues to attract a steady flow of money and inspire fanatics worldwide. The failure to finish the job represents a lost opportunity that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."

The report states categorically that bin Laden was hiding in Tora Bora when the U.S. had the means to mount a rapid assault with several thousand troops at least. It says that a review of existing literature, unclassified government records and interviews with central participants "removes any lingering doubts and makes it clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp at Tora Bora."

Another failure, another legacy of conservatism and G.W. Bush.

Beck's "brand new reality" on climate change relies on distorting apparently stolen emails

The Great Recession and Collective Memory Loss

Who's to Blame and America's Short Attention Span

Americans are often praised for their resilience in the face of calamity, but there is another quality that seems to be in greater supply these days: willful amnesia. An August Gallup Poll showed that 65 percent of Americans oppose another economic stimulus even though the first one, which was inadequate by most economists' calculations, saved or created roughly 650,000 jobs. A more recent Gallup survey had 45 percent of Americans believing that current government regulation of business and industry was too great - a 10-year high. Never mind that it was the lack of regulation that got us into our current economic predicament. Regulation is so last year. In the ingenious film "Memento,'' the protagonist had lost his capacity to remember anything. It now seems as if we live in a memento nation - a place where we too instantly forget what's happened to us.

It wasn't always this way. When Herbert Hoover and his fellow Republicans dithered while Americans sunk into an economic slough in the early 1930s, they were rewarded with a generation of Democratic hegemony, and Hoover's name was eternally blackened. Similarly, when Lyndon Johnson presided over both domestic racial chaos and a military cataclysm in Vietnam, he was rewarded with the Nixon presidency. Only Watergate spared the Democrats further electoral indignities.

These punishments were not only right; they were essential to the functioning of a democracy because they reinforced accountability. If you screw up, you lose, which is exactly how it should be.

Accountability, however, is predicated on remembering who did the screwing up and what the screwing up was. That's why there's a problem when a society suddenly forgets what failed in the past - say Hoover's unwillingness to stimulate the economy or Bush's unwillingness to police Wall Street. The philosopher George Santayana famously said that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We have been living Santayana's dictum.

But if memory loss is the problem, the deeper issue is why we seem to have suddenly lost our memory. In looking for an answer to why we have national amnesia, one might look first to the concept of memory itself. A common memory is the consequence of shared experiences and information. Americans suffered the Great Depression together. They maintained a vivid memory of that pain, a collective memory, from personal experience but also from reading the same newspapers, listening to the same radio programs, watching the same movies. In short, memory was created not only personally but culturally.

Likewise, Americans certainly disagreed about the war in Vietnam, but they watched the same images of the war on television and read the same AP dispatches. We were a nation united by information and memory.

Things have certainly changed, so much so that the United States is something of a misnomer. The institutions that helped forge collective memories have long been in decline. Movies, newspapers, and mass circulation magazines are all gasping. Broadcast television has been usurped by cable television and the Internet, which provide a plethora of images and ideas but which are far more likely to divide us than to unite us, giving us each the images and spin we prefer. Put simply, Americans probably share less now than at any time since the rise of the mass media early in the last century, including shared memories.

What is more, the loss of collective memory has been accelerated by the speed with which we receive information. Both cable news and the Internet place a high premium on "churn'' - on providing a new story or new scoop every few minutes.

Whether this is a function of our own growing impatience or a cause of that impatience is difficult to say, but cable television and the Internet contribute to a national Attention Deficit Disorder. They disrupt continuity, break the chain of cause and effect, detach memory from action, and heighten the moment at the expense of history and the bigger picture that history provides.

In "Memento,'' the hero, unable to remember anything, is compelled to live moment by moment, without the past ever informing the present. The here and now obliterates the there and then.

We operate similarly. We not only live in a society increasingly without memory; we live in a society in which the present is unmoored, making anything that happens right now far more important than anything that has happened before. Hence, if the economy hasn't recovered, it must be President Obama's fault since he is currently president. Or if Congress hasn't enacted health reform yet, it must be the fault of the Democrats since they are the ones in majority, the history of health reform notwithstanding. Or if deficits are growing, it must mean we should stop stimulating the economy since deficits are the issue of the moment. The present moment is everything.

The Only Climate Hoax is the One Being Perpetrated by Conservatives

Quick Fact: Drudge, Washington Times falsely claim allegedly hacked emails show global warming is not real

NASA's Gavin Schmidt: Critics "are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way." Wired's Threat Level blog reported on November 20 that Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said: "There's nothing in the e-mails that shows that global warming is a hoax. ... There's no funding by nefarious groups. There's no politics in any of these things; nobody from the [United Nations] telling people what to do. There's nothing hidden, no manipulation. It's just scientists talking about science, and they're talking relatively openly as people in private e-mails generally are freer with their thoughts than they would be in a public forum. The few quotes that are being pulled out [are out] of context. People are using language used in science and interpreting it in a completely different way." Schmidt is a contributor to the Real Climate blog, which has stated that some of the stolen CRU emails "involve people" at Real Climate.

A salute to a real hero, Witnesses say reservist was a Fort Hood hero

Three weeks after 13 people were shot and killed at Fort Hood in Texas new details are emerging about an Army Reserve captain who died trying to fight off the gunman before police arrived.

Investigators are still sorting out the actions of Capt. John Gaffaney, 56, a psychiatric nurse. According to varying eyewitness accounts, Gaffaney either picked up a chair and threw it at the gunman or physically rushed him from across the room. Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, a psychiatrist, has been charged with murder.

Army Maj. Gen. Lie-Ping Chang, commander of the reserve force to which Gaffaney belonged, said that two eyewitnesses recounted how the reservist threw a folding chair and “tried to knock (the gunman) down or knock his gun down.” Chang included this account in an essay submitted to USA Today.

Army Reserve Col. Kathy Platoni, a clinical psychologist who served with Gaffaney, said she was told that he rushed Hasan to within inches before being shot several times.

Platoni said she comforted Gaffaney as he lay dying in a building nearby where soldiers brought him after he was mortally wounded, ripping off pieces of their uniform to use as pressure bandages or tourniquets to stem his massive bleeding from multiple wounds.

“I just started talking to him and holding his hand and saying, ‘John, you’re going to be OK. You’re going to be OK. You’ve just got to fight,’” Platoni recalled.

He died shortly after that, she said. “I was still yelling, ‘John, don’t go. John, don’t go.’” Regardless of what actions Gaffaney took, soldiers were able to escape the gunman when Gaffaney confronted him, Chang said. Gaffaney’s widow, Christine, said one female soldier told her that he saved her life.

Conservative Dana Perino Demonstrates How to be a Moron

Bush's former Press Secretary displays all the knowledge and sensitivity that typifies conservatism. Perino: No Terrorist Attacks In America Under Bush (VIDEO)

On Fox News, the former press secretary suggested President Obama was playing politics by refusing to describe the massacre at Fort Hood as a terrorist attack. "We should call it what it is," she said.

"We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term," she told Sean Hannity. "I hope they're not looking at this politically. I do think that we owe it to the American people to call it what it is."




For those with memories as spotty as Perino's, President Bush took office on January 20, 2001. On September 11, 2001, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the U.S. in terrorist attacks coordinated by al-Qaeda.

Unlike President Talks-outta-both-sides-of-his-two-faces Bush, President Barack Obama actually cares about Vets and signs the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Oct. 22, 2009.

Conservatives are funny

The tea bagger fake patriots are going to make their own propaganda film, Move over Michael Moore, here comes ‘TEA PARTY: The Documentary’

Convergence has produced a slide show titled “Next Steps Training Presentation” which is devoted to “Re-Discovering Our National Identity” through examining the Declaration of Independence. As of November 20, the slide show that has been viewed slightly over 300 times.

These are the people that have opposed every bit of legislation for the common good of the citizens of the United States since the days of Joe McCarthy. The Declaration of Independence ( which is not a legal document in the sense the Constitution is) contains the famous declaration "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". To be obvious its difficult to have a life without health care and pursuing happiness is not possible without one's health. Yet they oppose any efforts to bring down the costs of health care or access for more Americans. They must interpret "liberty" as the freedom to suffer and die in misery.

Leaked British Report: No Preparation for Iraq Invasion So Blair Could Keep Lying

Military commanders are expected to tell the inquiry into the Iraq war, which opens on Tuesday, that the invasion was ill-conceived and that preparations were sabotaged by Tony Blair's government's attempts to mislead the public.

They were so shocked by the lack of preparation for the aftermath of the invasion that they believe members of the British and US governments at the time could be prosecuted for war crimes by breaching the duty outlined in the Geneva convention to safeguard civilians in a conflict, the Guardian has been told.

The lengths the Blair government took to conceal the invasion plan and the extent of military commanders' anger at what they call the government's "appalling" failures emerged as Sir John Chilcot, the inquiry's chairman, promised to produce a "full and insightful" account of how Britain was drawn into the conflict.

Fresh evidence has emerged about how Blair misled MPs by claiming in 2002 that the goal was "disarmament, not regime change". Documents show the government wanted to hide its true intentions by informing only "very small numbers" of officials.

The documents, leaked to the Sunday Telegraph, are "post-operational reports" and "lessons learned" papers compiled by the army and its field commanders. They refer to a "rushed" operation that caused "significant risk" to troops and "critical failure" in the postwar period.

Blair owns his share of responsibility, but he was pushed along by the Bushies.

Gun Lobby Mobilizes Against Health Reform By Claiming Obama Administration Will Issue ‘No Guns’ Decree

On Friday, Gun Owners of America sent out an action alert to its 300,000 members warning that the Senate health care bill “would mandate that doctors provide ‘gun-related health data’ to ‘a government database,’ including information on mental-health issues detected in patients, which could jeopardize their ability to obtain a firearms license.” The alert also warned its membership that the “wellness and prevention” provisions in the health care bill would allow the Obama administration to issue a “no guns” decree:

Finally, as we have mentioned several times in the past, the mandates in the legislation will most likely dump your gun-related health data into a government database that was created in section 13001 of the stimulus bill. This includes any firearms-related information your doctor has gleaned…or any determination of PTSD, or something similar, that can preclude you from owning firearms.

And, the special “wellness and prevention” programs (inserted by Section 1001 of the bill as part of a new Section 2717 in the Public Health Services Act) would allow the government to offer lower premiums to employers who bribe their employees to live healthier lifestyles — and nothing within the bill would prohibit rabidly anti-gun HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius from decreeing that “no guns” is somehow healthier.

The so-called “gun-related health data” is actually anonymous statistical information to help researchers develop health programs and initiatives that serve specific population groups or further the study of various conditions and medical needs.

By all means let's not keep records of gun shot wounds? Is there some kind of sick contest going on among conservatives to see how many facts they can twist into urban myths and then get angry about. They're a self perpetuating propaganda machine. They invent the issue, issue factually challenged statements - all over nothing. I own a gun so I know that gun ownership does not destroy brain cells. These gun nuts give responsible gun owners a bad name.

Conservatives Concur Eric Holder Correct to Prosecute Terrorists

Two conservative lawyers writing at The Washington Post, Holder's reasonable decision

In deciding to use federal court, the attorney general probably considered the record of the military commission system that was established in November 2001. This system secured three convictions in eight years. The only person who had a full commission trial, Osama bin Laden's driver, received five additional months in prison, resulting in a sentence that was shorter than he probably would have received from a federal judge.

One reason commissions have not worked well is that changes in constitutional, international and military laws since they were last used, during World War II, have produced great uncertainty about the commissions' validity. This uncertainty has led to many legal challenges that will continue indefinitely -- hardly an ideal situation for the trial of the century.

By contrast, there is no question about the legitimacy of U.S. federal courts to incapacitate terrorists. Many of Holder's critics appear to have forgotten that the Bush administration used civilian courts to put away dozens of terrorists, including "shoe bomber" Richard Reid; al-Qaeda agent Jose Padilla; "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh; the Lackawanna Six; and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was prosecuted for the same conspiracy for which Mohammed is likely to be charged. Many of these terrorists are locked in a supermax prison in Colorado, never to be seen again.

In terrorist trials over the past 15 years, federal prosecutors and judges have gained extensive experience protecting intelligence sources and methods, limiting a defendant's ability to raise irrelevant issues and tightly controlling the courtroom.

Not often enough, but once in a while an odd conservative or two will manage to get something correct.

When is Common Sense Not About Insights and Practical Solutions

Sarah Palin Tells Rush Limbaugh the Magic Word

Sarah Palin took her book tour to the Rush Limbaugh Show this morning. The Oprah and Barbara Walters interviews have been fun, because they mostly just asked her about Levi Johnston, and it's gratifying that God sent him to ruin her life and save the Republic. (Sometimes God opens a door. And it's to Bristol's room.) But the Rush interview was different. To Rush's credit, he actually asked her about politics.

Policy. That's where she shines.

See if you can pick out a theme to her answers.

Unemployment?

But those commonsense solutions there, especially with the cutting taxes on the job creators? That's not even being discussed.

Healthcare reform?

Not when there are commonsense solutions to meeting health care challenges in our country... So lots of commonsense solutions that need to be plugged in before ever considering federal government taking it over.

The 2010 elections?

It's all about Americans who are hurting right now and what those solutions are that are so obvious, so commonsense that need to be plugged in.

The recent special congressional election in New York State?

They are seeking commonsense, conservative solutions to all the challenges that we're facing. I'm glad to see this.

Independent voters?

Todd's not a Republican and yet he's got more commonsense conservatism than a whole lot of Republicans that I know... But in answer to your question, I don't think that the third party movement will be what's necessary to usher in some commonsense conservative ideals... In Alaska, about 70% of Alaskans are independent. So that's my base. That's where I am from and that's been my training ground, is just implementing commonsense conservative solutions.

.......In answering about a dozen questions, Palin said some combination of "solutions," "conservative" and "commonsense" twenty-five times. Is this an interview or a drinking game? Was Rush rewarding her by tossing her fish?

Her excitement got the better of her when she said, "But those common sense solutions there." This was a shoehorn too far, as the correct form, in Hillbilly, is obviously "Those there commonsense solutions."

Mencken identified those-there this as a perfectly good hill country adverbial pronoun. (His example, from everyday use: "Those-there wops has all took to the woods.") But he warned that the adverb promised to coalesce with the pronoun so completely as to obliterate all sense of its distinct existence, even as a false noun or adjective. Little did he know.

But splitting an adverbial pronoun, just to squeeze in one more "commonsense?" That's just wrong.

Todd Palin is an example of someone who has common sense? He belonged to a political group that advocated Alaska secession from the United States. That used to be called treason, but as long as Sarah Palin is redefining common sense might as well get used to some strange twists and turns.

For her less then common sense views on Israel see here

"I disagree with the Obama administration" on Israeli settlements, Palin told Barbara Walters. Fair enough. It sure seems like the administration's heavy focus on getting Benjamin Netanyahu to commit to a settlement freeze has backfired, making the Israeli prime minister more popular than ever and exposing the impotence of Palestinian leader Mamoud Abbas in the process.

But that's not what Palin meant.

"I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow," she continued. "More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don't think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand."

So any country who's population is expanding has the right to take land from another country. Sense just about every country in the world has an expanding population - not expected to bottom out for a few years, can we assume a Palin presidency will have the U.S. expanding into Canada and Mexico.

Conservative Robert Stacy McCain is a Racist, Plain and Simple

Conservative Robert Stacy McCain is a Racist, Plain and Simple

Under Pruden, The Washington Times employs a neo-Confederate activist, Robert Stacy McCain, as its assistant national editor. McCain is a member of the neo-Confederate organization League of the South, which the SPLC called "rife with white supremacists and racist ideology." The League's leader, J. Michael Hill, once declared: "The day of Southern guilt is over-THE SOUTH WAS RIGHT-and let us not forget that salient fact. NO APOLOGIES FOR SLAVERY should be made. In both the Old and New Testaments slavery is sanctioned and regulated according to God's word." As the SPLC has noted, in 1998 McCain wrote a glowing obituary of former segregationist politician George Wallace for the Times in which he relied upon the insight of three* history professors, not disclosing that all of them belonged to the League of the South.

The Conservative Guide to Bowing

President Obama follows diplomatic protocol and bows to a head of state in Japan and the Right has a unified temper tantrum. They state emphatically they know what they're talking about, but just ignore the self righteous hypocrisy. Bush not only bowed to heads of state "bowed to heads of state and kissed one on occasion. So that means as the rabid Right Powerline blog wrote," He means to teach Americans to bow before monarchs and tyrants. He embodies the ideological multiculturalism that sets the United States on the same plane as other regimes based on tribal privilege and royal bloodlines. He gives expressive form to the idea that the United States now willingly prostrates itself before the rest of the world. He declares that the United States is a country like any other, only worse, because we have so much for which to apologize." Do conservatives have any principles. If you read the punditry at Powerline, Hotair, freeperville and others it certainly seems they do try to create the impression they have no honor.

The poor things, conservatives are afraid of everything it seems, The Right's textbook "surrender to terrorists" - "We're too scared to have real trials in our country" is a level of cowardice unmatched in the world.