http://weiner.house.gov/news_display.asp...

Weiner just lived up to his name by withdrawing his amendment, which would have substituted single-payer for the House bill favored by Democratic leaders. That coward sickens me right now even more than Obama, Pelosi, Emanuel, Hoyer, and Reid put together.

Oklahoma Congressional Representative John Sullivan, R-(District One).

Rep. John Sullivan: "I see Barack Obama is creating an enemies list of people who oppose this miserable health care plan. I think that's frightening. That's from a guy that can't even show a long-form birth certificate."

Of course that's a cover. But what's it a cover FOR?

Clearly, though, the group was more concerned about the massive health care bill percolating in Congress, energy policy and the growing budget deficit.

Sullivan criticized Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist who Sullivan said is "smart but doesn't have any practical energy experience," and he said the health care bill has little chance of passing the House without important changes.

Asked afterward what must be done for the bill to win approval, Sullivan said costs must be reduced and so-called "single-payer" elements that Republicans say would eliminate private insurance must be dropped.

But WAIT -- not only must the parasites not be eliminated, the employers must not be responsible for keeping them healthy and wealthy and well-paid!!!

Nevertheless, Sullivan said some sort of reform is needed. A federal insurance plan for those who can't otherwise afford coverage, he said, should be considered, as well as a way to cover individuals with pre-existing conditions.

"One of the things we have to get away from is the idea that employers are responsible for providing insurance," he said.

Here's the full text of the letter signed by 23 members of Congress who are veterans and who took umbrage at Lt. Col. Peters' remarks on Fox News broadcasts. Thanks to Ohio's 16th District Congressmember, John Boccieri:

Roger Ailes
Chief Executive, Fox News and Chairman, Fox Television Stations
Fox News Channel
1211 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036

21 July 2009

Chairman Ailes,

As members of Congress and veterans of the United States Armed Forces, it was with incredulity and disgust that we watched Fox News Strategic Analyst Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters (Ret.) suggest on your airwaves that Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, "abandoned his buddies, abandoned his post, and just walked off," and stated that, if this is true, "the Taliban can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills."

Mr. Peters' comments are so far beyond the pale that they don't even approach the decorum and respect deserved by a member of the United States Armed Forces. Mr. Peters' indefensible comments call into question, without any supporting evidence whatsoever, PFC Bergdahl's patriotism and commitment to his country, and suggest in a non-subtle way that he deserved to be captured. The events surrounding the capture of PFC Bergdahl are irrelevant at this point. The only priority should be his safe and immediate release to U.S. forces.

Mr. Peters further complained that PFC Bergdahl was openly questioning U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and cooperating with the Taliban, showing that Mr. Peters' has conveniently forgotten that soldiers in captivity are often forced to make statements contrary to their beliefs simply to stay alive. Senator John McCain has often discussed his decision to do so while a captive of the Vietcong. Perhaps Mr. Peters would choose to question his patriotism as well. Regardless, we have every reason to believe that the comments made by PFC Bergdahl do not reflect his true feelings and are being forced by his captors. The truth is that Mr. Peters' words give more aid and comfort to the enemy than any forced statement by a captured soldier, and put PFC Bergdahl at additional risk of harm.

Finally, his implied suggestion that the Taliban should simply kill PFC Bergdahl to, "save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills," was repulsive and deserves to be repudiated by your news organization. We recognize and credit anchor Julie Banderas' efforts to make it clear that Mr. Peters' positions were not that of Fox News. However, that does not remove the responsibility your network has for the statements of one of its own analysts; especially those that suggest a member of the United States Army should be killed by his captors.

We demand an apology to PFC Bergdahl's family and to the thousands of soldiers who put their lives on the line for our country. As a member of the military family, Mr. Peters should measure his remarks and remember that the United States will never abandon one of its own.

We look forward to your response.

Respectfully,

John Boccieri (D-OH)
Duncan Hunter (R-CA)
Patrick Murphy (D-PA)

Thomas Rooney (R-FL)
Joe Baca (D-CA)
Brett Guthrie (R-KY)
John Shimkus (R-IL)
Christopher Carney (D-PA)
Ted Poe (R-TX)
Timothy Walz (D-MN)
Darrell Issa (R-CA)
Jim Marshall (D-GA)
Gene Taylor (D-MS)
John Spratt (D-SC)
Jose Serrano (D-NY)
Joe Sestak (D-PA)
Bill Delahunt (D-MA)
Don Young (R-AK)
John Conyers (D-MI)
Edolphus Towns (D-NY)
Eric Massa (D-NY)
David Roe (R-TN)
Joe Pitts (R-PA)

Again, I do apologise to Rep. Poe and his constitutents for my mistake earlier today in not recognizing his participation in signing this letter.

Boccieri's office released this statement today in conjunction

and today's consensus is that the inauguration made no difference to the country?
Spirits were raised so high on 20-Jan-09. Where are they now? What has been done?
So many broken promises, so many stalled results, so much disillusion. Is the Obama Presidency salvageable? Should it be?

[Welcome, Digby readers!]

Below is a great, in-depth report by Al Jazeera on the failure of the richest state in the United States and how the government cuts deal a lethal body blow to Californians, particularly the working class and those below poverty. The rabid, right-wing is truly holding the state hostage with Da Governator leading the assault on the most vulnerable.

Part One

Actually, three moments of remembrance for men shot and killed in the name of hate, as the siege on American values and progress continues apace.

Let us stop and remember a moment for each of these Americans, whose murders were not, despite the spew of cable "news" and the calumny repeated by GOP leaders and the national media's "pundits," perpetrated by the dangerous Socialist left taking over the country.

.

_{(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)}

Via ThinkProgress, G. Gordon Liddy on Sotomayor:

LIDDY: Let’s hope that the key conferences aren’t when she’s menstruating or something, or just before she’s going to menstruate. That would really be bad. Lord knows what we would get then.

Nice. I wonder what former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and current Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg think about that?

Trawling through the Pravda web site reveals more juicy amusingness. Yes, I know, it is not news that it is a buffet of nuttiness. This time it is Sir Cabbagemallet, keeping the dream alive:

Having thus bravely rallied the international community and summoned the United Nations -- a fiction and a farce, respectively -- what was Obama's further response? The very next day, his defense secretary announced drastic cuts in missile defense, including halting further deployment of Alaska-based interceptors designed precisely to shoot down North Korean ICBMs. Such is the "realism" Obama promised to restore to U.S. foreign policy.

 Read more…

Charles, in Chicago, who voted for McCain -- who served in the Marine Corps and the US Army, who knows about Klaus Barbie and understands what this nation is supposed to be about: my hat's off to you, man.

What you did to Limbaugh on the radio was a thing of beauty, a joy and a delight. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

A soldier and a Marine -- and your service continues. Thank you.

MORE callers like Charles, please.

You get guys like Donald Wildmon (wait, is he still around?) spouting garbage like this:

(Reproduced in full from my Spam box, because you just can't make this stuff up, and it's so hard to believe anybody capable of independent thought would buy it:)

PS. Since I'm not a Fox watcher, (except for, sometimes, HOUSE), I can't say whether Pepsi buys ads on these cartoons or not. (I'm kinda proud of being able to say I've purposely never watched a whole episode of The Simpsons, 24, Friends, or Seinfeld, so ... there you go. I did watch the X-Files in its heyday, and Firefly.) Since my html coding skills are inadequate to reproduce the formatting the email contained, let me add parenthetical comments: the first line that starts "Please help" is in scarlet print; the "Pepsi Sponsored" line is in about 24-point boldface; From "Take Action! to 'homosexual organizations' is in a blockquote box, and the whole spew is liberally sprinkled with links (I didn't click any of 'em). The print drops off to six points below the box except for another link in Wildmon's signature, and the links, presumably back to beg-lines, get thicker.
There. That about covers it. Now, imagine finding this in your inbox:

Bobby Jindal is still a GOP favorite. Athenae, over at First Draft, nails the M$M on this in her commentary today. But there's more to the menace Jindal poses than his oversold aura of "not a fat old white guy and still a staunch Republican." From the Politico piece:

Tuesday night, Jindal was playing to a friendly crowd at the National Republican Congressional Committee's annual March Dinner.

 Read more…

I have made no secrets that I find conservative columnist and pundit Cal Thomas particularly repugnant. What bothers me most about him is that conservatives pass the guy off as some kind of reasonable intellectual, and Cal, himself, often passes himself off as an elite conservative rather than the religious whack-job that he really is.

It should have come as no surprise, then, when I saw his most recent column in my local paper, yesterday, peddling him same old smug and repugnant bullshit, but he never ceases to amaze me in this regard.

Given that 30 out of the top 50 (60%) districts in trouble with foreclosures (34 out of the top 56 listed - 60.7%) are in Republican controlled turf, you might think Republicans would be working harder to save these homes in their own districts. But you would be wrong.   Read more…

I hope that everyone realizes that the Pentagonian Establishment is very much in the midst, and not at the start of, trying to push back at Obama's promise to close Gitmo, and the left's push for this thing to close since we've known of its existence.

This is why it is so incredibly important that the left push him harder than ever before and constantly to close this house of horrors down, as well as all of the others we know and don't know about, because he's being pushed very forcefully (more forcefully, in fact) from the right to "stay the course" on Gitmo.

Say Hello to Overruled. I'm expecting some quality stuff. Take a look at the "Why I blog" post:

Why I Blog
Debbie Dantz worked at an Applebees, a job she desperately needed to take care of her two teenage daughters and a terminally ill father. It was not a high paying job, but because Dantz couldn't afford a car or even a bed to sleep on, she needed work within walking distance of her home and the Applebees fit the bill.
So when Dantz' boss made a pass at her, she didn't quit because she needed the money. She stuck with the job as her manager's behavior became increasingly bizarre and cruel. He ordered all the waitresses to wear skirts, and would regularly lift them up and make crude comments as he looked under them. Sometimes, he would order Dantz to sit in a chair while he quietly circled her, staring at her like a predator. When Dantz complained about this treatment, her manager and her male co-workers threw food at her.

One day, when Dantz arrived at work a paper was shoved into her hands and she was ordered to sign it. The paper contained something called a "binding mandatory arbitration agreement" which said that, if Applebees broke the law, Dantz no longer had the right to hold it accountable in court and instead would be shunted into a privatized, biased justice system. Dantz refused to sign, and was told that until she did, she would be paid nothing but tips—a violation of federal minimum wage laws. Nevertheless, Dantz needed her job, so she didn't quit.

After nearly three years of harassment, abuse and long hours for little or no pay, Dantz finally decided that she'd had enough. She filed suit against her employer—and the court kicked her to the curb. Even though Dantz refused to sign the binding arbitration agreement, the court said that merely by continuing to work for Applebees, she was bound by its terms. Debbie Dantz' employer illegally abused her for almost three years, and Dantz was powerless to hold it accountable.

 Read more…

DeMint predicts riots if Auto Makers receive bail out.

Yes, he is up for reelection in 2010.

Do not be fooled, amidst all of the election hoopla the fact has remained that the right (wrong) is still totally bat-shit crazy. Conservative columnist Cal Thomas penned in his December 1st column that:

and then tells Reid / Pelosi: if you don't take away Holey Joe's gavel, you're insulting Obama and all his voters. Do which, now? Divesting a guy whose behavior is about as disloyal to the party as possible of his gavel is required, to avoid insulting the guy who's so over the (or any) party?

The news is still sketchy, but Oregon TV station KCBY is reporting that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms has arrested two men in connection with a plot to break into an African-American school (not yet named) and kill students to kick off a national murder spree. The men said they did not expect to succeed in assassinating Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama, but to be slain trying.

Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of ATF's Nashville field office, said the two men planned to kill 88 people, including 14 African-Americans by beheading. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

Props to the Crockett County TN SO for stopping the two men.

Poor little Michelle Bachmann! In spite of direct evidence (as in, her actual comments recorded by a camera during her interview with, of all people, Chris Matthews) to the contrary, The Honorable Michelle wants you to know she "Never called all liberals anti-American."

No, actually. Just, you know, the ones in Congress, and any who associate with Barack Obama. Now, what this tells me about her grasp of reality is... well, she hasn't got one.

In yesterday's post, I went into some of the initial detail on a statement given by Thomas Muthee in the infamous sermon where he "annointed" Sarah Palin and also claimed to literally run a traditional religious practitioner out of his home base.

Muthee's statement referred to a popular concept in Joel's Army circles--the concept of the "seven mountains", that is, seven pillars of society that these groups see as a major priority for takeover "by hook or by crook". (Of note, Palin was actually used as an example for the takeover of "government".)

Today's diary is--and yes, I know, this is a shocker--NOT going to be about Sarah Palin. At least, not directly. This is more towards some of her supporters...and especially in light of Palin throwing stones whilst in a glass house re the Jeremiah Wright controversy, a deeper look is warranted into one group Palin is associated with in particular.

If you are a woman, will you be able to afford any health care?
If you are a mother, will your children face the draft?
If you are a father, will your children face having you drafted?
If you have a job now, will it still be here in four years?
If you have a house now, will you still be under a roof in four years?
If you have a 401k now (better check quickly) will it still be here in four years?
If the answer to more than one of these questions is "I don't know," you can't afford to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Political Animal has the goods. Kathleen Parker is as conservative as a pundit can be, and often writes disturbingly disinformative, if not downright dishonest, things. But, sometimes, even Parker finds a nugget of gold amidst all the dreck:

If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.

Parker wants Palin to quit. For the good of the country, yet.

Wonder how far back the orders on *that* pony will turn out to be?