Surprise! Lindsey Graham drops out of climate change talks because Dems want to bring up immigration reform

Republicans don't negotiate in good faith. It's all a dance for them. Lindsey Graham is pulling out of the climate change talks because he wants to be back in the majority. He wants to force Dems to drop immigration reform, so they'll lose the Latino vote, and lose the election. Rather than considering ways that harm the Democratic base and help Republicans who will never work with us in good faith, why not embrace who we are as a party. Read the rest of this post...

Imagine if the Teabaggers were black...

Brilliant piece:

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Read the rest of this post...

Gingrich is off his meds again

I find Gingrich a rad sad and tragic character. He's always struck me as an incredibly intelligent man. Bordering on brilliant. But he's also somewhat nuts. He's the breed of Republican that throws around words like "socialist" when talking about the US, rather than the Soviet Union or France. And to Americans, when they say socialist, they mean communist - Soviet communist to be precise. And talking about anything in America, any mainstream politician or political party as being akin to the Soviet Union, is delusional.

It's why I find Gingrich, and the branch of Republicanism he represents, such a conundrum. I've met some very nice, intelligent Republicans who actually believe that Obama has Maoists in his Cabinet. That's simply insane. And it's troubling, since these are people with half a brain who work in Washington. People like Gingrich. They're the modern children of McCarthyism. And it's hard to know how to deal with them, how to even react, because, at their core, they're all a little nuts.

I remember in a Shakespeare class my senior year of college the professor asked us if we could understand Lear's madness. None of us could. She explained the conundrum. If you're sane, it's impossible to understand madness.

And that's all well and good. But Gingrich is the putative leader of the Republican party, along with three other mad ducks, Palin, Limbaugh and Beck. None of the four are in possession of a full Happy Meal. And if all goes wrong, they could be running the country. Read the rest of this post...

Blippy users’ credit card numbers found on Google

I do a lot of e-commerce. It's just way simpler than renting a car when you live alone, have no car, and there are no megastores within a stone's throw. But geez. It does feel a bit like the Wild West out there sometimes, in terms of things being so that the systems in place aren't entirely fool-proof (not that anything ever is). Read the rest of this post...

Arizona will identify illegal immigrants by their shoes. Seriously.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

There was a lot of news this past week. And, a lot of it was captured succinctly in the haikus of KarenMrsLloydRichards. The haikus in her series, Haiku for the Obama Administration, usually show up in the comments of the morning threads. But, everyone should read them. She says much in just seventeen syllables.

On the trial of Sarah Palin's hacker:

Sarah takes the stand -
That young hacker exposed her!
Violated her!

On GetEQUAL's protest of Obama:

Gay hecklers disrupt,
Obama's routine just sucks,
Two drinks are required.

On John McCain's newfound loathing of and bizarre ranting about immigrants:

On flat desert roads - - -
Illegals love to crash cars
Oh Cindy, look out!!!

On the latest Teabagger protest:

Teabaggers yearn for
1773:
Muskets, wenches, slaves . . .

And, on Nevada GOP Senate candidate Sue Lowden's thinking on bartering for health care:

Sue Lowden barters---
Her gynecologist takes
Her Mercedes coupe.

Those are some of the highlights of the week that was.

What's going on this weekend? Read the rest of this post...

Senate committee claims credit rating agencies were not accurate

It's nice to see that they confirmed what everyone knew. I just hope they don't have any new surprise reports such as that prestigious accounting firms have helped cook books for their clients because that's the easiest way to hold onto a lucrative contract. There are only so many surprises that one can handle after all. Who could have guessed because they all went to the prestigious schools, lived in the right neighborhoods, wore nice suits and even ties. Ties, for goodness sakes! Shocking, shocking, shocking. Please get me a glass of water and a cold towel for my forehead.

A probe of the credit-rating industry by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that firms used outdated models, were influenced by their clients and waited too long to downgrade investments as the collapse in the housing market intensified in the year before the financial crisis.

The probe shows that some employees at the credit-rating companies were hungry for fees and apparently willing to compromise objective analysis of the quality of investments, according to material released Thursday.

One e-mail suggests that a Moody's employee explicitly agreed to negotiate ratings for investments based on a promise of future fees.

Read the rest of this post...