Night Owl Chat – Alabama Shakes

Time for some music. Alabama Shakes, y’all.

“You Ain’t Alone”

This and That

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Steve Benen: We talked earlier about Oklahoma’s junior senator, Republican Tom Coburn (R), announcing last night that he will only support federal disaster relief — for his own constituents — if it’s financed by comparable spending cuts elsewhere. But what about Oklahoma’s senior senator?

Republican Sen. James Inhofe, like Coburn, has opposed emergency aid in the recent past, including voting against a relief package for victims of Hurricane Sandy. This morning, however, the conservative senator said that was “totally different”.

More here

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Only on CNN: Wolf Blitzer: “You’ve got to thank the Lord for that split-second decision.” Woman, in OK: “I’m actually an atheist.”

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) May 21, 2013

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Now Obama has WEATHER WEAPONS? This is a million times worse than the last thing about Obama although I forget what that was.

— Thanks4 Sharing Jerk (@Thx4SharingJerk) May 21, 2013

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WH: As the Senate debates bipartisan immigration reform legislation, the President and the Vice President hosted a meeting today in the Oval Office with young immigrants, also known as DREAMers, as well as with the siblings and spouses of undocumented immigrants. The meeting was an important opportunity for the President and the Vice President to hear directly from people whose families are affected daily by our nation’s broken immigration system.

More here

President Obama and Vice President Biden meet with DREAMers who have received Deferred Action and U.S. citizen family members of undocumented immigrants, in the Oval Office, May 21 (Photo by Pete Souza)

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Socialist stock market soaring to new historic records. S&P 500 hits 1672, Dow at remarkable 15,400. #obamasfault

— Steve Weinstein (@steveweinstein) May 21, 2013

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It being Gallup, you know yourself, it’s probably a 96-year high:

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In case you missed it, SmartyPants on the, well, interesting background of Stephen Jin-Woo Kim:

….. The next place a little curiosity might take you is to wonder just who this Stephen Jin-Woo Kim is. As even I was able to find out from a simple look at Wikipedia, he was an employee of a federally funded research and development center that consulted with Rumsfeld via the Defense Policy Board – which was chaired by Richard Perle. In 2008 – just before the Obama administration began – Kim went to work for the State Department. One might be curious about that…..

More here

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Chat Away

@PeteSouza: ‘POTUS receives update this am on Oklahoma tornado aftermath from Sec Napolitano et al’

Response

President Obama speaks about the tornadoes that impacted Oklahoma yesterday, while joined by VP Biden, Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano and FEMA Deputy Administrator Richard Serino.

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FEMA: 30,000 meals, 45,000 liters of water, 2,100 cots, 4,500 blankets, arrive in Oklahoma at 3 pm

— DonnaLeinwand (@DonnaLeinwand) May 21, 2013

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FEMA deployedUrban Search & Rescue, Incident Management & Mobile Emergency Response Support teams to Oklahoma on Monday.

— DonnaLeinwand (@DonnaLeinwand) May 21, 2013

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If government is evil, then so are we

If one lives in an oppressive system, like Iran or North Korea, then, yes, one can quite easily make the claim that government can be evil.

Modern history is littered with examples of evil governments, from Stalin’s USSR to Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

But what all these governments have in common is a lack of agency among its subjects. The people who lived and continue to live under those regimes have no political control over their lives. Decisions are mandated from some remote source, and all opposition is quashed. With my cantankerous nature, I certainly wouldn’t want to live in the Iran of Ahmedinajad, or the Belarus of Lukashenko.

This is not the case in the United States of America.

Rise and Shine

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Today:

10:0: President Obama delivers a statement on the Oklahoma tornados

Not sure if this is going ahead:

11:0: President Obama and VP Biden meet with DREAMers whose parents are in the country illegally and “who are directly affected by our broken immigration system”.

12:30: Jay Carney briefs the press

5:30: VP Biden delivers remarks at a reception hosted by the DNC in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month at the American Institute of Architects

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Best way to help tornado victims is to donate to the Red Cross at redcross.org or text REDCROSS to 90999. #okwx

— Red Cross Oklahoma (@redcrossokc) May 20, 2013

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Wh Official: Damage assessment teams have I-pads at the ready so that Oklahoma victims can sign up for federal assistance/grants on site.

— Kristen Welker (@kwelkernbc) May 21, 2013

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White House statement: “…. Overnight, the President approved a Major Disaster Deceleration for Oklahoma, making federal funding available to support affected individuals, as well as additional federal assistance to support immediate response and recovery efforts.

“This morning the President will receive a briefing in the Oval Office on the response by Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Lisa Monaco, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco and other senior members of the President’s response team. …

“At the President’s direction, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate is traveling to Oklahoma this morning to ensure all Federal resources are supporting our state, local, and tribal partners in life saving and safety operations including search and rescue.

“FEMA has been supporting the state’s response since Sunday. At the request of the state, FEMA deployed a liaison to the state emergency operations center Sunday night.”

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Wanting to offset costs of relief to Oklahoma with budget offsets is heinous. It is literally sick.

— William K. Wolfrum (@Wolfrum) May 21, 2013

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Steve Benen: …. Ordinarily, so soon after a disaster of this magnitude, discussions about political agendas and ideologies are put on hold, which is why it came as a surprise when one of Oklahoma’s U.S. senators staked out a far-right position on federal disaster relief just five hours after the storm hit…..

I’ve seen many note overnight that Coburn is at least consistent ….. but while consistently is welcome, it doesn’t change the questions about unnecessary callousness…..

More here

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Oklahoma Senator won’t support tornado relief w/o budget cuts.He voted for billions in Iraq War funding w/o cuts.thkpr.gs/13EyOp7

— ThinkProgress (@thinkprogress) May 21, 2013

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Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s resident Fact Denier (who so brilliantly agreed with Darrell Issa when he said an “act of terror” is not a “terrorist attack”) excelled himself today – he gave ‘Three Pinocchios’ to White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer for stating the facts: that the Benghazi emails were doctored in an attempt to smear the President.

Seriously.

So, his problem is with Pfeiffer, not with those who doctored the emails or the reporters who used them for their ‘exclusives’.

There are too many ‘highlights’ to choose from, here are two:

“….. the reporters involved have indicated they were told by their sources that these were summaries, taken from notes of e-mails that could not be kept.”

So, why did Jon Karl repeatedly imply that he had seen the original emails?

“Despite Pfeiffer’s claim of political skullduggery, we see little evidence that much was at play here besides imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors by journalists.”

“… imprecise wordsmithing or editing errors.”

Oh boy, nooooooooo words.

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