a word from japa: think of the children

by Japa

We have all been subjected to seeing Republican leaders, from Boehner to Cantor to McConnell to Romney talk about how we need to get the deficit under control. And their rationale is always the same. “Think of what we are doing to our children and our grandchildren. Think of the burden of debt that will be placed on their shoulders. How can we do this to them, our poor babies?”

And guess what? It works. It resonates with people. It hits people in a spot in their hearts, although obviously not their brains, where they respond in a positive manner to that statement. And that is why President Obama does talk about the deficit. He has to folks, whether or not we think it is a big deal, because people want to know he is taking it seriously.

And why is this important? Because people can’t stand the thought that someday in the future, their children and grandchildren will look up and say, “Why did you do this to us? Why did you leave us so burdened with all this debt?” It is an attempt to erase future feelings of guilt. People still want their children to live in a better world than they did.

But guess what? It is all a load of steaming Bulls__t! Not what people want to feel about the future, but how the Republicans manipulate those desires to reach goals that are totally counter to those wishes. And we need to be able to still address those concerns while at the same time undermining the corrupt message the Republicans are sending.

We need to show that the Republicans, including Romney, don’t give a rat’s ass about our children or our grandchildren. And we need to show people, that if they really are concerned about the welfare of their children and grandchildren, President Obama and Democrats hold the same concerns and will work to achieve the results of letting the children and grandchildren have a chance at a better life……

Full post here

iprez

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify them. But the one thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” – Apple

Bulletblogbyjakee

Thanks Carla 😉

Thanks Kasai 😉

pants on fire….

You know, Arianna should really tell her buddy to stop telling fibs.

solyndra

ThinkProgress: It’s often claimed that the Solyndra loan guarantee was “rushed through” by the Obama Administration for political reasons. In fact, the Solyndra loan guarantee was a multi-year process that the Bush Administration launched in 2007.

You’d never know from the media coverage that the Bush team tried to conditionally approve the Solyndra loan just before President Obama took office…..

Because one of the Solyndra investors is funded by George Kaiser – a man who donated money to the Obama campaign – the loan guarantee has been attacked as being political in nature.

What critics don’t mention is that one of the earliest and largest investors, Madrone Capital Partners, is funded by the family that started Wal-Mart, the Waltons. The Waltons have donated millions of dollars to Republican candidates over the years.

…. the media has decided on a narrative that matches right-wing talking points but not the facts….

… To set the record straight, Climate Progress is publishing this timeline – verified by Department of Energy officials – that shows how the loan guarantee came together under both administrations. In fact, rather than rushing the loan for Solyndra through, the Obama Administration restructured the original Bush-era deal to further protect the taxpayers’ investment (See timeline at the link)

What critics fail to mention is that the Solyndra deal is more than three years old, started under the Bush Administration, which tried to conditionally approve the loan right before Obama took office. Rather than “pushing funds out the door too quickly,” the Obama Administration restructured the original loan when it came into office to further protect the taxpayers’ investment.

Full post here

beyond belief…..

ThinkProgress: The Washington Post’s blogger Jennifer Rubin reports that the neoconservative Emergency Committee for Israel has a new ad accusing President Obama of “siding with the Palestinians” in his May 19 speech….

….Yet here’s what ECI’s own executive director Noah Pollak tweeted about the speech as it was happening:

So, first Pollak thought the line about the ’67 borders was no big deal ….. but then, when there was an opportunity to attack President Obama, the line about the ’67 borders magically became a dangerous betrayal of Israel. You really couldn’t ask for a better demonstration of bad faith.

One shouldn’t, of course, expect Jennifer Rubin herself to report any of this. In addition to being Pollak’s former colleague at Commentary, back in February Rubin took a trip to Israel, courtesy of the Emergency Committee for Israel.

Full post and video here

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Rubin’s email address is rubinj@washpost.com – in case you’d like to question her about her less than honest reporting.

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Comment of the Day – StR: “Maybe he’ll say his twitter was hacked.”

😆

equal credit?!

ThinkProgress: Politico reports that supporters of George W. Bush are “irked” that the former president isn’t getting more credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, despite the droves of conservatives lawmakers and pundits who have been rushing to give Bush equal credit as Obama.

But this praise for Bush relies on rewriting history to obscure the fact Obama re-prioritized the hunt for Bin Laden after Bush had largely abandoned the effort to focus on Iraq.

…Asked about the hunt for Bin Laden at a March, 2002 press conference, Bush said, “I truly am not that concerned about him. I am deeply concerned about Iraq.” “I really just don’t spend that much time on him, to be honest with you,” Bush added.

By 2006, the trail for Bin Laden had gone “stone cold” … That year, it was revealed that the administration had shuttered the CIA’s Bin Laden unit in late 2005…

…the Bush administration blew a critical opportunity to capture Bin Laden in 2001. Bin Laden was wounded and on the run, but top Bush national security officials rejected repeated pleas for reinforcements from commanders and intelligence officials fighting the terrorist leader in the caves of Tora Bora, despite the availability of resources…. decisions made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputies, and other top administration officials allowed Bin Laden to escape.

The consequence of this missed opportunity are tremendous. As Lt. Col. Reid Sawyer, the director of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, told NPR yesterday, “if bin Laden had been killed in Afghanistan eight years ago in the caves of Tora Bora, al-Qaida might well have died with him. Now the organization is diversified enough it could weather bin Laden’s death – and hardly miss a beat.”….

Read full post here

Thank you Bobfr

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Comment of the day! – LOL: So let me get this straight….Obama has to stop blaming Bush for the bad economy he inherited because it has been 2.5 yrs, BUT Obama has to give credit to Bush for capturing Bin Laden even though Bush hasn’t seen the inside of the Situation room in 2.5 yrs- yeah, I Must have forgotten (IOKIYAAR)- Its OK If You Are A Republican)

nice

See here

Thank you Dorothy 😉

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Read here about Trump’s history with “the blacks” – thank you Edwina.

here we go again….

Think Progress: This morning, Fox News hosted Rep. Allen West to talk about the budget cuts that the Tea Party wants. In order to frame the discussion as supporting West’s position, which is anti-compromise, the right-wing network cited a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that it claimed showed that most Americans do not want the Republicans to compromise. Host Martha MacCallum claimed the poll showed that “56 percent of Americans say that [Republicans] should stick to their positions.” Watch it:

The problem with the poll that Fox cited is that it doesn’t say anything like what they claim it does. In fact, it appears that they actually switched the numbers around. The poll in question does find that 56 percent of respondents do not want to see the GOP compromise, but the question was directed to self-identified Republicans — meaning that Fox essentially took the number for Republicans and claimed that it represented all Americans:

But hey, it’s hardly the first time Fox reversed poll results to fit its agenda – here

koch puppets

Donald Trump. Oh no, sorry: a sock puppet.

Think Progress (March 9, 2011): Last year, Koch Industries began employing New Media Strategies, an Internet PR firm that specializes  in “word-of-mouth marketing” for major corporations … it appears that ever since the NMS contract was inked with Koch, an NMS employee began editing the Wikipedia page for “Charles Koch,” “David Koch,” “Political activities of the Koch family,” and “The Science of Success” (a book written by Charles).

Under the moniker of “MBMAdmirer,” NMS employees edited Wikipedia articles to distance the Koch family from the Tea Party movement, to provide baseless comparisons between Koch and conspiracy theories surrounding George Soros, and to generally delete citations to liberal news outlets. After administrators flagged the MBMAdmirer account as a “sock puppet” – one of many fake accounts used to manipulate new media sites – a subsequent sock puppet investigation found that MBMAdmirer is connected to a number of dummy accounts and ones owned by NMS employees like Jeff Taylor.

… Lyndsey Medsker, a senior account director for NMS, spoke to ThinkProgress today. She explained that NMS also maintains the Koch Industries Twitter page, Facebook page, and has an active team working on promoting Koch Industries in the comment section of blogs and news websites.

…New Media Strategies at one point tried to lie about its affiliation with Koch Industries. The account “MBMAdmirer” wrote in December on Wikipedia: “I am a citizen who has read about and admires the Koch family. I was not pleased with the way that they have been presented in the media. And I thought that I could come to Wikipedia to try to make sure that there are balancing facts. Nothing I do is in coordination with Koch or authorized by Koch.

More here

Great spot by Fred, I completely missed this story last month.