This post is just a follow up of a discussion that I was having with my dear friend Starshine in the comment section of one of my other posts. I went looking for more information on this video of Rep. Alan Grayson, of Florida, ripping Georgia’s Paul Broun another crack in his butt.
The point of Grayson’s questioning revolves around a legislative act called “Bill of Attainder”.
In the following clip, Rep. Alan Grayson prosecutorially dismantles Georgia’s Paul Broun on an amendment banning ACORN employees from participating in certain government oversight function. The reason is that it is unconstitutional to single out a certain group or class for special treatment, what the constitution refers to as bills of attainder. The bill is political nonsense, and clearly unconstitutional. Rep. Broun obviously has no understanding of the constitution, and cannot even come close to competing with Grayson’s deep and abiding knowledge of the constitution and its history. It’s pretty brutal, and we need to see a lot more of this.
As usual, Grayson just goes at this guy with his calm and cunning demeanor, never allowing anyone to make him stray from the point he was trying to make. This guy is going places.
Posted in politics | Tagged ACORN, Bill of Attainder, Faux News, Fox News, Rep Alan Grayson, Rep. Paul Broun | 5 Comments »
Lately, I have been trying to stay away from the political lunacy that has been enveloping this country. I have tried to remain positive knowing that we just have to have some sort of trust in the choice we made in electing Barack Obama. Then I came across the following photos that are a part of the newest group that were just released by the White House on the official White House Flickr photostream. All you need to do is go through these photos and look at the faces of the people who come to listen to him speak. I dare anyone to find a similar photo of anyone looking at George W. Bush with the same look of hope and admiration on their faces. It is so true that a picture is worth a thousand words, or better, it paints a thousand words.
Posted in Me, President Barack Obama | Tagged Barack Obama, Official White House photographs, President Barack Obama | 36 Comments »
Finally…. someone standing up and telling it like it is. Now we need the rest of our elected officials to grow their own respective cajones.
By CSPANJunkie Friday Oct 09, 2009 8:00am
October 08, 2009 C-SPAN. Rep. Alan Grayson has a few words for both Democrats and Republicans on health care reform.
Grayson: Maddam Speaker I have words for both Democrats and Republicans tonight. Let’s start with the Democrats. We as a party have spent the last six months– the greatest minds of our party dwelling on the question, the unbelievably consuming question of how to get Olympia Snowe to vote for health care reform. I want to remind us all… Olympia Snowe was not elected president last year. Olympia Snowe has no veto power in the Senate. Olympia Snowe represents a state with one half of one percent of America’s population.
What America wants is health care reform. America doesn’t care if it gets fifty one votes in the Senate or sixty votes in the Senate, or eighty three votes in the Senate– in fact America doesn’t even care about that. It doesn’t care about that at all.
What America cares about is this. There are over one million Americans who go broke every single year trying to pay their health care bill. America cares a lot about that. America cares about the fact that there are forty four thousand seven hundred eighty Americans who die every single year on account of not having health care. That’s a hundred and twenty two every day. America sure cares a lot about that.
America cares about the fact that if you have a pre-existing condition even if you have health insurance, it’s not covered. America cares about that a lot. America cares about the fact that you can get all the health care you need as long as you don’t need any. America cares about that a lot.
By bluegal Friday Oct 09, 2009 7:39am
President Barack Obama made history again Friday, winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples
The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized Obama’s efforts to solve complex global problems, including working toward a world free of nuclear weapons.
President Obama is the first sitting President since Woodrow Wilson to be awarded this honor. (Videos from CSpanJunkie)
Of course, the right wing is saying it’s because he’s not George Bush, without acknowledging the shame our country still wears from Bush being the “Anti-Peace and No Prize” President:
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By John Amato Friday Oct 09, 2009 7:00am
There are a bunch of votes still left to take in the Senate. How many, you ask?
Louisville, Ky.: Ezra, can you shed some light on the process involved in moving the Health-Care bill through the Senate? I’ve heard bits and pieces about number of votes required, but would like some clarification about: voting to block filibuster in the Senate, taking the bill back to a joint Senate-House conference, then back to the floor for final vote. Would you expand on this? Thanks.
Ezra Klein: Sure. Next move is the Finance Committee vote on Tuesday: that requires a bare majority of the committee (I think that means 11 votes, but that’s just memory). Then Reid and the Democratic leadership blend the HELP and Finance bills into one bill. That doesn’t require any votes. Then the bill comes to the floor. It’ll need 60 votes against a filibuster, and 51 votes in favor of the legislation.
Then we have to deal with the House bills. Do you have a headache? People are becoming very irritable in America. Haven’t you noticed? The health-care debate and the economic situation is really, really making life miserable for most of America.
A kiss for luck and we’re on our way…
Before the rising sun we fly…
So many roads to choose…
We start out walking and learn to run…
By Susie Madrak Friday Oct 09, 2009 6:00am
I think Nick Kristof makes a fine suggestion here and we should ask Congress to do it to show they’re working in good faith:
Let me offer a modest proposal: If Congress fails to pass comprehensive health reform this year, its members should surrender health insurance in proportion with the American population that is uninsured.
It may be that the lulling effect of having very fine health insurance leaves members of Congress insensitive to the dysfunction of our existing insurance system. So what better way to attune our leaders to the needs of their constituents than to put them in the same position?
About 15 percent of Americans have no health insurance, according to the Census Bureau. Another 8 percent are underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund, a health policy research group. So I propose that if health reform fails this year, 15 percent of members of Congress, along with their families, randomly lose all health insurance and another 8 percent receive inadequate coverage.
Congressional critics of President Obama’s efforts to achieve health reform worry that universal coverage will be expensive, while their priority is to curb social spending. So here’s their chance to save government dollars in keeping with their own priorities.
Those same critics sometimes argue that universal coverage needn’t be a top priority because anybody can get coverage at the emergency room. Let them try that with their kids.
By Mike Finnigan Friday Oct 09, 2009 5:00am
OurFuture: “Anything Goes” capitalism destroys companies and workers’ lives
Capital Eye: Aides, lobbyists and contributors among those left in the wake of John Ensign’s ethics scandal
Lean Left: Don’t know much about history, biology, science books, the French I took…or art. But I do know that I’m a right wing moron.
Where’s the Outrage?: Dr. Errington Thompson says…”Keith, thanks for letting America see the world I work in every day.”
TAPPED: Congress’ torture coverup
Welcome Back to Pottersville: Assclowns of the Week: Nattering nabobs of negativism edition
By bluegal Thursday Oct 08, 2009 8:30pm
What? This Lewis Black clip features Not Safe For Work Language? Ya THINK?
His concert movie opens Friday I can’t &$*#&%^@! WAIT to see it.
Open Thread below.
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By MaxMarginal Thursday Oct 08, 2009 8:00pm
A blind man and woman from Mali get married in 1980, make music together for years and get some recognition internationally after 25+ years of hard work? Better late than never! The recent past has found Amadou and Mariam opening for Coldplay, jamming with David Gilmour, and getting the accolades that you, having now listened to the sizzling hotness that is this track, agree that they completely deserve.
By David Neiwert Thursday Oct 08, 2009 7:00pm
Sean Hannity’s desperation in his dire quest to keep up with Glenn Beck by getting a White House scalp in the form of safe-schools advocate Kevin Jennings has now gone from simply fabricating stories out of distorted evidence to outright gay-bashing.
Last night he brought on Rep. Steve King of Iowa — one of the nation’s leading bigots, the guy who predicted Al Qaeda would love Obama and claimed that the hate-crimes bill would protect pedophiles but not veterans. And it quickly became clear what their chief objection to Jennings really is:
He’s gay.
King objects to having someone “pushing the homosexual agenda” in charge of advocating safety in schools — even though one of the primary forms of violence within our schools involves bullying gay students. But then, King is a guy who objects to including gays and lesbians in hate-crimes protections on free-speech grounds — which is to say, he thinks that beating up gays is a First Amendment right — so it fits.
And Hannity chimes along. Because, like Inspector Javert, he is a man possessed … of the need to beat Glenn Beck. He doesn’t mind whatever casualties pile up along the way.
By Heather Thursday Oct 08, 2009 6:00pm
Another one of both Michelle Bachmann and Bill O’Reilly’s finer moments on Fox Noise. O’Reilly can’t understand why everyone is “after” poor little old Michele Bachmann and says she’s second only behind Sarah Palin in “far left angst” and asks Bachmann why the left is “after her”.
Bachmann: You know, it’s an interesting phenomenon, I think it happened with the competing cable networks who’ve taken an interest in me, and it’s only grown and so now it’s almost like I have personal stalkers, only they have TV shows. So it’s kind of an interesting phenomenon.
So who’s stalking you Michele? Chris Matthews? I would suspect he’ll have something to say about this on his show tomorrow.
While trying to rationalize Bachmann’s arguments on why the left doesn’t like her, Bill-O throws this one out there.
O’Reilly: Do you think, and this is an off the wall question and I’m telling the audience that it’s just something that occurred to me. Both you and Sarah Palin are good looking women. I mean you’re attractive, young… relatively young women, who other women can identify with. You’re a mom, a wife, you had a private sector job. I think that’s it. I think that the success of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann drive the far left crazy because you don’t fit, they don’t like what you believe in, but you, but you can attract others to listen to you. I think that’s what’s going on.
Yeah, that’s it Bill. The left hates Palin and Bachmann because you think they’re hot. And they’re successful. What liberal woman could ever relate to that? And mothers…gasp. What liberal woman could relate to that either? And they had jobs… Oh my goodness what liberal woman could ever relate to another woman that had a job?
And you’d better watch it Michele or you might be getting a phone call from O’Reilly wanting you to talk dirty to him on the phone. (Warning, link definitely not safe for work.)
By Logan Murphy Thursday Oct 08, 2009 5:00pm
There are varying views on gun rights and gun control in America, and since Barack Obama was elected president, the right has been whipping up their fringe base, warning that the Democrats are coming for their guns. We’ve seen unprecedented displays of weapons outside Obama events in recent months and right wing violence is on the rise.
In this very ironic and tragic story, a woman from Pennsylvania who carried an open, loaded pistol to her child’s soccer game was shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide:
Meleanie Hain, the pistol-carrying Lebanon mom who received national attention for taking a loaded gun to her daughter’s soccer game, was shot to death Wednesday night with her husband in an apparent murder-suicide, police said.
Meleanie Hain was thrust into the national spotlight when she took a gun, in plain view and holstered on her hip, to a soccer game Sept. 11, 2008, at Optimist Park in Lebanon.
In a case that was sure to get a lot of traction from the right, Hain was in the process of suing the sheriff who revoked her gun permit after the incident — even though her license was reinstated shortly after.
Hain then filed a lawsuit against DeLeo for $1 million in U.S. Middle District Court seeking reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and costs, emotional distress and lost wages.
“Just the fact that he was wrong is evidenced by the fact that my license was restored to me. … I am a victim of Sheriff Michael DeLeo’s. I am a victim of those in society as a direct result of his actions as well. The way people look at me sometimes when I am out running errands, I feel as if I am wearing a scarlet letter, and really it’s a Glock 26.” Read on…
I’m not trying to put Hain on trial here, but I disagree with her irresponsible actions in taking a loaded weapon and openly displaying it at a children’s sporting event. I feel for their three children who were at home at the time of the shootings and are now faced with growing up without their parents.
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By Susie Madrak Thursday Oct 08, 2009 4:00pm
This is good news if it works, and if they can target it where it will get the biggest bang for the buck – sort of like a national “enterprise zone.” (If, of course, they can avoid the political pork-pull that inevitably directs the money to the places where it’s needed least.) No wonder Eric Cantor’s excited about the idea – it’s a way of bringing home the bacon without taking a hit for raising taxes:
The idea of a tax credit for companies that create new jobs, something the federal government has not tried since the 1970s, is gaining support among economists and Washington officials grappling with the highest unemployment in a generation.
The proposal has some bipartisan appeal among politicians eager both to help their unemployed constituents and to encourage small-business development. Legislators on Capitol Hill and President Obama’s economic team have been quietly researching the policy for several weeks.
“There is a lot of traction for this kind of idea,” said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican whip. “If the White House will take the lead on this, I’m fairly positive it would be welcomed in a bipartisan fashion.”
In addition to the economists working on the proposal, some heavyweights support the concept, including the Nobel laureate Edmund S. Phelps, Dani Rodrik of Harvard and former Labor Secretary Robert B. Reich.
One version of the approach, to be unveiled next week by the Economic Policy Institute, a labor-oriented research organization, would give employers a two-year tax credit if they increased the size of their work force or added significant hours of work (for example, making a part-time worker full time). Employers would receive a credit worth twice the first-year payroll tax for each new hire, amounting to several thousand dollars, depending on the new worker’s salary.
“It’s beautiful if it can be timed at a dire moment like this, when unemployment is way too high and appears to be going somewhat higher,” said Mr. Phelps, an economics professor at Columbia, lamenting that the president dropped it from the $787 billion stimulus plan approved in February. “But it’s a pity that this wasn’t done a year ago.”
By Ian Welsh Thursday Oct 08, 2009 3:00pm
Buying oil in dollars is one of the foundations of the dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency. Because the the dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency Americans have been able to borrow money for significantly less than other countries are able to. This has both made America more prosperous, and through the perverse incentives of cheap money, helped lead to the high indebtedness of American citizens and the financial crisis.
In addition, buying oil in dollars is one of the things which allowed strong dollar policies to drive the price of oil down. Making dollars extremely scarce in the 80’s and nineties was one key factor leading to a price per barrel under $20. Oil prices started their rise upwards after Greenspan’s Federal Reserve let loose the money spigot in the Asian crisis and the Long Term Capital fiasco. Greenspan essentially never took his foot off the pedal from that point onwards, and oil prices soared, until last year at one point they were over $150/barrel.
So one consequence of going off the dollar is that a major benefit of the strong dollar play is taken off the table, and the US loses its ability to control the price of oil. Since at this time, contrary to what the Feds are saying, a strong dollar play isn’t in the cards (the US needs to borrow way too much money) that’s not a big deal in the short run—in the long run it is.
But buying oil in dollars isn’t the only thing that underpins the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and to understand what buying oil in something other than dollars would mean we need to understand what else makes, or perhaps more accurately, made, the dollar so important.
By John Amato Thursday Oct 08, 2009 2:00pm
Now, Pelosi is backpedaling on Afghanistan amidst increasing criticism from the radical left:
“I’ve also made it clear it’s a very difficult vote to get from the members,” she added. “Their constituents don’t like an escalated war in Afghanistan. They’d like to see a different approach. But let’s see what the president has to say.” (Glenn Thrush, “Pelosi skeptical about Afghan surge, McChrystal,” Politico, 10/05/2009)
“General Pelosi has no problem sacrificing her own credibility as the Obama administration and liberals in Congress attempt to walk back a strategy they strongly advocated just months ago,” said NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain. “Nancy Pelosi continues to make party politics a higher priority than our national security. Rather than listening to a four-star general’s assessments on Afghanistan, General Pelosi somehow believes she is better suited to craft our country’s military policy.” If Nancy Pelosi’s failed economic policies are any indicator of the effect she may have on Afghanistan, taxpayers can only hope McChrystal is able to put her in her place.
Matt Yglesias says that the NRCC is trying to “deploy a touch of the old condescending sexism via the Speaker of the House of Representatives.”
Nancy Pelosi responded to the NRCC like this:
“It’s really sad they don’t understand how inappropriate that is,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference. ” I’m in my place. I’m the Speaker of the House, the first woman Speaker of the House. And I’m in my place because the House voted me there. That language is something I hadn’t heard in decades.”
I always love how conservatives attack Democratic women and want them to stay home and watch the kids, but when it comes a conservative in politic they flip flop to try and appear as if they support women’s rights. Here’s Richard Land on MTP back in 2005 sharing his vision of women in America:
Russert: We can try to find common ground, but there are differences, and I want to see just how profound they are. The Southern Baptist Convention in 1998 passed this statement on the family: “…A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband… She…has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household…”And, Reverend Land, you went on to explain it this way: “If a husband does not want his wife to work outside the home, then she should not work outside the home.” Is that your vision of America?
DR. LAND: It’s my vision for Christian families. I don’t think that the law has anything to do with it.
And as usual Beck rules: Dear Mom, Beck has history of sexist comments
//
63% of dealers sold to investigators who said they “probably couldn’t pass a background check“.See how a dangerous legal loophole is letting criminals get guns.
Posted in Healthcare, Videos | Tagged Health Care Reform, Healthcare, Healthcare Reform, Rep Alan Grayson, Republicans, Rethuglicans | 15 Comments »
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