Lieberman's Cowardice

I wasn't the only one to notice Lieberman's hollow claim that he wishes his opponents would debate him.

I also noticed Bob Scheiffer lacked the cajones to call Lieberman on his lie.

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Liberal vs Conservative

Here's an interesting study on the differences in personality types between liberals and conservatives.

"Multiple studies find that liberals are more optimistic. Conservatives are more likely to be religious. Liberals are more likely to like classical music and jazz, conservatives, country music. Liberals are more likely to enjoy abstract art. Conservative men are more likely than liberal men to prefer conventional forms of entertainment like TV and talk radio. Liberal men like romantic comedies more than conservative men. Liberal women are more likely than conservative women to enjoy books, poetry, writing in a diary, acting, and playing musical instruments. "

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In US Conservatives Consume More Porn

According to this ABC NEWS report, most on line porn consumption is in the states that went for John McCain in 2008.

"Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year's presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama. "

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Tax Cuts and Revenue Growth

We often hear the republicans claim that tax cuts result in revenue growth. To support their claim they've offered up a graphic from Bush's Treasury Department. One can't blame Bush's people for highlighting his tax cut of 2003 and suggest that this somehow caused the curve to begin its upward climb.

It's interesting to note, though, that the Bush people didn't highlight what happened to revenues after his 2001 tax cut. So, I helped them with the grapic by adding the black arrow. As you can see, after the Bush tax cut of 2001, revenues fell. Their theory doesn't hold up to scrutiny - according to their own evidence.

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Should the President Speak to Students

The right wingers who are complaining about President Obama addressing our nation's students didn't complain when it was Reagan doing it.

"Thank you all, and welcome to the White House, and thank you for coming. I want to congratulate all of you from John A. Holmes High School in Edenton, North Carolina, on your great achievements this year and on your upcoming graduation. And a special greeting to Rob Boyce, the principal of this fine school.

As you know, my remarks are being broadcast live over radio and television to high school students throughout the country. While I was in Tokyo at the economic summit, I found myself thinking about all of you, and I decided that when I got back it'd be good to report to you -- share some thoughts that I've been having about the future."

Not one word of complaint from the wingers.

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Justice Sotomayor

Welcome to the Supreme Court. Seems you don't have a lot of friends on the GOP side.

Oh well.

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Liberal Media Bias?

Browsing the transcript of the October 17, 2000 debate between Vice-President Gore and Gov. George Bush, I stumbled across this interesting exchange:

VICE PRESIDENT GORE: -- how are the checks going to be -- how are you going to keep faith with the seniors? Now let me come -- let me come directly to your question --

MR. LEHRER: No, I think we're -- we have to go to the closing statements, and --

GOV. BUSH: Well, can I answer that?

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

Interesting, eh? Gore asks liberal moderator Jim Lehrer for time to answer a question, and liberal moderator Jim Lehrer turns him down cold. Sorry, out of time.

Conservative, George Bush, then asks for time to answer the question, and "liberal" Lehrer responds, "Sure."

Somehow this picture isn't adding up. If PBS and Jim Lehrer are liberal, why does Gore get stiffed while Bush is accommodated? Someone help me out here.

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Only Democrats Run Political Risks?

I heard a couple of talking heads on MSNBC today say that if the Democrats pass a health care bill that's "all Democratic" with no republican support, then it will be "all theirs."

Fine by me. But then they added that there was considerable political risk in that as it could turn out to be a mess, and then the Democrats would get the blame. Okay fine by me still. Fair enough. But wait.

What if it turns out great, and the people love it? Wouldn't that be a risk the republicans are running? That they are saying "no" to something the people want and that the Democrats are willing to give to the people?

Wouldn't that be REALLY REALLY bad for the republicans if health care reform happens, it turns out great, and the people LOVE the Democrats for delivering like they did on Social Security and Medicare? What about that?

Why do our media ONLY focus on political risks they attach to Democrats and NEVER seem to look at the flip side of the coin?

Right wing media bias; you suppose?

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Reagan Tax Myth

Right wingers will try to tell you that Reagan didn't raise taxes. Sorry, but the facts don't agree. Thanks to the National Review for this bit of myth-busting:

''Reagan may have resisted calls for tax increases, but he ultimately supported them. In 1982 alone, he signed into law not one but two major tax increases. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act (TEFRA) raised taxes by $37.5 billion per year and the Highway Revenue Act raised the gasoline tax by another $3.3 billion.

According to a recent Treasury Department study, TEFRA alone raised taxes by almost 1 percent of the gross domestic product, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in American history. An increase of similar magnitude today would raise more than $100 billion per year.

In 1983, Reagan signed legislation raising the Social Security tax rate. This is a tax increase that lives with us still, since it initiated automatic increases in the taxable wage base. As a consequence, those with moderately high earnings see their payroll taxes rise every single year.

In 1984, Reagan signed another big tax increase in the Deficit Reduction Act. This raised taxes by $18 billion per year or 0.4 percent of GDP. A similar-slzed tax increase today would be about $44 billion.

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 raised taxes yet again. Even the Tax Reform Act of 1986, which was designed to be revenue-neutral, contained a net tax increase in its first 2 years. And the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 raised taxes still more.''

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Field and Sky

30" x 40" - Acrylic on Canvas
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Morgan's View

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Sanford? A Democrat?

Fox News is up to its old tricks again. This time trying to con viewers into thinking scandal-plagued Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina is a Democrat. (Notice the "D" after his name in the screen shot below.)



They pulled the same thing with Florida republican, Mark Foley, when he was dragged down by a sex scandal.

Fox News also once told us that John McCain is a Democrat. Do they think we're stupid?

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NYTIMES on the AMA

Media Matters' Jamison Posers did an excellent piece on a recent New York Times article on the American Medical Association. This is an eye-opener.

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Harry James Does "Green Onions"

Absolutely amazing. Yes, I know it's not Memphis "Soul." And I know it's not Stax. But it's a great song delivered up with style all the same. And if that trumpet ain't sexy, I don't know what is.

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The Politics of God

I'd never heard of Welton Gaddy, a Baptist minister from Louisiana, but I caught this bit on MSNBC's Hardball Monday night. The guy impressed me.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Internal Agency Probe: CIA Misleads Congress

Does the CIA mislead congress? According the CIA's internal Inspector General, yes. This is from the Washington Post:

"An internal CIA probe has concluded that agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and federal prosecutors about key details of the 2001 downing of an airplane carrying U.S. missionaries in Peru, according to a senior lawmaker who called yesterday for a new criminal inquiry into the case."

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Specter Chimes in on CIA "Honesty"

Long-time republican, now turned Democrat, Senator Arlen Specter has joined the chorus of congressmen and legislators questioning the "honesty" of the CIA. This is from The Hill:

"The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to -- I was about to say candid, that's too mild -- to honesty."

After a while, it can't be denied any longer that the CIA has a reputation for being less than truthful.

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CIA Already Being Probed for Possible Lying

Pelosi isn't the only one in the House who suspects the CIA of lying. According to this report in Muskegon News, then ranking republican on the House Intelligence Committee, Peter Hoekstra, suggested that the CIA may be covering up and even lying to Congress:

"We need to follow up as aggressively as we can," Hoekstra said. "We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress." [- then Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R)]

Talking Points Memo's Zachary Roth has more on the story.

As they go after Nancy Pelosi over those CIA briefings, Republicans have been putting the burden of proof on the Speaker, suggesting that it's all but unheard of for the CIA to mislead others in government. But in fact, the agency is currently being probed for doing exactly that on a different issue -- and the effort was initiated by one of Pelosi's fiercest critics on the torture briefings kerfuffle.

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Goss Backs Pelosi

Porter Goss backs Peslosi's claim.

"Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned….” [my emphasis added] "

In other words, Goss says Pelosi should have understood NOT that "specific techniques" HAD been employed, but that these techniques were to be employed in the future. This supports Pelosi's version of events.

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Who's Lying?

In a Washington Post Op-Ed piece, Porter Goss expresses amazement that Pelosi would claim waterboarding was not mentioned in the 2002 briefing the two of them received from the CIA regarding interrogation of detainees. This bears some examination.

"Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned."

I've yet to see where Speaker Pelosi made such a claim.

Furthermore, the CIA has released a table which summarizes the dates of briefings, subject of the briefings, and the names of those in attendance. The table shows that Pelosi was briefed in 2002, but the subject-entry for that briefing makes no mention of waterboarding. The subject-entry for a February, 2003 briefing NOT attended by Pelosi, does specifically mention "the waterboard." If waterboarding was discussed in the 2002, briefing, why was it not mentioned in the table summarizing the briefing subjects as it was for the February 2003 briefing? So far, the evidence favors Pelosi. See the CIA document here.

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Press Bashing Pelosi

Thanks to Greg Sargent for this bit on the Pelsosi bashing.

"Let’s briefly recap. Three senior Democrats — Pelosi, Bob Graham, and Jay Rockefeller — have all publicly claimed that the CIA didn’t brief them about the use of torture in the manner the agency has claimed. Meanwhile, the CIA itself has conceded that its own accounting may not be accurate.

Yet key facts that cast doubt on the CIA’s claims have been buried or completely omitted from multiple news reports. The Times’s first mention of Graham’s claims came today, five days after he first made them, and they were buried in the 22nd paragraph of the paper’s write-up. Neither The Time nor The Post have even mentioned Rockefeller’s claims once. The networks have refused across the board to mention the CIA’s own unwillingness to vouch for the accuracy of its information."

Then there is this from Talking Points Memo.

Graham: "Well, [my] notebooks played another role in this. The CIA when I asked them, what were the dates these briefings took place, gave me four dates. And I went back to my spiral notebooks and a daily schedule that I keep and found, and the CIA concurred, that in three of those four dates, there was no briefing held. That raises some questions about the bookkeeping of the CIA."

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Nightmare for the GOP

Howard Fineman calls it a "nightmare for the republican party.

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Limbaugh Caught Again

I remember when right wingers used to try to lie convincingly. Thanks to Media Matterss for this one.

"In addition, they have reformatted the bill -- they've made it a PDF file when they posted it. Now, for those of you that don't use computers, basically what that means is that it cannot be keyword searched. A PDF file is essentially a picture of a page. And, so, you can read every page, but you cannot keyword search it. It's not a text file as legislation normally is as posted on these public websites. They don't want anybody knowing what's in this; they want it happening as fast as possible so nobody can know what's in it. " - Rush Limbagh - lying his ass off

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Summitt Reaches 1000

Congratulations, Coach Pat Summitt on your 1000th victory. We love you.

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Cyndi Lauper, Will You Marry Me?

Whatever you think of Cyndi Lauper, you owe it to yourself to watch this piece of work with one of the nation's greatest musical treasures, Allen Toussaint. Can that gal sang, or what?

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Cost of the Inauguration

I noticed something fishy about the media's reporting on the cost of Obama's inauguration. I noticed that the reports mentioned the costs to DC, to Virginia, and to Maryland. Okay. That's understandable. Then, I looked at the reporting on Bush's inauguartion, and had a hard time finding any mention of these costs to the states and to the City of DC. I wondered about that.

Turns out, in 2001 and in 2005, when the media reported on the cost of Bush's celebration, the media nearly meticulously declined to mention the costs to the states and to DC. So, we were led to believe Bush's party only cost a little bit compared to Obama's.

Our friends at Media Matters thought it looked fishy too, and they got to the bottom of it.

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TN GOP Gone Nuts

This is an interesting story out of Nashville. Seems the Democratic minority in the House there was able to blind-side the republican majority. And the republicans aren't taking it very well. Listen to them boo.



The chair of the GOP in TN says calling Williams a "traitor" is appropriate. These guys are sore losers.

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Kingston Trio

This was popular when I was about 9 or so. It's a classic.



I recently discovered this version of "Sloop John B," and I like it much better than the Beach Boys' version.

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Palin Still Whining about the Media

Watch as Sarah Palin continues to whine and moan about how she was treated by the press.

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Ravel's "Bolero"

It doesn't get much better than this.

Well, okay. Maybe it does get better than this. But for this country-blues picker Ravel is sort of like Furry Lewis or Robert Johnson. I dig what he's doing here, and would like to dig it even "diggier" if you dig what I mean. *S*

I dare you guys to watch this and NOT fall in love with at least one woodwind and with one string. *S*

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