That's all for now folks, this
blog is going on vacation for a while......

Rush Limbaugh: Wrong Again about the Economy - What will he say about Today's economic data?

Rush Limbaugh has been poo-pooing all the talk about the bad economy - saying its all hype. Here's what Rush Limbaugh said on his Jan. 21st show of this year: "And I think poor Marie has been subjected to how many years of media attempts to create a crisis mentality where the economy is concerned. For five years, at least, the media's been trying to convince every one of you that we're already in a recession, and now, they're trying to convince you we are in a depression, that it is worse than the Great Depression, and it isn't. We haven't even gotten close to how bad it was in the 1970s. We haven't gotten close to the recession in 1982. Yet this willingness to -- I mean, she started her own business at some point, but now she's willing to put aside whatever she did at that time to start the business and sit around and hope that there will be some change come down the pike because of a change in occupants in the White House."

And here's the news from this morning:

Employers slash 598,000 jobs in Jan., most since `74; unemployment rate bolts to 7.6 percent

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Recession-battered employers eliminated 598,000 jobs in January, the most since the end of 1974, and catapulted the unemployment rate to 7.6 percent. [It was 7.2 in December!]

The grim figures were further proof that the nation's job climate is deteriorating at an alarming clip with no end in sight. The Labor Department's report, released Friday, showed the terrible toll the drawn-out recession is having on workers and companies. It also puts even more pressure on President Barack Obama to revive the economy.

The latest net total of job losses was far worse than the 524,000 that economists expected. Job reductions in November and December also were deeper than previously reported.

With cost-cutting employers in no mood to hire, the unemployment rate bolted to 7.6 percent in January, the highest since September 1992. The increase in the jobless rate from 7.2 percent in December also was worse than the 7.5 percent rate economists expected.

All told, the economy has lost a staggering 3.6 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007. About one-half of this decline occurred in the past three months.

The view from my window.

The view from my window.

Admitting Error As President: Obama vs. Bush

Paul Krugman: Time to fight!

"It's the GOP's fault that Mom and Dad lost their jobs in the first place
and now they have to sell us kids just to keep the house."

Krugman takes on the GOP - here's the last three paragraphs from his column in today's New York Times:

"Would the Obama economic plan, if enacted, ensure that America won’t have its own lost decade? Not necessarily: a number of economists, myself included, think the plan falls short and should be substantially bigger. But the Obama plan would certainly improve our odds. And that’s why the efforts of Republicans to make the plan smaller and less effective — to turn it into little more than another round of Bush-style tax cuts — are so destructive.

So what should Mr. Obama do? Count me among those who think that the president made a big mistake in his initial approach, that his attempts to transcend partisanship ended up empowering politicians who take their marching orders from Rush Limbaugh. What matters now, however, is what he does next.

It’s time for Mr. Obama to go on the offensive. Above all, he must not shy away from pointing out that those who stand in the way of his plan, in the name of a discredited economic philosophy, are putting the nation’s future at risk. The American economy is on the edge of catastrophe, and much of the Republican Party is trying to push it over that edge."

-- The whole column HERE.

Cheney: Boo!

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

Watch Glen Greenwald take on Dick Cheney.

Vatican turnaround: Holocaust denier must recant

By VICTOR L. SIMPSON, Associated Press Writer Victor L. Simpson, Associated Press Writer Wed Feb 4, 6:16 pm ET –

AP – This undated image from video shows British-born Bishop Richard Williamson, center, conducting a Mass …

• Play Video Video: Holocaust denier told to recant Reuters

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican, bowing to the growing furor over Pope Benedict XVI's decision to accept a return to the church of a prelate who denied the Holocaust, made a dramatic turnaround Wednesday and demanded the bishop recant.

The Vatican sought to distance the pope from the controversy by saying he did not know about British Bishop Richard Williamson's views when he agreed to lift his excommunication last month.

In the surprisingly public spat, some leading cardinals in Germany and at the Vatican blamed unidentified aides for not fully briefing the pope.

The controversy provided a rare look at the cracks in the Vatican's facade of unity and raised questions about the advice the pope receives and his access to information. Papal aides say Benedict, a former university professor and theologian, receives a daily news summary and occasionally watches television.

The statement was issued by the Vatican's Secretariat of State a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the pope to make a clearer rejection of Holocaust denials. Top German church officials, Jewish groups and the head of the U.S. bishops conference also condemned Williamson.

Continues HERE.

http://eyeonpalin.org/

http://eyeonpalin.org/

Remember when.....

Sen. Gregg to poor people: Go fuck yourselves.

Sen. Gregg - Our new Commerce Secretary?

Who is Republican Senator Judd Gregg? Read a little about him in the Concord Monitor [Oct. 21, 2005] available from this link. The text is below - check out the paragraphs in red:

As head of the Senate Budget Committee, Sen. Judd Gregg works with big numbers all the time. Yesterday, he got to add a big number to his own budget.

How big? $853,492.

"That's the gross number, of course," Gregg said of his prize. "After taxes, it's closer to $500,000."

Gregg was one of 49 people across the country to win money by matching five of six number's in yesterday's record Powerball drawing.

Even so, Gregg's haul was nothing to sneeze at - not even for a man of his considerable personal wealth.

According to reports filed earlier this year, Gregg's assets already totaled between $1.5 million and $6.2 million before his lottery win. His income last year fell somewhere between $278,000 and $1.2 million. (The figures are fuzzy because senators don't have to report exact financial holdings, just ranges.)

Gregg, a Republican from Rye, snagged his lucky ticket Wednesday morning, at a gas station in Washington, D.C. He bought four tickets, $20 total, and let the Powerball machine pick his numbers. He doesn't often play the lottery, he said, but the jackpot was too impressive to ignore.

"The sign said '350 million,' or something," Gregg said.

It was $340 million, actually. One grand prize-winning ticket was sold in Oregon, but as of last night, nobody had claimed the prize.

Gregg summoned reporters to discuss his winnings on a conference call yesterday afternoon. He chuckled when asked about the irony of a self-described "budget hawk" hitting the jackpot.

"I guess it means I'm good with numbers," he said. He laughed a bit more, then said: "I think every American believes in good fortune and a little luck. And I'm no different than everybody else."

Gregg didn't let that good fortune keep him from putting in a full day's work yesterday. For instance, he found time to vote against a bill that would have helped poor families pay their home heating costs this winter. (Gregg was the only New England senator to vote against the proposal.)

A day earlier, Gregg voted against raising the minimum wage by $1.10, to $6.25 an hour. That wage hasn't increased since 1997.

Gregg wasted no time claiming his share of the Powerball prize, picking up his oversized check from the lottery commission and depositing it in his bank account.

[continues here]

Frank Rich on the GOP and their leader, Rush.

Comedian Rush Limbaugh taking a rest from Yapping.

Frank Rich concludes his column from yesterday's NY Times with this:

The Republicans’ other preoccupation remains Rush Limbaugh, who is by default becoming their de facto leader. While most Americans are fearing fear itself, G.O.P. politicians are tripping over themselves in morbid terror of Rush.

These pratfalls commenced after Obama casually told some Republican congressmen (correctly) that they won’t “get things done” if they take their orders from Limbaugh. That’s all the stimulus the big man needed to go on a new bender of self-aggrandizement. He boasted that Obama is “more frightened” of him than he is of the Republican leaders in the House or Senate. He said of the new president, “I hope he fails.”

Obama no doubt finds Limbaugh’s grandiosity more amusing than frightening, but G.O.P. politicians are shaking like Jell-O. When asked by Andrea Mitchell of NBC News on Wednesday if he shared Limbaugh’s hope that Obama fails, Eric Cantor spun like a top before running off, as it happened, to appear on Limbaugh’s radio show. Mike Pence of Indiana, No. 3 in the Republican House leadership, similarly squirmed when asked if he agreed with Limbaugh. Though the Republicans’ official, poll-driven line is that they want Obama to succeed, they’d rather abandon that disingenuous nicety than cross Rush.

Most pathetic of all was Phil Gingrey, a right-wing Republican congressman from Georgia, who mildly criticized both Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to Politico because they “stand back and throw bricks” while lawmakers labor in the trenches. So many called Gingrey’s office to complain that the poor congressman begged Limbaugh to bring him on air to publicly recant on Wednesday. As Gingrey abjectly apologized to talk radio’s commandant for his “stupid comments” and “foot-in-mouth disease,” he sounded like the inmate in a B-prison-movie cowering before the warden after a failed jailbreak.

“It’s up to me to hijack the Obama honeymoon,” Limbaugh soon gloated, “and I’ve done it.” In his dreams. He has hijacked what’s left of the Republican Party; the Obama honeymoon remains intact. The nightmare is that we have so irrelevant, clownish and childish an opposition party at a moment when America is in an all-hands-on-deck emergency that’s as trying as war. To paraphrase a dictum that has been variously attributed to two of our most storied leaders in times of great challenge, Thomas Paine and George Patton, the Republicans should either lead, follow or get out of the grown-ups’ way.

- from Frank Rich, NYTimes

Click Here.

Click Here.

Barney Frank Tells the Truth About the Budget and the War in Iraq

Frank: The largest spending bill in history is going to turn out to be the one in Iraq. If we're going to talk about spending, I have a problem when we leave out that extraordinary expensive, damaging war in Iraq, which has caused much more harm than good in my judgment. I don't understand from my conservative friends, building a road, building a school, helping to get health care, that's wasteful spending. But that war in Iraq, that's going to cost us over a trillion dollars, yeah, I wish we hadn't done that we would have been in a lot better shape fiscally.

STEPHANOPOULOS: That is a whole another show, so I'm going to...

(CROSSTALK)

FRANK: That's the problem. The problem is that we look at spending and say, "Oh, don't spend on highways. Don't spend on health care. But let's build Cold War weapons to defeat the Soviet Union when we don't need them. Let's have hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars going to the military without a check." Unless everything's on the table, then you're going to have a disproportionate hit in some places.

-- From This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Feb. 1, 2009

Bernard Goldberg: Afraid of Howard Kurtz?

Bernard Goldberg: Did someone at CBS years ago
take away his toys? Is that what made him so mad?

Bernie Goldberg ducks Howard Kurtz

By John Amato Sunday Feb 01, 2009 - from Crooks and Liars.

This even came as a surprise to me as much as it did to Howard Kurtz via CNN.

KURTZ: Before we go to break, author Bernard Goldberg was scheduled to appear on this program to talk about his new book on media bias – until Friday, when he abruptly canceled, without explanation, even though his people had approached us.

Now, I assume Bernie respects my work. His book, about the press supposedly being in the tank for Barack Obama, quotes me and my articles several times. There it is. He’s been out flogging the thing with Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Lou Dobbs – people who agree with him. Do you think, maybe, he doesn’t want to leave his pals and face some skeptical questioning? Come on, Bernie, we’ll have a good debate on this issue, one-on-one, without bias. You’re welcome here anytime.

Notice the only CNN host Kurtz mentioned Goldberg interviewed with?. Dobbs. He's right up there with Hannity and friends. Is Bernie afraid of Kurtz? I wouldn't have thought so.

I'll bet Goldberg didn't want to face questions about matters such as this:

In yet another instance of mangling the facts to show purported media favoritism toward then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, Bernard Goldberg writes in his new book: "Finally, in the last month of the campaign, the [New York] Times returned to the Obama-Ayers story, but only after McCain and (mostly) Palin began making it an issue on the campaign trail."

In fact, in what ABC News' Imtiyaz Delawala reported was the "first time" Gov. Sarah Palin raised Obama's connection to former Weather Underground member William Ayers, Palin actually cited the October 4, 2008, New York Times story to which Goldberg refers. Indeed, a Media Matters for America search* of the Nexis database found no reports of Palin mentioning Obama's connection to Ayers prior to the publication of the October 4 Times article.

Here's the video:

Images from Alan Freed's The Big Beat shows 1958.

More Images HERE.


Bo Diddley


Buddy Holly

Republicans - They Suck, plain and simple.

Rush Limbaugh: Only Assholes Listen To Him.

From Glenn Greenwald

Dick Armey and post-partisan harmony

(updated below - Update II)

Numerous people have commented on the deeply repellent behavior from former GOP House Majority Leader Dick Armey on Hardball yesterday, when he appeared with Salon's Joan Walsh. You can watch the video here. After dismissively cackling every time Walsh spoke, Armey finally spat at her: "I am so damn glad that you could never be my wife, 'cause I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day." I want to focus on two points highlighted by this episode:

First, Dick Armey isn't some obscure, aberrational Republican. He was one of the key leaders of the so-called "Gingrich Revolution" of the 1990s, when the modern incarnation of the Republican Party fully degenerated into the crazed, primitive, regional mess that it is today. He wasn't a back-bencher. He was the Republicans' House Majority Leader for eight years -- from 1995 to 2003 (when he left Congress, failed to have his son elected to his seat, and was replaced as the GOP's House Majority Leader by Tom DeLay).

People like Dick Armey -- and Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity -- are the face of today's GOP, its heart and soul. Armey, who once notoriously referred to Barney Frank as "Barney Fag," comes from a faction -- the Texas Republican Party -- that continues to advocate formally in its 2008 Party Platform (.pdf), among so many wonderful planks, that sex between gay people be criminalized and that all gay citizens be denied the most basic rights, including even the right to adopt children and to have custody over their own children [p.12]:

We also believe that no homosexual or any individual convicted of child abuse or molestation should have the right to custody or adoption of a minor child, and that visitation by such persons with a minor child should be prohibited [p. 14]. . . .

The Texas GOP wants creationism taught in the public schools alongside evolution and given "equal treatment" [p. 17]; Guantanamo to remain opened [p. 24]; the U.S. military to remain in Iraq with no timetable for withdrawal [p. 24]; and extraordinary medical care to be denied to all prisoners except for those who can pay for it themselves [p. 19].

The party's 2008 Platform also demands that the U.S. -- this is really what it says -- "cease strong arming Israel" by pressuring them "to make future diplomatic concessions, such as giving up land to the Palestinians on the West Bank" [p. 24]. American policy towards Israel, they argue, should be "based on God's biblical promise to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel and we further invite other nations and organizations to enjoy the benefit of that promise" [p. 24]. Armey himself, in a 2002 Hardball appearance, advocated that Palestinians should "leave" the West Bank and Gaza (which Armey believes is part of Israel) and go somewhere else. His state party's Platform also wants the U.S. to "immediately rescind our membership in, as well as financial and military contributions to, the United Nations" [p. 25] .

These are the people who have largely been in power for the last two decades and the country is in the shape one would expect it to be in as a result. That's why all of this chatter about post-partisan transcendence and trans-partisan harmony and the like is so inane.

Continues HERE.

Terry McAuliffe Sucks Ass

VA-Gov: McAuliffe, populist hero

by kos

Wed Jan 28, 2009 at 02:10:02 PM PST

Ha ha ha.

That's Terry McAuliffe, the guy who couldn't remember whether he was running for governor in Virginia or Florida, saying:

It goes to show, the best ideas don't always come out of Richmond.

Yeah, those damn elitists downstate in Richmond don't know nothing! Well, at least not as much as the Floridian New Yorker who has been the embodiment of the DC establishment as the Clintons' chief money guy for over a decade (and a big-money party operative for nearly three decades). So crash that Richmond gate, Terry, because what Virginia needs is just a little more D.C.

Just make sure you know where the heck Richmond is. It's that place directly south from your usual hangout. - from the Daily Kos

Jessica Alba Slams BillO the Clown

Who's the Pinhead? Jessica Alba pwns BillO the Clown

By David Neiwert Thursday Jan 29, 2009 from Crooks and Liars.

Download | Play Download | Play

BillO was obviously still smarting last week after Jessica Alba called him an a-hole.

So he followed up on his Jan. 21 show (clip above) by calling her a "pinhead" and painting her as just another one of those airheaded Hollywood elites. His reasoning?

Well, when Alba was again cornered by one of Fox's ambush-squad camera crews, she turned the tables by getting out her camera and asking questions of her inquisitor. When he refused to answer because he's a "journalist" (note: this is a fake excuse) she asked, "Why not? Be neutral. Be Sweden about it."

O'Reilly: Be Sweden about it? Ah, that's Switzerland, Jessica. Sweden is a very nice country but Switzerland is the land of neutrality.

Ah, that's also Sweden, BillO.

As Alba put it at her MySpace page:

I want to clear some things up that have been bothering me lately. I find it depressing that in the midst of perhaps the most salient time in our country's history, individuals are taking it upon themselves to encourage negativity and stupidity. Last week, Mr. Bill O'Reilly and some really classy sites (i.e.TMZ) insinuated I was dumb by claiming Sweden was a neutral country. I appreciate the fact that he is a news anchor and that gossip sites are inundated with intelligent reporting, but seriously people...it's so sad to me that you think the only neutral country during WWII was Switzerland. Check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden_during_World_War_II if you want to see what I was referring to. I appreciate the name calling and the accurate reporting. Keep it up!!

As MSNBC's Courtney Hazlett notes: "Although Switzerland is more frequently cited as an example of neutrality, Sweden did indeed follow a policy of neutrality during World War II. History point to Alba."

If Alba's an airhead/pinhead, what does that make O'Reilly?

-- from Crooks and Liars.

GOP Lawmakers Outnumber Democratic Lawmakers 2 To 1 In Stimulus Debate On Cable News

REPORT: GOP Lawmakers Outnumber Democratic Lawmakers 2 To 1 In Stimulus Debate On Cable News - from Think Progress.

As Media Matters has documented, during the Bush administration, the media consistently allowed conservatives to dominate their shows, booking them as guests far more often than progressives. The rationale was that Republicans were “in power.”

It appears that old habits die hard. Even though President Obama and his team are in control of the executive branch and Democrats are in the majority in Congress, the cable networks are still turning more often to Republicans and allowing them to set the agenda on major issues, most recently on the debate over the economic recovery package.

On Sunday, conservatives began an all-out assault on President Obama’s economic recovery plan, with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) both announcing that they would vote against the plan as it stood. Despite Obama’s efforts at good faith outreach, congressional conservatives have continued to attack the stimulus plan with a series of false and disingenuous arguments.

The media have been aiding their efforts. In a new analysis, ThinkProgress has found that the five cable news networks — CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business and CNBC — have hosted more Republican lawmakers to discuss the plan than Democrats by a 2 to 1 ratio this week:

In total, from 6 AM on Monday to 4 PM on Wednesday, the networks have hosted Republican lawmakers 51 times and Democratic lawmakers only 24 times. Surprisingly, Fox News came the closest to offering balance, hosting 8 Republicans and 6 Democrats. CNN had only one Democrat compared to 7 Republicans.

The drastically unbalanced coverage isn’t the first time that the news networks have effectively supported attacks on the recovery plans. As ThinkProgress reported on Monday, the cable networks, the Sunday shows and the network newscasts promoted a controversial CBO non-report 81 times before the actual CBO analysis of the stimulus plan was released.

- found the item above from Think Progress.

Banned Ad from Super Bowl