little bit

Sorry Jim Hoft - Your Lie FAILED!!!!!

Leave it to Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit idiocy to even screw up a lie! Here's what Hoft is posting about the earthquake:

When you clickthe link above the image it takes you to the White House's President's schedule, which of course shows no public events today. Clicking the Yahoo link takes you to the source of the image, where we are presented with this caption:

President Barack Obama, left, and his daughter Malia Obama, right, ride bicycles in Manuel F. Correllus State Forest, in West Tisbury, Mass., on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2011.

The most interesting thing is that the photo was published a little 1:11 pm est. and Obama had already left. The earthquake happened at 1:51 pm est.

So what was the President really doing? Well another thing the right loves to attack - he was golfing! If Hoft would have waited a little bit longer he could have published a factual story with the same impact to the wingnuts out there instead of some fake one.

Media

Right Wing Smear Machine In Action

For months the news was inundated with coverage of “illegal activities” by ACORN. Last night Rachel Maddow showed for the first time the unedited “undercover” video tapes that lead to ACORN’s demise.

ACORN has a very good case here against FOX News, James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart. Their quest for ratings have cost a lot of people their jobs and destroyed an organization that helped millions of needy Americans.

Given Congress’ hand in dealing the defeat to ACORN, by removing their funding, perhaps it’s time for Congress to reverse course a little bit and start hearings on who made the decisions to edit the tapes and represent them as something they are not. It was slanderous, to say the least, and Congress bought right into the right wing noise machine. Democrats should be ashamed of doing that and need to right their part in this very huge wrong.

Science

Haiti Fundraiser Day 4

So far IntoxiNation has raised $65 for the people of Haiti. It might not seem like a lot, but every little bit helps and I am pleased considering the small size of my blog. If you have any extra money, please considering giving to a great cause. MercyCorps uses 100% of the money for the relief and your donation is tax deductible. Thank you so much for helping with this great cause.

You can give here.

(retitled and bumped)

Politics

Blago’s Back

It looks like Blago’s AWDD (Attention Whore Deficit Disorder) was kicking into high gear:

Blagojevich, referring to the president as "this guy," says Obama was elected based simply on hope.

"What the (expletive)? Everything he's saying's on the teleprompter," Blagojevich told the magazine for a story in its February issue, which hits newsstands Jan. 19.

"I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived," Blagojevich said. "I saw it all growing up."

I guess Blago got a little jealous of the attention Reid has been getting and decided it’s time to get a little bit of that spotlight.

Science

Marcy Does A Great Take Down On The Notion This Is What Obama Campaigned On

Marcy Wheeler has a must read post in which she shows the major differences between the actual bill and what candidate Obama campaigned on:

So let’s review. Ezra lists the following things that Obama promised, but failed to deliver:

Public option

No individual mandate

Drug reimportation

Government coverage of catastrophic costs

Employer mandate

National, rather than state level, exchanges

And then adds two things that Obama didn’t promise but are in the bill (and note, I agree the delivery system reforms are great improvements, but the case for the excise tax is riddled with problems and is a big attack on the unions that supported Obama in the campaign).

Excise tax

Delivery system reforms

And from that, Ezra judges, that the Senate bill is very close to the bill Obama promised!

There is a lot of history rewriting going on here. Those of us who believe this bill has became a failure are simply wanting to see the man we voted for work hard to deliver on his campaign promises. It feels like he got to the White House and gave us a big “adios suckers”.

Is it really so bad to ask for a little bit of fight for something you were promised? Really?

Malkin Labels Republican Candidate As A “Radical Leftist”

Dede Scozzafava is a Republican candidate for NY-23. Last night she held a dinner and afterwards someone from her campaign called the police on John McCormack from the Weekly Standard. Here’s what he says about it:

I spotted Scozzafava later as she was walking to the parking lot, and asked her: " Assemblywoman, do you believe that the health-care bill should exclude coverage for abortion?" She didn't reply. I asked her twice more. Silence.

After she got into her car, I went to my car and fired up my laptop to report the evening's events.

Minutes later a police car drove into the parking lot with its lights flashing. Officer Grolman informed me that she was called because "there was a little bit of an uncomfortable situation" and then took down my name, date of birth, and address.

"Maybe we do things a little differently here, but you know, persistence in that area, you scared the candidate a little bit," Officer Grolman told me.

This sounds like a misunderstanding is all, but let’s look at how Malkin responds to this:

Radical leftist Dede Scozzafava can’t stand the heat

I just read through Scozzafava’s issues page on her campaign site, and nothing strikes me as her being a “radical leftist”. As matter of fact items like these speak the speak the opposite:

Democrats Still Have Stronger Support From The Public

The new NBC poll has a little bit of good news for the Democrats. When asked how they approve the Democrats in Congress, here is how they respond:

They get a net positive of 42, as compared to the Republicans, who have a net positive of only 28:

But when it comes to Afghanistan, the President is looking at growing public opposition:

So if the Democrats show strong opposition to President Obama on Afghanistan then that could turn out to help them next fall. So expect to see a rather public fight when it comes to Afghanistan in the coming weeks.

Why Can’t A Black President Address Our Children?

I’m sorry but Obama’s address to school children next week is nothing out of the ordinary. Some are trying to dismiss their concerns as “he might be too political”. Perhaps these people should have focused on their own education and a little bit of history in our nation:

On November 14, 1988, Reagan addressed and took questions from students from four area middle schools in the Old Executive Office Building. According to press secretary Marvin Fitzwater, the speech was broadcast live and rebroadcast by C-Span, and Instructional Television Network fed the program “t o schools nationwide on three different days.” Much of Reagan’s speech that day covered the American “vision of self-government” and the need “to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America” but in the middle of the speech, the president went off on a tangent about the importance of low taxes:

Yes the very white Ronald Reagan was allowed to preach tax cuts to our children and not one of these idiots complained. And he wasn’t the only one. Bush 41 also had an address to the students. Yes there is a double standard. Now why is that? Either its because of the President’s party affiliation or his skin color. Why don’t you explain to your children why.

Rejecting Stimulus Money – All For Politics

Here is Worst Persons from April 22 of this year. Pay attention to the first person that Olbermann names:

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

Just some lonely county commissioner here in Ohio, but now he is planning on becoming a little bit bigger of a name:

Warren County Commissioner Mike Kilburn told an Enquirer reporter Friday that he’s considering running against U.S. Rep. Jean Schmidt in the 2010 primary.

"I have always said it’s important to vote for Christians and conservatives," Kilburn said. "But the conservatives have lost their way and I’m not willing to fall into that trap."

Will Republican Block An Obama Pick

With President Obama’s first pick for a Supreme Court justice looming, I am sitting here wondering if the GOP will try to block his pick.

There is an interesting timing here. On the same week Arlen Specter switched parties, Souter announces his retirement. Specter was the ranking member of the judiciary committee and the friendliest Republican towards Democrats. Now the Republicans can reorganize the committee a little bit and maybe filibuster an Obama pick at the committee level.

But how would this work out?

We have a President who has an approval rating in the upper 60s and a likeable rating over 80%. We are still on the heels of a historic election where the American people undeniably sounded the alarm for change. And then we have the Republicans, with their dismal approval ratings, who has been resoundingly the party of “no”.

This pick will play out into the summer – that’s a given. Everyday it plays out will put us a little bit closer to the next primary and mid-term election. Considering the power of liberal interest groups like MoveOn, if President Obama makes a choice that appeases our side and the GOP tries every move to block them, we can use this strong arsenal to fire back at the Republicans, putting them on the defense even more. This can even have an effect on House races, even though they have no part in the selection process.

Another thing we have on our side is plenty of footage of the Republicans throwing tantrums over the “up or down vote”. Remember the whole “nuclear option” thing when Alito was nominated? Republicans threatened to get rid of the filibuster if Democrats used it against a Bush pick. I don’t believe that should be done, but it would be a great tool to have on the table to fight back against the Grand Obstructionist Party.

The Rights Messiah To Address CPAC Today

Rush Limbaugh will be addressing CPAC on it’s final day today. I wonder why kind of reception they will give the man who constantly airs his desire for our President to “fail”?

Yesterday our troops heard from the commander in chief that the end is near in Iraq and were given a date certain when a massive amount of them will finally get to return home to their loved ones. That would seem like good news, yet Rush hopes he fails. If he hopes Obama fails then that means he hopes Iraq goes into the crapper and our troops are stuck there for god knows how long.

Will all the conservatives cheer this?

Will any of them question this?

And a final thought. I know of only one group that would cheer the thought of our President, and therefore our country failing. That group is called al Qaeda. I guess we now have two groups cheering for a demise of our great nation. Perhaps it is time for people on our side to make this argument a little bit louder. Far less worse things were said at DKos conventions, yet the right had no problem going on the television and making these kind of claims about us.

Daily Flickr

DSC_2211
Originally uploaded by intoxination

Here's another shot of the storm we had move in the other night. I caught a little bit of lightning in this image, which is hard to do considering it was still somewhat light out. There was no editing done on this image. I debated trying to make an HDR out of it, and still might. Right now I got about 30 more images to download from my camera.

Coulter At CPAC Giving Her Typical Crap

The same CPAC that our President, vice-President and the potential Republican nominee attended. The same CPAC that "didn't officially invite her", yet is letting her speak (kind of like water boarding is adventures in swimming). Think Progress has this little bit of her words today:

CROWD: (Applause) We love you Ann!

COULTER: I should give you an Edwards joke for that. [...]

Hillary wanted [to change her campaign song to] "I am woman," but it was already taken by Edwards.

So there you have it - all the outrage from the right wingers over Coulter's comments last year was nothing but a show. They love her (hell they said it) and let her speak again this year.

Everyone Has Some Explaining To Do!

It looks like there is a reporting scandal brewing out of the National Review. Of course the wingnuts won't admit this, since they are busy going after The New Republic. Looks like everyone has a little bit of explaining to do.

(On a personal note - sorry for the lack of posts today. I been busy with the launch of the new and improved Firedoglake, which has been three months of very hard work. If you get a chance, check it out. More surprises will be coming throughout the week).

We Still Don't Know the Toll In Virginia

But that doesn't stop the venomous Michelle Malkin from starting a campaign against firearm bans.

Families are just now finding out that they have lost a loved one in this tragedy. The mourning process has not even started yet, but that doesn't stop the right from trying to find a way to politicize something so horrible.

There are arguments that can be made on the right and left over today's tragedy, but can we please give it at least a day before we start politicizing it? Anyone that jumps on these situations to make a point appear to be the ones who love such situations. It is sick. Stop and think about what happened today and air your arguments tomorrow. The victims deserve this little bit of compassion from their country men (and women).

UPDATE:

Within a couple of hours of this news, the White House coudln't resist the need to politicize it:

"He was horrified and his immediate reaction was one of deep concern for the families of the victims, the victims themselves, the students, the professors and all the people of Virginia who have dealt with this shocking incident," White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said. "His thoughts and prayers are with them."

"The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," Perino said, noting that Bush and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings held a conference on school gun violence last October. "Certainly, bringing a gun into a school domitory and shooting ... is against the law and something someone should be held accountable for," Perino said.

And now we got CNN playing audio of the gun shooting. I am sure the family and students really wants to hear that right now.