no doubt

Hell Bent On Destroying America

There is no doubt that the Tea Party has become hell bent on destroying America. Proof of that can be seen in this video from Wisconsin, where members of the Tea Party Express cheered the downgrade of the United States credit rating:

Yes, let's cheer on something that can cost our nation an additional $100 billion a year, destroy the stock markets and people's retirements and send the world economy into a death spiral. Are these people really this stupid? Why yes they are.

Here's a perfect example of the stupidity that plagues the Tea Party. In the recent debt ceiling debate there were fears that things like the military and social security might not be paid. Tea Party members in Congress drafted legislation to force the President to pay these items in case of default. The only problem is that the cost of these items are greater than the income of our nation, so we must borrow just to pay them each month. A case of very simple math and the Tea Party once again let failed ideology trump simple fact.

News

SCOTUS Strikes Down California Law Banning The Sale Of Violent Video Games To Minors

In 2005 California passed a law banning the sale of violent video games to those under 18. The law has constantly been challenged in the courts, so it was never fully enacted and now it never will be:

The court reached a decision in Brown v. the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) by a vote of 7-2, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer dissenting. Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia said the law would have created a new class of regulations for content aimed at children.

“No doubt a State possesses legitimate power to protect children from harm, but that does not include a free-floating power to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed,” Scalia wrote, noting that even fairy tales such as “Snow White” and “Cinderella” feature graphic descriptions of violence.

Dissenting on the decision were Stephen Breyer and Clarence Thomas. Justice Breyer brings up a point I thought when I first heard this decision:

“But what sense does it make to forbid selling to a 13-year-old boy a magazine with an image of a nude woman, while protecting a sale to that 13-year-old of an interactive video game in which he actively, but virtually, binds and gags the woman, then tortures and kills her?” Breyer said.

“What kind of First Amendment would permit the government to protect children by restricting sales of that extremely violent video game only when the woman — bound, gagged, tortured and killed — is also topless?”

Let little Johnny shoot, stab, decapitate or beat to a pulp video game character Susie, but just as long as she doesn't show any boob. If that happens then we have a problem!

Economy

The Next Coming Of Economic Doom

The nation’s largest private employer is seeing troubling times:

Wal-Mart's core shoppers are running out of money much faster than a year ago due to rising gasoline prices, and the retail giant is worried, CEO Mike Duke said Wednesday.

"We're seeing core consumers under a lot of pressure," Duke said at an event in New York. "There's no doubt that rising fuel prices are having an impact."

If this goes on, Wal-Mart could be faced with either cutting hours and laying off employees. That too will add to our economic doom and gloom. It’s just a shame that our leaders in Washington, on both sides of the aisle, are to worried about petty crap and not focused on jobs or rising costs.

Science

Do We Really Want An "Angry" Obama?

There has been a lot of talk about President Obama needing to get angry over the oil spill. Finally, when reading this post by Greg Sargent, I got really thinking about it. Here's what Greg said:

Sorry Mr. President, your latest display of anger about the Gulf spill, in a new interview with Larry King, just won't cut it:

"I am furious at this entire situation," he said. "Somebody didn't think through the consequences of their actions and it is imperiling not just a handful of people. This is imperiling an entire way of life and an entire region for potentially years."

Has BP felt his anger?

"They have felt the anger," he said.

Nope, it's not good enough for you to say you're furious, Mr. President. Kick something. Smash a camera with your bare hands. Vulcan Death Grip rhetoric just won't do.

One of the big selling points of candidate Obama was what a cool customer he was. He didn't have to go out there and yell and scream. He could control his anger.

I have no doubt that the President is furious over this spill. Who wouldn't be? But what would a visibly angry Obama really accomplish? Will it get BP shaking in their boots and saying; "OK - we really have to stop the leak now. Go ahead and do the real plan we had all along." I highly doubt it.

Society

Well It Must Be Love

Mark Sanford is back in the news:

Gov. Mark Sanford said Wednesday he spent last weekend in Florida with his Argentine lover, seeing if their relationship could be "restarted."

Sanford discussed the trip - first reported Sunday by an anonymous e-mailer to the Gawker Web site - because he said he thought the public should know that he always was in contact with his office and that Florida law enforcement - not South Carolina-paid officers - provided his security.

Sanford did not name Maria Belen Chapur as the woman he saw in Florida. However, he left no doubt whom he was referring to.

Aww it must be Spring time. Love in the air and another Republican who dumped their wife in a very public way. I blame gay marriage for this! </snark>

Economy

The Bush Decade

The last decade is by no doubt the Bush decade since he held office for 4/5 of it, so the fact that we had zero net job creating during the decade should really stick to his legacy. To put it in visual terms, check out this graph:

You can only blame 9/11 for so much of it. We did see an economic turn around after the attacks, but those were quickly erased by the lack of attention the Bush administration gave to Wall Street’s fraudulent activities, which resulted in the most job loses in decades. Way to go Bush!

The RNC’s Health Insurance Sparks A War

Yesterday we found out that employees of the Republican National Committee were able to have abortions and it was covered on their employee healthcare plan. This latest case of extreme hypocrisy from the right has sparked a new civil war. The following was posted on the popular right-wing website RedState:

Let’s keep this simple. Word got out today via Politico that the RNC’s health care package for their employees covers abortions. At the risk of belaboring the obvious, if you at any time have donated to the RNC since 1991 (when this policy apparently took place), some incremental portion of your donation went to the administrative costs of running the RNC, including employee salaries and benefits packages. Part of “benefits packages” in this context is apparently a health care package that pays for abortions.

Rasmussen – The Joke Of All Polls

Check out this latest Rasmussen headline:

Just 11% of Republicans Say Limbaugh Is Their Party’s Leader

Now check out the wording:

“he says jump and they say how high”. What poll in history can you remember phrasing a question like that, let alone flat out calling him the “leader of the party”.

When you look at this crappy attempt to push poll by Rasmussen, then see that 11% of Republicans and almost 1/3 of the total respondents still agree then there is no doubt – Rush Limbaugh is running the Republican party.

Truer Words Never Been Spoken

This brings a huge smile to my face:

President Obama listened to Republican gripes about his stimulus package during a meeting with congressional leaders Friday morning - but he also left no doubt about who's in charge of these negotiations. "I won," Obama noted matter-of-factly, according to sources familiar with the conversation.

Apparently the Republicans are still wanting to push all their tax cuts. Obama was right to say this. It wasn’t a partisan jab, but rather a statement of fact. The voters were presented with the Democratic economic views and the Republican economic views last fall, all while the economy was a front and center issue. Guess what? The voters spoke and the Democrats won overwhelmingly, meaning their ideals and beliefs won. If the American public wanted more tax cuts then we would be talking about President McCain today.

It’s time that the Republicans start learning that they are there to represent the people, not their base. The American voters have given them enough chances in the past and they have been dealt to two consecutive blows at the polls because of it. The problem is that the Republicans are back in campaign mode, and the first step to re-election for people like John Boehner is the possibility of a primary win, plus raising money to run, so they will continue to cater to the extremist wing of the Republican Party. Just another example of why our system of democracy is still failed.

4 Years Later

And we finally get Phase 2 of the Iraqi pre-war intelligence report. This is the phase Republicans held up in 2004, because "it would effect the outcome of the presidential election". Would it? Hell yes it would. Here are some of the key findings:

* Statements and implications by the President and Secretary of State suggesting that Iraq and al-Qa’ida had a partnership, or that Iraq had provided al-Qa’ida with weapons training, were not substantiated by the intelligence.
* Statements by the President and the Vice President indicating that Saddam Hussein was prepared to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups for attacks against the United States were contradicted by available intelligence information.
* Statements by President Bush and Vice President Cheney regarding the postwar situation in Iraq, in terms of the political, security, and economic, did not reflect the concerns and uncertainties expressed in the intelligence products.
* Statements by the President and Vice President prior to the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq’s chemical weapons production capability and activities did not reflect the intelligence community’s uncertainties as to whether such production was ongoing.
* The Secretary of Defense’s statement that the Iraqi government operated underground WMD facilities that were not vulnerable to conventional airstrikes because they were underground and deeply buried was not substantiated by available intelligence information.
* The Intelligence Community did not confirm that Muhammad Atta met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in 2001 as the Vice President repeatedly claimed.

Waterboarding Is Torture

That according to Tom Ridge

The first secretary of the Homeland Security Department says waterboarding is torture.

"There's just no doubt in my mind â€” under any set of rules â€” waterboarding is torture," Tom Ridge said Friday in an interview with the Associated Press. Ridge had offered the same opinion earlier in the day to members of the American Bar Association at a homeland security conference.

No wonder why the administration got rid of him - he sounds like a silly liberal.

McCain Mis-spoke!

So he says:

In two interviews before the Army took McCain and 60 Minutes on the heavily guarded visit to the al-Shorja market last Sunday, the senator said security had improved in Iraq. Upon his return, he also told a news conference he had just come back from a neighborhood one could walk around in freely.

The remarks made headlines and he now regrets saying them. "Of course I am going to misspeak and I've done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do it in the future," says McCain. "I regret that when I divert attention to something I said from my message, but you know, that's just life," he tells Pelley, adding, "I'm happy, frankly, with the way I operate, otherwise it would be a lot less fun."

(emphasis added)

So telling the American people that even General Petraeus can walk around Baghdad without security is just "misspeaking? No John it is flat out lying! And to make matters worse, you are "happy" with the lying. You said it yourself!

There is no doubt left. McCain would be the same as George Bush. He refuses to tell America the truth and that is one of the big problems Americans have with Bush. He even admits being happy with lying to the American people. That is not a presidential quality. McCain should drop out now, but I hope he stays in and wins the GOP nomination. Kucinich could beat him.

The Two Faces Of Mitch McConnell

The AP just reported that Republican Senator Mitch McConnell is threatning to filibuster any attempts by the Democrats to block Bush's escalation plan. This is ironic, considering what McConnell was saying in his majority days of the filibuster:

Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell said yesterday that Republicans have enough votes to invoke the "nuclear option" to limit Democrats' ability to stall by filibuster consideration of President Bush's nominees for federal appeals courts.

"I never announce my whip count. But I'm telling you, there's no doubt in my mind -- and I'm a pretty good counter of votes -- that we have the votes we need," the Kentucky Republican said. "And that step will be taken sometime in the near future at the determination of the majority leader."

Or this little bit via Newshounds:

Last night, it was Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell on After Hours with Cal Thomas. He said, "It's to (Democrats') advantage, too, to get the senate back to the way it operated for 214 years without any great problems with regard to judicial nominees.... It was never filibustered in the history of the senate until two years ago."

So what if the Democrats come up with their own "nuclear option". I believe the Iraq war deserves an up or down vote by the U.S. Senate more so than federal judges. We are talking about the lives of our soldiers, as well as the Iraqis.

GOP Ship Is Still Sinking

61%. That is the number of American adults who believe the Republican leadership has been covering for Foley. That is from the latest Rasmussen poll.

Other interesting numbers include:

61% say they are following the Foley story somewhat or very closely.
47% will vote for a Democrat this fall as opposed to only 34% who will vote Republican (Democrats up 5-8 points from August).
45% would allow their child to serve as a House page and 35% would not.

The Republicans are in big time trouble and it is no one's fault but theirs. They have tried to cover for Foley, it has now become public knowledge and Americans are interested. In turn the scandal has provided severe damage to the page program and to the Republicans chance of holding power this fall.

The news right now is that Republicans are defending Hastert and other leaders, but if this bad news continues then they will have to turn on him for their own self survival. They say these races are all local, but something as powerful as the Foley scandal will help overshadow even local politics. Already returning incumbents are facing tough questions on Foley and those are the first questions asked.

To sum it up - America wants answers - answers the Republican party does not want to give. Our government is "by the people for the people" and if the Republicans don't want to answer to the people then they will be fired. This is there mess. Democrats had absolutely nothing to do with it, no matter how hard the Republicans try to spin it that way. The American people know that, but the Republican party is once again in denial of what their constituents are thinking. There is no doubt that they are not a party meant to lead.

Could This Become Our October Surprise?

There is no doubt that people are predicting an October Surprise this year. I have heard numerous ideas of what it might be ranging from the capture or killing of Osama to a drastic decrease in gas prices. While the later is seeming to come rather early, we are still left wondering what it could be.

Now here we are with September knocking down the door, and I believe I might have found the first major clue into what our October Surprise might entail. It starts with Donald Rumsfeld and his comments yesterday to the American Legion where he decided to equate people who disagrees with the administration's Iraq policy with those who questioned the threat of Nazism early last century. If you are unaware of the turmoil this has created then wake up. It has been all the talk of the day on every news channel, but don't despair because John has the video up.

So what does Rummy's comments yesterday have to do with an October Surprise? Everything in my mind. I am beginning to wonder if this is the start of setting the stage for the big pre-election fireworks show. Think back over the first part of this year where we heard countless generals call for Rumsfeld resignation and those calls were even echoed on both sides of the congressional floor.