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Leave it to Fox Nation to come up with the most idiotic arguments one can ever think of.  Just check out this headline:

Fact: Bush Had 2 Times More Coalition Partners in Iraq Than Obama Has in Libya

Oh my – Bush must have been far more loved by the world than Obama! I mean Bush had 30 coalition countries and Obama only has 15.

But what does that really prove?

Well the first thing it proves is that FOX can’t even comprehend the difference between a full war and a no-fly zone. Why don’t we compare like scenarios instead? How about when the no-fly zone was put into effect in Iraq in 1992? Then the first President Bush only had a coalition of 9! He couldn’t even break into double digits and the only countries actually doing anything were the US, France and Britain.

Then we get to the issue of the actual build-up to the Iraq war. I know I’ve been very busy the last few weeks, so I might have missed it, but did Obama send Hillary Clinton to the U.N. to do a presentation about WMD’s Gadhafi was manufacturing? Did we have a State of the Union address where President Obama said Gadhafi was trying to get yellow cake uranium from Niger? In other words – did President Obama go on a huge campaign to lie the world into war? Absolutely not!

A big milestone was hit in Iraq yesterday, yet I doubt the media will talk about it too much:

Iraqi commandos showed off skills they learned from U.S. military forces, who Saturday formally handed over control of combat operations to Iraqi security forces.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, was on hand to watch the final American combat team, the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, tender responsibilities to the 6th Iraqi Army Division.

In a little over 3 weeks we will only have 50,000 forces in Iraq. Yeah that’s 50,000 more than I like, but it is a far cry better than the numbers we saw when Bush was President, or if McCain had become President.

And with this major accomplishment, I highly doubt the media will talk too much about it. When President Obama announced that everything was on target last week, the media stayed mostly quiet, yet when President Obama first announced the plan to get the troops down to 50,000 in the summer of 2010 last year, the media was full of the pessimistic Republicans saying it couldn’t happen. Where are those people now?

Just check this out:

Dear Mr. Lincoln

We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!

In fact we held a big meeting and took a vote in Kansas City this week. We voted to condemn a political revival of that old abolitionist spirit called the ‘tea party movement’.

The tea party position to “end the bailouts” for example is just silly. Bailouts are just big money welfare and isn’t that what we want all Coloreds to strive for? What kind of racist would want to end big money welfare? What they need to do is start handing the bail outs directly to us coloreds! Of course, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only responsible party that should be granted the right to disperse the funds.

And the ridiculous idea of “reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government.” What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!

The racist tea parties also demand that the government “stop the out of control spending.” Again, they directly target coloreds. That means we Coloreds would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.

Perhaps the most racist point of all in the tea parties is their demand that government “stop raising our taxes.” That is outrageous! How will we coloreds ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn? Totally racist! The tea party expects coloreds to be productive members of society?

This is another sign of the times:

Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.

About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009. Either their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability. That's according to projections by the Tax Policy Center, a Washington research organization.

Most people still are required to file returns by the April 15 deadline. The penalty for skipping it is limited to the amount of taxes owed, but it's still almost always better to file: That's the only way to get a refund of all the income taxes withheld by employers.

In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009, as long as there are two children younger than 17, according to a separate analysis by the consulting firm Deloitte Tax.

I’m sure part of the increase in the number not having to pay taxes is because of the economic times. People have lost their jobs and had to settle for new jobs not paying as much, or maybe one of the parents lost their full-time job and had to settle with something part time.

There’s also another reason for this larger number:

Tax cuts enacted in the past decade have been generous to wealthy taxpayers, too, making them a target for President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. Less noticed were tax cuts for low- and middle-income families, which were expanded when Obama signed the massive economic recovery package last year.

Rep. Steve King is trying to justify the attack on the IRS in a discussion with Think Progress:

TP: Do you think this attack, this terrorist attack, was motivated at all by a lot of the anti-tax rhetoric that’s popular in America right now?

KING: I think if we’d abolished the IRS back when I first advocated it, he wouldn’t have a target for his airplane. And I’m still for abolishing the IRS, I’ve been for it for thirty years and I’m for a national sales tax. [...] It’s sad the incident in Texas happened, but by the same token, it’s an agency that is unnecessary and when the day comes when that is over and we abolish the IRS, it’s going to be a happy day for America.

TP: So some of his grievances were legitimate?

KING: I don’t know if his grievances were legitimate, I’ve read part of the material. I can tell you I’ve been audited by the IRS and I’ve had the sense of ‘why is the IRS in my kitchen.’ Why do they have their thumb in the middle of my back. … It is intrusive and we can do a better job without them entirely.

Here is why the GOP is so against the health care bill. Health care has been a corner stone issue of the Democratic platform for years. When they control everything they try to get reform through.

Now take the Republicans. Abolshing the IRS has been one of their big issues for years, but when have they actually tried? They had control of the entire government for most of the last decade and not once did they try this. It’s like banning abortion – they never try and most likely never will.

The GOP is the party of rhetoric, and again we have someone in the GOP justifying a horrific attack against Americans to justify the very beliefs they never even act on. It’s the same as when abortion doctors get murdered.

When you buy a gun you may have a background check, depending on where you buy it from. Go to a local gun show and buy one from some fellow enthusiast there and chances are you won’t receive a background check, unless that person is registered as a federal dealer. That’s the extent of it.

So I am sitting here wondering why all these Republicans are screaming for profiling of darker skin men before they get on the airplane. Why didn’t we hear this after  Major Nidal Malik Hasan took his personal weapons into a building on a United States Army base and killed 13 people while wounding 30 others? Why didn’t one of these Republicans call for better “profiling” on potential gun owners? If you would even bring this up to a Republican they would yell and scream about you taking away their 2nd amendment rights, but profiling also violates our Constitution, and no where in the Constitution does it say one right trumps the other.

Take this picture:

The story of the White House party crashers is apparently the only thing that has happened over the extended weekend if you listen to MSNBC, so let me take a moment and bring up my thoughts.

There is a lot of finger pointing going on with this. Some are blaming the Secret Service, while others point the finger at the White House. The latter is completly obscene, but if the right wants to travel that path then let’s remind them of a man who posed as a reporter for a fake publication and sat in the White House press briefing room for a couple of years under Bush. Jeff Gannon not only sat in the briefing room, but also was in attendance when countless foreign leaders were visiting. Security at these events are much more relaxed than they are during a state dinner.

But I really want to focus on the Secret Service. Yes there was an apparent failure here, but what caused that failure? People seem to be ignoring the fact that President Obama has received more threats than any other president, so the Secret Service is stretched thin trying to keep the President safe as it is. The fact that Obama has been such a big target of threats has become a laughing issue for the right, which it is not. It’s a very serious issue, and one that the Secret Service takes very seriously. Perhaps it’s time to increase the size of the Secret Service.

Then there is the issue of what to do with the couple. Many are calling for criminal charges. I’m sure prosecutors can find something to charge the couple with, but will it stick? The most I can think of charging them with is trespassing and that is a rather minor crime. Instead of being out for blood we should be looking for solutions, like not allowing this to happen again.

The teabaggers are starting to take on Republicans and their first target is Lindsey Graham.

Now, after voting to confirm Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and expressing a willingness to build a compromise approach to clean energy legislation, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appears to be the new target of tea party activists. At a Graham town hall in Greenville yesterday, activist Harry Kimball of “RINO HUNT” protested by constructing a display that depicted Graham, as well as moderates like Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), being flushed down a toilet:

KIMBALL: This is for every RINO who has failed to represent us. [...] [the toilet represents] flushing them, flushing them.

One attendee of the event asked the senator, “when are you going to announce that you are switching parties?” The question drew loud applause from the crowd. Graham defended himself, and denounced the influence of Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) on the Republican party:

They pushed Specter out and now are targeting Graham. Add to that Collins and Snowe and you can see the Republican numbers in Senate drop down to less than 30%. Here’s a video of this exchange, with more thoughts after that: