Arizona Limits Itself To One Piece Of Racist Legislation Per Month

After all, the folks down in Arizona don't want to appear too bat-shit crazy:

A bill to require presidential candidates to show their birth certificates to get on Arizona's ballot won't win approval from state lawmakers.

With legislators working toward adjournment of their annual session, the sponsor of the bill says it won't get a state Senate vote because some fellow Republicans don't support it.

The House narrowly approved the measure last week.

The bill is an outgrowth of some Obama critics' doubts over whether he was born in the United States. Hawaii officials have repeatedly confirmed Obama's citizenship, and his Hawaiian birth certificate has been made public, along with newspaper birth notices.

I Think He Meant To Say Bush

“I believe that Barack Obama is God’s punishment on us today, but in 2012, we are going to make Obama a one-term president.”

-- Texas state representative Leo Berman, at a Glenn Beck event last Saturday.

So Leo, did the Lord God actually tell you that your punishment will only last four years and not eight years or longer? Only four years of punishment for what you GOP motherfuckers did to our country?

I believe The Almighty is letting you off easy.

Quote of the Week

"I outed him as a straight person."

-- Rep. Babette Josephs (D., Phila.) who accused Gregg Kravitz, her primary opponent, of pretending to be bisexual in order to pander to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender voters in her district.

My Favorite Part About Wall Street Reform Legislation

Now that it looks like Wall Street Reform will pass the Senate with at least some GOP support, does that mean that some Republicans will actually attend the signing ceremony? If it does indeed mean that, won't the GOPers who think that Obama is an illegal alien (one-half of them) and those who think he is the Anti-Christ (one-quarter of them) be totally pissed off?

I'm convinced that the main reason the Republicans initially decided to oppose Obama on everything is because they were afraid to tick off the Birthers, who -- as noted above -- make up half the GOP. But somewhere along the line, the Republican Party decided that is was far more perilous to vote against Wall Street Reform, so they concluded that it would be better to cooperate with Obama on this even though half of the Republicans believe that Obama is not an American citizen and therefore not a legitimate president.

I can't wait to see how this plays out.

An Honest Teabagger

"It's not just because he's black. I wish I could tell you that I loved this guy, that he was a great president, that I had faith in him. But I have none. Zero."

-- Teabagger Jerry Johnson, explaining that race is only part of the reason he does not like Obama.

Quote of the Week

[W]e're hoping that President Obama's policies don't succeed. . . .

-- Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), directly expressing her sincere hope that the President will not be able to solve any of the problems that the GOP caused (and indirectly expressing her deep hatred for America).

Limbaugh's Idiocy On Display Once Again

Rush Limbaugh said this the other day with regard to the recent mining disaster in West Virginia:

Was there no union responsibility for improving mine safety? Where was the union here? Where was the union? The union is generally holding these companies up demanding all kinds of safety. Why were these miners continuing to work in what apparently was an unsafe atmosphere?

Brad Johnson at ThinkProgress offers up this response:

There’s a simple reason the union didn’t protect the miners: the Upper Big Branch Mine, like nearly all of the mines under Massey CEO Don Blankenship’s control, is non-union. In fact, the United Mine Workers of America (UMW) “tried three times to organize the Upper Big Branch mine, but even with getting nearly 70 percent of workers to sign cards saying they wanted to vote for a union, Blankenship personally met with workers to threaten them with closing down the mine and losing their jobs if they voted for a union.”

Of course, none of this really matters because Limbaugh can say whatever he wants and his listeners will believe all of it. I doubt a lot of Dittoheads visit the ThinkProgress website.

It Begins

Here we go:

A northern Idaho man who police say fired his shotgun near a U.S. census worker who was trying to deliver a census form has been cited for exhibition of a deadly weapon, a misdemeanor. * * *

FauxNews Should Throw In The Towel On This One

I love watching FoxNews when things are going wrong for the Republicans, so -- needless to say -- I was watching Fox a lot when Obama and the Dems passed Health Care Reform a couple weeks ago. It was hilarious.

The Fox talking heads were clearly agitated by the fact that the bill had passed, and they even went after Joe Biden in a big way for telling Obama that "This is a big fucking deal" when the President and Vice-President were too close to an open microphone. The funny part was that at least two of Fox's "guest" commentators thought it was a great moment, and I agreed with them.

In fact, Biden's "F Bomb" was my favorite part of the whole process. Even my Mom thought it was kicked ass, despite the fact that the word in question is not one of her favorites (and, to be fair and balanced, I'm pretty sure she didn't use the phrase "kick ass" to describe it).

But Fox just can't let this one go:

Fox News, which went bonkers over the “F-bomb” that Joe Biden dropped at the health care signing ceremony, has now done a poll to see if their flood-the-zone coverage of that very consequential moment has had an impact.

The answer is Not So Much, according to the poll’s internals:

As you may have heard, Vice President Joe Biden used foul language to describe how important he thought passage of the new health care bill was when he whispered to President Obama “this is a big expletive deal” — do you think the vice president’s use of foul language to describe the bill was offensive, or not?

Yes, offensive: 37%

No, not offensive: 57%

It was a great moment, Fox. Deal with it.

Palin/Bachmann 2012!!

Please God -- let this happen:

HANNITY: Are either one of you considering a run for the presidency in 2012? Just asking. Governor Palin, I’ll start — I’ll start with you. But before I get their answers, how many of would you like to see a Palin-Bachmann ticket?

PALIN: Well that sounds kind of cool. That sounds kind of cool.

HANNITY: Governor Palin, are you thinking about a run again?

PALIN: As I have said, I’m not going to close any doors that perhaps would be open.

By the way, on the issue of Republicans who don't know what the hell they are talking about, here is an excellent article concerning a recent interview with Sen. Saxby Chambliss and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. I found this exchange on the pre-existing conditions issue to be particularly interesting:

If you somehow tell companies they can no longer deny coverage of pre-existing conditions, you need to provide them another way to eliminate free riders. Under the new law, individual mandates are that tool. As long as everyone is required to have coverage, nobody can game the system and there’s no longer any justification to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

So if the GOP plan is going to ensure that pre-existing conditions are covered, as Chambliss and McConnell suggested, how would they do it without individual mandates? What mechanism would they use?

Chambliss and McConnell had no answer. Literally.

After Chambliss fumbled an initial response, McConnell broke in with a long and familiar condemnation of the Democratic plan, including its failure to include tort reform. After a few minutes, I interrupted and brought him back to the question: OK, but how are the Republicans going to cover pre-existing conditions?

“The premiums are going up either way,” he said.

OK, I responded, a little stunned. That doesn’t explain how the Republicans intend to cover pre-existing conditions.

“The premiums are going up either way,” he repeated. That was that. We moved on, and I still don’t have my answer.

Don't forget -- the individual mandate was originally a GOP idea. It's pretty clear to me that the Republicans did not think it through when they decided to support coverage for pre-existing conditions but not support the individual mandate, which was their idea in the first place.

Do You Take Prison With Your Tea?

Oops:

Charles Alan Wilson, a 64-year-old Washington man who was angered over health care reform, has been charged with threatening a federal official for allegedly making profanity and misogyny-laced death threats in messages left for Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington announced today.

The complaint alleges that Wilson called Murray's office multiple times between March 22 -- the day after the health bill passed the House -- and April 4. In one message, he allegedly said that Murray "had a target on her back." In another, he allegedly said, "I want to (expletive) kill you."

The press release from the U.S. attorney continues: "Wilson discussed assisting others in an attempt to kill the senator. Wilson's threats were in response to the passage of the Health Care Reform Act." Wilson was arrested this morning. ***

By the way, you can put this one in the "No Surprise There" category.

Quote Of The Week

"Can you imagine if some of these reporters were working on a farm? You planted some seeds and they came out the next day. 'Nothing's happened. There's no crop. We're gonna to starve. Oh, no! It's a disaster!'"

Barack Obama, mocking reporters and pundits for their impatience with regard to the effects of the health care reform bill.

With regard to health care reform, it gives me nothing but pleasure to think that people like this idiot spend most of their day in a rage because these basic reforms are now the law of the land.

Right On Time

I've said this before, but the bottom line for the Democrats with regard to the upcoming Mid-Term elections is jobs creation. Health Care Reform, Finance Reform, and all the other "Reforms" won't mean squat if this economy didn't start creating jobs by the Spring of 2010.

Well, Spring is here, and so are the jobs:

The US economy created 162,000 jobs last month as the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.7 per cent, the government said on Friday, bolstering hopes that the economic recovery is gathering steam.

Temporary hiring by the government for the census only accounted for some 48,000 new jobs in March, meaning the private sector has begun churning out new positions.

Economists had expected non-farm payrolls to grow by about 200,000 positions, but they had factored in about 80,000 in temporary census hiring. ***

In addition, the figures for January and February 2010 have been revised and now show a net total of 62,000 positions.

Clearly, this is good news for the Democrats. As far as the Mid-Term elections are concerned, jobs creation needed to start now -- as opposed to this summer -- because the American people need time to get accustomed to the fact that our economy is on the mend and folks are being hired again.

Although the unemployment rate has remained steady at 9.7%, the truth is that our economy would have to create 200,000 jobs a month for an entire year just to reduce the rate by one point, meaning the Dems will probably be stuck with a high unemployment rate for quite awhile. Oh well.

By the way, Obama was on CBS this morning, and he was asked about the level of enmity on talk radio right now. Here is what he had to say:

"Well, I think, when you listen to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, it's pretty apparent, and it's troublesome." But, you know, keep in mind that there have been periods in American history where this kind of vitriol comes out. It happens often when you've got an economy that's making people more anxious, but that's not the vast majority of Americans."

Obama also stated that those Americans know he wants what's best for the country and that he is trying to do what's right, even if they disagree with him. He's clearly trying to take the high road here, and although I've been critical of him for keeping an even keel and not getting angry enough at all the bullshittery, I think I understand what he is trying to do.

Obama truly believes that things will eventually calm down in this country, and he doesn't seem to want to burn any bridges by aggressively going after the folks who wish him nothing but ill right now. He's acting presidential. Let's see if this strategy pays off in the long term.