The unseen cost

The human capital involved in war is often forgotten. This video is a compilation of reunions between soldier-parents and their children. I hope this is on the President's mind as he makes his decision on the way forward, and out of, our wars.

Stewart on Steele: "they're afraid of you because of the stupid shit you say on television"

(TPM)

On The Daily Show last night, Jon Stewart slammed Michael Steele over his claims that white Republicans are scared of him.

"I don't think they're afraid of you because you're black. I think they're afraid of you because of the stupid sh*t you say on television."

The Daily Show then explored racial issues raised by Steele and attempted to answer a strange question broached by CNN: Is blackface ever OK?

Colbert Demolishes "Sesame Street"'s Conservative Critics

(Huff Post)

"Sesame Street" has come under fire recently for some segments conservative critics say promote leftist views. The main target? Oscar the Grouch. It seems the surly, trash-can-living muppet is busting out his reporter chops these days and much to the dismay of his audience he's being all lovey-dovey with his interviewees. At the end of the segment his girlfriend calls to tell him she's changing the channel, "From now on I am watching 'Pox' News. Now there is a trashy news show." (WATCH THE VIDEO HERE.)

Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood site was not amused. The blogger Stage Right wrote:

"If Mom and Dad watch cable news, it's better than 50/50 they watch 'POX News.' So what gives? PBS -- a network partially funded with my tax dollars -- has the right to tell my kids that their parents watch 'trashy' news? The message is clear, I can't even sit my kids in front of 'Sesame Street' without having to worry about the Left attempting to undermine my authority. And don't tell me, 'If you don't like it change the channel.' There are no channels left! It's everywhere. Just last week I had Obama's service and volunteerism promoted on every single major network, including Disney and Nickelodeon."

Well last night Stephen Colbert got in on the action, calling the kids show, "America's most insidious socialist brainwashing program." He used recent tea party protest memes (calling everybody Hitler and Stalin, comparing reform to the Holocaust) and applied them to the "Sesame Street" debate.

The next Glenn Beck? Eric Cartman

Eric Cartman is the new Glenn Beck. Last night on "South Park" the chubby youngster took over morning announcements and turned them from standard bullet points into long screeds about the student class president. Turns out Eric hates her and as a result devotes all his time to creating and promoting crazy conspiracy theories about her time in office. Sound familiar? He even wrote a book that claimed to be about how the school is suffering under her leadership, but was really just 500 pages of him calling Wendy a slut.

Jon Stewart Catches Sean Hannity Falsifying Footage To Make GOP Protest Appear Bigger

One decade, seven minutes

President Obama at Fort Hood

Possibly his finest oration ever. He strikes the right tone as commander-in-chief and consoler.

I think all of us - every single American - must acknowledge that this generation has more than proved itself the equal of those who have come before.
We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.

This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in a time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations - all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.

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

Not bad for a Muslim.

Funeral-disrupting fringe whackjobs picket Obama girls school

(TPM)

Westboro Baptist Church, the fringe-of-the-fringe anti-gay group famous for protesting at military funerals and claiming that God is punishing the country for its tolerance of homosexuality, was spotted this morning protesting outside Sidwell Friends, the school attended by Sasha and Malia Obama.

Protesters were carrying signs with anti-gay, anti-abortion and anti-Obama slogans, slowing down traffic all along Wisconsin Avenue this morning.

One member, Megan Phelps-Roper, posted a picture on Twitter of the protest.
Westboro Baptist Church, founded by Fred Phelps and made up mostly of Phelps family members, has garnered national attention for carrying signs such as "Thank God for 9/11" and protesting at funerals, including that of Matthew Shepard, the student who was killed in 1998 because he was gay.

They believe that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as well as the ensuing wars and even the mass shooting last week at Fort Hood, are punishment from God for tolerance of homosexuality. They plan to picket the Fort Hood memorial service this Tuesday.

"Quakers?! Are you frigging kidding me? You pretend to be all non-violent, and you allow the most bloody, deceitful, evil, murderous bastard and his shemale sidekick to place their satanic spawn within your four walls?" reads the posting for today's protest at Sidwell Friends, which is a Quaker school.

Ellis Turner, the associate head of school at Sidwell Friends, tells TPM the school took no action to remove the protesters, who were across the street.

"We support the First Amendment here, so there was nothing we wanted to do about it," he said. "There was nothing they did other than offend those who didn't agree with their bigoted viewpoints."

Vatican looks for space aliens; lays ground work for Inquisition II: The Sequal

(MSNBC)

Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

"How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?" Funes said in that interview.

"Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God's creative freedom."

Not bad, it's a 'hey look, we're hip and with the times, we're using computers now' kind of thing.

But here's the troubling 'Oh, by the way...' part of the comments:

Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered "part of creation."

Right. I'm guessing that they'd be from the same part of creation inhabited by Aztecs, Incas, Mayans, Jews and 10th century Muslims. Just to name a few.

You know, the ones who take some "persuading" to "get it".

Kucinich: This health care bill sucks

Dennis Kucinich: Why I Voted "No"

“We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

...

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America's manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America's businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.”

MMDB: Health care passes the House

Monday Morning Douchebag Report

Health care passed the House by 2 votes: 220-215. Huzzah.

It should never have been that close, and it's a sign that there's far more work to do. Of course, it really wasn't that close, but in the end House leadership had to let Dems in competitive districts vote 'no' to try to save their electoral skins.

Doing so - trying to not get hurt by voting for health care - makes it seem like the House voted to shave Hannah Montana bald. In reality, this should be an easy sell. It's freaking HEALTH CARE. At what point has ensuring that people are healthy become controversial?

As Bob Cesca points out:

If you can't make a solid case for "your life will be easier" and "I voted to reduce the deficit by over $100 billion," you have no business holding elected office.

This has all been so blurred by conservative obfuscation and outright lies that it's hard to see it for what it is. Every American NOT in the top 5% of wage earners should support this. Voting against it votes against your own personal interests. That 35% of America supports something that benefits them AND THE COUNTRY goes to show that there's something else at work here. It's my belief that Jimmy Carter nailed it on the head, but that's another piece.

Here's Congressman George Miller (D-CA) on the floor during the debate summing it up pretty well.



And then along comes Joe Lieberman pledging a filibuster. Joe doesn't want a filibuster, and in fact it's not even likely he wants to kill the bill. He just has his hand out to Reid, Obama and the Democratic leadership. Again.

That this is an issue at all goes to show the level of hatred, stoked by the conservative media, for the President.

Bittergate: the untold story

Excellent, excellent piece by Mayhill Fowler about the untold story of Obama's "Bitter" comments on the campaign trail

Yesterday I read David Plouffe's book and was struck by a sentence in his explanation of Bittergate -- Barack Obama's notorious campaign remark at a San Francisco fundraiser in early April, 2008, where he said that "bitter" Pennsylvania blue-collar voters "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." Plouffe quotes Obama as telling him that, "I really don't know how the hell I constructed my point like that."

Well, I know how the hell he did it. In fact, it actually makes perfect sense. It is the untold story of Bittergate. Obama's remark was and still is one of the biggest stories of that historic Presidential run. It is also still one of the least understood.

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