“What Child Is This?” is a popular Christmas carol written in 1865. At the age of twenty-nine, English writer William Chatterton Dix was struck with a sudden near-fatal illness and confined to bedrest for several months, during which he went into a deep depression.[1][2] Yet out of his near-death experience, Dix wrote many hymns, including “What Child is This?”, later set to the traditional English tune “Greensleeves”
zizii2:
PBO has had so many 3:00 AM calls esp this year that the Clock has run out of hours and begs for mercy from Pres.
LOL!
ThinkProgress:
DEAD: Bin Laden, Qaddafi, and Kim Jong Il.
OUSTED: Mubarak, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, and Ali Adullah Saleh
Breaking News:
North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il has died
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2011/12/201112193620221153.html
The (likely) next leader of North Korea, 28-year-old Kim Jong Un http://thkpr.gs/vL2R5r
ThinkProgress
PHOTO: Kim Jong Il with son and successor Kim Jong Un http://pic.twitter.com/kIcfnmwR
Al Jazeera English: Live Stream
http://www.aljazeera.com/watch_now/
California politician advocates assassination of Obama and family
Facebook faux pas: California libertarian and Tea Party darling Jules Manson is caught calling for the assassination of President Barack Obama and his children.
On Sunday, many Facebook users were greeted by the shocking spectacle of a California libertarian and Ron Paul supporter by the name of Jules Manson advocating for the assassination of President Barack Obama. Manson, a failed politician, recently ran for and lost a seat on the City of Carson’s City Council last March.
http://www.examiner.com/democrat-in-national/california-politician-advocates-assassination-of-obama-and-family
California politician advocates assassination of Obama and family
http://www.examiner.com/democrat-in-national/california-politician-advocates-assassination-of-obama-and-family
Facebook faux pas: California libertarian and Tea Party darling Jules Manson is caught calling for the assassination of President Barack Obama and his children.
On Sunday, many Facebook users were greeted by the shocking spectacle of a California libertarian and Ron Paul supporter by the name of Jules Manson advocating for the assassination of President Barack Obama. Manson, a failed politician, recently ran for and lost a seat on the City of Carson’s City Council last March.
The following is the text of Manson’s racist, treasonous, deplorable post:
“Assassinate the fucken nigger and his monkey children”
see we saw this shyt at the same time.
SECRET SERVICE…WHERE ARE YOU?
I wanna see the mofo locked up immediately! He’s advocating for someone to kill our President. CAC!
His punk ass better pray nothing happens to My President because there isn’t anyplace the mofo can hide. And it won’t be pretty either. Punk ass bish!
The hate will KILL these racist crackas; it will EAT THEM ALIVE.
December 18, 2011 9:10 AM
Someone give Perry a copy of the budget
By Steve Benen
For a presidential hopeful who’s developed a reputation for gaffes and ignorance, this isn’t going to help persuade people he knows what he’s talking about.
Rick Perry told a crowd [in Iowa] today that he would cut $5 trillion out of Obama’s budget.
The problem: Obama’s proposed budget is $3.7 trillion
“I’m going to walk into Washington and I’m going to bring a budget forward that’s going to cut $5 trillion out of Obama’s budget that he has laid out,” Perry said to applause of the crowd of about 50 people at La Chiesa Restaurant in Spencer.
Remember when this guy was the frontrunner?
What probably happened was that Perry’s advisers told him he has a plan to slash public investments in the near future, intending to save trillions over the course of many years. The Texas governor, easily confused, took that to mean he’ll present “a budget … that’s going to cut $5 trillion out of Obama’s budget.”
There’s a reason it’s nearly impossible to take this guy seriously.
Those who are keeping track of Perry’s painful flubs — someone is chronicling these, right? — have another gem for the list.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_12/someone_give_perry_a_copy_of_t034174.php
President Obama Will Win In An Overwhelming Landslide in 2012 and Will Deserve the Victory
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/president-obama-will-win-_b_906104.html
America is a one party state. The Democratic Party is the sole political party in the US now.
The Republican Party is no more. It is not a political party; as David Brooks noted “the Republican Party may no longer be a normal party.”
It has become a clearing house for religious fanatics, Ayn Rand groupie weirdos and angry white racists driven literally mad by seeing a black man in the White House, a black man more articulate and intelligent — not to mention annoyingly even tempered — than they or their bizarre leaders are.
Boehner is Still Bad at His Job
by BooMan
Sun Dec 18th, 2011 at 05:50:20 PM EST
John Boehner is really starting to take “not very good at my job” to a whole other level. First he has a conference call with his members to praise the deal the Senate reached on the payroll tax holiday extension, and then he declares that he his opposed to the deal. I guess he is basically “Speaker-in-name-only.”
Mr. Boehner’s remarks on “Meet the Press” came less than 24 hours after a conference call in which he tried to sell the package to his rank and file, pointing to a provision that would speed Republican-supported construction of an oil pipeline, known as Keystone XL, from Canada to the Gulf Coast.
But many Republican lawmakers were not buying what their leader was urging them to do, chiefly because they objected to the tax cut extension’s cost.
Among them was the House majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, who said in a statement Sunday that on Monday, the House would either amend the Senate bill so that it met the “needs of hard-working taxpayers and middle-class families,” or pass a motion to move the bill to a conference committee to accomplish the same.
Mr. Cantor said the House opposed the Senate bill “because — to put it simply — we owe the middle class, employers and doctors better than a two-month extension.”
Mr. Boehner’s decision to back away from a deal on the payroll tax cut is similar to his actions during debt-reduction talks with President Obama in July.
I feel pretty confident that the Dems will take back the House from the Republicans next November but, either way, I find it hard to believe that Cantor won’t supplant Boehner as the GOP leader.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/12/18/175020/29
December 18, 2011 10:15 AM
Those who deserve ‘scorn and disdain’
By Steve Benen
With the U.S. war in Iraq coming to its overdue end, it’s worth noting those who got the policy wrong — and continue to ignore the error of their ways.
This week, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), arguably Congress’ biggest cheerleaders of this tragedy, delivered a lengthy tirade condemning President Obama for ending the conflict and bringing U.S. troops home, arguing, among other things, “All I will say is that, for three years, the president has been harvesting the successes of the very strategy that he consistently dismissed as a failure.”
That’s actually backwards. Obama didn’t dismiss the Status of Forces Agreement reached between the Bush administration and Iraqi officials in 2008; the Status of Forces Agreement reflected exactly what Obama was proposing at the time. Officials in both countries completely rejected the course McCain recommended at the time, and as we now know, that was the right move. It’s curious that McCain would forget this relevant detail.*
In any case, the bitter Republican senator added, “I believe history will judge this president’s leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves.”
It’s not exactly surprising that good news and the end of a war would leave McCain in such a sour mood. In August, when Obama helped topple the Gadhafi regime in Libya, McCain thanked the British and French, but ignored the role of U.S. troops, and whined about Obama’s “failure” to run the mission the way McCain wanted.
But when it comes to Iraq in particular, it’s rather amazing McCain feels comfortable addressing the subject at all. I’m reminded of a Frank Rich column from a while back, noting McCain’s record of being consistently wrong about what’s alleged to be his signature issue.
To appreciate this crowd’s spotless record of failure, consider its noisiest standard-bearer, John McCain. He made every wrong judgment call that could be made after 9/11. It’s not just that he echoed the Bush administration’s constant innuendos that Iraq collaborated with Al Qaeda’s attack on America. Or that he hyped the faulty W.M.D. evidence to the hysterical extreme of fingering Iraq for the anthrax attacks in Washington. Or that he promised we would win the Iraq war “easily.” Or that he predicted that the Sunnis and the Shiites would “probably get along” in post-Saddam Iraq because there was “not a history of clashes” between them.
What’s more mortifying still is that McCain was just as wrong about Afghanistan and Pakistan. He routinely minimized or dismissed the growing threats in both countries over the past six years, lest they draw American resources away from his pet crusade in Iraq.
The smart move for McCain would be quietly slink away, hoping desperately that Americans forget how spectacularly wrong he was about a bloody, brutal war. The fact that this guy instead has the temerity to pop off publicly about how outraged he is that U.S. troops are coming home is nothing short of pathetic.
Someone in this debate deserves scorn and disdain, but it’s not the president.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_12/those_who_deserve_scorn_and_di034175.php
I Take Some Time Off and…
by BooMan
Sun Dec 18th, 2011 at 08:45:45 AM EST
I chose a rather inconvenient time to take a couple of mental health days. In truth, I didn’t really choose the days. This weekend just happened to be when my extended family could get together to celebrate Christmas. So, I’ve barely been online at all over the last 48 hours, as the White House and Congress have hashed out deals and signed bills on several things of significant consequence. I have noted the alarm with which the left has responded to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, but I haven’t had the chance to read the relevant language in the bill and make an assessment. I’ve read some of the usual hyperventilation from some of the usual suspects, but I need to check their opinions against the facts before I weigh in.
On the Omnibus appropriations bill, the White House sent out some talking points about the things you and I might like about the overall deal. The thing is, pretty much everything on their list is an example of protecting something the Republicans wanted to defund or abolish or frustrate. Half of the list is about obnoxious riders the administration successfully defeated. I can honestly say that the only truly positive (as opposed to purely defensive) accomplishment on the list is extra money for the Student Aid Administration to help them service college loans.
But, you know, they saved NPR and Planned Parenthood, and AmeriCorps. They protected the EPA’s budget and prerogatives. Head Start kept the extra slots that were created by the Recovery Act. They prevented a forced regression on Cuba policy.
These are all good things. But the midterm elections of 2010 created the problems we have now. The Republicans have far too much power in Washington and they’re exercising that power, almost without any conscience at all, to make the broadest possible attack on progressive ideals and principles.
Not only does this put the Democrats in a defensive crouch, but its inevitable that they’re lines will occasionally be breached. It’s just wave upon wave of demented avengers, many of whom are not even controlled by their leaders.
Elections have consequences, particularly when the winners of those elections appear to be suffering from the ill effects of the Rabies Virus.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2011/12/18/84545/578
Romney Admits It: My Plan Is ‘Not A Huge Tax Cut’ For The Middle Class
By Alex Seitz-Wald on Dec 18, 2011 at 1:35 pm
GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has been touting his tax plan as focused on “the people in the middle, the hard-working Americans,” but on Fox News Sunday today, he acknowledged that “it’s not a huge tax cut” for the middle class:
HOST: But the argument is, middle class people can’t afford, they don’t have enough money to have a lot of capital gains and dividends.
ROMNEY: Look, I recognize that it’s not a huge tax cut. It is a tax reduction.
As ThinkProgress has noted, Romney’s claim that his tax plan cuts taxes for the middle class has little basis in reality. Our analysis found that the vast majority of middle-class households would get no benefit from Romney’s tax plan, since it is based on a capital gains tax cut when most middle-class families have no capital gains. Nearly three-fourths of households that make $200,000 or less annually would get literally nothing from Romney’s tax cut, due to the simple fact that most of those households have zero capital gains income. For families making between $40,000 and $50,000 annually, Romney’s tax cut comes out to a whopping $216 per year.
Instead, Romney’s tax cuts would disproportionately benefit the wealthy and corporations.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/12/18/391570/romney-huge-middle-class-tax-cut/
December 18, 2011 11:10 AM
Republicans may yet kill middle-class tax cut
By Steve Benen
It looked a bit like a breakthrough. With time running out on the calendar year, Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate agreed Friday night to a temporary compromise: Dems would get a two-month extension of the payroll tax break and a clean extension of unemployment benefits, while GOP lawmakers would get an expedited decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. It’s hardly perfect, but it’s not a bad deal.
When the agreement reached the Senate floor yesterday, it was approved with overwhelming, bipartisan support, 89 to 10. The chamber has 47 Republicans, and only seven voted against it. Soon after, President Obama expressed his satisfaction with the compromise.
So, there’s reason for optimism, right? It’s not as if House Republicans are going to kill a bipartisan compromise on a middle-class tax cut, which just passed the Senate 89 to 10, the week before Christmas, right?
Wrong.
…House passage next week was thrown into serious doubt on Saturday afternoon, when a number of rank-and-file Republicans objected in a conference call with Speaker John A. Boehner, who tried to persuade them that it was good for their party, particularly the provision that would speed the decision process for construction of an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast known as Keystone XL. Just a week ago, President Obama had threatened to veto that provision.
“I think the American people are not going to be too pleased about this,” said Representative Tom Graves of Georgia. “I would say it has a very steep uphill fight in our conference. It’s a joke.” […]
Some other Republican conference leaders, including the House majority leader, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, also criticized of the two-month extension.
The Hill reported that rank-and-file House Republicans “voiced extreme opposition” to the compromise.
This is what happens when American elect radical children to run a chamber of Congress.
Some House GOP leaders say they want an extension. A few rank-and-file House Republicans don’t want to be on the hook for a middle-class tax increase. If Boehner wanted to reach out to House Dems on this, he probably wouldn’t have much trouble pulling 218 votes together.
But that’s just not how the process works anymore. The Speaker isn’t calling the shots; he’s taking the orders. And as of yesterday, Boehner’s caucus told him this isn’t good enough.
The radicalized House GOP caucus doesn’t want a middle-class tax cut, and is only open to the possibility if they’re rewarded with a series of right-wing goodies. House Republicans said they’d demand an expedited Keystone decision, and Senate Republicans successfully negotiated that into the deal.
Now House Republicans are considering holding the deal hostage (again) to see what else they can get.
There were some sighs of relief yesterday morning, when it looked like we wouldn’t have to worry about the payroll issue again until February. That relief was clearly premature — one must never underestimate what the House GOP is capable of.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_12/republicans_may_yet_kill_middl034176.php
Just sayin’: Gov. Wilder got literally everything wrong in his Politico op-ed
No offense to the former Virginia governor, but literally everything in Doug Wilder’s Politico op-ed about President Obama’s “blackness” versus Bill Clinton’s was factually wrong.
I wrote about it this week for TheGrio, but am bringing it back since Wilder is still getting play for his column, including on MSNBC this morning. A clip:
Wilder writes in Politico that at first, he was not in agreement with author Toni Morrison’s declaration that Clinton was “the first black president,” and “Blacker than any actual black person who could ever be elected in our children’s lifetime.” He goes on to say:
All of a sudden, during both Morrison’s and my lifetime — not just our children’s — America elected a black president, in a spirit of hope and optimism painted in votes from all hues across the human rainbow.
Yet here we sit, more than three years after Obama’s win, and too many people are pulling me aside in private to ask why his standing in the African-American community has softened since his Inauguration. They also question whether the reduced excitement among young and new voters — with that lack of enthusiasm from African-Americans — might hinder Obama’s 2012 campaign.
This has forced me to think back to Morrison’s comment.
Obama was elected in a flourish of promise that many in the African-American community believed would help not only to symbolize African-American progress since the Civil War and Civil Rights Acts but that his presidency would result in doors opening in the halls of power as had never been seen before by black America.
Has that happened? I am forced to say, “No” — especially when comparing Morrison’s metaphorical first black president to the actual first black president.
Wilder goes on to list a string of Clinton appointments, including the secretaries of Agriculture, Labor, Commerce and Engergy (plus he credits Clinton with having Vernon Jordan as a close friend and adviser … seriously. And he criticizes Obama for not matching Clinton’s achievements.
Never mind that Obama, too, has named a host of African-Americans to senior posts, including his original political director, Patrick Gaspard, who is now executive director of the Democratic National Committee; Senior Adviser to the President Valerie Jarrett, probably the person after Vice President Joe Biden with the greatest access to the Oval Office; soon-to-be out-going Domestic Policy Council director Melody Barnes, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency Lisa Jackson, U.S.Trade Representative Ron Kirk, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice. Not to mention U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder, the first black person to hold that post.
Meanwhile, if the measure of presidential blackness is the number of high-level African-American appointments, George W. Bush, having named two black secretaries of state and a black national security adviser, was the blackest president of them all.
Wilder’s other complaint: with two available appointments to the Supreme Court, Obama named no blacks, while Clinton nominated both Ruth Bader Ginsberg and Stephen Breyer… wait…
Wilder’s larger narrative is that he cannot see what “legacy” Obama will leave behind for black people, “beyond an electoral point in time.”
“Who will follow him? Who will be the second to Obama’s first, and what has he done to help prepare for that?” Wilder asks.
It’s an intriguing question coming from the first — and only — black governor of Virginia. Meanwhile, the present governor of that state had to walk back an attempt to commemorate the Civil War with no mention of slavery. If Wilder left a stamp on that state on behalf of African-Americans, Gov. Bob McDonnell may not have gotten the memo.
Wilder’s contention that Clinton “seeded” the judiciary with judges who could one day fill the Thurgood Marshall seat on the Supreme Court (sorry, Clarence Thomas,) also fails to stand up to the facts. Of Clinton’s confirmed judicial nominees, 16 percent are black, versus 7 percent black judges under George W. Bush and 21 percent for Obama. And since diversity is measured in more than just black and white, Obama’s record of 11 percent confirmed Hispanic judges edges out Clinton’s (7 percent) and his share of women judges does so by a margin of 47 percent to 29 percent.
Wilder is not the first Clinton supporter to make the charge that somehow Clinton was more “black” than Obama, and it’s nearly always based on Obama’s relationship with black political leaders and the former opinion elite within black America (ie the Tavis Smileys and Cornel Wests of the world.) Meanwhile, Obama’s approval ratings with rank and file African-Americans has barely inched below 80 to 90 percent over the last three years. And even Obama’s relationship with the CBC has warmed (do you doubt that all of the members except Allen West will campaign vigorously for his re-election?)
The point here is that Wilder can have his differences with the president. But he ought to update his facts before proceeding. Just to help him out, here is a list of all of the black people in the upper echelon of the Obama administration:
http://blog.reidreport.com/2011/12/how-gov-wilder-got-literally-everything-wrongthing-wrong/
What the Democrats won
It’s become an article of faith among some liberals that Democrats … oh, sorry, just the Obama administration … are bad negotiators. Well, let’s see how they made out this time.
1. The omnibus spending bill
On this one, which funds the federal government, it looks like Harry Reid and company did pretty well:
Democrats believe the bill, which passed 67 to 32 and was the final major piece of legislation of the year, hands them a slew of points to use heading into the 2012 election season.
“There were a lot of ideological riders, and other nasty things in there that we got stripped from the bill,” said one Democratic aide familiar with the negotiations.
The trillion-dollar “omnibus bill” passed the House overwhelmingly Friday, and President Obama is expected to sign it soon before going on vacation.
“The GOP came in with an aggressive agenda and both in April and now today, the president and Democratic negotiators held their ground,” said another Democrat, referring to budget battles last spring. The senior aide added that they “made sure that extreme, ideological riders that had nothing to do with funding the government were removed.”
“Priorities like health care reform, Wall Street reform and education were funded,” said the aide, speaking anonymously Friday night because negotiations over tax cuts and other items were ongoing.
In fact, such items had all faced major cuts in the original bills passed by the House.
Perhaps the most-heavily targeted agency was the Environmental Protection Agency, which faced funding cuts of more than $1.5 billion. It still wound up with a substantial cut, but ended up with a budget above $8 billion, instead of the GOP’s proposed $7.15 billion.
And removed from the bill were dozens of environmental riders that would have done things like allow mining around the Grand Canyon, controversial mountaintop mining practices blamed for harming streams and water quality, removal of protections for gray wolves, and prevention of the EPA from regulating certain greenhouse gas emissions.
On the Wall Street front, Republicans sought to weaken the new Consumer Financial Protection Board, which they contend has too much authority. They also would have cut back and weakened the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which plays a central role under last year’s financial reforms in regulating risky derivatives trading. Both agencies were preserved by today’s bill.
One source said the White House was especially pleased that money was preserved for the president’s Race to the Top education initiative, which rewards schools for innovative reform plans. “Republicans were bragging about cutting Race to the Top in their bill, although how it’s good to cut education, I don’t know,” a Democratic source said.
The bill also added money to the health reform law, instead of cutting it.
2. The payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance extension
On this one, Republicans won the concession of requiring — to the extent Congress can “require” a co-equal branch of government — to “make a decision” on the controversial Keystone pipeline within 60 days. That sent envirotweeters into meltdown today, but the reality is, as explained by no less than Ed Henry (the guy who always should have been at Fox News but for some strange reason spent a bunch of years at CNN) that what Republicans really wanted was to require the president to DO the pipeline (again, a constitutionally dubious proposition.) So they won a concession that’s essentially without meaning, since the president can simply “decide” not to do it, and even blame the 60-day time period as not providing enough time. In the end, even the unions that wanted the pipeline because they believe it will create union jobs (though studies suggest not many of them) will get past that issue in time for the election.
The short term nature of the payroll tax and unemployment extension (2 months) could be viewed as a Democratic loss, in that it falls short of the 1 year extension the president wants, but Dems will claim victory on it anyway, and the White House will tick it off as movement toward the American Jobs Act, while both sides can go back to their corners, wrap some Christmas gifts, and prepare to do this all over again in February, when the White House folks seem to believe Republicans will be forced to back the full year extension. On balance though, extending unemployment benefits and not hiking middle class taxes during the holiday season has to be seen as a net win for the Ds, even though what Senate negotiators caved on was significant: the millionaires tax, being the largest thing.
All in all, Republicans can claim they got something like a trillion dollars in budget cuts (but not to NPR or Planned Parenthood, or other cherries they wanted to pick.) And Democrats can say they protected middle class programs, education and the environment.
Not bad for Dems, all in all, and good holiday politics for all.
http://blog.reidreport.com/2011/12/what-the-democrats-won/
Over GOP Protests, Court Upholds Illinois Map
By Shira Toeplitz
Roll Call Staff
Dec. 15, 2011, 5:52 p.m.
A federal court upheld Illinois Democrats’ crafty new Congressional map today despite Republican protests.
The ruling means Democrats will have the opportunity to pick up several House seats in 2012 as many Illinois Republican House Members seek re-election in drastically redrawn districts and unfriendly GOP territory next year.
Illinois Democrats drew an aggressive new Congressional map earlier this year aimed at knocking off a handful of GOP Members in 2012. Democrats hailed the redrawn map as a piece of redistricting art, but Republicans objected to the heavily redrawn district and took their complaints to court.
Illinois Republicans argued the map was politically motivated. They also said the Latino population in the Chicago metropolitan area was large enough to merit a second majority-Latino district besides the one currently held by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D).
But this week, the court ruled that Republicans failed to prove those allegations.
A three-judge panel wrote in its decision, “We agree with the Committee that the crafting of the Adopted Map was a blatant political move. … Ultimately we conclude that the Committee failed to present a workable standard by which to evaluate such claims.”
The court also ruled that Republicans failed to prove that the state Legislature intentionally discriminated against Latinos in its redraw.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/over_gop_protests_court_upholds_illinois_map-211111-1.html
December 18, 2011 12:45 PM
Quote of the Day
By Steve Benen
At this week’s debate for Republican presidential candidates, Newt Gingrich emphasized one of his favorite subjects: his disgust for the federal judiciary. The disgraced former House Speaker warned of “an uprising” against the courts, adding that he’s “prepared to take on the judiciary” unless federal courts start issuing rulings he agrees with. He went on to say he understands these issues “better than lawyers,” because he’s “a historian.”
Yesterday, Gingrich hosted a conference call with reporters and went even further, sketching out his vision for policymakers literally ignoring federal court rulings. Referencing Supreme Court findings on the handling of suspected terrorist detainees, for example, Gingrich said, “A commander in chief could simply issue instructions to ignore it, and say it’s null and void and I do not accept it because it infringes on my duties as commander in chief to protect the country.”
Gingrich went on to describe “the rule of two of three” — a made-up rule with no foundation in American law — in which two branches of government could out-vote the other one.
He wasn’t kidding, by the way.
This led CBS’s Bob Schieffer to ask Gingrich a good question on “Face the Nation” this morning.
SCHIEFFER: One of the things you say is that if you don’t like what a court has done, that Congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before Congress and hold a congressional hearing … how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol Police down to arrest him?
GINGRICH: Sure. If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal.
Just so we’re clear, this week, a leading presidential candidate articulated his belief that, if elected, he might (1) eliminate courts he doesn’t like; (2) ignore court rulings he doesn’t like; and (3) take judges into custody if he disapproves of their legal analyses.
I hope it’s unnecessary to note that Gingrich’s vision is stark raving mad.
I’ll just conclude with this observation: Newt Gingrich believes Barack Obama is a wild-eyed fanatic, guided by an extremist ideology, hell bent on overseeing a radical overhaul of the American system of government.
The irony is rich.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_12/quote_of_the_day_28034177.php
Idris Elba to Play Nelson Mandela in Upcoming Biopic
*It’s settled then.
Sexy British actor Idris Elba will play the role of former South African president Nelson Mandela in an upcoming biopic.
You may ask why he was chosen out of all people. There’s no telling, but one thing is for sure: he’s good.
Elba has taken on some pretty major roles lately, including movies like “Thor” and “Takers.”
But this one may be a bit challenging as movie watchers will have to decide who among the list of actors (Morgan Freeman, Sydney Poitier, De Klerk, Terrence Howard, and Dennis Haysbert) plays the better Mandela.
http://www.eurweb.com/2011/12/idris-elba-to-play-nelson-mandela-in-upcoming-biopic/
Posted by: Helen Philpot | December 16, 2011
Jesus is the reason for the season…
Margaret, I was going to send you a Happy Holiday wish, but then I watched that debate out of Iowa. It just took the Merry out of my Christmas. The Republican Party has more hate and ignorance in its Primary than the entire line-up of Real Housewives of Pick Any City on Bravo. Let me just go down the line-up for you…
Michele Bachman is crazy. Just ask the voices in her head. But you’ve got to give her credit for trying. No money. No staff. No clue. And yet she’s still out there plugging away. Bless her heart.
And then there’s that guy from Oz… I mean Texas. No brains. No heart. No Friends of Dorothy. Rick Perry hates gays. Just ask him. He likes Tim Tebow a little too much for my comfort, but I’m pretty sure that’s just a Sunday morning quarterback kind of thing. You’ve got to give him credit too, however. He’s trying. There’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but Perry can’t seem to get above ten percent in the polls with all those God-fearing, good Republicans out there in Iowa
http://margaretandhelen.wordpress.com/
Good Morning, Ametia, Rikyrah, 3 Chics, Friends & Visitors!
Good Morning, SG2 & Everyone. Happy Sunday! :-)
Good Evening, Everyone :)
We took Peanut to see Santa today…..whew….what a line.
I’ve said it before…there are two trains of thought when it comes to visiting Santa:
Vision 1 – I got the kid here…I’ve done my duty.
Vision 2 – Yes, I got the kid here, but they MUST be dressed.
I’m from a Vision 2 family…LOL…Shirley Temple curls and all.
Awww…I know Peanut looked like a princess. She’s a little darling.
Just too PRECIOUS…Peanut must have been in heaven; because I’m sure she looked like an ANGEL.