World News Korner

Courtesy of the YouTube page:

Erika Thompson teaches grade school in Whittier, Alaska, a town where most people live and work in one building, and is only accessible by a miles-long tunnel with limited hours.

I thought that this little video about teaching in Alaska might be a nice change of pace.

Whittier is about 60 miles from where I am in Anchorage, and it is a very nice little community.

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Courtesy of AARP:

A new report by the AARP Public Policy Institute, "Social Security's Impact on the National Economy," found that Social Security adds more than $1 trillion to the U.S. economy each year. People who receive Social Security benefits are not saving that money for a rainy day. They're spending it on goods and services — pumping it back into the economy. We have to remember that the typical older American has an income of about $22,000 a year, and Social Security accounts for about half of a typical older family's income.

Businesses use the income to purchase more goods and services, to realize profits and to hire more employees. Those employees, in turn, spend their wages on more goods and services, which creates more spending and income for more people. This creates a powerful multiplier effect that benefits the economy, businesses and workers. In fact, our report found that every dollar in Social Security benefits paid out generates about $2 of total output for the U.S. economy.

In 2012, spending by Social Security beneficiaries, combined with the added spending by businesses, generated roughly $1.5 trillion in total economic output.

This spending in turn supported more than 9 million jobs in the national economy. About 4 million of these jobs were created in just 10 industries. The largest impact was seen in the food services, real estate, health care and retail industries.

Thanks to the benefits provided by Social Security, nearly 21.4 million Americans avoided poverty: 1.1 million children, 5.8 million adults under 65, and 14.5 million adults 65-plus.

Of course despite this the Republicans party has been attempting to undermine Social Security since its very inception. And just like Medicare, and now the Affordable Care Act, these are programs that ultimately benefit not just the individual but also the country at large.

I look forward to the day when a report comes out detailing the incredibly positive benefits that Obamacare has had on the nation. Because eventually you KNOW it's coming.

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Fox News: CBS May Drop Benghazi-Gate Bomb On Team Obama Sunday Night On 60 Minutes...

Fox News' chief correspondent James Rosen reports 60 Minutes may air their long awaited report Sunday.





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Fox News Video: Dr. Ben Carson Politely Rips Big Ego Obama: America Is Not A Monarchy

Jay Carney says Obamacare website problems worse than expected...

BR/ORYR says Obama birth certificate problems worse than expected...





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Author: By JON M. CHANG

Photo courtesy of his adoptive mom's Facebook page.

Here was the caption that accompanied the above picture:

And finally here’s Trig slumbering on his DVD player after that great day playing outdoors!

How odd. his "DVD player" looks suspiciously like my I-Pad.

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Courtesy of the Newsobserver:

U.S. Rep. Renee Ellmers’ husband reported an AR-15 rifle stolen from the family’s home in Dunn last week, according to a police report.

The weapon had been left leaning against a gun locker in an unlocked garage on Kingsway Drive, the report said.

The rifle, a gun case and a GPS, with a cumulative value of $1,100, were reported stolen, according to Chief J.D. Pope. Police think the theft happened on the night of Oct. 15.

“According to the report, they had been out target shooting and brought the gun back and leaned it against the gun safe,” Pope said. “ … The garage door was left unsecured, according to the report.”

The case remains under investigation and likely will be treated as a burglary, he said. Ellmers’ husband, Brent Ellmers, was listed as the victim, Pope said.

As you have probably already guessed Ellmers received an endorsement from the NRA back in 2010, and of course has voted against any silly bills that might impede a patriotic citizen from getting their hands on military style weapons, and even spoke out about President Obama's desire to introduce some reasonable restrictions:

"President Obama is once again exploiting a tragedy for political gain and eroding our constitutional rights for the sake of an extreme liberal agenda. We need to have a serious discussion on how we can prevent troubled individuals from carrying out their insane intentions. But attacking our legal rights and liberties through abusive executive orders destroys the very principles that have protected our citizens from oppressive government power for over 236 years."

So EVERYBODY in the country has the right to own a gun in Rep. Ellmers opinion. Unless of course they are a troubled individual with "insane intentions."

Hmm, I wonder what the mental condition is of the person now in possession of her family's AR-15? Kind of too late to evaluate that now isn't it?

Perhaps somebody should have told Rep. Ellmers that the only thing that REALLY stops a bad guy with a gun, is somebody keeping him from getting that gun in the first place.

P.S. By the way can YOU guess who endorsed Ellmers back in 2010? I betcha can!

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This courtesy of Fox News (So you KNOW it's fair and balanced.):

The email showed a large image of the flaming cross, with the letters "ea Party" etched in to the right of it. The caption read: "Now You Know What the 'T' Stands For."

The email included "pointed analysis" from Grayson in which he said, "The Tea Party is no more popular than the Klan," blasting the conservative organization for its role in the showdown that resulted in the two-week partial government shutdown.

Republicans on Tuesday accused the Florida congressman of stepping -- way -- over the line.

"There's no excuse for the hateful words and imagery used by Congressman Grayson," said Matt Gorman, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. "This hate-filled rhetoric has Americans fed up with Washington."

He called on House Democrats to "swiftly and strongly condemn him and return the money he has raised for them."

Grayson, though, was unapologetic and defended his Ku Klux Klan comparison.

In a written statement provided to FoxNews.com, he cited a litany of examples where the "Tea Party" attacked President Obama by citing his race, including the recurring claims that he is a Kenyan and Muslim "despite all evidence."

The statement, as an example, included a doctored image of Obama in tribal garb, one of many offensive images of the president from the bowels of the Internet.

"One could go on and on, because there is overwhelming evidence that the Tea Party is the home of bigotry and discrimination in America today, just as the KKK was for an earlier generation. If the shoe fits, wear it," Grayson said.

Um, I am finding nothing about this e-mail to misrepresent the Tea Party in anyway.

Anybody of a different opinion?

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This was posted last night on the Batshit crazy Banshee's Facebook page:

Look, I’ll keep this brief because I want to spend quality time getting kids to bed tonight. (Translation: I have to yell at my kids to shut the fuck up while I'm on the phone with my Facebook ghostwriter.) Doubt I’ll get much sleep though because the recent proof of government corruption makes me nauseated. (Translation: Red Bull and Peppermint Schnapps don't mix as well together as you might think.) If it doesn’t you, and you can blindly ignore the status quo embraced by our politicians and low information voters, then I unapologetically call out your disloyalty to the ethical foundation of the greatest nation on earth.

Palin takes a moment fan the Tea Party calling them a "grass roots organization" of "patriots" who came into being due to corruption in government. That of course is a false narrative, as ultimately revealed in a piece on HuffPo just yesterday.

Palin then goes on to pimp the book by Peter Schweizer that she pimped over at Breitbart yesterday. I will spare you that here and jump right into the "It's all about me" portion of her rant.

Here’s the deal: all politics is local. And personal. Let me personalize this. It is UNBELIEVABLE that the press would investigate every nook and cranny of my life; send gullible reporters to my little town to kick over every rock any family member ever tread underfoot; scour every email I’ve written; research every Palin campaign disclosure like junkyard dogs; sic 12 AP reporters to fact check my book; breathlessly report about my wardrobe and an old used tanning bed I bought to get some sun during Alaskan winters as if these were vital national news stories; hound friends, personal doctors, strangers, and just downright strange people, etc., etc., etc., to know everything we do (and they still get the story wrong!). They blew and still blow all those resources “investigating” the irrelevant hockey mom from Wasilla. (Oh, if only that were true.) Meanwhile our government goes to hell in a hand basket right before the “elite media’s” closed eyes, and it took my friend Peter Schweizer to slap you upside the head to see any of this corruption? Good God. Be ashamed, media, be very ashamed. (Yes media be ashamed that you sent all of that media up there are STILL missed the biggest hoax ever pulled on the American voters.)


Now, I think I’ll go read “Green Eggs and Ham” to my little boy, then we’ll all say a prayer for our country as I join you in readying for tomorrow’s battle for America. (Translation: This is a good place to use a Dr. Suess book to link me and Ted Cruz in the minds of the barely literate Teabaggers.)

You know I find it rather humorous that Palin is still so butthurt over the fact that she had all of that media attention directed at her when she first appeared on the scene, when we all know that she is doing everything in her power to attract similar attention today.

Palin likes to pretend that she hates people prying into her life, but in fact it is far worse for her when they ignore her.

Personally I would love to have the media launch a serious investigation into everything that she did as mayor of Wasilla, Governor of Alaska, and Queen of the Tea Party. But only if that investigation concluded with it being revealed that she grifted millions of dollars from the federal government, manipulated her followers into donating millions more for a campaign she never had any intention of mounting, and that she faked a pregnancy for the sole purpose of gaining access to the Republican presidential ticket in 2008.

Yes that would be an investigation worthy of the best efforts of the so-called "Lamestream media." However it is extremely unlikely to ever be launched because, let's face it, nobody cares that much about her.

If they did she would not have to resort to posting her frustrations on Facebook, or having them ghostwritten for her on Breitbart, or only have about an hour total each month on Fox News for her diatribes.

You see the main thing that was discovered during that whole investigation of "every nook and cranny" of her life is that she was a giant fraud, a puppet of corporate interests, and an attention whore.

THAT story has already been told, so if Palin wants to have any new attention directed her way she might have to reveal some things that she has worked very hard to keep hidden all of these years.

Speaking only for myself, I can tell you that my fingers are hovering at the ready above my keyboard any time that she wants to start.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger Says He Has No Plans To Change Article II Natural Born Citizen Requirement...

Fox News' Dennis Miller jokes to Bill O'Reilly: Most people suspect Arnold was born in Kenya...

- MORE DETAILS -

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Okay so just a few hours ago Palin apparently decided go all in with conspiracy theorists who now seem to make up the base of the Tea Party movement, and posted this on her Facebook page:

Whether accurate or not, for some reason I found this hilarious! Am I out of bounds for cracking up when I saw this take on a nauseated Obama fan, her absentminded pal, and our President's heroics this week? If so, penance paying I'll accept. (Palin puts a Smiley Face here, but I don't allow that kind of crap on this blog.) With the Obama White House’s total lack of transparency, it’s no wonder that some will ask whether they staged even a fainting lady in the Rose Garden. What was once a major leap in logic has become a single step because President Obama has lied so often and so blatantly ("If you like your health care plan, you can keep your plan" comes to mind!).

She then links to this batshit crazy article over at the Weekly Standard, that scrutinizes the moment that Karmel Allison almost fainted behind the President while he was giving his speech about the Affordable Care website problems.

I read through the post, by woman calling herself "Patriot Lady," and found that virtually ALL of her "discoveries of fraud" were easily explained if one applied logic. In fact upon repeated viewings it seems even more farfetched to jump to the conclusion that it is fake. (You can also see an interview with the young woman here and judge for yourself.)

But THAT doesn't stop Palin from suggesting that since the President is SO untrustworthy that it is not out of the realm of possibilities that the staged this. (Yes, HE'S the untrustworthy one.)

However I could not help notice that this comes right after many of the people visiting here bought into that Daily Currant parody that suggested that Palin believed that Jesus Christ had celebrated Easter. Part of the explanation for why reasonable people might believe such a crazy thing about Sarah Palin is that she has a history of making incredibly stupid remarks, and is famous for getting facts wrong about historical events (Think Paul Revere's ride.)

Let's face it this is clearly an example of blatant projection on Palin's part. Obviously there are conspiracies about her that are based on nothing more than very active imaginations and a deep seated disdain for the nasty bitch.

However there are also numerous examples of bizarre things that were proven to be true, such as she faked supporting letters to the editor, that she hijacked polls to make herself seem more popular, that she faked a pregnancy, that she constantly tells lies about her past and her family, and on and on and on. (Feel free to add your own to this list.)

However the conspiracy theories about the President, he was not born in this country, he is a homosexual, he is a secret Muslim, he is killing journalists, he is the Antichrist trying to destroy the country, are all based almost solely on absolutely nothing. And some of them are so crazy that they speak to a derangement that I am not sure we have every seen in this country before. (MSNBC just did a story about where these conspiracy theorists get their "facts" that is definitely worth a read.)

And the same is true of the fainting lady conspiracy.

That being said I do find it more than a little telling that Palin is now working the Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and World Net Daily side of the fence. You know the place where the truly unhinged go to get their news.

But hey, I guess you go where your audience is, don't you?

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If you are a female voter in this country you need to really watch this.

Because trust me, if you live in a Red state, and they get away with it in Texas, it will soon be coming to a polling station near you.

The fear of Wendy Davis in Texas is both shocking and, at least for me as a liberal, exhilarating.

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Family values advocate, and defender of Christianity, Sarah Palin.

This from the Ho-ho-ho's Facebook page:

I had the honor of visiting Fort Hood in 2009 during the "Going Rogue" book tour and meeting some of the great men and women in uniform who serve our country there. Please take a look at this article by Todd Starnes about a pre-deployment briefing at Fort Hood in which troops there were told that evangelical Christians and the Tea Party were a threat to the nation! Not only is such a thing unfathomable, but as shocking is that the Commander in Chief has not used his authority to stop this nonsense. I think the troops at Fort Hood who lived through a terrible act of terrorism a few years ago know better than most that Christians aren't the ones using religion as an excuse to attack our nation.

Palin's ghostwriter then links to this article, by Palin's favorite over the top reporter Todd Starnes.

Now some of you may remember a similar story that I posted last week about the US Army identifying the American Family Association as a domestic hate group due to its aggressive anti-gay stance. This Starnes article sounds very similar except that it supposedly includes the Tea Party and Evangelicals in general as "enemies of America."

Yeah but here's the thing.

Starnes cites maybe one or two soldiers, who refuse to be identified, as his source on this story, however Fort Hood completely refutes their claims:

Meanwhile, the public affairs office at Fort Hood is denying the soldiers' allegations.

“The allegations you are asking about were brought to the attention of the Fort Hood leadership immediately and a (sic) inquiry is occurring,” read a statement from Tom Rheinlander, the public affairs director at Fort Hood. “At this time, initial information gathered about the training and what you claim occurred is not substantiated by unit leadership and soldiers present at this training venue.”

So did this really happen? Is it an exaggeration of what actually DID happen? Or is it just more made up bullshit for Fox News and Sarah Palin to use to suggest that under President Obama there has been a coordinated attack on Christianity?

Doesn't really matter if its true.

Fox News gets to agitate and invigorate the Right Wing with stories like this, so they will vote for Republican candidate with "traditional values," (See Christianity.), and Sarah Palin gets to use it to sell a book or two.

In the conservative world everybody wins.

Well, except the truth that is.

Though to be honest the idea of identifying the Tea Party, and certain Evangelical groups, as "enemies of America" does not seem like such a bad idea to me.

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Rep. Alan Grayson Cites Obama ID Fraud Issue As Reason For KKK Fundraising Letter...

Col. Allen West was on Fox News' The Kelly File to respond to Rep. Grayson's campaign sending out a fundraising letter depicting the Tea Party as the KKK. West correctly pointed out the KKK was started by the Democrats. He questions why Democratic Party leaders and the so-called civil rights leaders are not condemning Grayson's disgusting tactics. West then asked why civility seeking Obama has not condemned Grayson's actions saying; Obama "is supposedly the first African-American President... He should be reprimanding Grayson..."

Note to West: Why would they condemn it? They agree with Grayson. You can't be that naive.

- Image Credit: Gateway Pundit -

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Jim Garrow.

Courtesy of Right Wing Watch:

Earlier this year, a right-wing activist named Jim Garrow started claiming that President Obama had instituted a litmus test within the military, requiring leaders to pledge to fire on American civilians if so ordered and purging anyone who refused.

Yesterday, Garrow showed up on Rick Wiles' End Times radio broadcast to claim that for the last forty years, he had been working as an undercover intelligence officer for the US government until he was forced out last month by President Obama for revealing this information.

During the interview, Garrow claimed that everyone in the intelligence community knows that President Obama is bisexual and that he has "little buddies ... brought into the White House even now."

Garrow also revealed that the Obama administration was responsible for the deaths of right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart, journalist Michael Hastings, and novelist Tom Clancy, all of whom knew that Obama was, in reality, an agent of the Saudi Arabian government. In fact, Garrow said, it was the fact that Breitbart couldn't keep his mouth shut about it that caused all three of them to be killed:

Wiles: Is it common knowledge among intelligence agencies that Barack Obama is not an American but indeed a foreign agent?

Garrow: Yes. Yes.

Wiles: But do the other agencies know who he works for?

Garrow: Yes. Yeah, they do.

Wiles: And you think that answer is Saudi Arabia?

Garrow: Well, I know that to be true and that's why Breitbart, Hastings, and Tom Clancy are dead.

Wiles: Okay, Breitbart, no doubt in my mind, taken out. He bragged. I liked Andrew Brietbart but what he did was incredibly stupid. He bragged the day before his death that in the morning he was going to reveal shocking information that would stop the Obama campaign. Mr. Breitbart dropped dead waling home at night and his corpse was blood red.

Garrow: Brighter than that actually. But the point is that he caused the death of Hastings and Tom Clancy because he had been sharing data with them.

Wiles: There's a connection between Breitbart's death and Hastings and Clancy?

Garrow: All of them, yea. All of them. Because of the information that Breitbart gave to Tom Clancy, he was working on a novel that would have exposed Obama as a Saudi agenda, as a Saudi plant in the White House ... He knew exactly who Obama was and he was going to release it in character form in a book . The character was going to be this President of the United States who was a plant. It was going to be the real information about Obama was going to come out in the form of a novel.

If you are thinking that this Rick Wiles guy sounds vaguely familiar you are right. He was the guy from End Times radio who interviewed the husband of the Stenographer for God the other day.

So these are the kinds of conspiracy theories rattling around out there in the fringes of the Right Wing. The ones that are shaping the views of many of the Tea Party's staunchest supporters.

And you just KNOW how much they want to believe that Obama had something to do with the death of Andrew Breitbart.

"Facts? We don't need no stinking facts! We know it must be true!"

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Fox News' The Five: O'Reilly Birther Remark; VP Cheney Says Obama Is The Extremist...

The Five panel take on O'Reilly's birther talking point. VP Dick Cheney says the extremist in DC is Obama...





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HOW many highways workers does it take to change a light bulb? Seven according to this photo taken on a dual carriageway.

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Author: By: Benjamin Russell

Bros need brosurance. #doyougotinsurance? http://t.co/5f0rwNKJKp pic.twitter.com/p8Ajg2q7S0
— CCHI (@COHealthAccess) October 22, 2013

Courtesy of Political Ticker:

Keg stands. That's one way to promote Obamacare, it seems.

"Brosurance," reads a new web ad that shows a few bros having a good time. "Keg stands are crazy. Not having health insurance is crazier. Don't tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills. We got it covered."

The Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and ProgressNow Colorado Education launched the web ad, along with a series of other meme-like images that target young residents in Colorado, as well as Latino families–two demographics that tend to lack health insurance.

The ads are modeled after the successful "Got Milk?" campaign, with each image saying, "Got Insurance?"

Other ads feature mountain climbers, kayakers and cyclists. The health groups are trying to appeal to "our own Colorado twist," says Jenny Davies-Schley, of the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative.

The idea is to make the images go viral, and each ad is easily sharable through a number of different social media agents, like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Or blogs, don't forget blogs.

Can I just say that this marks the first time ever, that I have been jealous of Coloradans.

Brilliant campaign, and it makes me really WANT to sign up for their health care.

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Photo courtesy of the Guardian

Courtesy of CNN:

The 12-year-old boy, whose name has not been released, began by shooting a fellow student in the shoulder, police said Tuesday. Then he turned his gun on math teacher Mike Landsberry before shooting a second student in the abdomen, Washoe County School District Police Chief Mike Mieras said.

After that, he shot himself to death with his pistol, which Sparks Deputy Police Chief Tom Miller identified as a Ruger 9mm semiautomatic.

"We got a guy with a gun. He's down from a head shot wound. Could be our shooter," one of the responding officers is heard telling dispatchers on the 911 calls. "He's out there on the basketball court."

Landsberry walked toward the shooter on a playground basketball court after the first student was hit, saving lives, according to authorities.

"Mr. Landsberry's heroic actions, by stepping toward the shooter, allowed time for other students in the playground area to flee," Mieras said.

Despite previous reports indicating the two wounded students had been shot inside the school building, all the shots were fired outside, police said.

Miller, who said earlier on CNN's "New Day" that it wasn't yet clear if the boy was targeting specific people, declined to identify the boy out of respect for his family.

Mr. Landsberry was a Marine, but he did what just about any educator in the country would do, he protected his kids.

And no it is unlikely that having Mr. Landsberry armed would have changed the number of fatalities, so adding another gun would not have made the school safer. However, subtracting one certainly would have.

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Courtesy of Raw Story:

Speaking at daily Mass last Thursday, Pope Francis warned Christians against turning their faith into a rigid ideology.

“The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology,” he said, according to Radio Vatican. “And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, always. Of every sign: rigid.

“And when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements.”

“The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people,” Francis added. “But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?”

He said Christian ideology was the result of a lack of true prayer.

I think that old joke, "Does the Pope shit in the woods," is now completely outdated.

The new joke should be, "Does the Pope shit all over his own religion?"

Look I am NEVER going to be able to trust this guy completely, I mean after all he's a Catholic, but if this guy keeps this up I may have to start cutting him some slack.

That is if he lives that long. I HAVE to imagine that the Cardinals and Bishops are having little meetings that center around just how long the life expectancy of a Pope should be allowed to extend.

I mean the guy is trying to make Christianity reflect the values of Jesus Christ! What is he thinking?

Personally I think they should pray for lightning to strike him. I mean if they have faith, and they consistently claim that they do, then they should leave it up to God to decide whether he keeps his job or not.

Until then, he IS supposed to be considered God's representative on earth. So suck it Catholics!

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I know I didn't just see this. No. @penn Connaissance is legit bringing BRISTOL PALIN AS A SPEAKER?! pic.twitter.com/lkunsC5QA2
— Andre Nicholas (@omg_its_anf) October 20, 2013

Courtesy of Town Hall:

Fliers scattered around the University of Pennsylvania campus read that Bristol Palin was going to be this year’s fall speaker. Penn’s Special Events and Planning Committee had apparently made its highly anticipated announcement and decided to host the advertised Teen Pregnancy Prevention Spokesperson, leaving some students dazed and confused.

Those posters turned out to be a hoax. Under the Button, UPenn’s “24/7 source for all things Penn,” apparently took the time to create the fake advertisements just to write this charming description on their web page,

"A proud teen mama, (and Teen Pregnancy Prevention Ambassador…huh,) Bristol Palin has travelled the U.S. advocating for abstinence, earning her the name “The Worst Person In The World”. Now, thanks to some questionably-legit fliers, she’s coming to Penn! No offense B, but Penn kids are active, and the university dishes out more free condoms than acceptance letters. But hey, make yourself at home, just don’t be shocked when we choose bad sex over no sex."

I hope the ink and paper these students wasted was worth it. The “active” link the author includes in the post takes you to a New York Times article called, “Sex on Campus – She Can Play That Game, Too,” which seems to approve of young women at UPenn choosing one-night stands over serious relationships.

Now this Town Hall is a Right Wing publication so they took some offense on behalf of the "Queen of Abstinence for you, but never for me."

These students’ hoax may have been “all in good fun,” but it wasn't all in good taste. After the negative media attention Palin received for her unplanned pregnancy during her mom’s vice presidential campaign, she has been an ambassador for pro-life and pro-family causes. By doing so, this 23-year-old has managed to change a negative into a positive. She even shared her joyful life with her son in a Lifetime documentary called, “Life’s a Tripp,” proving that from an unplanned pregnancy can come a blessing, not just a regret.

That’s a message any college student should hear.

"Her joyful life?" Yeah nice try, however I think that these young people can probably identify a scam when they see one. After all they undoubtedly learned all about Bristol in "Hypocrisy 101."

Let's face it Sarah Palin not only turned herself into a laughingstock, she helped to turn her entire family into one giant joke as well. Quite an achievement if you think about it.

And do you know the sad part is that this is probably as close to an actual speaking gig that Bristol will get for quite some time. If ever.

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Today's contribution comes from that Right Wing rag known as Breitbart.com, which is really only a small step up from having her post it on Facebook.

Essentially it is a post pimping a book by Peter Schweizer, who I am sure some of you will remember Palin hired as her "foreign policy adviser" back in 2011. (And what a bang up job he did.)

The book is about corruption, and buying favors, in Washington D.C., because you know nobody has ever made that connection before. Schweizer perhaps takes it a step further identifying this process as "mafia-style legislative tactics" and claiming that it is akin to paying "protection money" to insure that there will be no investigations for wrong doing into those companies that contribute. Once again a practice almost as old as Washington itself.

Of course since this IS coming from a Right Wing mouthpiece it tends to focus on President Obama and the Democrats:

Schweizer interviewed former Chairman of Apache Corporation Ray Plank. Plank said campaign cash and lobbying contracts now function as “protection money” to keep lawmakers and regulators from going after you.

“It’s what you expect from the mafia,” said Plank. “They basically come to you and say, ‘We are going to shove this bat up your ass and give you an enema. You better play ball.’ We saw a great deal of it. It’s an insidious blight.”

There are left-wing progressives on Wall Street and in the high-tech world who bankrolled President Obama’s campaign because they love his radical agenda. But as Schweizer points out, many gave because they know they have to; if they don’t, Obama will come after them.

That’s a lesson the Tea Party knows all too well. After the Tea Party’s historic 2010 midterm victory, Obama unleashed Attorney General Eric Holder to go after the oil and gas sector, which had given four times as much to Republicans as to Democrats. As Obama said in October 2010, “We are going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.”

That last quote really bothered me, because it did NOT sound like anything the President would say. EVER.

So I found two different speeches the President gave in October 2010, one was a rally in Portland and the other was a speech with Harry Reid in Arizona. I combed through them carefully, and could find nothing that matched that quote exactly, nor anything that was very similar to it.

Now it is early in the morning here, and perhaps I just missed it, but like I said it doesn't sound like the President.

However it really doesn't matter, because the premise, at least in the President's case, does not add up.

If the idea is that people who donate a lot of money are safe from prosecution, then Schweizer, and his employer Sarah Palin, would have to explain what just happened to JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon.

Dimon was a huge contributor to numerous Democrats, including former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, as well as many prominent Republicans, and was very close to President Obama.

And yet the other day his company just agreed to a record setting settlement of 13 billion dollars for numerous civil suits filed against them, and are still under federal investigation. (I don't remember ANY investigations being launched against big businesses and unethical lenders during the Bush Administration. And not only that, but they relaxed regulations to the point that there were very few actions even considered illegal by them anymore.)

I cannot tell you how ironic I find it that these so-called conservatives are jumping all over Washington politicians now that there is a Democratic majority in the Senate, and a Democrat in the White House, for allegedly being corrupt, but said NOTHING during the eight years of the Bush-Cheney criminal enterprise.

Oh, but now that the Teabaggers are attempting to hijack the Republican party (On yesterday's Hardball Freedomwork's Matt Kibbe stated that fact out loud.), the Koch brothers are willing to sick Palin on the GOP as well:

And what about the GOP establishment? Why haven’t they been able to clean up the extortion racket in Washington? You have to ask yourself, has the party machine fought this corruption or does it participate in it? As a senior House Republican told Fox News on Thursday, it’s “highly unlikely” Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) will be challenged because few have the muscle to match his ability to “raise money.”

Then the ghostwriter decides to insert a little of Palin's whining into the article for the sake of authenticity:

The fact that these strong-arm tactics take place in Washington doesn’t surprise me at all. I’ve fought this type of corruption my entire political career. And those who disagreed with me politically used thug-like tactics to try to bankrupt my family with frivolous lawsuits in Alaska, and it hasn’t stopped to this day.

And that may be the most Palin-like portion of this clearly professionally written, and duplicitous, article.

The funny thing is that much of what the real author says are things that I agree with. Let's get corporate money out of politics, let's elect leaders that really represent their constituents, and let's make sure that big businesses are unable to buy their way out of trouble.

Hear, hear.

However then I remember that this is an article written for a political celebutard, by a ghostwriter hired by the Koch brothers (Perhaps the wealthiest, and more powerful political contributors in the country). And suddenly it occurs to me that I am simply reading propaganda, dipped in hypocrisy sauce, and promoted by a woman who quit her job in order to work as a flunky for wealthy puppet masters.

In other words, considering the source(s), this has no actual value to anybody.

It is simply camouflage, and an attempt at redirection, for those who only want you to notice a CERTAIN segment of Washington being corrupt, while missing out on the REAL puppeteers behind Washington politics. Remember, the politicians who the Tea Party is sending to Washington are there to shut down the government, and without government there is NO government oversight of business.

Personally I think I know who the REAL villains are (Koch brothers, Freedom Works, Heritage Foundation), and I will make sure to keep a very wary eye on everything that they do. And I have to say that it seems to me that their actions are becoming more desperate every day.

How else to explain taking the Palin out of mothballs and attempting to use her as the voice of reason concerning political corruption?

Update: Okay apparently the President DID say, “We are going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.” However he did not use it in the context referred to by Palin's ghostwriter.

Here is the quote in context:

In a radio interview that aired on Univision on Monday, Mr. Obama sought to assure Hispanics that he would push an immigration overhaul after the midterm elections, even though he has not been able to attract Republican support.

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us,’ if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2.”

Referring specifically to Republicans such as Senator John McCain, who formerly supported an overhaul but now are stressing border security and supporting strict immigration laws like Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration measure, Mr. Obama said, “Those aren’t the kinds of folks who represent our core American values.”

So he was talking about immigration and Hispanic voters, and it had NOTHING to do with threatening big business and donors.

Of course this was directed at Right Wing readers, so they figured nobody would research their lies.

By the way, speaking of research, thanks to all of you who found that quote for me. Fortunately for us WE actually do our research.

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Courtesy of Politico:

Arkansas Rep. Tim Griffin, a second-term Republican, announced on Monday that he will not seek reelection in 2014, citing a desire to spend more time with his family.

“It has been an agonizing and difficult decision involving much prayer, thought and discussion. We have decided that now is the time for me to focus intently on my top priority, my family, as Elizabeth and I raise our two young children,” Griffin said in a statement to the Arkansas news site Talk Business.

“To that end, I will not seek reelection to a third term. I will complete my second term, but I have made no decision as to my plans after Congress except that I will continue in public service, including as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve,” he said.

In an interview taking place only hours after his announcement Griffin claims that “This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anybody who actually knows me" Well I cannot say that I know this guy, thankfully, but I DO know that he seemed to gladly accept just about every underhanded thing that Karl Rove assigned to him in order to get ahead, and that included purging voting rolls in 2004 to help Bush beat Kerry, and even flying up here to help battle against Alaska's Clean Water Initiative.

So do I really think that little Timmy Griffin has suddenly decided that politics is not for him, and that it is time to stay at home with the kids?

Not on your life.

Stay tuned my friends, I'm pretty sure I smell the scent of a scandal drifting in from Arkansas.

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Courtesy of The Independent:

The British public has such “poor religious literacy” that a modern audience would be baffled by the Monty Python film The Life of Brian – because it would not understand the Biblical references, a senior BBC figure has claimed.

Aaqil Ahmed, the BBC’s head of religion and ethics, told The Independent that failings in religious education over two generations were undermining public understanding of contemporary national and international issues. “You had generations that missed out. We have poor religious literacy in this country and we have to do something about it,” he said.

He was speaking at the launch of an ambitious three-part BBC2 series which will address the subject of pilgrimage from a broad perspective and is intended to attract the interest of Atheists as much as religious believers.

“If you tried to make The Life of Brian today it would fall flat on its face because the vast majority of the audience would not get most of the jokes. They don’t have the knowledge,” Ahmed said. He questioned whether modern audiences would appreciate that the “great joke about the Sermon on the Mount” in the 1979 Python film, where a woman asks “What’s so special about the cheesemakers?”, was a reference to Jesus’s words “Blessed are the peacemakers” from the Bible.

He also claimed that comedians such as Eddie Izzard, Tim Minchin and Ricky Gervais – who he said he found “really funny” – tended to tackle religion in very general terms. “They don’t take on specific aspects of religion they take on bigger things – such as the Bible. They can’t go into specific stories anymore because no one knows what the stories are.”

Okay well I am going to go on record as saying that though I lament the fact that people cannot appreciate the genius of "The Life of Brian" (Which I love) that overall it is a very good thing that people are less indoctrinated into religion these days.

I actually hope for the day, here in America, when we see the Bible and Quran relegated to the mythology section of our local libraries, and when they will be treated as interesting fables and nothing more.

I don't believe I will see that in my lifetime, but there is always hope for the next generations.



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