World News Korner

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Courtesy of Politico:

A man set himself on fire on the National Mall in the nation's capital as passers-by rushed over to help douse the flames, officials and witnesses said Friday afternoon.

The reason for the self-immolation was not immediately clear and the man's identity was not disclosed. But it occurred in public view, on a central national gathering place, in a city still rattled by a mass shooting last month and a high-speed car chase outside the U.S. Capitol on Thursday that ended with a woman being shot dead by police.

The man on the Mall suffered life-threatening injuries and was airlifted to the hospital, said District of Columbia fire department spokesman Tim Wilson.

He was standing by himself in the center portion of the Mall when he emptied the contents of a red gasoline can on himself and set himself on fire moments later, said Katy Scheflen, who witnessed it as she walked across the area. Police say they responded around 4:20 p.m. Friday.

Scheflen said passing joggers took off their shirts in an effort to help douse the flames, and the man was clearly alive as the fire spread. A police department spokesman said he was conscious and breathing at the scene. MedStar Washington Hospital Center tweeted that the man was taken there but had no condition update.

"There was not a lot people could do because it was a gasoline fire," Scheflen said.

She said he may have said something before he acted "but it was nothing intelligible." She said she did not see him holding any signs before he set himself ablaze and that there was another man with a tripod set up near him but did not mention if he was filming.

Now I am unwilling to jump to conclusions concerning this horrific incident, but I WILL say that it is troubling that it happens right on the heels of that poor woman being shot by Capitol police.

Whether or not either one of these incidents was politically motivated remains unclear, but I ma not sure how surprised I would be to other examples of similar incidents happening in he weeks to come.

If you are like me reports of this incident immediately brought up images of the famous incident in 1963 where Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc, immolated himself in protest of the mistreatment of Buddhist monks by the South Koreans.

Like I said I am not willing to jump to any uninformed conclusions right now but I think this is something that we need to know about and have in the back of our minds in case there are other such unexplainable incidents in the future.

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Many thanks to Gov. @SarahPalinUSA for your friendship & the care package! We're well-stocked for #HarryReidsShutdown pic.twitter.com/Zeiv37gao9
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) October 3, 2013

So apparently it is not enough for Palin to constantly massage Ted Cruz's........ego, now she is also trying to get on his good side by sending him prepackaged store bought Alaska foods.

Ya know because NOTHING says independent frontier woman like sending your assistants to Wal-Mart to buy a bunch of crap to stick in a box and send to Washington.

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Courtesy of the Washington Post:

To the White House, the shutdown/debt ceiling fight is quite simple, and quite radical: Republicans are trying to create a new, deeply undemocratic pathway through which a minority party that lost the last election can enact an agenda that would never pass the normal legislative process. It's nothing less than an effort to use the threat of a financial crisis to nullify the results of the last election. And the White House isn't going to let it happen.

The Obama administration bristles at the idea that they've been unwilling to negotiate or compromise. They went on a widely covered "charm offensive" back in the spring. The president held multiple dinners with Senate Republicans. He invited over key House Republicans. The meetings were so frequent that the participants were nicknamed "the diner's club."

Nothing came of those meetings. Republicans still weren't willing to talk on taxes. And so the White House grimly accepted that they couldn't move the dial on spending. The CR, they note, funds the government at the GOP's number of $988 billion. It is, itself, a compromise, and one they don't like. But they made it, because they couldn't pass anything else through Congress. And then the Republicans decided to shut down the government because they couldn't pass a delay or defunding of Obamacare through Congress.

That's right folks, all that talk of the President not reaching across the aisles and not being willing to negotiate is all bullshit.

In an attempt to find just the right metaphor to describe the tactics employed by John Bohner and the House Republicans reporter Ezra Klein struck pure gold.

As the White House sees it, Speaker John Boehner has begun playing politics as game of Calvinball, in which Republicans invent new rules on the fly and then demand the media and the Democrats accept them as reality and find a way to work around them.

Yes, yes, that is EXACTLY what they have been doing! As the President has tried to find some way to play fairly and create an environment where perhaps no one side wins everything, but that ultimately the American people emerge victorious, the Republicans have been playing Calvinball!

What? You are unfamiliar with Calvinball?

Well first off you should be ashamed of yourself for not recognizing the iconic game from the best damn newspaper strip EVER created! And second, well second here is your chance to rectify your crippling ignorance.

Yep, that just about sums up the Republican's approach to deal making in the last several months.

The only question is, will President Obama continue to allow them to keep changing the rules or will he take a page out of Rosalyn the babysitter's playbook.

Inspiration can come from the most unlikely of places you know.

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Get ready Texas!

Courtesy of the ABC News:

Democratic state Sen. Wendy Davis declared her candidacy for governor of Texas on Thursday, promising to focus on the needs of average Texans.

In an email to supporters, Davis said she would focus on education, economic development and health care.

Wow what a surprise!

Who saw that coming?

Oh, ALL of you?

Well it is STILL great news.

Wait did she say she was going to focus on education and health care? In Texas?

Wow, she really does have an impressive set of ladyballs!

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Just a graphic to remind people that while Palin shamelessly uses veterans to make political hay she would like to be paid for it as well.

This from Honey Wagon Boo Boo's Facebook page:

My Call For Civil Disobedience Around The “Barrycades” (Cute. I wonder if it cost extra SarahPAC money for that one?)

It’s beyond shameful to see Barack Obama disrespect and mistreat our World War II veterans so blatantly. Obama’s political stunt to “shut down” their memorial by barricade is to elicit an angry response to generate bad publicity for people the president uses in his continual blame game.

Don’t believe me? Look at the “barricade” at the World War I Memorial:

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The difference is obvious. There aren’t any World War I veterans alive today to mistreat in a shameful political stunt. He’s deployed more guards to bar our World War II heroes from their memorial than he sent to Benghazi when our consulate was under attack. (Well of course somebody needs to bring up Benghazi. The evidence for this statement by the way seems to be this tweeted picture of park employees replacing the safety barricades after the Congressional Republicans knocked them down in their rush to get a photo-op with the veterans. Those barriers are NOT there to bar visitors from visiting the site, they are there to keep them safe since there are few park employees to assist them and ensure there is no destruction done to the monuments or injuries incurred by visitors.)

The President is treating our veterans the same way he treated school kids when he cancelled their White House tours. (Does she mean like every other person affected by a government shutdown? Because that list is long and it includes cancer patients, scientists, and infants and children not being fed.) When times called for obvious government belt-tightening, he took it out on kids rather than look for anything that would affect him personally. And while our vets are barricaded from the memorial they built with their heroism, the government “slim down” won’t affect Obama’s golf game or his family’s White House chefs. (You nasty, nasty bitch.)

Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are attempting to fund the Veterans Administration and other essential functions, but Democrats are blocking them because they want to make any slim down look as awful as possible in order to deflect from what this whole slim down thing is about, which is their Obamacare train wreck. (Time for a reminder that the budget which the Senate Democrats approved, and which John Boehner is too intimidated to bring to the House floor, INCLUDES the sequestration cuts that the Tea Party helped to win last time they pulled this shit. The ONLY thing they are fighting to cut is The Affordable Care Act, which is a law!)

Good Congressmen are fighting for average middle class Americans to get the same breaks that Obama gave Congress, his pals, union bosses, and crony corporations who financed his campaign and snookered the media into putting him in office. (Actually Obamacare itself GIVES middle class Americans the same breaks enjoyed by Congress, big corporations, and union members. It gives them access to affordable health care. The question is WHY are the Republicans trying to stop them from getting it?)

It is a sad day when We the People have to go cap in hand to the president begging him to give us the same relief he gave his friends by fiat. Thank God we have bold leaders willing to fight for those who can’t afford to pay powerful lobbyists to make Obama and Harry Reid listen. (Does she mean like Ted Cruz? Oh yeah, he's a hell of a leader. Perhaps she should read the post directly below this one.)

Want to know why this whole thing happened? Look at what Obamacare is already doing to our country with health care costs skyrocketing, workers laid off or kicked to part-time, employers shutting down projects, and debt still soaring. See the article linked below. This is what America is up against. (The article she is referring to is a VERY misleading one called "The 100 Unintended Consequences of Obamacare" written by a Right Wing outlet.)

And Obama employees who know in your hearts and souls that punishing our veterans is wrong, know that we have your backs when you say “enough is enough” and then allow our vets to gaze upon our memorials that honor America’s finest. (And those "Obama employees" also surely know that all of that, and more, can be accomplished simply by bringing the Senate approved sequestration CR to the floor of the House and voting on it.) This simple act of civil disobedience will galvanize our nation against atrocious political games, and I promise you’ll sleep well tonight.

- Sarah Palin

So to be clear Palin is encouraging OTHER people to risk an overnight stay in jail, and a possible violent confrontation with police, while SHE stays warm and toasty in her fuzzy slippers and terrycloth straight jacket at home?

Why not? After all Facebook posts don't leave handcuff marks on your wrists or pepper spray your eyeballs. It is easy to suggest that others, in this case elderly service men and their families, fight a fight that you would never, ever fight in person.

I always find it fascinating that every time Palin accuses the President of doing something shameful, like using the World War 2 Veterans for a "shameful political stunt," she does it while essentially doing that very same thing herself.

In this case the President is not "using" anybody, he is simply standing up to a group of domestic terrorists who were elected by the most rabid members of the Right Wing to undermine the government and, as Rachel Maddow has pointed out, to eventually shut the whole thing down.

The President is clearly on the right side in this battle, and it will take a lot more than transparent publicity stunts and crazed Facebook posts to shake his resolve.

P.S. It should be noted that Palin DID do one good thing today. She greatly assisted New Jersey Senatorial candidate Cory Booker, by endorsing his opponent. I am sure a thank you note is on it's way from Booker's campaign office as we speak.

Update: As some of you probably figured out, I wrote this post before the shooting happened today on Capitol Hill. And the unpaid Capitol police who responded to that emergency are the same folks that Palin was encouraging people to confront about the fact that could not visit some of the attractions in the National Mall.

I'm just saying.

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Federal Judge Stephen F. Williams asked the attorney for Esquire magazine what in the First Amendment permitted his client to accuse someone of making money off of gullible readers?

That question suggested the crux of the matter in the lawsuit brought by WND against Esquire: If a political attack is called satire, is any message permissible, even if it cause damages?

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard oral arguments Thursday in Joseph Farah v. Esquire Magazine. Farah is the founder and CEO of WND.com.

WND filed a $250 million defamation suit against Esquire magazine and its publisher, Hearst, because of a May 18, 2011, report on the magazine’s website by Executive Editor Mark Warren that falsely claimed the WND Books exposé “Where’s the Birth Certificate? The Case That Barack Obama Is Not Eligible To Be President” by Jerome Corsi had been recalled and repudiated by publisher WND Books and by Farah.

Esquire argued the article was satire and is entitled to First Amendment protection. The WND suit, however, contends the article is not protected by the First Amendment, because its publication caused real damage by defaming WND and suppressing book sales. Many potential book buyers and media members clearly believed the article was a news story reporting the demise of the book, not a work of satire.


WND is appealing a decision in June 2012 by Judge Rosemary Collyer of the U.S. District Court in D.C. to grant Esquire’s motion to dismiss the case based on D.C.’s anti-SLAPP law, which protects media and public figures from frivolous lawsuits regarding their First Amendment rights.

After Judge Williams asked Esquire’s attorney what in the First Amendment allowed Esquire to accuse WND of making money off gullible readers, defense attorney Jonathan R. Donnellan called the article in question “classic satire” and deserving of special protections.

Furthermore, Donnellan claimed satire is “designed to fool readers.” But then, he made just the opposite argument, insisting “reasonable readers” should have been able to tell it was satire.

That remark prompted Judge Janice Rogers Brown to note that Farah had said he received calls from the top editors of major media companies from all over the country, asking if the story was true.

She asked Donnellan if he would consider those top media professionals to be “reasonable readers?”
[..] Continued @ WND.




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Team Arpaio: Rep. Steve Stockman IS On Board; There Will Be Obama ID Fraud Action In Congress

Here are some excerpts from Mike Zullo's interview on Where's Obama's Birth Certificate Blog Talk Radio show... We'll post the full audio once the show ends. Much more in the hour+ long interview. Show live stream here.





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