World News Korner

Courtesy of Raw Story:

Vance County Sheriff Deputies were called to the home of 84-year-old Lloyd Woodlief late Monday night. A family argument had turned violent, Vance County Sheriff Peter White said, leading Lloyd Woodlief to shoot his 49-year-old son, Lloyd Peyton Woodlief, with a .22 caliber pistol.

Authorities said that they believe the unnamed 11-year-old then shot his grandfather with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Lloyd Peyton Woodlief was taken to Duke Medical Center, where is he recovering from his wounds. His father died on the scene shortly after authorities arrived. The 11-year-old was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon.

“A juvenile petition has been taken out against the 11-year-old,” Sheriff White said. “He is in the custody of juvenile services.”

I am not sure that this boy should be charged with anything.

If he lives in a house where there is violence, and he sees his grandfather shoot his dad, what's he supposed to do?

He responded in the way that he had been taught to respond by the adults in his life.

In my opinion the boy will need a lot of counseling, his father needs to take parenting classes, and the grandfather got what was coming to him.

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Yeah it really does not look like Perry enjoyed the encounter.

So of course he went on Fox News afterward to complain about it:

Hours after their meeting, Governor Perry appeared on Sean Hannity’s television program Wednesday night, and criticized the President. “A leader acts, and what I haven’t seen out of this president are actions that makes me think he understands what’s going on.”

For his part, President Obama says he hopes Governor Perry will talk to the Texas Republican Congressional delegation and pressure them to pass his proposal for nearly $4 billion in emergency funding to shore up the border. “If the Texas delegation is prepared to move, this thing can get done next week.”

Rick Perry is such a douchenozzle.

Here the President is trying to find a workable solution to the problem, and he even said “There’s nothing that the Governor indicated he’d like to see that I have a philosophical objection to,” and yet all Perry can do is attempt to garner street cred from the Right Wing lunatics running his party these days by dogging the President behind his back.

Well that and engage in border guard cosplay with Sean Hannity.

Yep, douchenozzle.

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What else can you expect from a state once they legalize marijuana?




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This is actually from former CNN reporter Howard Kurtz, of whom I am not exactly a fan, but he is now at Fox and he certainly does not hold back one bit:

There is simply no downside for Sarah Palin in calling for Barack Obama’s impeachment.

She grabs a nice bit of media attention. She rallies her conservative base. She gets to talk about it on Fox. And since she holds no elective office, she doesn’t have to worry about whether her rhetorical broadside has the slightest chance of succeeding.

In fact, the chances that the House will impeach a second straight Democratic president are extremely remote. But so what? Palin gets the issue and positions herself on the leading edge of anti-Obamaism.

In other words Sarah Palin is a nobody, with few prospects, and virtually nothing of any value to lose, so there is no chance that her hateful rhetoric will cost her any future elections or opportunities since she really does not have many options anyway.

Kurtz then goes on to explain to Palin why this impeachment thing is a non-starter.

But while various GOP congressmen have openly mused about impeachment, the House leadership hasn’t given any indication that such proceedings would be seriously considered. With the Republicans appearing to be in a strong position in the 2014 midterms, why introduce an explosive new element that would divide the country and enable critics to turn the spotlight on their motivation?

The impeachment of Bill Clinton didn’t work out so well from the GOP point of view, as the country turned against the effort and the Democrats actually picked up House seats in the 1998 midterms.

I’m sure a chunk of the country would love to see Obama run out of office. But being a bad president isn’t grounds for impeachment. The Constitution requires evidence of “high crimes and misdemeanors”—say, like authorizing burglaries and orchestrating a coverup, as Richard Nixon did.

Kurtz then goes on to list all of the ways that this impeachment groundswell could sabotage the Republican party and potentially hand Democrats ammunition for both 2014 and 2016.

I was thinking about this the other day and to be honest if this thing builds any steam it really can do nothing but help the President, whose opponents will appear to be vindictive nutjobs, and the Democrats, who can use this in their campaigns to illustrate just how completely dedicated the Republicans are to obstructionism and the destruction of a President that was elected to office twice by huge margins.

One has to ask once again, is Sarah Palin really this stupid? Or is somebody paying her to sabotage the Republican party from within?

Update: Peter Wehner of the Wall Street Journal has some choice words as well:

Impeachment is such an obviously bad idea that one could plausibly assume this is a desperate shout-out to garner attention, an effort to win praise from the few remaining Palinites in America. (It tells you something when the controversial culture warrior Pat Buchanan is a temperate, restrained voice compared with Ms. Palin.)

On the other hand, Ms. Palin does seem to represent a certain mind-set. What matters to her is not mastering issues or even being conversant on them; it’s politics as theatrics, as a show, as a way to prove one’s purity. The conservatism of prudence and of realism, of moderate temperament and judicious judgments, seems alien to her. She wants to fight, even (and maybe especially) if it means losing. And notice the threat, too. She’s calling for Americans to “vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.” So voting for President Obama’s impeachment isn’t enough; those who even hesitate to do so deserve scorn. Impeachment of the president has now risen to a self-evident truth. For Ms. Palin, advocating a suicide run isn’t enough; she wants to punish those who don’t join her in self-immolation.

Look she is finally getting the attention that she craves so much.

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Courtesy of Variety:

“Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey,” which premiered this spring on Fox and National Geographic Channel and received an unprecedented rollout in 180 countries, has become the most-watched series ever for National Geographic Channel International.

A whopping 135 million people — including 45 million in the U.S. — watched at least some of the 13-part science series, National Geographic Channel announced today. Overall, it aired on all 90 National Geographic Channels as well as 120 Fox-branded channels in 125 countries, making this the largest global launch ever for a television series.

Its March 3 premiere Stateside attracted roughly 8.5 million viewers across 10 channels. In addition to the Fox broadcast network and National Geographic Channel, “Cosmos” aired on cablers FX, FXX, FXM, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2, Nat Geo Wild, Nat Geo Mundo and FOX Life.

All I can say is that I hope this inspires other networks to create science programs of their own and put them on prime time, because I really think this country could really benefit from well done educational programs like "Cosmos."

Hey, and maybe Fox could stop focusing on making the country dumber through their Fox News channel, and instead focus on making more programs which make us all smarter.

Yes I know what you're thinking, "Then where would the Republicans find voters ignorant enough to vote for them?"

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Uh oh!

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

A Palin confidant tells the Erik Wemple Blog that Palin’s contract with Fox News guarantees the cable-news leader exclusive rights to her work on television and on the Internet, an arrangement confirmed by a Fox News source. The Breitbart.com posting violates the terms of Palin’s relationship with Fox News.

“It was a mistake,” says the Palin confidant. “She had in her mind that she was propagating something under the auspices of the PAC.” That would be SarahPAC, “a federally registered political action committee (PAC) dedicated to building America’s future by supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation.”

So Palin is falling back on the PAC-byline-contributor-contract loophole. That’s a savvy, insider-ish move for someone who so routinely claims to abhor the ways of Washington.

To be honest I would have thought that Fox News would not want their name associated with this particular level of lunacy, but then again is there any level of lunacy for which Fox will not provide air time?

This of course is not the first time that Palin has crapped on her contract with Fox.

You might remember that Palin announced the fact that she was not running for President in 2012 on the Mark Levin show.

Which of course was months after most people realized that she had no intention of launching a campaign.

I find the fact that Fox News entertains any perception that Palin is in any way loyal to be completely pathetic on their part. After all this is the woman who quit her job halfway through, teased money out of supporters for years about a possible presidential run, and threw staff and family members under the bus without a second thought.

And now she is threatening to quit the party that brought her to national attention because they will not do what she wants.

There is not a loyal or honorable bone in this nasty woman's entire immediate body.

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Compared to U.S. Presidents from Truman to Bush, Obama stacks up well. http://t.co/HZq8RjfOWa pic.twitter.com/9P6AAECpVh
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) July 2, 2014

Boykin is referencing this Op-ed he posted on July 2nd refuting the findings of the Quinnipiac poll which states among other things:

Under President Obama, the unemployment rate has fallen from 10 percent in 2009 to 6.3 percent today. Under George W. Bush, on the other hand, the unemployment rate rose from 4.2 percent to 7.8 percent.

Under President Obama, the U.S. economy is gaining 200,000 jobs a month. When Bush left office, however, we were losing 700,000 jobs a month.

Under President Obama, at least 24 million people have gotten health insurance. The rate of uninsured has declined from 18 percent to 13.4 percent and the rate for Blacks has dropped dramatically from 20.9 percent to 14.7 percent. And despite all the exaggerated GOP claims that Obamacare would be a "job killer," we've actually added more than 9 million new private sector jobs since the president signed the law.

Under President Obama, businesses are also booming again. In the first few weeks of his presidency, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was sitting at 6547. Today it's close to 17,000, a 10,000 point increase in five years! And corporate profits hit an all-time record high just last year.

Don't forget Obama inherited from Bush a deeply divided country, engaged in two wars, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, with banks collapsing, housing prices plummeting and the domestic auto industry on the verge of extinction.

President Obama ended the war in Iraq, drew down troops in Afghanistan, captured Osama Bin Laden, averted a second depression, helped to rescue the financial sector, stabilized home prices and saved more than a million jobs in the auto industry.

At the same time, he enacted the most sweeping health care reform legislation in 50 years, something Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton couldn't do, and which Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes never wanted to do.

Compared to Bill Clinton, Obama also stacks up well.

Boykin then goes on to explain why that last statement is true.

And Boykin is not the only pundit to take great umbrage at the findings by Quinnipiac. Talk Show host Joe Madison held nothing back:

Quinnipiac you bastards.

Obama the worst President? Hardly!!!.

Obama caught the Times Square Bomber in 52 hours; you bastards.

Obama caught the Boston Marathon Bombers in less that 10 days; you bastards.

Obama caught Bin Laden in 2 years; something Bush could not do in 8; you bastards.

Obama caught the Benghazi attackers in 2 years; you bastards.

Obama got rid of Gaddaffi without one loss of American life; you bastards; it took Bush $3 Trillion to get rid of Saddam; and 4000 American lives.

Obama got rid of Sarin, GB, VX in Syria without firing a shot; you bastards.

Obama has 50 plus months of private sector job growth; you bastards.

The damned stock market is within 1000 points of tripling under Obama since the March 8, 2009 low; that means $3000 is now worth $9000; $30,000 is now worth $90,000; $90,000 is worth $270,000; $270,000 is now worth $810,000; $30 billion is now worth $90 billion; you bastards.

Corporate profits are at record highs under Obama; you bastards.

Obama has 50 plus months without a double dip recession; you bastards.

Obama has given us 9 million new jobs; you bastards.

You know I could read that all day long.

You know this President is by no means perfect. But by any rational measure he is doing an incredible job while withstanding some of the worst partisan attacks in American history.

What he inherited from the Bush administration would have traumatized a weaker man but President Obama rolled up his sleeves and started digging through the rubble on his first day in office.

And what he has accomplished since is nothign shy of miraculous.

Personally I don't think the Right Wing hates him becasue they see him as a failure, instead they fear him because they realize how well he has succeeded.

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