Socialist fire departments!
These two guys have also taken on the police and the military
(Posted by request.)
Acting Like You’re The Main Gig? Please.
40 minutes ago
A blog by a "sucker" and a "loser" who served her country in the Navy.
If you're one of the Covidiots who believe that COVID-19 is "just the flu",
that the 2020 election was stolen, or
especially if you supported the 1/6/21 insurrection,
leave now.
Slava Ukraini!
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee has called the Secret Service director and the couple who crashed a White House state dinner to testify at a hearing this Thursday.Yeah, that's a burning issue, all right, one that will take all of six minutes for the Director of the SS to fix: "All you fuckers had better remember next time to double-check the guest list or you'll find yourself permanently assigned to the sub-sub-sub field office in Freeze Yer Nuts Off, Alaska, like Smithers, here. Dress warm, Smithers."
Switzerland today became the first country in Europe to vote to curb the religious practices of Muslims when a referendum banning the construction of minarets on mosques was backed by a solid majority.So, what is next for Switzerland? ID cards that identify the holder as Muslim, perhaps? Maybe making them wear identifying symbols on their clothing?
The surprise result, banning minarets in a country that has only four mosques with minarets and no major problems with Islamist militancy, stunned the Swiss establishment, which was bracing itself for a backlash in the Middle East.
WASHINGTON - A day before he is scheduled to announce a new strategy in Afghanistan, President Obama is under increasing pressure to explain how his administration intends to pay the rising costs of military operations in Afghanistan, which average about $3.6 billion per month.You didn't see any of those "key Republicans" uttering a peep between 2000 and 2009 about the cost of the wars or fretting about how to pay for either the wars or the costs of caring for wounded veterans for the next 90 years. Nope, they were silent as church mice as George W. Bush became the first president to wholly fund two wars on the national credit cards. No special war taxes or excise taxes or even war bond drives. No calls to conserve resources, none of that "share the cost" shit from ol' Chimpy, it was "go shopping and have a good time, America, for the end of Days is coming anyway, so who cares about that long-term deficit shit."
Both Republicans and Democrats pressed the issue yesterday, previewing the political minefield that Obama will face when he addresses the nation from West Point tomorrow. Key Republicans said they intend to support him on his expected plan to send more troops, but called on him to curb domestic spending on items they oppose.
Clemmons, who had a lengthy prison sentence commuted by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee nearly a decade ago, became the prime target Sunday in the search for the killer of Lakewood Police Sgt. Mark Renninger, 39; and Officers Ronald Owens, 37; Tina Griswold, 40; and Greg Richards 42.Huckabee is going to find out what it feels like to be "Willie Hortoned" by his competitors for the nomination next time around.
A former neighbor said Campano had a stream of creepy visitors to his apartment and often railed against the government.So, let's recap what we've learned: Anti-government Wingnut builds pipe bombs and the national reaction is "meh." But oh, if he had been a Muslim, care to bet how many hours of coverage Fox News would be dedicating to it?
A MAN arrested for allegedly murdering his wife has been cleared - after cops pinned the blame on a MOOSE.That ignoramus act of his was pretty convincing. It fooled a lot of people.
[T]he increasingly blatant nature of the nonsense uttered with impunity in public discourse is chilling. Our democratic society is imperiled as much by this as any other single threat, regardless of whether the origins of the nonsense are religious fanaticism, simple ignorance or personal gain.It is even more true today. We have recently finished eight years of a presidency in which the chief executive was a religious fanatic who was a scientific know-nothing and whom took great pride in his ignorance. His political party may very well choose, as its candidate in 2012, a woman who, in comparison to George W. Bush, makes him look like a Carnegie-Mellon physicist.
The [Vancouver] ordinance prohibits the posting of signs that aren’t approved by the city, except for those celebrating the 2010 Winter Olympics. The law applies in a 40-block area downtown.If I lived there, I'd be really tempted to paint the side of my house with the Pepsi logo on one side and "Coke Sucks, Support Freedom of Speech" on the other side. It's really amusing how almost every government that trumpets "freedom of speech" interprets that to mean "speech we agree with, otherwise, shut the frell up."
The city also won provincial approval giving enforcement officials the right to enter private homes and businesses on 24- hours’ notice and remove any offending signs at the owner’s expense. An earlier law required two weeks’ notice.
Nothing will repair the days he has spent in prison. Nothing will erase the immense, unbelievable injustice he has been subjected to. Nothing will take away the hysteria of those ones who have never stopped pouring contempt upon him, hounding him through hatred and asking for his punishment as if we were living the darkest and most ferocious hours of the McCarthysm era all over again.Roman Polanski drugged, raped and sodomized a 13-year old girl. John Cole has the right of it. This willingness of the self-styled intellectuals and auteurs to overlook just what Polanski did because he is one of them is simply disgusting. I have no doubt that many of the same people who are tripping over themselves to embrace Polanski would recoil in horror if they had to shake the hand of a pedophile such as the late John J. Geoghan.
Middlesboro and Clinton are two tiny, impoverished towns in southern Kentucky with a combined population of 12,000. In 2008, Middlesboro's per capita income was $13,189 a year, only a few hundred dollars more than the average worker earned in third-world Mexico. That is if they were lucky to even get a job. Real unemployment hovers somewhere around 30%, and the state is so broke that half the people eligible for unemployment benefits can't receive them. Life may be tough and most people live in poverty, but that doesn't mean they can't be made a little poorer. That's the lesson locals learned after bailed-out insurance villain AIG took over their water utility and instantly raised rates to squeeze an extra $1 million in profits out of its new customers, forcing some to consider choosing between running water and food.I know, "capitalism" and "free market" and so on. But there is no such thing as a free market in the supply of water and sewage services. Those utilities around the nation (and, for that matter, our roads) were built by public companies with public money. To now allow a bunch of vampiric pirates, such as AIG, to fatten themselves on the bones of those least able to pay is beyond immoral.
LONDON — The Roman Catholic Church and the police in Ireland systematically colluded in covering up decades of child sex abuse by priests in Dublin, according to a scathing report released Thursday."Of the past," my ass. It went on for decades and the reach back may only be ended because the victims of the far past are all dead. It only became "of the past" because the scandal finally broke in this country and it slowly became unfashionable around most of the Western world to continue to cover up for those saintly kiddie rapers.
The cover-ups spanned the tenures of four Dublin archbishops and continued through to the mid-1990s and beyond, even after the church was beginning to admit to its failings and had professed that it was confronting abuse by its priests.
But rather than helping the victims, the church was concerned only with “the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets,” said the 700-page report, prepared by a group appointed by the Irish government and called the Commission of Investigation Into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin.
In a statement, the current archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, acknowledged the “revolting story” of abuses that the report detailed, saying, “No words of apology will ever be sufficient.” He added, “The report highlights devastating failings of the past.”
The past decade recorded nine of the warmest years in recent history as well as the rapid dwindling of Arctic sea ice, surely the result of imminent global cooling if climate change contrarians are to be believed.There may be dispute about what to do about climate change, but denying that the climate is changing is a pretty good indicator of Wingnut Know-Nothingism or that one has bought into "the science is not proven" obfuscatory tactics of the oil, gas and coal industries, which is a tactic remarkably similar to those employed by Big Tobacco for decades.
GENEVA, Switzerland - A Swiss court granted Roman Polanski bail on Wednesday, accepting $4.5 million to allow him to remain under house arrest at his chalet. The director will stay in prison for up to 10 days while the Swiss government decides whether to appeal.The one amusing note in all of this is that Polanski has spent almost as much time in a Swiss jail as he would have spent in a California one if he had shown up for his sentencing. Earlier stories mentioned that Polanski feared being deported from the U.S., but he effectively deported himself by fleeing.
British officials heard the "drum beats" of war with Iraq emanating from the US government more than two years before the 2003 invasion and several months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Sir John Chilcot's Iraq inquiry has heard.Next: After an exhaustive and costly investigation, British officials have concluded that the Sun does not truly rise, but the Earth rotates about its axis.
Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin has forbidden Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy to receive the Roman Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion because of his advocacy of abortion rights, the Rhode Island Democrat said Friday.I don't care too much if the Republican party wants to continue its forced march into the dumpster of history. The politicians that are purged by the party of Hoover will find a home elsewhere. Eventually, a center-right party will form and the decline of the GOP will become a subject of PhD theses which, like most other theses, will be read by nobody.
What the people who are flipping out about the treatment of Palin should be asking themselves is what it means when it’s not just jerks like us but everybody piling on against Palin. For those of you who can’t connect the dots, I’ll tell you what it means. It means she’s been cut loose. It means that all five of the families have given the okay to this hit job, including even the mainstream Republican leaders. You teabaggers are in the process of being marginalized by your own ostensible party leaders in exactly the same way the anti-war crowd was abandoned by the Democratic party elders in the earlier part of this decade. Like the antiwar left, you have been deemed a threat to your own party’s “winnability.”In the rest, he basically refers to reporters as a bunch of half-dead herd animals who hold the opinions that their masters tell them to hold.
And do you know what that means? That means that just as the antiwar crowd spent years being painted by the national press as weepy, unpatriotic pussies whose enthusiastic support is toxic to any serious presidential aspirant, so too will all of you afternoon-radio ignoramuses who seem bent on spending the next three years kicking and screaming your way up the eternal asshole of white resentment now find yourself and your political champions painted as knee-jerk loonies whose rabid irrationality is undeserving of the political center. And yes, that’s me saying that, but I’ve always been saying that, not just about Palin but about George Bush and all your other moron-heroes.
What’s different now is who else is saying it. You had these people eating out of the palms of your hands (remember what it was like in the Dixie Chicks days?). Now they’re all drawing horns and Groucho mustaches on your heroes, and rapidly transitioning you from your previous political kingmaking role in the real world to a new role as a giant captive entertainment demographic that exists solely to be manipulated for ratings and ad revenue. What you should be asking yourself is why this is happening to you. Even I don’t know the answer to that question, but honestly, I don’t really care. All I know is that I find it extremely funny.
Invoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama.Which is, when you get right down it it, the key reason why the party of Hoover is against this bill.
The Senate really has 100 Blanche DuBoises, a full house of characters inclined toward the narcissistic. The health-care debate was worse than most. With all 40 Republicans in lockstep opposition, all 60 members of the Democratic caucus had to vote yes -- and that gave each one an opportunity to extract concessions from Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.Nelson's provision has got to go, whether in this bill or any other. The insurers' antitrust exemption is one of the reasons why things are as bad as they are. Those fuckers bleat about "competition" and "the free market", but almost everywhere you go, you'll find that they are not truly competing. You may have two choices for insurance, or even one. There is truly no competition for health insurance. It is an oligarchy and an extremely inefficient and corrupt one at that.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) won a promise from Reid to support his plan to expand eligibility for health insurance. Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) got Reid to jettison a provision stripping health insurers of their antitrust exemption. Landrieu got the concessions for her money. And [Sen. Blanche] Lincoln (D-Ark.) won an extended, 72-hour period to study legislation.
CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Marines treated at Camp Lejeune for post-traumatic stress had to undergo therapy for months in temporary trailers where they could hear bomb blasts, machine-gun fire and war cries through the thin walls, according to service members and their former psychiatrist.The other point is an old one: To any military, the soldiers are just widgets, like cannons, rifles or trucks. If one breaks down and they can't repair it on the cheap, they'll just throw it away and get another one. The term used to be "cannon fodder."
The eight trailers were used for nearly two years, until a permanent clinic was completed in September in another location on the base, said a Camp Lejeune medical spokesman, Navy Lt. j.g. Mark Jean-Pierre.
The noise from training exercises “shook me up real bad. I couldn’t take it. I almost ran out of there a couple of times,” said a Marine, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the media. “My mind couldn’t focus on the treatment. I couldn’t tell the difference between the combat zone and the non-combat zone.”
The allegations became public after the dismissal of Dr. Kernan Manion, a civilian psychiatrist who says he was fired for writing memos to his military superiors complaining of shoddy care of Marines returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with PTSD, a condition that can make patients jumpy, fearful of loud noises and prone to flashbacks.
The attorney general of Ohio sued the country’s largest credit rating agencies on Friday, alleging that they had cost state retirement and funds some $457 million by approving high-risk Wall Street securities that went bust in the financial collapse. The case could test whether the agencies’ ratings are constitutionally protected as a form of free speech.This could be fun to watch.
The lawsuit asserts that Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch were in league with the banks and other issuers, helping to design an assortment of exotic financial instruments that led to a disastrous bubble in the housing market.
The economy and the stock market may be recovering from their swoon, but more homeowners than ever are having trouble making their monthly mortgage payments, according to figures released Thursday.No fucking shit. Unemployment is high and if you don't have a job, it's pretty fucking hard to make a mortgage payment.
Sen. Charles Schumer said Thursday that the Pan Am Flight 103 bomber should be transferred back to a Scottish prison.Yeah, that'll happen. Ghaddafi will put that guy on an airplane to Scotland about the day after el Rushbo gives a blow job to Al Sharpton. Statements like Schumer's go to show why people equate the term "politician" with "overly self-important media-hogging asshole."
Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the terminally ill Libyan bomber released last summer has lived longer than the three months upon which his release was contingent.
In order to believe that Obama wasn't the true winner of the 2008 election, one would have to think that ACORN (and perhaps other groups) stuffed ballots to the tune of over 9.5 million votes, Obama's national margin."Batshit crazy" doesn't even begin to touch it. How does one govern a nation when a significant percentage of the electorate are either certifiably insane or are retarded?
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There hasn’t been a balanced budget since the last Democratic administration. During the Bush years of mindless tax-cutting, the national debt doubled, and GOP claims to fiscal rectitude became a bizarre joke. The last fig leaf fell off this summer when Republicans demagoged efforts to save over $100 billion by ending subsidies for the private Medicare Advantage health plans.Yep.Here was the lowest-hanging fruit in the fastest-growing federal program. It was something most Medicare beneficiaries would barely notice was gone, yet Republicans hollered that Democrats were pulling the plug on Grandma.
That dashed any residual Republican pretenses that George W. Bush had led them astray on spending, and a lesson was learned. Clearly, they’re not changing a thing.
A speaker at an anti-immigration rally in St. Paul, Minnesota, this past weekend got the crowd to support more than just the deportation of all illegal immigrants -- he got them cheering for the eviction of all European-descended immigrants to America who "stole this land through genocide and ethnic cleansing."There is a video embedded in the story. My favorite part was, after he whipped up the crowd, he got them to chant "Columbus go home!"
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- U.S. Senate Democrats have broken a Republican filibuster on a federal appellate court nomination President Barack Obama made in March.Yep. Hell must have frozen over for this to have happened. I guess Joe Lieberman couldn't figure out a way to stab somebody in the back over it.
James Weill, the director of the food center that pioneered the report, called it a careful look at an underappreciated condition.Gentle Reader, you just know that any further attempts to help alleviate hunger in this country will be attacked by the party of Hoover and their sycophants in Fox News as "socialism".
“Many people are outright hungry, skipping meals,” he said. “Others say they have enough to eat but only because they’re going to food pantries or using food stamps. We describe it as ‘households struggling with hunger.’ ”
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"We're going to cave in like crazy. That's right, the President wants to pass a health care bill so bad that he will literally sign anything. You can water it down however you like; as long as it's a stack of paper with the words `health care` on it, he'll sign it."That's not comedy, that's the truth. Let a bunch of male, overpaid, overfed white-bread living examples of the Peter Principle decide when or if women should have access to abortion? Fine with this Administration, which is forgetting how it looked when Chimpy tried to restrict abortion:
Sarah Palin's new book reprises familiar claims from the 2008 presidential campaign that haven't become any truer over time.Quitter Spice may be in for a rough time, which she has so richly earned.
Ignoring substantial parts of her record if not the facts, she depicts herself as a frugal traveler on the taxpayer's dime, a reformer without ties to powerful interests and a politician roguishly indifferent to high ambition.
Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio's death chamber is set to resume executions next month using a single drug that has been used in the U.S. to euthanize pets but never to put condemned prisoners to death.They still have to inject that stuff into a vein, so that doesn't get them around why they couldn't execute Biros.
Barring legal challenges, condemned inmate Kenneth Biros is scheduled Dec. 8 to be the first prisoner in the nation to be executed using a single dose of the drug thiopental sodium instead of the combination of three drugs that the state had been using.
A federal judge had temporarily halted Biros' execution because of the botched execution of Romell Broom in September, which prompted the new execution method announced Friday. Executioners couldn't find a suitable vein on Broom to administer the lethal drugs, and he walked away from the execution chamber after the governor issued a temporary stay
Although it will be one of the largest turboprop-powered aircraft ever built, the A400M is still dwarfed by the Soviet Antonov An-24 Antei first flown in the 1960s. Several dozen remain in Russian air force service.Ah, no. The An-24 is a twin-engined turboprop with a maximum takeoff weight that is less than a sixth of that of the A400M. Now, on the other hand, the An-22 Antaeus is bigger than the A400M.
A scout troop is being investigated by the police after its members shouted death threats and racist abuse at Jewish war veterans during a remembrance parade.First off, if I remember correctly, there was considerable friction between the German Scouts and the Hitler Youth. When the youth organizations in Germany were merged by the Nazi government, many scouts dropped out. No doubt a number of them became Edelweiss Pirates.
Dressed in full uniform, the explorer scouts, who were taking part in Remembrance Sunday service in Romford, Essex were heard to repeatedly shout "Let's kill the Jews" at Jewish second world war veterans.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Militants stepped up their fight against the Pakistani government on Friday, ramming a truck bomb into a regional office of the country’s main intelligence agency.Pakistan's ISI (their spy agency) has been caring for and feeding the Islamic militants for decades. They have sponsored the militants who have carried out terrorist attacks in India. They have been nurturing the Taliban since the group's inception.
The early-morning blast in the northwestern city of Peshawar killed at least nine people and wounded more than 50...
WANTAGE, NJ—Acting on anonymous tips from within the Hispanic-American community, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on Wednesday deported Luis Miguel Salvador Aguila Dominguez, who for the last 48 years had been living illegally in the United States under the name Lou Dobbs.I'll bet that the Onion has had that story ready for quite some time.
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The Mormon Church has been a target of vituperation by some gay rights groups because of its active opposition to same-sex marriage. But on Wednesday, the church was being praised by gay rights activists in Salt Lake City, citadel of the Mormon world, for its open support of a local ordinance banning discrimination against gay men and lesbians in housing and employment.It's OK if we get to live somewhere and work, but oh, boy, we'd best not have a legal relationship with our honeys, do I have that right?
At least one of the [previoulsy proposed] measures [in the Utah legislature] is poised for a 2010 comeback: an anti-discrimination statute that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state's fair employment law. The bill includes the same exemption for religious organizations and their affiliates that Otterson praised in Salt Lake City's ordinances.Translation from Mormon-speak: "Thou shalt not discriminate against gays and trannies (but it's OK if we do)."
That means the capital's new rules, prohibiting discrimination against gay and transgender workers, homebuyers and renters, do not apply to churches or small businesses. The LDS Church and its wholly owned subsidiaries, such as the towering City Creek Center condos taking shape in downtown Salt Lake City, are exempt.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care.And yeah, Jesus descended from the Temple and he sayeth: "Youse guys don't do what I want, I not only don't breaka da fishes and loaves, I breaka you kneecaps, you getta my drift, capische?"
Tom Cruise will reportedly team up with pal John Travolta in a remake of the 1960s western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.The only word that describes this concept is: "Ick."
Marine reservist Jasen Bruce was getting clothes out of the trunk of his car Monday evening when a bearded man in a robe approached him.The Few. The Proud. The Terminally Stupid. Brave 6'3" clown with a tire iron beats up on a priest.
That man, a Greek Orthodox priest named Father Alexios Marakis, speaks little English and was lost, police said. He wanted directions.
What the priest got instead, police say, was a tire iron to the head.
European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.You're here, you've consented. If you don't like it, go read some other goddamn blog. It's not as if you're paying me.