Ablogination

Israeli Terrorist have attacked a flotilla of supplies headed for Palestine in international waters.

This should be the final straw.

From the Telegraph UK:

“The flotilla of six ships carried aid supplies organized by the Free Gaza Movement had set sail from Cyprus on Sunday afternoon, and was met by a fleet of Israeli naval vessels after nightfall.

Forty miles off the Gaza coast, three helicopters landed 15 men each on board the Mavi Marmara, which was carrying the bulk of the convoy’s 700 activists.

They were met with immediate resistance. Videos supplied by the Israeli military and footage broadcast by television cameras on board showed troops coming under sustained attack from figures wielding metal poles.

At one point, an Israeli commando can be seen being hauled over the side of the top deck, falling to the deck below. Another was briefly seized.

Troops then opened fire, causing at least 10 deaths, although yesterday estimates of the number killed had been as high as 19, and scores of casualties including one Briton.

International response to what was widely seen as an over-reaction was swift.”

The entire free world is condemning this latest Naziesque act of terrorism committed by the criminal state of Israel. This was murder, plain and simple.
In an effort to prevent respectable humans from relieving the systemic starvation of Gazans by Israel, the Zionist version of Al-Qaida wasted no time in attacking and gunning down unarmed civilians.
Many of the relief providers fought back bravely and began to get the best of their attackers. The relief workers had no firearms, only clubs and their hands to fight with. IDF terrorists used guns to murder them.
(Don’t even go there. If the relief workers had guns Israel would have shown them to the world by now.)

This is one of most abominable displays of mindless violence committed by Israeli terrorists. Rivaling the attack on the USS Liberty and the targeting of civilians of Lebanon in sheer cowardice.

The British Gov’t offered the following statement:

“Regardless of any reasoning, such actions against civilians engaged in only peaceful activities are unacceptable. Israel will be required to face the consequences of this act that involves violation of the international law.”

The attack was carried out in international waters. A factually criminal act baring much resemblance to the Somali piracy off the coast of Africa. This monstrous act must not go unpunished.

Benjamin Netanyahu must be arrested, and if not, killed.
The world can no longer sit idly by and allow these Nazi filth to murder innocent people with impunity.

It’s no secret that Tennessee General Assembly Republicans are the dumbest and most depraved of State Representatives, but now they have transcended yet another level of foulness, hypocrisy and inhumanity.

They have played God, for the sake of money, with the very lives of the children of the state of Tennessee.

A grim report from the Commercial Appeal has exposed the true nature of the “pro-life” yet anti-child views of the representatives of the Republican party.

From The Commercial Appeal:

NASHVILLE – Despite pleas by children’s advocates and testimony that babies will die, Republicans on the state Senate Finance Committee stripped funding for an infant-death reduction initiative that officials say is reducing Memphis and Tennessee’s high rates of infant mortality.

The committee voted 7-4, on straight party lines Thursday night to reject an effort by Senate Democratic Leader Jim Kyle of Memphis and others to restore the state budget funding for the governor’s Office of Children’s Care Coordination and the grants it administers across Tennessee.

Republicans hold a 19-14 Senate majority, and the budget alternative they first unveiled May 11 has called for cutting the program’s $4.6 million budget in half for the fiscal year that starts July 1, then eliminating it entirely the following year.

But Bob Duncan, director of both the Office of Children’s Care Coordination and the Cover Kids health insurance program, said that effectively eliminates the program and its grants for local services in Shelby County and across Tennessee on Dec. 31. Asked what would happen if that occurs, he said, “You will see an increase in babies dying.”

Democrats = Pro Life
Republicans = Pro Child Mortality

VOTING PRO-CHILD: Sens. Joe Haynes, D-Nashville; Douglas Henry, D-Nashville; Roy Herron, D-Nashville; Jim Kyle, D-Memphis.

VOTING ANTI-CHILD: Sens. Diane Black, R-Gallatin; Tim Burchett, R-Knoxville; Mark Norris, R-Collierville; Doug Overbey, R-Maryville; Bo Watson, R-Chattanooga; Jamie Woodson, R-Knoxville; Randy McNally, R-Oak Ridge.

Children’s health advocates were stunned as word spread Friday.

“I think the action by the committee is very disappointing and disturbing, and if their action is sustained through the full Senate and is the outcome of the state budget, it will have very very serious negative affects on the successful efforts we’ve made thus far on reducing infant mortality rates here in Shelby County and across the whole state,” said Yvonne Madlock, Shelby County director of health services.

Deborah Clubb, executive director of the Memphis Area Women’s Council, said the committee’s vote “will shut down all of the effort that began five years ago … to address the horrific rate of dying babies in Shelby County.”

And there you have it, residents of NE Tennessee.
It seems that Republicans want to save fetuses so they can kill them later.

If you intend to be born in Tennessee, I strongly advise that you run for cover on your first breath. Because Tennessee Republicans will either kill you at the hospital, or wait until you’re 18 then kill you in some inexplicable foreign conquest.
But hey, on the journey from sperm to fetus you’ll be just fine.

Pro-life? LOL

I have a few mins of down time and this was just too good to pass up.

Texas, a state infamous for police tasering old ladies, executions of innocent people and fucktarded Presidents, has finally managed to transcend their own record ignorance in a humorous fashion as opposed to the usual destructive one.

One has to wonder why Marijuana is even illegal in Texas when the cops are too stupid to know it from crabgrass….

ROTFFLMAO

Bong rips of Horsemint, anyone?

From Raw Story:

Like the old song goes, one of these things is not like the other…

However, remind a police officer in Corpus Christi, Texas of those famed Cookie Monster lyrics and they’re likely to give you an annoyed look.

That’s because a recently discovered cache of plants, initially pegged by officials speaking to local news as “one of the largest marijuana plant seizures in the police department’s history,” turned out to be a relatively common prairie flower of little significance.

Texas officers ultimately spent hours laboring to tag and remove up to 400 plants from a city park, discovering only after a battery of tests that they had been sweating over mere Horse Mint, a member of the mint family – effectively turning their ambitious drug bust into mere yard work.

The plants, which bear very few aesthetic similarities to cannabis, were reported by an unnamed youth who came across them while riding a bike in the park around 8 p.m. on Thursday. Upon visual inspection, police apparently agreed that the inoffensive plants had to go.

Fucking idiots.

Just when we thought we were over the stigma of BushSpeak. Just when you thought the derelict dialect of Sara Palin was fading into obscurity…Now, a new bobble head doll has burst onto the scene.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Rand Paul….

From Salon:

The Tea Party hero said he thought the Civil Rights Act was fine when it came to desegregating public institutions, but not private businesses. He called the issue of desegregating lunch counters “obscure,” and implied the First Amendment gave business owners the right to be racist.

And not only that:

In an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” the eye doctor turned candidate said Friday that by lashing out at oil giant BP, President Obama had been “un-American in his criticism of business.”

Eleven people were killed in the explosion that caused a massive leak spewing oil into the waters. Experts have said BP appears to have vastly underestimated the amount of oil flowing into the gulf.

Thank you, Teabaggers. Thank you soooooooo much for handing the Kentucky Senate seat to Democrats.

I was wrong, guys. You do have power. You ARE a major political movement. With the resources of George Soros and Michale Moore combined I could not have ever done a better job of stripping Republicans of a Senate seat they can normally call theirs and theirs alone.

Outstanding. Truly outstanding.

Rand Paul, son of Rep. Ron Paul of Texas and Teabagger candidate dejour in the Kentucky Republican primary, seems to have come down with a case of foot-in-mouth-disease so savage that it rivals even the great ones. Bush, Palin, Biden….Doesn’t get much wackier.
But ol’ Rand has really shown a surprising effort for a rookie.

Rand Paul, after defeating some clown who’s name escapes me, decided to speak publicly to his legions of Teabaggers. And when he spoke he spoke with thunder!….

Essentially:

“TEABAGGERS! WE WON!!”

“Fellow bags, we have achieved a great victory today! Together we sent a message to all America! Saying that we don’t think businesses should be forced by the government to serve Hippies, Niggers, Chinks, Spicks, Kikes and people from Bora Bora if they choose not to!” “Now that’s freedom"!!
(Rabid Applause)

“Now, our first order of business is business. We believe in businesses and therefor business is our business! We must realize that our patriotic duty is to render Corporations unaccountable for everything! All hail the Corporate Gods"!!!
(chanting/applause)
“We, as Americans, must not criticize business. In fact, we must make ourselves and our first born available as sacrifice to the great Corporate Kleptocracy in the sky!!! Hallelujah, Hallelujah!! Alla akbar!! Selah!!!!!”

“British Petroleum is not responsible for the catastrophic oil disaster in the Gulf…no, no. It is the oil’s fault for being there in the first place!”
“It is also the fault of the gov’t, the one I’m trying to be a part of, for not drilling in Alaska and fucking it all up instead".
I submit to you, good John Birch types of America, that President Obamba is downright un-patriotic in his criticism of BP. The responsibility of doing a good job should not be laid upon them!”
(amens and general ineptitudes)

“Now join me, fellow baggettes! Together all 25 of us can win the Senate and change all the stuff the black guy and Pelosi did to help you".

“ONWARD!”

Quite a guy that Rand Paul. Basically, he’s just another Fascist. A “Libertarian". Liberty for him, but not for you.
The simplistic and often just plain childishness of the Libertarian world view would be laughable if it wasn’t so sad.
They want roads and bridges but want everyone but them to pay for it. They want you to obey the law while they don’t have to. They want to be able to break contracts with you and leave you with no recourse.
They even want to outlaw fistfights so you can’t kick their ass for it. :D
http://www.lp.org/platform

Yep. Thanx, Teabaggers.
I can hear the Moderates and Independents running for Conway cover now.

You guys are the shit. Love ya, don’t change.

Short primary roundup…

Progressives kept our word when we said we’d “primary” Arlen Specter after he switched parties to become a Democrat. Rep. Joe Sestak defeated five-term senator, Arlen Specter, in the Pennsylvania Democratic primary today.

Sestak will face some Republican clown named Pat Toomey for that Senate seat.

Democrats absolutely clobbered the Teabaggers in the special election for the Congressional seat of Rep. John Murtha who passed away in February.
Murtha’s former aide, Mark Critz, handily defeated Republican Teabagger Tim Burns in an election Republicans thirsted for but ultimately failed to win.

Republicans spun the race as a “referendum on the Obaba-Pelosi agenda", but ended with a face-plant of epic proportions.
This seat was major for the Right Wing, but as predicted, the people know the score and voted accordingly.

Though it’s not yet over in Arkansas, Progressives gave Corporate Democrat Blanch Lincoln hell by causing her to fall short of the 50% needed to avoid a very expensive runoff election.
She will face Lt. Gov. Bill Halter on June 8 for the Democratic nomination.
Halter, with the support of MoveOn and other Liberal PACs, shook the foundations of corporate politics by denying Lincoln, who opposed the robust Public Option in the health reform package, an easy return to the Senate. Halter supported the House version of the Public Option.
Lincoln is now ripe for the picking.

The Teabaggers did manage to propel scumbag, Rand Paul, to victory over fellow scumbag Secretary of State Trey Grayson in the Kentucky Republican primary.
This is a good thing in more than one way…

One, it’s insignificant at best. One clown replaces another. Yawn….
Two, Rand Paul is a fringe Teabagger candidate that will drive moderate Republicans and Independents to the Democratic candidate in droves.
And three, the fact that the Teabaggers can’t seem to win the big one is testimony to their marginal ability as a bona-fied political movement.
Paul will likely face Attorney General Jack Conway who is projected to win the Democratic primary.

The only success the Teabaggers can claim may well backfire on Republicans come November.
Today’s primaries are a referendum alright. They tell us that Progressives are still the power in American politics and that the Teabaggers are being seen for the corporate astro-turf kooks that they really are.
A spastic brood of miscreants and assorted whack-jobs that simply turn anyone with any real sense of patriotism off like a light.

On to November and the final nails in the Teabagger coffin.

This article was graciously provided directly to Ablogination by the author, Barbra O’Brien.
Barbra is an outstanding blogger with impressive credentials.

Health Care Reform Will Help Everybody

Many Americans assume the new health care reform act will benefit mostly the poor and uninsured and hurt everyone else, according to polls. As Matt Yglesias wrote, “Basically, people see this as a bill that will take resources from people who have health insurance and give it to people who don’t have health insurance.” Those who still oppose the reform say that people ought to pay for their own health care.

We all believe in the virtues of hard work and self-reliance, but these days it’s a fantasy to think that anyone but the mega-wealthy will not, sooner or later, depend on help from others to pay medical bills. And that’s true no matter how hard you work, how much you love America, or how diligently you take care of yourself. The cost of medical care has so skyrocketed that breaking an arm or leg could cost as much as a new car. And if you get cancer or heart disease - which can happen even to people who live healthy lifestyles - forget about it. The disease will not only clean you out; it will leave a whopping debt for your survivors to pay.

And the truth is, we all pay for other peoples’ health care whether we know it or not. When people can’t pay their medical bills, the cost of their health care gets added to everyone else’s bills and insurance premiums. When poor people use emergency rooms as a doctor of last resort, their care is not “free.” You pay for it.

Another common fantasy about medical care is that the “free market” provides incentives for medical companies to develop innovative new drugs and treatments for disease without government subsidy. It’s true that private enterprise is very good at developing profitable health care products. But not all medical care can be made profitable.

For years, the U.S. government has been funding medical research that the big private companies don’t want to do because there is too much cost for the potential profit. This is especially true for diseases that are rare and expensive to treat. An example of a recent advance made possible by government grants include new guidelines for malignant pleural mesothelioma treatment developed by Memorial Sloan-Kettering mesothelioma researchers. Another is a blood screening test for mesothelioma developed by thoracic surgeon Dr. Harvey Pass. The health reform act provides for more dollars for such research, from which even many of the tea party protesters will benefit.

The biggest fantasy of all was that people who had insurance didn’t have to worry about health care costs. But the fact is that in recent years millions of Americans have been bankrupted by medical costs, and three-quarters of the medically bankrupt had health insurance. And yes, insurance companies even dumped hard-working, law-abiding patriots. But the health care reform act will put an end to that, and now America’s hard-working, law-abiding patriots are more financially secure, whether they like it or not.

Some people are just born to be great. It is their destiny and there’s no handicap or circumstance or challenging force that can stop them until they have made their mark on the world.

The great ones come and they go. And we are richer because of them.

Thanx for everything, Ronnie. Rest in Peace.

Our colleague and genuine Liberal Tennessee Blogger, Steve at WhitesCreek Journal, has alerted us to the latest organizational effort by the extreme Right Wing. It has an all too familiar face, especially to those of us in Tennessee.

H/T to brother Steve at WhitesCreek.

KKKarl Rove. Former Bush adviser who resigned in disgrace, traitor who divulged classified CIA information to now deceased journalist/traitor Bob Novak and Nazi sympathizer.
Never has there been a worse excuse for a human with the possible exceptions of Dick Cheney and Jeffrey Dahmer.

Karl Rove and friends

Apparently having become bored with being a sideshow column at the Wall Street Journal, Rove has begun an attempt to organize five listless factions of Neocons (who all occupy the same floor of an office building so they don’t have to walk too far to the vending machines) into one treasonous entity similar to the infamous PNAC.

As Dick Armey admitted recently, the Teabaggers were AstroTurf designed to mimic the successes of genuine political activist movements like MoveOn and Code Pink. Now Karl Rove, Norm Coleman and their fellow piece of shit, Ed Gillespie, admit freely what we all have known for decades. Liberals are smart, NeoCons are idiots and in order to be successful they will have to copy us…

From Politico:

The Republican Party’s best-connected political operatives have quietly built a massive fundraising, organizing and advertising machine based on the model assembled by Democrats early in the decade, and with the same ambitious goal — to recapture Congress and the White House.

The new groups could give Republicans and their allies a powerful campaign apparatus separate from the Republican National Committee. Karl Rove, political architect of the Bush presidency, and Ed Gillespie, former Republican Party chairman, are the most prominent forces behind what is, in effect, a network of five overlapping groups, three of which were started in the past few months.

Five Conservanoid groups formed into one network. Seems this network has yet to be provided with a name. So we’ll call them “Karl and the Rovettes” for now.

The Rovettes consist of the following five cells:

1) American Crossroads — designed to counter spending by labor and progressive groups, including the AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Unit and MoveOn.org — will focus on voter contact with the potential to move into ground game and turnout efforts. Organized under the tax code as a Section 527 organization, meaning it can spend directly on political activity, it’s set an ambitious budget of $52 million and says it’s already received commitments for $30 million of that. Its president and CEO is former top U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive Steven Law; its political director is veteran GOP operative Carl Forti. The chairman is Mike Duncan, former RNC chairman and presently a board member of the Tennessee Valley Authority; the treasurer is Jo Ann Davidson, former RNC co-chairwoman; and the secretary is Jim Dyke, former RNC communications director.

To try to avoid undercutting RNC Chairman Michael Steele, who has alienated some givers, Duncan tells prospective donors that the party structure is “an important part of winning” and that he is looking for people who “want to go above and beyond.

2) American Action Network, modeled on the Center for American Progress, will conduct polling in key races, and plans to put up TV advertising since it is allowed to engage in explicit political activity as a group organized under Section 501c(4) of the tax code. Former Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota is the CEO; Fred Malek, a longtime top GOP financier, is chairman; and Rob Collins, a former top aide to House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, is president. Board members include former U.S. Sens. George ‘Macaca’ Allen and Mel Martinez and former House Reps. Tom Reynolds, Jim Nussle and Vin Weber.

3) American Action Forum, a policy institute linked to the American Action Network, also will mirror CAP. Norm Coleman is also chairman of this group, which as a 501c(3) organization, is prohibited from directly endorsing or opposing candidates. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director and campaign adviser to Sen. John McCain, is the president. Board members include former Govs. Jeb Bush of Florida and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

4) Resurgent Republic co-founded a year ago by Gillespie and Republican pollster Whit Ayres, says in its official description that it is “modeled on Democracy Corps, which has made important contributions to the public debate from the left and has proven to be a valuable resource for labor unions, environmentalists and liberal congressional leaders.” The group has released a series of polls and offers itself as a message-testing laboratory to help GOP lawmakers develop policies.

5) The Republican State Leadership Committee, which focuses on down-ballot races for statewide and legislative offices, raised $22 million in the last campaign cycle. Gillespie took over as chairman earlier this year.

Collectively, the groups have a goal of raising at least $50 million to $70 million.

Coleman recalled in an interview that he admired the left’s financial prowess so much that until recently, he gave potential donors copies of “The Argument,” a book by Matt Bai that chronicles progressives’ rising financial power.

“This is what the left does — we need to do it on the right,” Coleman said he told people.

Karl and the Rovettes…NeoCon Redux… The blind leading the stupid.
Sorry, folk… You just don’t get it. Americans didn’t just reject you in ‘06 and ‘08. We rejected what you stand for. We rejected Treason, murder, failure, blanket corruption, racism, classism, Fascism and Bushism.
We rejected your thefts and your corporate whoredom.
We rejected your exploitation of religion and people and country.

We rejected your very existence. That has not changed.

Ablogination gladly joins WhitesCreek Journal in calling for the resignation of Mike Duncan. The board of directors of TVA is no place for a multi-failed never-was RNC operative in the first place. Much less one that openly consorts with known traitors like Rove.

As ridiculous as they may be, there are some very crafty, diseased minds in this Neocon Network. Dr. Dean would chew them up and spit them out, but we have Tim Kaine, so there is reason to be concerned and even more reason to reactivate the Liberal Voter Tsunami that cleaned out Congress in ‘06 and propelled Obama to power in ‘08.

Donate and activate. We’re keeping what’s ours.

UPDATED: 5/7/10

Oddly enough, Tim Kaine either read this post (he got a link) or was actually on the ball for once.

Today’s email from the DNC….

Dear great one….

When the Supreme Court announced the Citizens United decision, Republicans sensed an opportunity. In meetings across the country, the people who helped to elect President George W. Bush – folks like Karl Rove and former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie – sat down to come up with ways to pump special-interest cash into campaigns at every level.

We now know how they plan to win back Congress and the White House – and repeal all we’ve done.

Rove, Gillespie, and their friends are calling big donors to help them build up five political organizations – all designed to work in tandem to elect Republicans, and all of them able to take as much corporate cash as they can find.

This new effort by the very people who were behind eight years of failed Bush Administration policies is a major threat, but we’re ready for the challenge. We’ll double down on our work to build our Party from the ground up, organize in all 50 states, register new voters, and work to turn out the supporters who’ve helped us win all across the country. Our success as a party and every recent election we’ve won has been built on the energy and support of people like you. Can we count on your help again?

Donate $5 or more to help us fight the new right-wing machine.

At the Democratic National Committee, we don’t take corporate cash or checks from lobbyists – it’s part of our commitment to changing the way that Washington works. But this new GOP political machine was founded to stop that change. And to do it, they’ll use a flood of special-interest money to drown out the voice of the American people. They’ll blanket the airwaves with smears about all that we’ve accomplished; they’ll fill our mailboxes with false statements about President Obama. These are the people who used scorched-earth tactics to elect President Bush – they won’t hold back now.

And if they win Congress, we know what’s coming. They’ll try to repeal everything we’ve done to reform health care, cut taxes for the middle class instead of the wealthy, create jobs, make college more affordable, stop credit-card abuses, and improve America’s standing in the world.

We can stop them, but we need your help. Our staff, organizers, and volunteers are the best in politics. But we need the resources to make sure they’ve got what they need to win in every state.

Can you chip in $5 to help us fight against the new Rove machine?

http://my.democrats.org/RovePlan

Thank you,

Governor Tim Kaine
Chairman