Now I remember why I was an independent all those years.

[Good Old Neon]

This being the current political thread and all, for what its worth here is a Palin rumor out of Rhode Island

 

http://www.projo.com/news/content/PALIN_RHODE_ISLAND_08-20-09_E5FF0HR_v23.3c1d727.html

 

Being a Rhode Islander I hope this stays a rumor.

 

She probably mistook Rhode Island for “Road” Island, and that Road Island is an island unconnected to the motherland, in need of a bridge – i.e. - a road to somewhere. Plus, her close proximity to the ocean would pretty much make her a marine biologist, just in case this whole career politician thing goes bust.

[Good Old Neon]

This shit has gotten so crazy that it simply defies description.

 

The President's Evil message to the childrens, from the Washington Monthly:

 

 

THE STAY-IN-SCHOOL MESSAGE.... There was a major-league freak-out yesterday when right-wing activists learned that President Obama was prepared to challenge America's students to "work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning." It's a message the White House would broadcast live to schools that choose to air it.

 

It caused Jim Greer, the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, to have something of a breakdown. He issued a statement condemning the president for, among other things, trying to "indoctrinate America's children to his socialist agenda." He added that Obama "has turned to American's children to spread his liberal lies."

 

Greer was hardly alone. Much of the right was simply apoplectic about this, and many, including Glenn Beck, began organizing a campaign to keep children from going to school the day of Obama's speech. What got the crazies so worked up? Apparently, there's a phrase in the Department of Education supplementary materials that, when taken out of context, becomes politically controversial. So, officials edited it.

 

In a set of bullet points listed under a heading, "Extension of the Speech," one of the points used to say: "Write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals."

 

However, that bullet point now reads as follows: "Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals."

 

In context, "help the president" wasn't about health care or economic growth, it was about the president encouraging young people to do well in school. The edited language makes this clear. As Alex Koppelman explained, "In context, it's clear that was an attempt to get kids to think of working hard in school as something they were doing not just for themselves, but for the president -- and not politically, either. But that's not how Obama's opponents saw it."

 

Well, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Obama's opponents understood it just fine, but are on hair-trigger alert to turn any opportunity into a hysterical temper tantrum.

 

Or as Matt Yglesias put it, "Probably the biggest moral of the story is that the contemporary conservative movement is run by crazy people with no scruples, who'll turn anything into a pretext to level wild accusations."

 

link - http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_09/019751.php

[mountain bed]

Glad you made that post, Joe.

 

I've been on a rant all day - our local school system (in order to placate a few wingnut parents

who have expressed their concern) is going to "review" the speech before they decide if our President is trying to brainwash the little childrens into being hammer-and-sickle-waving socialist robots. This stuff is SO beyond the pale it truly disgusts me.

 

And before anyone comes on here yammering about how "the Left did the same thing to Bush I" let me say this: it was wrong then, and it's still wrong now.

[Edie]

I occasionally monitor what conservatives are saying; this whole episode takes the cake in fear-mongering and self-made hysteria. It really does border on the insane.

[uncool2pillow]

I plan on showing this message to my classes on Wednesday. I will preview it, but expect it to be a very nice motivational apolitical speech.

[Tweedling]

I'm going to write a letter to myself.

 

Dear myself,

 

Please continue to find as many loopholes in the current tax system. The government dosen't need more of your money.

 

Sincerely,

 

Me

[Good Old Neon]

I'm going to write a letter to myself.

 

Dear myself,

 

Please continue to find as many loopholes in the current tax system. The government dosen't need more of your money.

 

Sincerely,

 

Me

 

Okay

[watch me fall]

I love reading comments posted on one of our local news websites. These are the idiots I have to share my city with. It scares me that they have reproduced.

 

Lab_Scientist wrote:

Obama is readying these children for service into his Civilian Defense Force- read the book 1984 or get the book on tape- Children turning against their parents, turning them in for thought crimes. Obama wants your children to pledge their allegiance not to the flag, but to Big Brother, the US Government. Make a stand against tyranny, show them you are not their slaves. The answer to 1776 is 1984!

 

There is all sorts of buzz and concern and prophecy about a huge thing to happen on 9-9-09 (which is 666 upside down)—all types of prophecy can be seen online and otherwise—Catholic prophecy, Nostradamus, Numerology, Astronomy, all different cultures, it is all coming together. Something big will happen in the next 2 days…… The 9-8-09 speech directed toward our “children” just happens to be on the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary (St. Mary is the patron saint of the unborn, the weakest of our society, whom Obama has targeted to kill and from conception)….Now Obama takes the birthdate of the Blessed Virgin and mocks her and Jesus by his Satanic tactics and addressing our children, like we want him coming anywhere near our kids….look at the damage he’s already done, now he’s targeting our children like the Nazi Hitler Youth…..It’s no wonder Alex Jones is going to do something big. I don’t know whether to be happy, sad or frightened by this!

 

If parents were suspicious and reluctant to allow their children to listen to Obama's speech, they had a perfect right to be. This is Obama's own fault due to they way he has so agressivley pushed his Marxist agenda since they day he he took office. I would not have ever objected to a High Shool age student listening to his speech but if I had a child in Middle or Elementary school, you better belive that I would have wanted to review it first before I allowed one of my kids to listen. Be glad that some parents are finally paying attention to what the schools are doing. There is so much propaganda and in certain districts, schools are nothing more that indoctrination centers for the Federal Government.

[Good Old Neon]

I love reading comments posted on one of our local news websites. These are the idiots I have to share my city with. It scares me that they have reproduced.

 

Unfortunately, this crazy horseshit knows no borders – it’s just as prevalent and common here in NH, as it is just about anywhere else. We were fortunate enough to have a pistol-packing moron attend an Obama event in Portsmouth, pretty much the epicenter of liberalism in NH. It’s only a matter of time before this whole crazy fucking scene turns violent. And rather than appeal to cooler heads, right wing radio fans the flames and fantasies of conspiracy-minded jackasses such as the fuckheads who bring along their weapons as company.

 

My guess, if you were ask one of them to define socialism and/or Marxism, using their own words, they’d stutter for a bit, and then their head would explode.

[Kevan]

Unfortunately, this crazy horseshit knows no borders – it’s just as prevalent and common here in NH, as it is just about anywhere else. We were fortunate enough to have a pistol-packing moron attend an Obama event in Portsmouth, pretty much the epicenter of liberalism in NH. It’s only a matter of time before this whole crazy fucking scene turns violent. And rather than appeal to cooler heads, right wing radio fans the flames and fantasies of conspiracy-minded jackasses such as the fuckheads who bring along their weapons as company.

 

My guess, if you were ask one of them to define socialism and/or Marxism, using their own words, they’d stutter for a bit, and then their head would explode.

 

Is there a thread for the presidents speech today?

 

I just read it. Its great, exactly what any non-radical would expect.

[Good Old Neon]

Is there a thread for the presidents speech today?

 

I just read it. Its great, exactly what any non-radical would expect.

 

I tried to read it, but only got about a paragraph in before I started to like, quite literally, morph into Joseph Stalin – if Stalin were a gay America hating, book learning liberal.

 

So I stopped – but I’m keeping the moustache.

[bleedorange]

Don't y'all ever get tired of overreacting to a loud minority of people on the extreme right?

[watch me fall]

The White House is streaming it online right now.

[watch me fall]

Don't y'all ever get tired of overreacting to a loud minority of people on the extreme right?

 

These people aren't the minority where I live.

[Good Old Neon]

Don't y'all ever get tired of overreacting to a loud minority of people on the extreme right?

 

No, not really. Not while they hold the mic and steer the party – which, unfortunately, they do. Michael Steele, the chairman of the RNC can not and will not bring himself to admit that this whole death panel thing is fucking ridiculous – either a.) because he truly believes it, which I doubt, or b.) and this is more likely, because he fears pissing off and/or offending the base – i.e. – the lunatic fringe. The fact that this shit even reaches the level that we’re discussing it, on the national level, speaks to the vast number of morons who hold these views.

 

Which also helps explain all the Palin/Romney bumper stickers I saw over the weekend. Or, and this is my favorite, “Don’t blame me, I voted for Palin”

[Guest Speed Racer]

I just found out my aunt is getting knee replacement surgery this October - about a year before she actually needs it - because she is worried that a ) her health care will be taken away and/or b ) that Obama will euthenize her if she waits. Just - wow.

[Guest Jules]

b.) and this is more likely, because he fears pissing off and/or offending the base – i.e. – the lunatic fringe.

How is the "base" also the "lunatic fringe"?

[Good Old Neon]

I just found out my aunt is getting knee replacement surgery this October - about a year before she actually needs it - because she is worried that a ) her health care will be taken away and/or b ) that Obama will euthenize her if she waits. Just - wow.

 

Has she considered this ghastly alternative?

 

www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYydV4fTWgg

[Good Old Neon]

How is the "base" also the "lunatic fringe"?

 

Because the base is the lunatic fringe – it just so happens that the “fringe” in this case, represents a substantial portion of the party.

[Sir Stewart]

Don't y'all ever get tired of overreacting to a loud minority of people on the extreme right?

 

That would make sense if the President's live speech wasn't followed immediately by my local TV anchor saying "President Obama, delivering his very controversial speech to..."

[Good Old Neon]

That would make sense if the President's live speech wasn't followed immediately by my local TV anchor saying "President Obama, delivering his very controversial speech to..."

 

Ugh – as usual, in an effort to ensure both sides of a “debate” are represented equally, the media frames it, the debate, as if there even is a debate – when, in fact, there isn’t. In a sane world, we’d dismiss the right’s claims out of hand, but since the media has been pretty much beaten into submission with the whole bullshit liberal media shtick – they can’t, so, we have to pretend the crazy people have a valid or at least mildly debatable point, when they don’t, at all – they’re just fucking crazy.

[Sir Stewart]

Ugh – as usual, in an effort to ensure both sides of a “debate” are represented equally, the media frames it, the debate, as if there even is a debate – when, in fact, there isn’t. In a sane world, we’d dismiss the right’s claims out of hand, but since the media has been pretty much beaten into submission with the whole bullshit liberal media shtick – they can’t, so, we have to pretend the crazy people have a valid or at least mildly debatable point, when they don’t, at all – they’re just fucking crazy.

 

I think they're more shrewd than that - I think comments like the one I posted play right into the hands of millions (I don't think it's fringe at all) who are against Obama no matter what. It's not just crazy people.

[Good Old Neon]

Meanwhile, in the real world, more and more disturbing news is being unearthed in relation to the behavior of Obama’s predecessors:

 

From The Daily Dish:

Cheney's Lingering Legacy

 

He wielded US power for the purpose of undoing the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on Torture, and we now learn, he was eager to reverse long-standing US policy to prevent the "disappearances" of suspects:

 

From 2003 to 2006, the Bush administration quietly tried to relax the draft language of a treaty meant to bar and punish "enforced disappearances" so that those overseeing the CIA's secret prison system would not be criminally prosecuted under its provisions, according to former officials and hundreds of pages of documents recently declassified by the State Department.

 

The aim of the global treaty, long supported by the United States, was to end official kidnappings, detentions and killings like those that plagued Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, and that allegedly still occur in Russia, China, Iran, Colombia, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. But the documents suggest that initial U.S. support for the negotiations collided head-on with the then-undisclosed goal of seizing suspected terrorists anywhere in the world for questioning by CIA interrogators or indefinite detention by the U.S. military at foreign sites.

 

Link - http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/cheneys-lingering-legacy.html#more

[Good Old Neon]

Leave it to the right to put a negative spin on Obama’s recommendation that kids should, like, stay in school.

 

"The text of the president’s speech to schoolchildren is largely inoffensive. But it contains at least one political gaffe. If you quit school, he tells the kids, “You’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.” Among Americans between ages 65 and 74, 20.7 percent quit before finishing high school. For those 75 and older, the figure is 27.4 percent. The latter group includes some who quit in order to enlist in the armed forces after Pearl Harbor. And yet the president seems to be calling them unpatriotic," - John J Pitney Jr., NRO.

The mental contortions one must put themselves through to come up with this sort shit must be exhausting and debilitating.

[Sir Stewart]

Leave it to the right to put a negative spin on Obama’s recommendation that kids should, like, stay in school.

 

"The text of the president’s speech to schoolchildren is largely inoffensive. But it contains at least one political gaffe. If you quit school, he tells the kids, “You’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.” Among Americans between ages 65 and 74, 20.7 percent quit before finishing high school. For those 75 and older, the figure is 27.4 percent. The latter group includes some who quit in order to enlist in the armed forces after Pearl Harbor. And yet the president seems to be calling them unpatriotic," - John J Pitney Jr., NRO.

The mental contortions one must put themselves through to come up with this sort shit must be exhausting and debilitating.

 

"You can't get these types of jobs without an education" = "Eradicate all members of your family and await further instruction."