E.J. Dionne Jr. – The Tea Party is winning

Take five steps back and consider the nature of the political conversation in our nation’s capital. You would never know that it’s taking place at a moment when unemployment is still at 9 percent, when wages for so many people are stagnating at best and when the United States faces unprecedented challenges to its economic dominance.

No, Washington is acting as if the only real problem the United States confronts is the budget deficit; the only test of leadership is whether the president is willing to make big cuts in programs that protect the elderly; and the largest threat to our prosperity comes from public employees.

Take five more steps back and you realize how successful the Tea Party has been. No matter how much liberals may poke fun at them, Tea Party partisans can claim victory in fundamentally altering the country’s dialogue.

E.J. Dionne Jr. – The Tea Party is winning

Hey Tea Baggers: STFU! is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Eugene Robinson – Guns and responsibility

By Eugene Robinson

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

We may not be sure that the bloodbath in Tucson had anything to do with politics, but we know it had everything to do with our nation’s insane refusal to impose reasonable controls on guns.

Specifically, the rampage had everything to do with a 9mm semiautomatic Glock pistol – a sleek, efficient killing machine that our lax gun laws allowed an unstable young man to purchase, carry anywhere and ultimately use to shoot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in the head. The weapon also was used to shoot 19 bystanders, killing six of them, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. …

We do know, however, that Loughner reportedly had a history of drug use and bizarre behavior. Students and a teacher at a community college that Loughner briefly attended found him so erratic, confused, menacing and potentially violent that they persuaded college authorities to bar him from campus pending a psychiatric exam.

Yet on Nov. 30, he was able to walk into Sportsman’s Warehouse in Tucson and purchase the weapon that authorities allege was used in Saturday’s rampage. He apparently also bought extra magazines loaded with ammunition.

To buy the gun, Loughner was required to pass a federal background check – and he did, a store manager told reporters. It is against federal law to sell a gun to someone who is mentally ill, but there is no indication that Loughner was ever officially deemed to suffer from mental illness. Even if he had been, there is a good chance that his name would not have been properly entered in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. …

Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, said in a statement that "if Congress had not allowed the ‘Assault Weapons Ban’ to expire in 2004, the shooter [Loughner] would only have been able to get off 10 rounds without reloading. Instead, he was able to fire at least 20 rounds from his 30-round clip."

Eugene Robinson – Guns and responsibility

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CO-HOST: How would you handle a situation like the one that just developed in North Korea? [...]

PALIN: But obviously, we’ve got to stand with our North Korean allies. We’re bound to by treaty –

CO-HOST: South Korean.

PALIN: Eh, Yeah. And we’re also bound by prudence to stand with our South Korean allies, yes.

ThinkProgress » Palin: ‘Obviously, We’ve Got To Stand With Our North Korean Allies’

Palin: ‘Obviously, We’ve Got To Stand With Our North Korean Allies’– OMG is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

Think Progress » Palin gives a lackluster speech in Wisconsin, frequently uses ‘bogus’ or ‘awesome’ to discuss weighty topics. 

Politico reports that Friday’s speech was less than inspiring:

Palin had remarks prepared but frequently wandered off-script to make a point, offering audience members a casual “awesome” or “bogus” in discussing otherwise weighty topics.

As in: “It is so bogus that society is sending a message right now and has been for probably the last 40 years that a woman isn’t strong enough or smart enough to be able to pursue an education, a career and her rights and still let her baby live.”

Other Palin touchstones included: praise for the military, jeers for the “the liberal media” and a general manner of speaking that often veered into rhetorical culs-de-sac.

While she drew applause during her remarks, Palin’s extemporaneous and frequently discursive style was such that she never truly roused a true-believing crowd as passionate about the issue at hand as she. Not once during her address did they rise to their feet.

Palin warned on her Facebook page last night that the “death panel” provision is in the health care bill that just passed the House.

Think Progress » Palin gives a lackluster speech in Wisconsin, frequently uses ‘bogus’ or ‘awesome’ to discuss weighty topics.

Send Saruh Back to the North Pole is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." – Saruh Palin

A system that raises such an ignorant person to such prominence is downright stupid.

PS: I’m adding a new category under NADA (New American Dark Ages) called “Dump Saruh” (an homage to Dump Duhbya).

Saruh Palin on Healthcare is a post from: mjh's blog. Thank you for subscribing. Let me know what you think. peace, mjh