Not so OPEN on the Friday thread
CitizenBruce | Wikimedia Commons
Remember the law Florida tried to enact that would have prevented pediatricians from asking parents if they had guns in their homes, at the potential cost of a physician’s license?
There’s an even more odious law, in Pennsylvania, along those same lines. It would prevent doctors from discussing with their patients the possible hazards of fracking chemicals in drinking water.
The Atlantic has the details:
Under a new law, doctors in Pennsylvania can access information about chemicals used in natural gas extraction — but they won’t be able to share it with their patients. A provision buried in a law passed last month is drawing scrutiny from the public health and environmental community, who argue that it will “gag” doctors who want to raise concerns related to oil and gas extraction with the people they treat and the general public.
I’m curious about the potential of those chemicals to cause spontaneous abortions in pregnant women. So long as docs can’t tell early-term pregnant women who have wells in fracking areas not to drink the water, perhaps they should be forced to have transvaginal ultrasounds — just as a precaution.
Maybe they can get THAT ONE through in Virginia!
(h/t to Americablog).
March 30, 2012 - 10:31 AM
As this is today’s OPEN thread, I’ll leave the fracking question alone and introduce another topic — the overturning of the findings of the U.S. Department of Education about VT’s alleged violation of the federal law known as the Clery Act and the elimination the fines levied by the US Department of Education.
See: http://tinyurl.com/85dbafc
This adjudication should take the wind out of some blower’s pontificating about VT actions.
I, for one, am delighted to see the decision.
The story of the guy in Hillsville who got a new face is so great.
They were being held to a standard that didn’t exist on April 16, 2007. Given hindsight, do they wish they had done something differently? No doubt. But I think this had to be overturned.
Dan, you seem to be concerned a lot with cover-ups and suppression of the truth, etc. And I’m all with you on that, buddy. However, there is a major story going on in the foreign media – even Pravda – that’s being totally suppressed by the news media here in America. I refer to the press conference held on March 1 by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in which he released some of the results of his committee’s investigation into President Obama’s identity documentation.
He presented testimony in person from several forensic document experts revealing the birth certificate released last year by Obama is NOT a photocopy of a supposed original on file at DOH in Hawaii, but is a computer generated construct, patched together with layers of text from other birth certificates of the period. In other words, a forgery. The same situation exists regarding Obama’s selective service card.
This is MAJOR news, man, and it’s all over the world. But for some strange reason, the story has been totally squashed in the good old USA. How bout it, Dan? Why don’t some of you newshounds and seekers and defenders of truth tackle this story? Interview the document experts. Examine the evidence. Discredit Arpaio if you can. I wait with baited breath.
A few corny, funny jokes for Friday:
The recession has hit everyone really hard:
Exxon-Mobil just laid off 25 Congressmen
If the bank returns your check NSF, you should call them and ask if they meant you or them
My cousin had an exorcism. She couldn’t pay so they re-possessed her
A truckload of Americans was caught sneaking into Mexico
Parents of the wealthy are firing their nannies and having to learn their children’s name
Enjoy!
I agree, Kristen. It just amazes me that it could be done. It’s like he’s been given his life back.
This was in my email junk mail folder yesterday. Do people really believe crap like this?
“Dear Beneficiary,I wish to inform you that your ATM CARD worth $10.5m only is now in Pennsylvania, U.S.A.Kindly contact the delivery Agent.Name:Kenneth Parker E-mail: deliveryagent2012@e-mail.ua Regards,Robert S.Mueller III,FBI Director”
Tom Taylor,
I don’t agree with you that this is a major story. It’s just more BS mud the against-Obama-at-all-costs crowd is tossing at the president. First, their complaint was that he did not release his birth certificate. Then when he did the complaint was that it was not long-form. Then when he released a copy of the long form online the the complaint was that the long-form version was suspect. Those suspicions have been roundly debunked by experts in the field of digital images. Every court that has heard this issue has tossed it, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Just for a moment, think about incredibly vast scale of the conspiracy you’re suggesting exists. It involves newspapers in Hawaii in 1962, vital records officials from that state 50 years ago, all the way up to justices on the U.S. Supreme Court in 2012.
And now we have Sheriff Joe to the rescue? Give me a break. That guy’s record of doing anything for a camera is well documented. He’ll dress jail inmates in pink underwear to get some publicity. He’s being investigated by U.S. Justice Department for civil rights abuses, and by officials in his own state for misconduct in office.
Oh for the love of Heaven and all that is Holy! Tom Taylor, “baited breath” is not all you are waiting with. That anyone aspires to be as low, pathetic and accusatory as Joe Arpaio, who disgraces the name of Sheriff, is just beyond comprehension.
Barack Hussein Obama is an Christian American Citizen, born in America and he is the president of the United States of America. I am more than glad that bothers you! Obama 2012!
#4 More complete BS, Tom.
Bill the jokes were great!
Big-time congratulations to the PH Orchestra, which will be playing at Carnegie Hall tonight. A number of my friends are up there to watch their kids. Astounding!!
Debbie #7 see Tom #4: explains it all.
“I wait with baited breath.”
I guess Mr. Taylor will continue to sit around with a worm on his tongue. The expression is ‘waiting with BATED breath’, dear.
It’s not major news, it’s old news.
Doctor are patients’ advocate when it come to health. Who are the government to tell doctor what they can and can’t disclose to their patients if it may endangered their life?!
This is bureaucracy that is getting out of control.
On the contrary, Dan, go to World Net Daily (wnd.com) and research the stories on this issue. An entire panel of forensic document experts has said the released birth certificate is a forgery. No one has examined and debunked their findings. They have only been ignored by the news media, including you.
If Obama has nothing to hide, why did he fight for two years, spending over a million dollars in legal fees, to keep anyone from seeing his original long-form certificate, supposedly on file in Hawaii? Then, when Donald Trump began to give exposure to the issue, voila! here’s the certificate! But, as noted before, the certificate is not a photocopy of any original. I am only challenging you to look into Arpaio’s evidence and debunk it if you can. Fair enough?
Also, no court has actually examined the evidence. The Judges have simply thrown out case after case on technical issues, the most common being that the plaintiff’s have no standing to bring suit.
As for Arpaio, funny how none of these investigations against him have succeeded in turning up any corruption. He has challenged Holder’s DOJ to take him to court and present any evidence against him; but they can’t do it.
Oh, the latest from World Net Daily. Lord Moncton, former document security officer for Margaret Thatcher, flew to Arizona two days ago to examine the findings (something you guys have yet to do) and concluded the birth certificate is indeed a forgery.
Tom Taylor,
That was not “News” in March of 2012, much less “MAJOR news.”
It was old bunk being rehashed from April 2011. Bunk which even Fox News discredited [See: http://tinyurl.com/3ezzs6j ]
**
Expert: No Doubt Obama’s Birth Certificate Is Legit
By Jana Winter
Published April 29, 2011
FoxNews.com
SNIP
When you open it in Illustrator it looks like layers, but it doesn’t look like someone built it from scratch. If someone made a fake it wouldn’t look like this,” he said.“Some scanning software is trying to separate the background and the text and splitting element into layers and parts of layers.”
Tremblay also said that during the scanning process, instances where the software was unable to separate text fully from background led to the creation of a separate layer within the document. This could be places where a signature runs over the line of background, or typed characters touch the internal border of the document.
“I know that you can scan a document from a scanner most of the time it will appear as one piece, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no software that’s doing this kind of stuff,” he said, adding that it’s really quite common.
“I’d be more afraid it’d be fake if it was one in piece. It would be harder to check if it’s a good one if it’s a fake,” Tremblay said.
**
So,where are the anti-regulation zealots when it comes to issues like this one, where the government wants to prevent doctors from discussing specific health issues with their patients? And where were they on the trans-vaginal ultrasounds? And how about suspicionless drug testing in schools? This anti-regulation thing seems to be very selective. But I guess anyone who follows this sort of thing already knows that.
Tom Taylor..
Actually, I think it even goes even deeper than the evidence Sheriff Joe suggests.
Obama’s birth certificate is obviously fake, but what most people fail to realize is that Obama isn’t really human at all.
He’s an extraterrestrial from a planet many light years away, and was planted here by an advanced civilization in preparation for the day when they will arrive in mass to dispossess earthlings of the our own planet.
Dan mocks the scope of the conspiracy, but even he would have to admit that life forms that skee daddle through the space time continuum would certainly have the capability to plant one of their own to manipulate media and historical records to their advantage. I think we can all agree on that.
That’s where the story is, and guys like Dan, who should be looking under every rock and checking all the time travel records just pretend like the whole thing is too bizarre or far out to take seriously. They just scoff at the possibility.
They won’t realize until it’s too late. By then the aliens will have released their highly engineered version of the bird flu which will kill off most of the population and leave the survivors to toil in slave labor for earth’s new inhabitants. When that does happen, somewhere, one of those earthling slaves will find an old paper about Obama’s birth certificate being fake and lament what cold have been if we had only paid attention to the signs. Personally, I hope the flu takes me. I’d rather serve my lord and savior in heaven than to witness the abomination of dominion of the non humans like Obama.
Vote Tea Party brother. It’s the only way to keep this future from happening.
Tom Taylor, you won’t get very far preaching WND garbage on this blog.
Do you know how Joe Farah, the owner of WND, has described me? He has written that I am “a twisted individual” and “the kind of creature I can’t stand.”
There are two reasons why Obama “fought so hard” on this issue: First, the more time a rational person devotes to a discussion with an irrational one, the more time the rational person wastes. Second, the longer Obama allowed the crazies to rail in their smear campaign, the crazier they looked and the saner the president did. In other words, he benefited politically from letting them carry on while he ignored them.
When the White House first released the Birth Certificate I downloaded it, loaded it into PhotoShop and the layers were right there.
Some moron forgot to flatten the image before they distributed it. Amateur mistake.
A scanned image, though, would not have any layers.
That’s it Mike Scott. He’s the, Brother From Another Planet.
From The National Review:
“We have received several e-mails today calling into question the validity of the PDF that the White House released, namely that there are embedded layers in the document. There are now several other people on the case. We looked into it and dismissed it.
The PDF is composed of multiple images. That’s correct. Using a photo editor or PDF viewer of your choice, you can extract this image data, view it, hide it, etc. But these layers, as they’re being called, aren’t layers in the traditional photo-editing sense of the word. They are, quite literally, pieces of image data that have been positioned in a PDF container. They appear as text but also contain glyphs, dots, lines, boxes, squiggles, and random garbage. They’re not combined or merged in any way. Quite simply, they look like they were created programmatically, not by a human.
What’s plausible is that somewhere along the way — from the scanning device to the PDF-creation software, both of which can perform OCR (optical character recognition) — these partial/pseudo-text images were created and saved. What’s not plausible is that the government spent all this time manufacturing Obama’s birth certificate only to commit the laughably rookie mistake of exporting the layers from Photoshop, or whatever photo editing software they are meant to have used. It’s likely that whoever scanned the birth certificate in Hawaii forgot to turn off the OCR setting on the scanner. Let’s leave it at that.”
Dan,
What is so “irrational” about asking a candidate for President to show his original long form birth certificate? I didn’t think it was irrational at all when I had to submit my BC to get a passport, etc. Also, do you really think Obama would spend over two million in legal fees just to make his detractors look silly? You’re getting pretty irrational yourself, Dan.
Tom Taylor,
Your original long-form birth certificate is on file in a vital records office of the place you were born. You don’t have it. Thus, you could not have submitted it to get your passport.
And btw, neither Obama nor his campaign spent $2 million in legal fees “to make his detractors look silly.” They did that for free, by themselves.
Is it April Fool’s Day?
It would seem to me that if the citizens of this Nation vote for a candidate that is presumed to have met the requirements of office (based on the same presumptions each of our Presidents have met)then the elected President is our President. If another group do not like him, do not trust him, feel that his credentials are lacking, then the recourse is to vote him out of office or impeach him for his actions that so upset them. If they can’t do either of those, then they are simply pissing in the wind trying to discredit him and our election process. It is a massive embarrassment to our election process and democracy that a person elected to office by the citizens of this Country have to listen to such nonsense as is being put forth. After four years in office if they can’t vote him out or impeach him for some dereliction of duty, then shut the hell up, he must be a pretty good President.
“Also, do you really think Obama would spend over two million in legal fees just to make his detractors look silly?”
I’ve said before and I’ll say again that I couldn’t care less where the president was born. He is lousy on so many other levels that is like complaining of a scratch on a wrecked car. WOULD Obama spent $2,000,000 to make his detractors look silly. Absolutely. he has proven that he has no qualm about wasting money.
I read a story the other day that the birthers have a new target – Mitt Romney. They claim he was born in Mexico. Problem is that his parents moved to the US about 25 years before Mitt was born. I guess is isn’t conservative enough so they have to start making up s$&@ about him now.
World Nut Daily? Seriously? Nothing like wallowing in the guano.
Hey Tom! GOP got a candidate yet? The weakness of their choices is what the “major news” is.
I’d say Mike Scott summed things up nicely. And Arpaio is an attention whore.
Oh, so now the argument isn’t that Obama HAS spent $2 million on lawyers fending off birthers, it’s that he WOULD spend that amount?
That is neither evidence, an argument or criticism. It’s just fantasy. . .
The whackos always seem to find this place eventually…
Dan, I had to submit a signed, certified as original copy of my BC, just like any other citizen. Won’t argue about the amount of legal fees now, but they’ve been documented in Jerome Kersi’s book about the BC affair.
About your passage from the National Review. Let’s just imagine… you’re making what is to be a signed, certified copy of an original BC, you push the button and… oops! the @##!! OCR setting is ON! Gosh, that means it might show as having layers… and after all, this is for the POTUS… I better switch off the OCR and copy it again!
Isn’t this what would logically happen? And incidentally, you wouldn,t then file the original away and absolutely refuse to let anyone see it again, as the Hawaiian DOH is doing now.
If Obama’s BC copy is a genuine photocopy, it should not have any layers period. But, as far as Arpaio’s investigation is concerned, it’s not so much the document is a layered construct, but that the layers appear to be lifted from other BC’s and documents. I trust someday some intrepid American newsman other than Joe Farrah will have the integrity to report on this.
Well, I’ve gotta get to work. Hope we can part as friends.
By the way, I am not on the Obama-spending-$2M-bandwagon or birther bandwagon, for that matter. The Romney born in Mexico thing: OMG.
Sheriff Joe qualified everything he said with “appears to be.” That gives him an out later on when what his “experts” are alleging turn out to be untrue.
As for the OCR, you appear to be suggesting that the White House deliberately ordered a clerk in Hawaii to scan the LF doc that way, so as to get all the birthers in a tizzy, thus prolonging this craziness.
Corsi does not document ANY spending by the Obama legal team in fighting the birthers’ claims. All he documents is TOTAL spending by the campaign on lawyers (the campaign has to report this, as they do other expenses). Corsi them jumps to the incredibly illogical and unreasonable assumption that ALL of that spending was to fight birthers.
I guess by that genius “logic” every penny spend defending a malpractice suit is an implict admission of guilt.
Layers! Layers! Layers!
“Some moron forgot to flatten the image before they distributed it. Amateur mistake.”
Yeah…because the president of the United States wouldn’t have access to the “pros” at dummying up documents.
GET. OVER. IT.
As to the subject at hand it shows how corporations can made laws by way of how our government works now a days. If there is a threat from making profits even at the coast of people’s health, then they get a law passed and in this case stops the doctor from doing what they are supposed to do, healing people.
As for you folks who are birthers, I say keep it going. It just shows how loony the GOP has gotten. And you will help this President get another 4 more years. Keep it up your doing fine.
Imagine, if there was a chemical in soda pop that over a long period of time would make you go blind. And then imagine a state passing a law that forbid ophthalmologists from warning their patients to stay away from soda pop. WTF?
Imagine if doctors were forbidden by law from telling smokers that cigarettes were bad for them.
I never provided my original birth certificate to get my passport earlier this year. Mine is sealed and unviewable, because I was adopted. I showed them a photocopy of an Amended notarized birth certificate one and got my passport.
Must be all that cactus growing in Maricopa County. It’s the only logical explanation.
The president also has a passport. He had to present the same kind of documentation Tom Taylor did to get his passport.
Yet, the birthers have been unable to persuade the president to give them the original passport so they can examine it.
The conspiracy grows . . .
great letter to the editor in today’s paper:
The current president seems to fall short of this responsibility, not understanding the origins of this country, its real history and the constant vigilance needed to sustain its position in today’s world.
FRED WAY
ROANOKE
YET, people will still allow the great marxist another chance, sad
Tom – you may want to also take note of John McCain’s birthplace and birth certificate questions in 2008:
“The senator bases his eligibility claim [that he is a "natural born citizen"] on the fact that he was (1) born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone at a time when it was effectively under U.S. sovereignty and (2) both of his parents were U.S. citizens.
As I reported earlier, the McCain campaign has declined to publicly release the senator’s birth certificate. But a senior campaign official showed me a copy of his birth certificate issued by the “family hospital” in the Coco Solo submarine base. (McCain’s grandfather commanded the Coco Solo Naval Air Station in 1936; his father was the executive officer of a submarine based in Coco Solo.) http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/05/john_mccains_birthplace.html
Funny how the opposition did not make a big deal out of this…
This Sunday the USA will have the highest Corporate Tax rate in the World!
This is why jobs are still going overseas.
http://uk.reuters.com/assets/print?aid=UKL2E8EU5VV20120330
OMG! Two candidates who ran in the same year who didn’t produce their original LF birth certificates!
And in fact, NO OTHER presidential candidate EVER has had to produce his original LF birth certificate!
(Obama and McCain were the only ones. And, questions remain only about Obama, who happens to be the only major-party black presidential candidate in a general election in this country’s history. Hmmmm.)
This is the third time I have attempted to make this post. The first two times it was eaten by the captcha gremlin. Maybe the third time will be the charm.
The Obama haters will never recognize the legitimacy of this President. They all believe he is a Muslim terrorist, traitor, because of his name,
because he is white, and because they are encouraged and fomented in that nuttiness by swcumbags like Karl Rove. Rove is almost singlehandedly responsible for the mosat vile political negativism of this century, a good example of which is provided in the link below:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rove-linked-group-paints-obama-double-agent-russia-142856121.html
Dan – it blows my mind that you print a piece on fracking and no one even bothers to comment.
I happened to read about fracking in a fly fishing magazine a few years ago. The article was about a stream where every living organism died after a fracking operation entered the area. The crazy thing is that this has happened repeatedly. Company begins fracking for natural gas and suddenly the water supply is poisoned. The gas company pays for an investigation and the investigation finds that the gas company is not at fault. (Surprise, Surprise.) It’s just a coincidence that the same chemicals used in the fracking operation suddenly appeared in the water supply. The EPA recently tried to present a study that was critical of fracking. The Republicans on the committee refused to accept it. The problem is that the owners of the land with natural gas and the gas companies see dollar signs and don’t care about consequences. Politicians see campaign donations and a solution to the energy crisis.
Nobody seems to care about poisoning the water. Really scarey.
44. Pammala – you guys are nuts. The President is a Constitutional Law Professor trained at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country where he was one of the top students if not the top student (you have to be at the top to be on the law review). I expect he knows more history of this nation and its formation than 99.99999% of the people in the World; he certainly has the credentials to support that. You however, have no credentials and based on your comments show that you are clueless.
Maloof
That is BS. Because under our flawed syaytem, nominal tax rate and what corporations actually pay are not even in the same time zone. The actual effective corporate tax rate in the US is in the 12% range and that is competitive with most of the rest of the world.
46. Maloof, but jobs are not still going overseas. They infact are coming back here because the costs and risks of doing business overseas has risen to where it is cheaper to do business here.
49. John Louis – there has indeed been action by several states and by Congress on the hazards of fracking. NY and Pennsylvania are taking action and Congress just passed or is passing a bill that includes disclosures the companies have to make. Not much, but at least a start. Yo will not see much more until Congress is more environmentally friendly, a disaster occurs, and we have alternative fuels.
You nailed it, John Louis. Money talks and we have the best politicians that money can buy.
#22 So, Jack, you’re joining the wingnuts trying to distract from stuff like fracking?
Let’s be honest — the president would not fake something this important and hire an amateur to do it. It simply wouldn’t happen. Period.
Go back to advocating a gun in every square inch of the property you own.
Dan, did you post a notice that you had deleted another one of suzie’s posts and I missed it?
It seemed to me that the way Jack phrased his comment, it could go either way. I couldn’t tell if he was slamming the birthers or the Obama campaign.
“Dan, did you post a notice that you had deleted another one of suzie’s posts and I missed it?”
Nope.
#49 John, you’re right, as usual the right-wing bizarros have shown up to distract us with something as asinine as birth certificates rather than something more important, like fracking possibly poisoning water and causing small earthquakes. But it IS the open thread.
SCOTUS…think it over..we all unrobe.
think it over.. this time no
procedural probes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC-MDYopSoA&feature=related
Karl Rove-linked “American Crossroads” released a new video on Friday painting President Barack Obama as a double agent for Russia out to weaken America’s national security.
Republicans will use any despicable scare tactic to influence low information voters – he’s a Kenyan, a Muslim, a socialists, on and on, and now! A double agent…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-Czo5Vf8KZs#!
John Louis – this was written awhile ago, but it has great information on fracking and how it has become big, big business
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-big-fracking-bubble-the-scam-behind-the-gas-boom-20120301
Fracking is a terrible thing and we do not have another planet to go to. It cannot be good for the aquifers, wells and the earth to have that kind of unnatural force applied. Talk about “playing God”!
“The President is a Constitutional Law Professor….I expect he knows more history of this nation and its formation than 99.99999% of the people in the World; he certainly has the credentials to support that.”
Dan, I didn’t know we could post April Fools’ Day posts this early!
Heartland Institute – a prominent ultra conservative think tank – has been one of the loudest voices denying man-made global warming using behind-the-scenes tactics propped up by millions of dollars in donations from big corporate names.
But today! “General Motors pulls funding from climate skeptic think-tank Heartland” – Car giant breaks off 20-year relationship with Heartland Institute in ongoing row over its role in questioning global warming
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/30/climate-change-general-motors-heartland-institute
WOW Hillary, that is a breakthrough.
John Wilburn, you mean you haven’t?
The American Energy Alliance, another one of those 501(3)c corps funded by the Koch brothers and the petroeum industry has jujst launced a 3.6 million dollar tv ad campaign blaming Prersident Obam for the increase in gas prices. It alleges that if we would just take all the regs. off of offshore drilling, stop holding up drilling in Anwar, and let the keystone pipeline be built without any restrictions or thought as t the environmental consequences, then the price of gas would go down. It completely ignores the facts—that all the pipeline oil is trageted for China and India, that building it will increase gas prices in the midwest 20 to 30 cents per gallon, that our oil production from offshore drilling has gone up 8% under Obama, tha for the first time in half a century, we now get less than half our oil from non domestic sources, and that newe EPA standards requiring greater eficiency in cars built in America will hsve a seismic effect on future domestic gas and oil demand.
“you print a piece on fracking and no one even bothers to comment.”
Frack it.
The Senate this week failed to put an end to subsidies for big oil when it voted 51-47 to end them, thus failing to reach the 69 vote requirement to end the Republican filibuster on the matter. The 51 votes for ending the subsidies were virtually all democrats. The 47 against ending the subsidies were virtually all Republicans. A watchdog group which analyzed campaign contributions and support from big oil and its supporters found that since 2009, the 51 who voted to end the subsidies had received just over $5 million in contributions. The 47 who did not had received just over $27 MILLION in contributions.
“The American Energy Alliance, another one of those 501(3)c corps funded by the Koch brothers and the petroeum industry has jujst launced a 3.6 million dollar tv ad campaign blaming Prersident Obam for the increase in gas prices.”
To dave’s comment I would add that Koch Industries is a well-known speculator in oil industry derivatives, which have been blamed for big spikes in the cost of gasoline. In other words, they play the futures markets, goose the price, then take out ads blaming the president for what they did. Neat game — and unfair as hell.
I just sent this to a friend who posted a lie on Facebook. It gets so tiresome.
http://www.factcheck.org/2012/02/did-obama-approve-bridge-work-for-chinese-firms/
Dan – The infamous and low down Koch brothers have their hand in every dirty deal, smear campaigns and by virtue of buying the Republicans in Congress and elsewhere, control of the legislative action: anti-environmental protection legislation, union busting legislation, drill baby drill legislation…Koch Industries’ “Flint Hills Resources” subsidiary owns three refineries that together process more than 800,000 barrels of crude oil daily. Koch operates crude gathering systems and pipelines across North America as well as cattle ranches with more than 15,000 head of cattle in Kansas, Montana, and Texas. Brothers Charles and David Koch control the company.” http://www.hoovers.com/company/Koch_Industries_Inc/cftjki-1.html
Any wonder the Republicans keep pushing for the Keystone Pipeline to be passed by Congress? Republicans are owned by these billionaire devils…
Re Dave and Dan via Oil subsidies kept in place by the tea bagging GOP.
VOTE DEMOCRAT IN NOVEMBER
Wow Debbie, that’s a great “States Rights” problem. The federal funding requires it to be “By America” and “Buy American”! That is NOT right!
The Koch brothers are the perfect example of people who have too much money and think they should meddle in the government. Funny how the right wingers decry that when it is Soros.
Only in Congress is a 51 [in favor of eliminating subsidies[ to 47 [to continue subsidies] vote not a majority…must be new math…or the ridiculous filibuster rule…
Debbie – I love the statement in that Fact Check:
“…how things get distorted and go viral — even when the facts are just a click away.” Amen to that!
Apparently, earlier this week Rick Santorum said in a speech in Wisconsin that he thinks government nig….I mean, blaaah people….I mean-Hey! How DARE you suggest that any far right wing reactionary in the diversity loving party of Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Trent Lott and George Allen ever even subconsciously harbors white racist thoughts. In fact, the truth is that both Allen and Santorum have friends who know someone who’ve heard of people who once almost knew a non-white person’s name. But you communist libbies will do anything to distract from the proven fact that Reagan was the first black president and Obama is a secret Kenyan Muslim double ageent for Russia. Right, pammala?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaA8nkiWdk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdfZmcuomcE
Above: Warren channeling Suzie.
Warren’s second link: That was just bold speech spun by the race baiters. Big deal.
Warren’s first link: WHOA. There are some people who should be OUTRAGED! Like Newt and his staff that it wasn’t said last week.
But seriously, he can’t get the stuff back in the horse. His “Macaca” moment for sure. We’ll see how he recovers. His body language, derailed train of thought, and everything suggests that it was the N-word that was rounding third base and caught on one tooth while half-way out of his mouth.
Rick Santorum could pick Michael Richards for a running mate and run as independents.
.
#77 I loved that part too, Hillary. Easier to just believe a story because it fits your agenda, than to check to see if it’s true or not.
As much as I hate to say it Sandi’s early post is correct. We need to focus on The President’s complete failure at doing his job and his misguided vision for America. I have been told Jimmy Carter was the worst President in modern history, not anymore
NOTE FROM KOCH BROTHERS TO RETHUGS: The panic over gasoline in Great Britain is Obama’s fault. It is NOT the fault of British conservatives trying to stir up national anger that truck drivers might sometime in the far future go on strike — it’s Obama’s fault. Now, take this large amount of cash and make some commercials about it.
hardly warren..remember your big demmirat robert kkk byrd from wva? dont slam me dear, it’ll come back and bite ya
” Funny how the right wingers decry that when it is Soros.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — March 30, 2012 @ 11:15 pm”
soros is in the job of toppling governments, proven fact and sandi admires that..wanna another cookie dear?
#86 Let’s face it, pammala, you are just one sad SOS. I mean, it just had to be said.
pammalapdog’s on YouTube espousing her wisdom:
http://youtu.be/B72fbXDQ7Lg
Dan,
Look, I know how important this freedom of speech first amendment thingie is to you journalists types but I seriously think its time for you to reassess your magnetic north. Dan, some things are more important than your mere petty principles.
As abhorrent as I know this topic is for you, I really think its time for you to think about banning pammala from your blog due to the hate crime she constantly commits. That’s right, Dan, ol’ pammy is a hater. I know that in the spirit of fair play you’ve been loath to face the ugly truth but its high time you have a come to Jesus moment and ban pammala for her transgressions against humanity. Dan, you know it its true; pammala hates the English language.
Nobody else on this, your board, gets away with the murder that she does with absolutely no consequences; I honestly think that sometimes your defense of our sacred language makes you kind of a Neville Chamberlain of the English Language. pammy spanks spelling, punches punctuation, grapples with grammar and rapes reason with the same unmitigated gall Bernie Madoff displays when he causally strolls upon an 8 yr old’s piggy bank. And yet you still tolerate this Genghis Khan of the English language, yes, the desecrater of her own native tongue, and allow her to disseminate virtual crimes that makes Bill White’s screeds read like they were composed by a Catholic Nun as pure as the driven snow. With each additional post of pammalas that you approve there’s even more blood on your hands, Dan. At this rate you better hope there’s not a patron Saint of grammar, because if there is they are gonna’ go all Old Testament on you in the afterlife for sitting by idly while pammy commits her atrocities.
Why? Why, I ask you, is pammala continuously allowed to commit genocide against the English Language and yet you still allow her to freely roam your blog not just threatening but causing grave harm to basic grammar, sentence structure, logic and reason? Its high time that you hold her accountable for her actions, Dan. You know I’m right; there’s no room in a lawful and just society to tolerate this brand of hate crime. Do what’s right and ban her until she compitchulates and learns to compose her jihads on MS Word like the rest of us.
“soros is in the job of toppling governments”
You can’t make fun of these people enough. I’d try, but I don’t think I can do her justice. I like the “proven fact” part the best.
There’s nothing the Birthbaggers can do to prevent Obama’s reelection at this point, short of putting a bullet in him which I have no doubt gets floated as an idea among those nuts. The GOP doesn’t have anything to offer, and no amount of birthbaggery can change the essential fact that their candidates aren’t up to snuff. A candidate that can’t soundly thump Santorum doesn’t have a chance against Obama, and I’d say the same about a candidate that can’t do the same to Romney.
And Obama goes down as the president that dragged us back from the abyss Bush brought us too. He will be viewed by history as a great, not good, president.
Behold! As evidence I offer the board this gem;
“sandi, you are STILL not getting it..the issue is MAKING the people but a product. that is the issue dear. that IS socialist. get a grip on something besides a cookie.”
Comment by pammala — March 31, 2012 @ 8:39 am
I rest my case.
pammala @#86 because you spew it, doesn’t make it a “proven fact “- sources, citations etc are helpful from preventing one from looking ridiculous…now, if that’s your OPINION, though ridiculous, that doesn’t give others the impression you are simply fabricating your “facts”…
Looks like it’s Pick-on-pammala Day . . .
I heart Steve C.
“Debbie says:
I heart Steve C.
Posted on March 31st, 2012″
Hell, I bow down to Steve C.
Here we go. According to Glenn Beck, George Soros and Google toppled the Egyptian government.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=misHAUCkczs
Here’s another fun site that Ms. Pammala may visit.
http://www.earstohear.net/soros.html
Dan @93 – with pitchforks,crosses, or a dictionary – which ever will drive her away…
Pammalala is clearly struggling to keep its head above water without the protection of its mother troll. I do, however understand her fixation with cookies. I want to toss mine every time I see one of her posts.
I will accept the Karl Rove/ Koch Bros/Republican meme that the President is responsible for the increase in gas prices when they”
1. Pass legislation requiruing that 50% of all crude oil and or refined products using the keystone pipeline be required to be sold in the US domestic market.
2. Pass legislation giving the President REAL authority to regulate the commodities speculators that are driving oil prices up artificially.
3. Pass legislation giving the President authority to require that a minimum of 50% of all petroleum products refined in the US be consumed in domestic markets.
4. Pass legislation tieing the increase in offshore oil production capacity to increases in our GDP.
5. End all subsidies to oil companies in the US except for tax credits for building and putting on line new and updated refineries in the US.
If they are unwilling to take these common sense steps, then they should shut up because they are not serious aboput bringing down the price of gas at home. They are only serious about ensuring more obscene profits for big oil.
Steve C,
Give Pammala a break, she may not even BE an american. Hence her inability to express her/itself in English.
Good rant though. I’m impressed as usual.
Pammala is always talking about cookies. Try this. Read one of her posts in the voice of the “Cookie Monster” I swear it all becomes clear.
pammala IS the Cookie Monster…
Or maybe a Wookie.
Warren, #78 scribbles, “78.Apparently, earlier this week Rick Santorum said in a speech in Wisconsin that he thinks government nig….I mean, blaaah people….I mean-Hey! How DARE you suggest that any far right wing reactionary in the diversity loving party of Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, Trent Lott and George Allen ever even subconsciously harbors white racist thoughts. In fact, the truth is that both Allen and Santorum have friends who know someone who’ve heard of people who once almost knew a non-white person’s name.”
None of this matters when one name is remembered….Robert Byrd. The Democrats hare racists….until they are one….then they elect him US Senate Majority Leader …..TWICE!! Warren, history is your friend.
#100 should read….The Democrats hate racists….until they are one….then they elect him US Senate Majority Leader …..TWICE!!
Pammala has as much right to be here as anyone else. That’s freedom of speech.
Did I miss SuzieQ pretending to leave?
#97 Hillary, trust me, I am looking forward to the Block Comments feature, I wish we had it now. As long as we get that, I don’t care who stays or leaves.
I didn’t miss it leaving. I hope it’s gone for ever.
#99 It’s my opinion that here in the US and perhaps abroad, but probably not as much, there seems to be a disconnect between us as gas consumers and the amount we pay at the pump, and I don’t mean the price per gallon. It is as if it is up to some other entity, the government, OPEC, or the oil companies to keep the cost of a fill up down. We are not responsible. But when I observe traffic here and anywhere in this country I see gas being wasted by the consumer. Primarily, in my opinion, it is the cars we buy. We love them big and heavy, powerful and fast. Fuel consumption is a secondary consideration, if at all. Driving practices can waste or save a lot. Keeping the speed at 60 on the highway, though at times difficult, uses little more gas than driving at 50 but noticeably less than 70. Aggressive driving and quick starts and stops are all gas wasters. And then there is the dreaded “drive thru”. Studies show that if you idle your car for 30 seconds, turn it off, restarting the car will use less gas. I often wonder when I see a Suburban at the drive thru what kind of mileage it is getting there, idling for who knows how long. No doubt the owner will gripe about the cost of his next fill up and complain about the government, the oil companies, anyone but himself. An interesting web site on this:
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/drivehabits.shtml
Debbie #106, Amen 4! That feature will fix the problems for us all, no matter who is allowed to post here or what they are allowed to say. I am anxiously awaiting it too.
Phil, I know you cannot appreciate the difference, but a reformed and repentant racist is different than a committed one. Robert Byrd, spent the rest of his life devoted to making amends for his error. Santorum has doubled down. That people are still following and supporting him says a lot…about them.
Phil,if you want to use West Virginia as your baseline for “democrats”…..knock yourself out. I never voted for him.
To the PC poster at #103:
Yes indeed, history IS my friend on this matter. Because history records that Sen. Byrd unequivocally and repeatedly said that he was wrong in his earlier beliefs, that he in fact had been repeating cultural prejudices without really giving independent thought to how they align with his own conscience and the teachings of his faith. That contrasts sharply with the likes of some others in his generation, like Jesse Helms, who never gave such a sharp rebuke to his own past, or Strom Thurmond, who explicitly defended the segregationist ideology that he had championed, despite hypocritically fathering a black child that he kept a secret his whole life. While the prevalence of bigots in West Virginia probably did not change much more than in the Carolinas during their respective careers, such strong public disavowal of racism was only demonstrated by Byrd.
But it is tellingly predictable that Byrd and only Byrd alone is cited as a reason to broadly excuse ongoing racism in any others: “none of this matters when one name is remembered” said the poster in #103. And telling that there’s so little else for such posters to counter with, given the necessity for their position of ignoring the whole rest of Sen. Byrd’s history.
Next we can expect to hear the entirely absurd syllogism that “Lincoln freed the slaves, Lincoln was a Republican, ergo today’s Republicans are the party of expanded civil rights”. History records that Lincoln’s move sprang from a strategic, not moral, impulse. Then, his successor Andrew Johnson, who (like Strom Thurmond later) switched parties for his own personal opportunism, as a Republican refused compromise and lost the opportunity for a better outcome for all Americans.
There have been many Republicans in the modern era who believe in equal civil rights, and did not exploit racial animus, but they have not been able to prevent civil rights reactionaries from entangling the party in regressive positions. And that pattern has repeated itself with other reactionary elements from religious to economic to foreign policy reactionaries, so much that the pattern now seems to define the modern GOP coalition.
For Apartheid to end in South Africa without a major bloodletting required whites to have the courage and intellectual honesty to sincerely renounce their own earlier views, just as Sen. Byrd did. And as Thurmond, Helms and many other opportunists from the segregationist wing of the pre-realignment Democrats, who switched party affiliation to become Republicans after the Democratic led civil rights expansion of the 1950′s and ’60′s, did not. Or as it’s known, history.
Although certain George Allen apologists might have preferred you hadn’t, thanks for reminding us of that history, PC.
Kristen, the Democratic senators who voted for him came from all over the country….not just WV. And I’ll bet some who voted for him are still in the Senate.
The salient point is that real racism does rear it’s ugly head from time to time and the Democrats in the senate embraced it twice.
#111 Warren – thanks for the well written and presented piece…
although sadly, I’m sure, it will not have any impact on the target of your educational post …
93.”Looks like it’s Pick-on-pammala Day . . .”
Should have read:
looks like its pick on pammala day
In her honor, you know.
.
You know guys, once you start blocking all of thse posters, you’ll still read the others’ replies to them and be curious what the trolls said to get the respose.
John Wilburn,
Nobody gets blocked on Dan Casey’s Blog. Except maybe a racist jerk or two who can’t not create contests with the n-word.
Dan, he’s talking about the ability of one, to hide anothers comments.
“….create contests with the n-word.”
When did that happen?
I was talking about the posters blocking one another. I’m glad that you let us be, by and large.
Warren, there are lapses in judgement that one can’t recover from….and donning the hood is one of them. Likewise, dancing around the firey cross, wearing the sheets like a coward so no one will know who you are, terrorizing black families, and recruiting more new blood to do the same.
I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side … Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”
— Robert C. Byrd, in a letter to Sen. Theodore Bilbo (D-MS), 1944
Unless you’re a Democrat, one can’t recover these things.
Should read…Unless you’re a Democrat, one can’t recover from U4CMthese things.
Darn!! Should read…Unless you’re a Democrat, one can’t recover from these things.
“there are lapses in judgement that one can’t recover from”
Not according to Jesus.
When you compare anything these candidates have said or done to the ku klux klan, with a straight face, it is clear your understanding of the kkk is deficient. Get this: KKK membership is the equilavent to murder! There were no nights when all they did was have a bake sale. There only purpose was domestic terrorism! Once for the Democrats was not enough…they elected hgim twice. If Charles Manson apologized enough, he become Senate Majority Leader for the Democrats.
Grammar fix re-post: When you compare anything these candidates have said or done to the ku klux klan, with a straight face, it is clear your understanding of the kkk is deficient. Get this: KKK membership is the equilavent to murder! There were no nights when all they did was have a bake sale. Their only purpose was domestic terrorism! Once for the Democrats was not enough…they elected him twice. If Charles Manson apologized enough, he, apparently, could become Senate Majority Leader for the Democrats.
@Dave, your comments on #99 are spot on, well said.
#123,
Interesting point, Phil Chitwood. Using this same logic could you extrapolate on the theme of Democratic party membership of the current KKK instead of from just 60 years ago? Perhaps we’d have a better understanding of the demographics the KKK serves if you could do more research and share with us the % of Klansman who supported President Obama.
I realize this is the weekend and all and you probably have a lot to do but this little assignment shouldn’t take you more than, oh, say 15 or 20 seconds max. We can’t wait to see what your research turns up.
Thanks in advance! We’re all anxious to learn more about what kind of person is under the white sheet “when racism rears its ugly head”.
#123: “If Charles Manson apologized enough, he, apparently, could become Senate Majority Leader for the Democrats.”
Avtually, PC, it’s you who introduced and keep flogging a comparison of “anything these candidates have said or done to the ku klux klan”. Apparently not feeling that was effective enough in light of the apt analogy to South African reconciliation (and Jesus’ teachings), you decided it’s Manson time. So, now let’s hear about how those awful Democrats are so quick to resort to outlandish hyperbole that doesn’t encourage reasonable debate. That could be fun to read, in a Santorum/Allen excuse kind of way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaA8nkiWdk
Typo alert: my last post should start with “Actually”…, actually.
You’re right, Steve C, much to do….you’re probably better suited to cross reference the membership rolls of the KKK and the Democratic Party.
Warren at 4:18…The Dems drum Trent Lott out of the leadership position for telling Strom, on his birthday, that he, Strom, would have made a good president. And not too many years prior to that they……Oh, well, I think you know. HYPOCRICY won’t be tolerated….at least while one side is still supporting the lynchers.
Pretty sure ir wasn’t the democrats who “drummed” Lott out of his job.
And the quote involved telling that addled old bigot Strom that if his anti-civil-rights butt had been in the White House, we wouldn’t have had to deal with all that pesky desegregation. Lott deserved what he got.
#128 Phil Chitwood,
My apologizes. It just occurred to me that I may have made your weekend home work assignment a little too complicated for you. Here’s the streamlined version that I tailored just for your attention span;
Please state an approximate % of KKK members that supported President Obama.
I know you’re kind of busy so I’m going to help you out a bit.
1- 0% __
2- 5% X
3- 10% X
4- 15% X
Hope this helps. Feel free to reach out if you need additional help.
Trent Lott and Strom Thurmod perfect together:
“I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either,” said at last week’s party.
Thurmond ran as the presidential nominee of the breakaway Dixiecrat Party in the 1948 presidential race against Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Thomas Dewey. He carried Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and his home state of South Carolina, of which he was governor at the time.
During the campaign, he said, “All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negro into our homes, our schools, our churches.”
Thurmond’s party ran under a platform that declared in part, “We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race.”
No racism there. To Strom Thurmond’s credit he did eventually rejected his past position [as did Robert Byrd -D/WV].
and to contest the point he was out because of Democrats, not all Dems condemned Lott nor Thurmond:
“Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, D-South Dakota, said Monday he believes Lott did not intend for his comments to be interpreted as racist.”
and we have this..
“Gore offered no criticism of Thurmond, saying the retiring senator has since “repudiated” those views.”
however, he made no such exception for Lott, “…he said Lott’s remarks were “divisive” and fit the “definition of a racist comment.” http://articles.cnn.com/2002-12-09/politics/lott.comment_1_dixiecrat-party-lott-strom-thurmond/2?_s=PM:ALLPOLITICS
And lest we forget how hypocrisy works:
Dec 16, 2003 – Strom Thurmond of South Carolina confirmed Monday that in 1925, when he was 22, Thurmond fathered a child with a black teenage …
http://articles.cnn.com/2003-12-15/us/thurmond..paternity_1_thurmond-family-essie-mae-washington-williams-carrie-butler?_s=PM:US
Weak try at revisionist history there, PC. What Lott actually said, referring to Thurmond’s run for president on a strict segregationist platform, was:
“if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years”
A rather straightforward statement of approval for segregationist policies. And rather more than merely telling Thurmond that he would have made a good president. Maybe you weren’t paying attention then, PC, or maybe you have a need to remember a less malignant version, despite the truth. And speaking of hypocrisy, did you also miss the part about Thurmond exploiting white racism his whole career while secretly fathering a black child? Trent Lott did.
But a Fox-worthy attempt at revisionism, I must say. “You might be an apologist for American apartheid if _______”
It’s pretty clear that, had Strom Thurmond got his way back in the late 1940s, blacks students would not be allowed in white schools, black patrons would not be allowed to eat in state-licensed restaurants whose owners didn’t want them as customers, and black homebuyers would be explicitly forbidden from buying a home in South Roanoke or certain other neighborhoods.
Phil C, no one is trying to minimize that Byrd was an avowed racist (as were the majority of people at that time, openly). No one can deny that he was an active and leadership bearing member of the KKK, one of the most awful and hate-filled groups that ever was created in this nation and the original “hate group”. However, he DID do something many of the other racists and Klan members of his time did not, he denounced it, he apologized for it and after his fiery racist rhetoric, he CHANGED his opinion and his rhetoric.
If HE had said that he too thought the nation would have been better off with a President Thurmond, who ran as a segregationist, he would not have “gotten away with it” either. He had no middle ground and due to his past he was always suspect and his “conversion” questioned. Just like Helms and Thurmond and many wealthy, powerful, elite, law enforcement, judicial and leadership position folks in this nation, there are those who did not and never would forgive him.
His work ethic and devotion to the Senate and the laws and mores of it was rewarded with a leadership position. That is not to say. AND CANNOT BE SAID TO SAY, that if he had shown an inkling of any racist views, he would not have lost it all. Yes, many democrats forgave him, many respected him and many voted for him, but no one would have given him another chance. You do not navigate under that Sword of Damocles without being truly remorseful. Whether you and other TP/GOPers accept that is your problem, not ours.