Liar

The reporting on President Obama's first 100 days is better left to people who care about such things. So he's been in office 100 days. Do people expect him to have carried out his entire agenda in that time period? Stop analyzing any president on an arbitrary count of days.

The Swine Flu progresses on, but there's not an overabundance of new information as of yet. So while surfing, this little gem of Republican lies came up. Sure they are a bunch of racists...we knew that one already. Their undercurrent of barely veiled race-based comments about borders leading to the spread of Swine Flu, or even better, Obama visiting Mexico causing the flu outbreak Now it's the gays turn.

On the floor of congress, Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) decided to say her peace about some new hate-crime legislation brewing in the House of Representatives and of course, it came out pretty much as one would expect from a Republican...lies.

Foxx decided to bring up the exsisting bill against hate crimes, sometimes called the "Matthew Shepard Bill". You see, a young man named Matthew Shepard was lured into a car by two men who proceeded to smash his skull with the butt of a .357 Magnum pistol and then tie him to a fence post, so he could die. Homophibic Virginia Foxx decided to call out this story as a hoax, saying:

I also would like to point out that there was a bill -- the hate crimes bill that's called the Matthew Shepard bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. This -- the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills...

Wow, she is some piece of work. She lied. Not only did she lie, but she used the lies of the two young men who perpetrated the crime of killing Matthew Shepard to try and put forth her argument. This is what truely happened.

Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, Matthew met his two killers in a bar. They offered Shepard a ride in their car claiming they were homosexuals, also. Shepard was robbed, beaten, and tortured, tied to a fence and left to die. Shepard was discovered eighteen hours later he was still alive, but in a coma. Shepard suffered a fractured skull from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe breain damage, which eventually killed him due to his body shutting down. He was pronounced dead at 12:53 A.M. on October 12, 1998 at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins. Police arrested his killers shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck.

So what makes Foxx even worse is that the "robbery" aspect of the crime comes not from the real facts of the event, but from the defense the two murderers switched to during their trial. First they claimed they had "gay panic" when they supposedly discovered that Matthew Shepart was homosexual. The two killer's girlriends testified, however, that the two men had planned to target a gay man for their crime. They only later switched to claiming it was simply a robbery when their other defenses were not going well.

Nice job of supporting the criminals, and the very bottom of the barrel, Virginia Foxx.

Flush Limbaugh

This Swine Flu thing has opened the door for a whole new line of right winger attacks on the Obama presidency. From Michelle Bachman and her perfect racist hindsight saying she "predicted" a disease invasion would come to the United States as long as illegal immigration was allowed to continue. Faux News commentators and hosts like Glenn Beck have been raving pretty much the same drivel.

Of course the king of sneaky racism under the guise of love for country, conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has made another comment to blast President Obama.

[E]verywhere Obama is spreading Obamaism, there is a deadly disease taking place, either in the TARP community or in the newspaper business," he said. "Obama goes to Mexico -- they have an earthquake. Obama goes to Mexico -- get pig flu.

And of course, listen for yourself:




I once heard Limbaugh say to the effect that he loved when Republicans were in office because it drove the left crazy and made them say and do all kinds of things. Guess the same is true for right wing radio, too. Elect a Democrat - an black Democrat - and you get the hosts of said shows making the dumbest, most racist commentary.

Do a search on Limbaugh and Somali pirates the connection of Obama and "black teen" pirates. White hood? No, golden microphone.

Arlen the Dem

In a late round draft pick, the Democrats of Washington have gotten a new player. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania had gone from being Republican has decided that his party of choice is not so choice anymore and declared his new affiliation as a Democrat - again. This comes as a big change, not only because Specter has been a member of the GOP for 29 years, but because it gives Democrats an even closer shot at an unchallenged majority with 59 seats in the Senate now. Specter was also a Democrat near the beginning of his political career.

This isn't a slam dunk, nothing-but-net deal for Democrats however. The man is a moderate, and afterall, a lifelong Republican. His change of seat does not mean that he will simply follow his new party's line. Arlen Specter has had a record of bucking his old party's system of beliefs, too.

However it is a good sign that when Specter explained his decision to switch parties he made a statement to the effect that his old political buddies have gone through such a severe swing to the right that he can no longer picture himself dealing with them. Can you imagine that a group of people take their beliefs to such an extreme that the only way to deal with them is to give the opoosing party power? Oh...yeah.

All the people can do is wait. Will Specter, with this switch, become a supporter on some of the big ticket agenda points of the Obama presidency? Specter has made comments in the past about many of them, like health care and taxes, saying that these policies were detrimental to the Unites States. As more of these items come down the pike, it remains to be seen if Arlen Specter will be the kind of Democrat people need.

Republican Swine

It might be true that the Republican members of congress are actively trying to bring about the apocalypse. In the same vein as Bobby Jindal's awesome rebuttal to the big speech before congress given by President Obama, when Jindal mocked a spending provision for volcano monitoring...and then the Alaskan volcano Mount Redoubt erupted six times in March. As much as the Republicans seem to dislike watching over (and out for) nature, and the damage it can do, something not so easily dismissible may have come upon us, and thanks to the right-wingers, may prove bad for many many people.

Yes as silly as it seems, as humans and masters of all we survey, there are things that nature can throw at us which we can fall victim too quite easily. Of course there is no force stronger than a Republican, so they felt it wasn't necessary to have something as goofy as government preparation for a pandemic. You know, a disease that can be deadly to humans and spreads around the world very very rapidly. What could possibly happen?

The Swine Flu.

Swine Influenza is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza viruses that causes regular outbreaks in pigs. Until recently, the disease very rarely spread to humans. In late March and early April 2009, cases of human infection with swine influenza A (H1N1) viruses were reported in Mexico and then in Southern California and near San Antonio, Texas. Since then, 40 confirmed cases have been reported in the United States in California, Kansas, New York City, Ohio and Texas. Sadly there was full funding for all of this in the original stimulus bill, but it was hit hard by two Republicans.

The first was Karl Rove. He came out blasting the provisions for pandemic measures by way of the Wall Street Journal. The man behind the rise of El Presidente Bush dedicated much of his time pointing out that putting in $462 million for the Centers for Disease Control, and $900 million for pandemic flu preparations was just a red flag that new President Obama was out of touch for what people needed. Not being killed by a flu is pretty petty after all...or maybe it's just because it tends to be the very young or the very old who die because of strong flu. Who needs them, right Karl?

The second and equally shocking is Senator Susan Collins of Maine. This is the Republican who came out and criticized the amount being spent on the CDC and the pandemic measures, even putting up a statement about it on her website (look it up, lazy).

"Does it belong in this bill? Should we have $870 million in this bill No, we should not." Collins said about the money being set aside for both the CDC and pandemic illnesses.

In fact, as a self proclaimed moderate Republican, she used this stance to in effect sell her vote on the package. She would swing it for the package if the dollars she was so against were re-done or taken out completely. Worked out well, no?

So here we are, Mexico experiencing he onslaught of the Swine Flu, and as it looks now, it's spread to the United States. While it has not become a pandemic as of yet, many, including the World Health Organization have said that it has the potential to sweep around the globe. Republicans, including Collins have claimed that the CDC and it's efforts have not been hampered by a reduction in funding. Then again this isn't a pandemic event yet, either. As the number of cases increases it could readily become exponentially more expensive to protect citizens against the ravages of this and any other diseases that spring up.

The CDC Swine Flue page

A Personal Note

No posts for a week. The author of this blog needs to go up north to attend a funeral and will be back April 27th.

Tea...bagging

Because Rachel Maddow is much funnier than I am...

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Today is the big day (I guess). More later.

Arrrrrr, me hardy!

When would you ever think that in these modern times the media would get to use words like "pirates" and "brigands" in their coverage of world news?

Well we live in interesting times, as the Chinese curse goes. The Somali pirates are at it again, and they've given the world's reporters a new lease on ye olden coverage. This times, it's not about a hostage situation, but still another attack on an aid ship. In fact, there have been two more pirate attacks, going after international booty.

A day after Capt. Phillips was freed from captivity at the hands of Somali pirates, another batch attacked an American freighter carrying aid and supplies, but were unsuccessful in taking the ship. Shortly after that incident, yet another band of pirates were caught by a French troops when they stormed a pirate supply ship...a seafaring reversal of fortune. Eleven pirates were captured and the ship seized. This has been called a "mothership" by the French. In other words, a ship taken in a previous raid, then used to launch smaller, faster boats in order to take control of loaded cargo at sea.

As we can all agree, the as-yet undecided fates of some sixteen people from various countries still held by pirates, is a very bad thing. We are not getting to the crux of the problem. Unfortunately, as news comes out about the pirates, it may get worse. It's estimated that last year alone, the work of pirates earned their organizations over $150 million. That's a lot of reasons to be a pirate. Now we've decided the meet them with the might of the U.S. Navy, and threaten to escalate with more ships in the area.

When has escalation solved anything? We've already seen that the pirates and radical Islamic groups have talked about joining forces. According to an Associated Press article, one Somali who was captured in the French raid said:

We will seek out the Americans and if we capture them we will slaughter them...We will target their ships because we know their flags. Last night, an American-flagged ship escaped us by a whisker. We have showered them with rocket-propelled grenades

We need to protect our ships, yes. But we need a plan to also stop this problem at it's source. To make the Somalis uninterested in piracy. To have them find other means to make money, to be profitable in the world today without taking up arms and capturing ships at sea for their cargo. The Obama presidency has marked a return to intelligence instead of gut force reaction. We need to see this new way of how the U.S. faces the world put into action here, and now.