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Good afternoon, Progressive Electorate readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, offer critiques and suggestions, or post manifestos.
This is an open source project, so feel free to add your own insights. Here's the news I found lurking around the Internets...
If Republicans and Fox News pundits were embarrassed about looking like birthers, loony bins and white supremacists, well, they just got a whole lot more to worry about.
Recently, a truther organization called "We Are The Change" spoke to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) - a friend of (Glenn) Beck and a frequent guest on his show - about reopening an investigation into 9/11. Chaffetz agreed with the activist, and even noted that he had spoken to professor Steven Jones, leading 9/11 truther, who Chaffetz said had done "interesting work"
Well, let's think like someone in Massachusetts. Okay. Let's think like the progressive movement here. It's still, even if you don't believe in the whole Jesus story and you're like 'whatever.' Let's, can we learn anything from this. Let's just assume that you're a progressive and you're like 'he didn't rise from the dead.'
What was the story. A guy who wanted change. He speaks out against an oppressive government. And, they execute him. What? For progressives, that's the ultimate story.
Good afternoon, Progressive Electorate readers. This is your afternoon open thread to discuss all things Hill-related. Use this thread to praise or bash Congresscritters, share a juicy tip, ask questions, or post manifestos.
ColorOfChange has a fantastic post on dKos about a rally outside a Glenn Beck play last night. This speech got the goosebumps out for me.
Last night, Glenn Beck performed "The Christmas Sweater" -- a stage play that was broadcast live in theaters across the country -- inside NYU's Skirball Center. As he performed, ministers and people of faith from across New York City gathered outside the event with NYU students and ColorOfChange members, condemning Beck's attempt to cloak himself in Christian values while continuing his race baiting and fear mongering on TV and the radio. Reverends Conrad Tillard, Donna Schaper, and Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou spoke and led the gathering in song, as Beck's supporters -- many of them bussed in from out of town -- lined up outside his show.
The following is clipped from a conversation I was having with an ideological opponent, so if it seems short, crude, or incomplete, that is why. Still a good summary of my feelings on the subject:
...it is a sad testament to Beck that despite watching his show, having heard his radio show, and reading his book (Common Sense), I can't actually argue against any of his political positions, because he doesn't really have any, which is what my problem with him in short boils down to. He admits himself to being a rodeo clown entertainer, and if that is all he was worth, I wouldn't even care about him. Unfortunately, he presents himself and some perceive him to be a credible news source or a fair and legitimate pundit opinion.
Beck wants the top of the ticket for himself.
From ThinkProgress
Transcript from Huffington Post BECK: I don't think things are hoots. I don't. I don't think it's a hoot. I would never use the word hoot, and I respectfully ask that every time my name is brought up she would stop using the word 'hoot.' [...]
No, no I'm just saying -- Beck-Palin, I'll consider. But Palin-Beck -- can you imagine, can you imagine what an administration with the two of us would be like? What? Come on! She'd be yapping or something, and I'd say, "I'm sorry, why am I hearing your voice? I'm not in the kitchen."
Glenn Beck has now officially jumped the shark. Today on his show Glenn Beck compares himself to Martin Luther King.
Partial Transcript
Excuse me? It is only people that stand up against the government, and do what
our founding fathers told us to do. To be vigiliant on our rights. Those are the people these are the times when you stand up. When you can stand up peacefully. Because if you don't stand up as you're losing your rights, as the government is growing in power. Then unfortunately it becomes too late to stand up peacefully. How many times do I have to say it? Peaceful. Martin Luther King did. Was Martin Luther King, was he anti-government? Well he sure took the government and turned it upside down didn't he? He totally transformed the parties in this government. If you remember right it was Robert Byrd that was filibustering against the civil rights movement. Ya no one really remembers that.
The comparison to MLK makes me want to spit three times. One interesting tidbit while Glenn was trying to say that the Democratic party was against civil rights he admits many Democrats became Republicans because they didn't like the civil rights act. Republicanism was a safehaven for anyone who didn't think his brothers and sisters were equal because of race, religion or sexual orientation. At least Beck admitted that, points for honesty even if it's out there to try and prove a BS point.
First off, if your reading this over at ProgressiveElectorate.com, thanks for bringing me in and letting me do my thing here as well. Not sure if I ever introduced myself, but I am Jeff, sometimes better known as Fish. I don't write, I rant and usually, in some way shape or form, I try to make my thoughts funny if it all possible, which sometimes is incredibly hard to do, but luckily for me, the Republicans and Conservative movement make it easier then it needs to be. I don't really proofread or check for typo's, so if you see any of those, as I tell everyone else, KEEP THAT SHIT TO YOURSELF, lol. I'm here to get a few chuckles, not win a Pulitzer. I am pretty simple, hardworking dude from Missouri that has recently got into politics (maybe a little to much), I bleed blue, I try to work as hard as I can for the causes I believe it, and I stand firm against the ones I do not believe in. I am an America loving individual who wants every person to have a fair crack at the American Dream. I partied out of college where I majored in Journalism, and to this day, I have no fucking idea what the hell I was doing in college or studying Journalism to begin with. I may not always have my facts 100% accurate, but I speak from the heart, and that's the important thing. So, with that, I will begin ranting and I hope you enjoy.
Tonights MNF games is the Tennessee Titans against the Houston Texans. I've got Steve Slaton on my fantasy team and the guy I'm playing has Andre Johnson, both are on the Texans. I need Slaton to get 9.5 pts more than Johnson to win my matchup. How's your fantasy matchup doing? Any thoughts on tonight's game?
BRUSSELS - For 23 torturous years, Rom Houben says he lay trapped in his paralyzed body, aware of what was going on around him but unable to tell anyone or even cry out.
The car-crash victim had been diagnosed as being in a vegetative state but appears to have been conscious the whole time. An expert using a specialized type of brain scan that was not available in the 1980s finally realized it, and unlocked Houben's mind again.
The 46-year-old Houben is now communicating with one finger and a special touchscreen on his wheelchair.
"Powerlessness. Utter powerlessness. At first I was angry, then I learned to live with it," he said
2. Huffington Post Lifesize Lincoln. This piece looks at Lincoln's face in some rare photographs, comparing the left to the right.
BECK: Last week, I head you say that - you were on with Dennis Miller. ... You two were talking about an insurrection coming.
O'REILLY: Tax revolt.
BECK: He used the word insurrection. And not in a comedic way.
O'REILLY: Yeah, tax revolt. I think people, when they figure out how badly they're going to get hurt in the next few years, there's going to be a tea party on taxes and its gonna get nasty. Nancy Pelosi's going to be bobbing up and down in the Boston Harbor.
This statement appeared to be too much for Beck even, who replied, "Uh, I don't think that's necessary."
Another point, Glenn Beck has been on the warpath against the SEIU, Service Employees International Union. They're a big supporter of Democrats and Beck can't stand it. But when he was in the hospital over night he tweeted that his nurses were AMAZING. But it's likely the nurses were part of the SEIU.
The security-conscious Beck has not disclosed the name of the facility, but it's a safe bet that it is staffed by proud members of a storied union: New York's Local 1199, aka United Healthcare Workers East, which belongs to the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU has organized all of Manhattan's major hospitals, including every facility to which Beck could have conceivably been sent.
It probably has not occurred to Beck to link his kind, efficient nurses to something as dastardly as the SEIU. As recently as Wednesday, he was busy smearing the union with his usual verbal feces. For the past several months, on radio and television, Beck has cast the SEIU, the country's largest union, as a Toxic Avenger-looking bogeyman in his conspiratorial fantasyland. In the progressive plot of Beck's imagination, the "radical, Marxist" SEIU is conspiring with ACORN "thugs" to destroy the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and turn this country into North Korea--or worse.
Mable Randon is suffering from the late stages of cancer. She's bound by a wheel chair and only breathing with the help of an electrically-powered oxygen machine. Rucks Russell of KHOU in Houston reports that the local power company sent her a disconnection notice because of late bills. She applied to the Critical Customer Program, a payment plan seemingly tailor-made for people in Randon's condition who depend on electric life support -- but she was denied.
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