Watering Hole: Monday, September 26, 2011 – Sack (SuperCongress)

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All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Steve Sack, Minneapolis Star-Tribune

This is Monday’s Open Thread.  Does the Super Congress make you feel like Speaking Up?

142 thoughts on “Watering Hole: Monday, September 26, 2011 – Sack (SuperCongress)”

  1. This is probably old material but I found it humerous.

    Subject: The English Language ……

    This one makes a lot of sense.

    The English language has some wonderfully anthropomorphic
    collective nouns for the various groups of animals.

    We are all familiar with a Herd of cows, a Flock of chickens, a School of fish and a Gaggle of geese.

    However, less widely known is a Pride of lions, a Murder of crows (as
    well as their cousins the rooks and ravens), an Exaltation of doves and, presumably because they look so wise, a Parliament of owls.

    Now consider a group of Baboons. They are the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive and least intelligent of all primates. And what is the proper collective noun for a group of baboons?

    Believe it or not a Congress!

    I guess that pretty much explains the things that come out
    of Washington.

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  2. Obama: Rick Perry Is ‘Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change’

    President Barack Obama swiped at Texas Gov. Rick Perry, criticizing him as “a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change.”

    Obama also poked at the audience reactions at recent GOP presidential debates, singling out those who cheered at the prospect of someone dying because he didn’t have health insurance – and those who booed a gay service member.

    The president said “that’s not reflective of who we are.”

    He made the comments Sunday at a fundraiser at the Silicon Valley home of John Thompson, chairman of Symantec Corp.

    This has the reich-wing blogs’ knickers all in a twist!

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    • So now that the Teabagger sun no longer shines from Gov Jeff Davis’ arsehole, the spotlight swings to Gov Chris ‘is that bagel for me?’ Christie?

      Christie won’t run for president, besides he can barely walk to the bathroom.

      Questions Wolf Blitzer will never ask Chris Christie in a debate:

      “Gov Christie, in which decade was the last time you saw your todger – and I don’t mean in the mirror either?”

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  3. “The president said “that’s not reflective of who we are.”

    It is, however, reflective of who the teabagging hicks are. They are dangerous, aggressive idealogues who, if given the opportunity will turn this nation into a fascist totalitarian religious nightmare.
    See “A HandMaiden’s Tale”.

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    • Who said what? Can anyone name the person(s) who said or wrote each of the following? Choose from this list:
      Michele Bachmann
      Rick Perry
      Ron Paul
      Rick Santorum
      Jim DeMint
      Adolf Hitler
      George W. Bush
      Dick Cheney
      Glenn Beck

      1. “An evil exists that threatens every man, woman and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland.”

      2. “The mercy of the Lord slowly returns to us again. And in this hour we sink to our knees and beseech our almighty God that he may bless us, that He may give us the strength to carry on the struggle for the freedom, the future, the honor, and the peace of our people. So help us God.”

      3. “If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us.”

      4. “Never in these long years have we offered any other prayer but this: Lord, grant to our people peace at home, and grant and preserve to them peace from the foreign foe!”

      5. “The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.”

      6. “Those who are physically and mentally unhealthy and unworthy must not perpetuate their suffering in the body of their children…. The prevention of the faculty and opportunity to procreate on the part of the physically degenerate and mentally sick, over a period of only 600 years, would … free humanity from an immeasurable misfortune.”

      7. “An evil exists that threatens every man, woman, and child of this great nation. We must take steps to ensure our domestic security and protect our homeland.”

      8. “The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell a big one.”

      9. “What luck for rulers, that men do not think.”

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      • I believe (without googling or otherwise looking it up) that Adolf Hitler said them, but Bachmann, Beck, Perry and Cheney at one time or another were planning on acting on them.

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        • 😎

          Yep, Hitler said or wrote each and every line. What fascinates me is how what he said can, today, be so easily to assigned to most any Republican on the current stage. And yet, it remains a journalistic “sin” of some sort to mention (or worse, equate) either Hitler or German fascism with today’s Republican party figureheads and/or policies, even though the similarities are more than a bit scary scary.

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    • For me, the frightening thing about The Handmaid’s Tale (more so than 1984) is that it seems more likely in the US. Conservative religious zealotry run amok is really going to be the demise of civilization as we know it.

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      • Even re-reading the synopsis from the Wiki entry sends chills:

        The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the near future in the Republic of Gilead, a country formed within the borders of what was formerly the United States of America. It was founded by a racist, male chauvinist, nativist, theocratic-organized military coup as an ideologically driven response to the pervasive ecological, physical and social degradation of the country.

        Beginning with a staged terrorist attack (blamed on Islamic extremist terrorists) that kills the President and most of Congress, a movement calling itself the “Sons of Jacob” launched a revolution and suspended the United States Constitution under the pretext of restoring order.

        Taking advantage of electronic banking, they were quickly able to freeze the assets of all women and other “undesirables” in the country, stripping them of their rights. The new theocratic military dictatorship, styled “The Republic of Gilead”, moved quickly to consolidate its power and reorganize society along a new militarized, hierarchical, compulsorily Christian regime of Old Testament-inspired social and religious orthodoxy among its newly created social classes.

        Sound like events or people we know in the country now? (Hint: GOP)

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  5. Speaking of Prick Derry:

    Three commissioners appointed by Gov. Rick Perry may grant some of the nation’s largest refineries a tax refund of more than $135 million – money Texas’ cash-strapped schools and other local governments have been counting on to help pay teachers and provide other public services.

    (follow the link; not quoting at length from an AP article)

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    • I read the link and then the story behind the link. I worled directly with Valero in my line of work from 2000 – 2007 and had judged them to be one of the more advanced and technically progressive companies I had encountered – mind you we’re talking oil industry so you know where the bar is.

      What seems to be going on is that there is a tax break available for refineries to build and deploy pollution reducing technologies. Valero has done this by building hydrotreaters ($10s of Millions of investment per refinery) to remove more sulphur from the gasoline and diesel so it doesn’t end up in the atmosphere after being burned in a car/truck. Sounds good so far. The issue is that the law is supposed to apply to technology that reduces pollution *at the refinery* – not at the point of consumption (the car). In fact, the amount of sulphur relased at the refinery has gone up (stuff is being incinerated instead in a flare and I know exactly how that is being reported to the TCEQ – as I still have a copy of Valero’s handbook).

      So, Valero is claiming the tax back not on the spirit of the law but on the interpretation – something Gov Jeff Davis’ handpicked toadies will no doubt deliver.

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  7. Quote of the Day:

    “In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay,” – Shane Bauer, one of the two American hikers released last week after 781 days of detention in Iranian prison.

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    • About time to take advantage of an advantage!
      Patty Murray is no slouch, and she’ll be twisting arms or letting the R’s twist in the wind if they don’t accomodate.

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    • They could have saved all this strife by letting the Bush Tax rates sunset for all Americans, but Republicans were intent on keeping them for the wealthy long enough to renew them if they could gain the power later on. We had to renew the unemployment extensions or we could have walked away from the negotiations.

      The Republicans bank on people not being smart enough to realize that when tax rates on the working poor and the middle class go up, compensation goes up to keep take-home pay adequate for their expected standard of living. Raising taxes on the wealthy just means they pay more, unless they can find ways of exempting the income. So by opposing tax hikes for the masses and tax hikes for the wealthy, and tying the two together, the wealthy keep more while employers just pay workers less.

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  10. Bernie Sanders is on fire!

    “Republicans for the first time in the modern history of this country are denying emergency relief to states that have been devastated by disasters. They should be ashamed,” Sanders said.
    …
    “The name of our country is the United States of America,” Sanders said. “If that name means anything, it means that when disaster strikes one part of the country, we rally as a nation to support each other.”
    …
    “These people called for no offsets when they bailed out Wall Street with $700 billion, no offsets when they expanded the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost $160 billion every year, including for rebuilding those countries, and no offsets when they gave huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires and the largest corporations. But when it comes to helping families in Vermont and New Jersey and elsewhere, they now want a major budget debate,” Sanders said.

    (emphasis mine)

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  13. Minuteman PAC Fundraising For Joe Arpaio’s ‘Cold Case Posse’

    Minuteman PAC wants to capitalize on that key subset of anti-immigration activists who are birthers.

    Minuteman PAC, the political arm of the Minuteman Movement, sent out an email Friday asking for supporters to donate to help Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s quest for the truth about President Obama’s birth certificate.

    “Fellow Patriot — It looks like we’re finally going to get the full-fledged investigation into Obama’s eligibility to be president that Congress has FAILED to deliver,” the e-mail says.

    Arpaio announced last week that a five-person “Cold Case Posse” will investigate whether President Obama’s long-form birth certificate is a forgery, after meeting with a local Tea Party group who requested the probe. According to the right-wing news site World Net Daily, two other Tea Party groups — one in Florida and one in New Jersey — plan to ask local sheriffs to launch their own investigations.

    “With possibly three sheriffs representing three very different parts of the nation conducting independent investigations into the likely forgery of Obama’s birth certificate,” the Minuteman PAC e-mail says, “we will finally have our answers. And Sheriff Joe’s investigation won’t cost taxpayers a dime.”

    “Sheriff Joe’s investigation will determine whether or not the alleged Certificate of Live Birth for Barak [sic] Hussein Obama is a forgery (and a class 6 felony was committed) or an authentic document,” it continues. “Folks, we’re on the brink of economic ruin. America cannot afford not to know the answers once and for all.”

    Check the top comment that follows the article. It explains in some detail why Obama is not a “natural born” citizen, and can never become one.

    I swear, there are more nuts running around loose than there are hanging in the trees of a thousand acre pistachio grove!

    Reply ↓

      • If I get what hes trying to say, the guy proposes the screwy notion that “natural born” US citizens must have US and US parents, none of that mixed nationality shit — based on Article II, Section 1, Clause 5, which reads, simply:

        No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President …

        The Fourteenth Amendment clarifies “US citizen” in its own Section 1:

        All persons born … in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States …

        Apparently his conflict was with the words “natural born” which are NOT defined anywhere in the Constitution and appear only there, as cited, in Article II, Section 1, Clause 5. I guess that’s what’s called “the any port in a storm” argument.

        Personally, I find it both amusing and amazing that so many Americans are so willing to accept and vocally support an argument with ZERO basis anywhere, not in premise nor in supportable fact, and constantly pursue it so futilely. I guess I never realized just how deep lies (and runs), in “we the people,” the fever of irrational racial hatred. It certainly speaks volumes about one of this country’s many MAJOR and disabling flaws.

        Reply ↓

        • Don’t let the corporations mess with the words ‘natural born’…. that’s how we got into this f***ing mess.

          And anyway wouldn’t we have to dig up and impeach a bunch of prior ‘commanders-in-chief’ (that much overused phrase that I think is intended to reinforce authoritarian obedience to an elected office)?

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  14. Palin IS running — in the form of Rick Perry:

    “[Perry] muffed his attack lines because he hadn’t bothered to study them. He wasn’t prepared for the tuition fight because he figured that he could just repeat the same old explanations and flash his thousand-watt smile at the audience. He didn’t know what to say about Pakistan because he figured any sort of good ol’ boy BS would do. It always has before, after all. So he’s apparently spent the past month doing….nothing.

    That’s just way too Palinesque for the political pros.”

    http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/09/rick-perrys-sarah-palin-problem-0

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  16. Two stories that place Roger Ailes in the news.

    In our first story, Roger turned down T-Paw because Roger didn’t want to hire someone who endorses Mittens. I guess that we didn’t need more evidence that Roger likes his candidates to be so far to the right that they hold no appeal for sane people.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/26/tim-pawlenty-fox-news-job_n_981428.html

    The second story is about what Roger sees as his role. Through out “fair and balanced”. The top guy at SaudiFAUX “news” has admitted that he lives to “balance” the insane strawman of a “librul media”.

    http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109260007?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MediaMattersForAmerica-CountyFair+%28Media+Matters+for+America+-+County+Fair%29

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    • I make a motion that Michele Bachmann’s name be formally and legally changed to Batshit.

      That was one of the most incoherent sermons I’ve ever heard, period, summarized by her last comment: “There will be no teleprompters in the Bachmann White House.” Whew. What a fucking relief!

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    • Talk about delusions of grandeur:

      “Because we have candidates that have said that when it comes to Obamacare that their plan is to issue an executive order or to issue a waiver. I’m here to tell you, I get this bill. I fought it. I am the chief author against it. I was called Barack Obama’s chief critic. That’s my badge of honor, to be his chief critic. Because I understand what some of the other candidates do not… We can’t settle, and 2012 is it. We will have socialized medicine for ever and ever and ever in this country unless we get it out in 2012.”

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    • Yeah, like the Cubans would let Hezbollah lob missiles into Southern Florida. First of all, a lot of Cubans have relatives there, and second, Cuba has no interest in endangering their own citizens from US retaliatory strikes. It might be different if Cuba had a large Muslim population, but they are mostly Catholic.

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      • Bachmann was most likely basing her fear on an unsubstantiated report from the Italian publican Corriere della Sera, which was picked up by numerous conservative websites earlier this month (see here, here, here and here.)

        Even if that report were true, it makes absolutely no mention of “missile sites.”</blockquote<

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      • Bachmann was most likely basing her fear on an unsubstantiated report from the Italian publican Corriere della Sera,…

        Hezbollah primarily uses rocket attacks cross-border into Northern Israel. Other than Hamas in the West Bank, most other terrists don’t have rockets or missiles.

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        • Do you think Dippie the Moron would know the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas? Or between RPGs and ICBMs?

          In 1962, the Soviets would not have targeted Miami. The 90 mile distance to Cuba would have been insignificant–they could have targeted most of the eastern US if nothing else. Does Dippie think Hezbollah would have that kind of range? Oops, I used the word “think.”

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      • I am going to guess, dark skin, Muslim, selling the fear because it works, terrorist plot, etc…
        Be afraid of the terrorists that are coming to get you has worked so well in the past – especially for those who support her and all the other crazies that are running.

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    • Thank all gods that the batshit wench wasn’t in charge during the Cuban Missile Crisis of the early sixties. We’d all be speaking Russian by now, had she been in JFK’s chair in the Oval Office.

      Fascinating to watch her try to reapply historical detail to her own brand of political horseshit. It really never gets her very far, a fact for which I suppose we should all be extremely grateful.

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    • I may be wrong but I do believe that Shelly is in the top 1 percentile of women seriously afflicted by menopause. It gives her a medical reason for her incoherency.

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  21. While I was over at Video Cafe looking at the Bachmann/Hezbollah thread I saw this:

    Alabama Town to Offenders: Go to Church or Go to Jail

    The small town of Bay Minette, Alabama is telling people convicted of small crimes to choose Jesus or choose jail.

    Starting this week, the city judge will implement Operation Restore Our Community (ROC), which gives misdemeanor offenders a choice between fines and jail or a year of Sunday church services.

    I’m almost as far from these freaks as I can be, and still be in Alabama. Fortunately.

    Reply ↓

    • That’s one easy choice: jail. At least there you get room, board, and tuition. Church 52 times in one year? Nuh uh. That’s at least ten times my visits in the last thirty years combined. No suh, I’ll take jail, thank you SO much.

      Reply ↓

    • Apparently these poor people have never heard of the 1st Amendment or the great American tradition called “lawsuits”. In fact; I can’t really think of anything more unamerican, or useless, than forcing someone to go to church.

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    • Sounds kinda Catholic. Do your Penance and you will receive not only a Get Out of Jail Free card but a fire extinguisher for BIH.

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    • I know this is from the Bible Belt but WTF? The town has about 8,000 people and, according to the story, 56 freakin’ churches! O.K. Some may not be in the physical boundaries of the town but still… I get this vivid picture of about a dozen people huddling in each church and seething in their hatred of the dozen people in all the other churches.

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  22. Ugh…life, women and work are kicking my ass. Time to get back to politics and the fascists bastards on the right. Where to start?? It’s been awhile. 🙂

    Zooey…I want your view!!!!!!! (Window view of the Pacific Ocean) 😉

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  23. Just learned that Batshit shares the same birthday and year as the best man at my wedding whom I have known since 1969. Even stranger, he lives in Stillwater.

    I haven’t spoken to him in some time and now I’m afraid to call.

    Reply ↓

      • Sounds more like he is playing a recession. The problem is we are looking at a depression. Not just in the US but world wide. Real money could go the way of the Deutsche mark in the 30’s where paper money was more valuable as fuel. Cyber money will disappear so damned fast people like him will be left wondering where their next cup of coffee will come from.

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    • When Ward Churchill called the victims who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald in the WTC, ‘Eichmanns’, he was talking about people like this guy.

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  26. Adventures in Reich-radio.

    The station that carries the Twins broadcasts used to be all right-wing, all the time. While they’ve never admitted it; I think that they changed to a talk/sports format because many of the “libruls” who follow the Twins were disgusted by the bits we would hear. Well? When they made the program change they kept the most odious of the local hosts for afternoon drive time.

    My fellow Minnesotans (Hi, IP!) are probably familiar with Joe Soucheray and know who I’m talking about. He seems especially apoplectic because he thinks that “libruls” won’t let him buy a big enough truck to tow his boat. He also claims to be an outdoorsman but never misses an opportunity to proclaim that global warming is a hoax despite the fact that, if he spends any time outdoors in this part of the country, he has seen the evidence with his own eyes.

    Anyway; I forgot to change the station before I turned the radio on this afternoon and caught him in mid rant decrying the “wasted” money that we invested in a very modest light rail line. It’s basically a number of heated trolly cars that serves one of the major traffic corridors. That makes Joe mad because, in his estimation, it “doesn’t have anything to do with traffic congestion and no one uses it”. This ticked me off.

    One of the groups that benefits the most from the train is veterans. The Southern terminus is on the grounds of the Fort Snelling VA hospital and, while driving a friend to and from said VA hospital, I got to witness the number of vets who use the train to get to their doctors. And, as any idiot should be able to understand, mass transit is not primarily to relieve traffic congestion it’s to provide transportation for those who can’t or don’t drive.

    So? I decided to try and call into the show, even though a previous host had blocked my number, and was delighted that I made it as far as the call-screener. That lasted for about three seconds when I said I wanted to tell Joe that “lots of people ride the train and I’m one of them”. That’s when the line went dead and, when I tried to call back I got a message that “the number you have called doesn’t allow solicitations”. I’ve been banned by another “news” organization without even getting a chance to say my piece!

    That’s the kind of shit we are dealing with. I hear a lot of people saying that they wish we had more “librul” voices but I tend to think there are plenty of us out there. The problem is that the fat cats don’t want us, much less a progressive Senator like Al Franken, to even get air time.

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      • I was on an old wooden roller coaster in San Diego when a quake hit. It tripped the breakers while we were climbing the first big hill. The only time I’ve ever been flat-out terrified on an amusement park ride was listening to the timbers creak while we were motionless. I was absolutely certain the the whole thing was going to shake apart!

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          • I think the amusement park closed in the late 70’s but I’m not certain. Back in those days I was still living in rural southern Minnesota and now I’m in the Southeast Metro so I don’t have much current knowledge of the western suburbs.

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    • Thanks for the link. That was very interesting. I can’t believe how long it shook.. I’ve been in a number of earthquakes and I don’t remember them lasting that long. (Usually less than a minute).

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      • Seems a long time when you are watching it. Probably seemed longer if you trying to get down the stairs from the top.

        I wonder If they made everyone take the stairs from the top instead of the elevator. Typically, One rides the elevator to the top where one can look out the windows, then one goes down one level to hang out and take the elevator back down. I’ll bet they wouldn’t chance letting people take the elevator down for safety’s sake.

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    • O’Donnell did a great job on this in his rewrite segment. He correctly called it a police riot, and brutal lawbreaking that is being covered up, and will continue because the police do this everday in America and they’re rarely held to account unless someone is murdered. A group of NYPD showed their cowardice, attacking and pepper spraying defenceless women. Prickpigs.

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  32. OMG… I just heard a clip of Rush Limbaugh saying”Just think! Herman Cain could be our first AUTHENTICALLY BLACK president”. I guess Obama doesn’t count because he was bi-racial…
    Oh Geez.. I need to go take a shower.

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    • Heh! I don’t think the party that Lushbo helped create would ever, EVER, nominate a black person. They might nominate a white woman, because they hope that she will give them head for votes, but they will never vote for a black man. It’s also starting to look like they won’t nominate a Mormon or a moderate either. I still think it’s pRick Prayerry’s race to lose and a minor flaw, like being unable to speak his native language, won’t even faze the teabaggers.

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      • That was a YEAR’S worth?

        Heh… NOT… where I come from…

        And come ta think of it, some of it did seem… a little on the dry side…

        I thought mebbe it was some of that ‘Add water’ stuff and I’d just save time by, ya know, choking it down dry…

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  37. You mean to tell me no one hears that beeping by the cellar bomb shelter door.
    The side of the trailer says Fresh and Frozen blubber bits…

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  38. So the goons in the NYPD are taking orders from Mayor Bloomberg who is taking orders from Wall Street and the bankers to squash the protest on Wall Street?

    The corpocracy is alive and well in America. Those who fight back against these evil bastards on Wall Street or Halliburton or BP or Monsanto will be crushed.

    Just wait until we have a few more acts of domestic terrorism in this country, congress will quickly dust off HR1955 The Violent Radicalization Of Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act.. A bill whose language is so vague that one could be deemed a terrorist for exactly what the protestors are doing on Wall Street.

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