Gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps hitting a bong
If I won all those gold medals I'd be smoking a bong too. But, the New American Puritans insist on keeping that snow-driven purity image going for all our American heroes. So Michael Phelps gets the boot. American children have once again been saved from reefer madness.
Of course, a picture of Phelps with a shot and a beer would enhance his manly image and win him even more endorsements. Two faced nation (new band name?)
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Mysteriously odd increase in the use of the word "pork" by print media over the last 2 weeks. According to Chris Matthews last night, the print media has used the word "pork" four times as often in the last week as they did two weeks ago. It's mysterious because there are NO, count 'em, none….earmarks in Obama's bill. Earmarks are what are normally described as pork…..but then this is print media we're talking about and right now, print media is still at war with reality.
Add that "pork" use increase to the 2-1 ratio, Republican guests to Democratic guests, on cable teevee shows last weekend to talk about the stimulus……blend in the cherry-picking of less than 1% of Obama's stimulus plan for sixth grade quality criticisms….."what about the condoms? hehehe"…..and what you find is a dishonestly biased media, which surprisingly, Matthews admitted to later when he said, "The media is not on the President's side here."
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Scare Tactics
The president has been criticized for using "scare tactics", the politics of "fear"…to sell his stimulus and recovery legislation. Let's consider that criticism through comparison.
W. and Dick made Americans afraid of Iraqi WMD's with scare tactic words and phrasings. Rumsfeld said "we know where those WMD's are", Dick said "there's no doubt" about their existence, Condi and Decider scared us further with "mushroom cloud" talk. No doubt about it, the neo-cons used scare tactics to sell their new militaristic adventure. All the Republicans, not one dissenter, voted for the invasion of Iraq. That's called being in lockstep with their Leader.
No WMD's in Iraq. Republican politicians simply accepted the scare tactics of their Leader…without any clearcut evidence, at least none that wasn't cherry picked.
President Obama doesn't have to tell you to trust him about the current scary economic situation. Obama doesn't say, "I know we should all be afraid, just trust me because I know." Obama simply points Republicans to the obvious f*cking 800 pound economic WMD's in the room. Foreclosure numbers and unemployment numbers. Not hidden underground, not obscured inside mobile weather trailers, not waiting to become mushroom clouds…..just…..transparently obvious.
19 out of 20 economists, including conservatives, suggest that Keynesian methods (government spending money) are the correct way forward in our dangerous WMD economic situation…….but Republicans, with the WMD's staring them right in the face, DO NOT BELIEVE ANY OF IT. They believed scary stuff they couldn't see when it was W. and Dick doing the "trust us" scaring……but now that the Terror Twins are gone….they aren't willing to believe in government spending until the economic WMD's, the ones they can clearly see each month in the form of foreclosure and unemployment numbers, actually explode in front of their freakin' faces.
That's not governing…..that's mania.
Finally for today….you may or may not have seen Barack Obama speaking last night at a Democratic retreat in Virginia…..if you haven't seen it, you need to…..
Best part…."Then you get the argument, well, this isn't a stimulus bill, this is a spending bill. What do you think a stimulus is.? That's the whole point. No, seriously. THAT'S the point."
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Update from Huckleberry Hound Lindsey Graham (R-SEN-SC)….
"This bill stinks," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. "The process that brought it here stinks. Not a single Republican in the House voted for it. Maybe every Republican is just crazy, I don't think so." Link
Not "maybe" Huck.
