WilliamPitt
WilliamPitt's JournalTake 50 seconds and watch this deaf 8-month-old react to his cochlear implant being activated.
Whatever you're pissed about will be better after you watch this.
Just wow.
One reporter gets it.
Fiscal Cliff Fictions: Let’s All Agree to Pretend the GOP Isn’t Full of ItBy Michael Grunwald
Nov. 30, 2012
It’s really amazing to see political reporters dutifully passing along Republican complaints that President Obama’s opening offer in the fiscal cliff talks is just a recycled version of his old plan, when those same reporters spent the last year dutifully passing along Republican complaints that Obama had no plan. It’s even more amazing to see them pass along Republican outrage that Obama isn’t cutting Medicare enough, in the same matter-of-fact tone they used during the campaign to pass along Republican outrage that Obama was cutting Medicare.
This isn’t just cognitive dissonance. It’s irresponsible reporting. Mainstream media outlets don’t want to look partisan, so they ignore the BS hidden in plain sight, the hypocrisy and dishonesty that defines the modern Republican Party. I’m old enough to remember when Republicans insisted that anyone who said they wanted to cut Medicare was a demagogue, because I’m more than three weeks old.
I’ve written a lot about the GOP’s defiance of reality–its denial of climate science, its simultaneous denunciations of Medicare cuts and government health care, its insistence that debt-exploding tax cuts will somehow reduce the debt—so I often get accused of partisanship. But it’s simply a fact that Republicans controlled Washington during the fiscally irresponsible era when President Clinton’s budget surpluses were transformed into the trillion-dollar deficit that President Bush bequeathed to President Obama. (The deficit is now shrinking.) It’s simply a fact that the fiscal cliff was created in response to GOP threats to force the U.S. government to default on its obligations. The press can’t figure out how to weave those facts into the current narrative without sounding like it’s taking sides, so it simply pretends that yesterday never happened.
(snip)
Whatever. I realize that the GOP’s up-is-downism puts news reporters in an awkward position. It would seem tendentious to point out Republican hypocrisy on deficits and Medicare and stimulus every time it comes up, because these days it comes up almost every time a Republican leader opens his mouth. But we’re not supposed to be stenographers. As long as the media let an entire political party invent a new reality every day, it will keep on doing it. Every day.
The rest: http://swampland.time.com/2012/11/30/fiscal-cliff-fictions-lets-all-agree-to-pretend-the-gop-isnt-full-of-it/
Fuck 'Meta'
If I ever really had an issue with something on DU, the absolute last place I would bring it up is Meta.
They should cinch that bag and throw it into the sea. Stuff it in a bottle and send it out with the tide. Put a pillow over its face and give it the mercy it needs.
As stated, 11.5 years here...and Meta is, hands down no contest easy peasy one two threesy the biggest cesspoll shithole forum that has EVER existed on any iteration of DU, ever.
Fact. Period, end of file, turn out the lights when you leave.
I wouldn't piss on it if it was on fire right in front of me.
So.
Y'know...
I've been on this forum for eleven and a half years. For a variety of reasons, that enormous 4,000-days-and-more body of experience makes me want to believe the best about DU, because I love this place for reasons it would take another 4,000 days to explain.
The fact that a pre-school-level discussion on rape and the existence of certain self-evident truths regarding what women in America (yes, even today!) must endure is still necessary on this forum is a cold-water-in-the-face moment for me.
When I posted a picture of a woman saying that her school is teaching her how to avoid rape, instead of teaching everyone not to rape, I simply expected any replies to be of the "Yeah," "Truth," or "Right on" variety...because I want to believe the best of DU.
Most of the thread turned into a fight. There's a whole other thread on the same picture that turned into a fight.
The fact that the picture posted ACTUALLY NEEDS A FUCKING EXPLANATION AND DEFENSE around here is tremendously revealing, and equally depressing.
To those who have stood this particular watch on DU: OK. I get it. I'm sick about it.
God fucking damn it.
For reference, the picture in question:
So...yeah...about that whole "climate change" thingy...
http://desmogblog.com/2012/11/15/why-climate-deniers-have-no-credibility-science-one-pie-chart
"If only we had a more direct comparison to make here..." (re: Susan Rice)
"If only we had a more direct comparison to make here...sort of a one-to-one...like another high-ranking government official passing what they knew at the time was misleading intelligence to the American public...on a Sunday news show...also in line to become Secretary of State...and was African American, and a woman...and let's say her name was also Rice. That'd be something!"
- John Stewart, here: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/11/jon-stewart-susan-rice-benghazi.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
Report: SecState candidate Rice "Has a Major Financial Stake in Canadian Tar Sands" i.e. Keystone XL
Secretary of State Candidate Has a Major Financial Stake in Canadian Tar SandsBy Scott Dodd
November 28, 2012
Susan Rice, the candidate believed to be favored by President Obama to become the next Secretary of State, holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline. If confirmed by the Senate, one of Rice’s first duties likely would be consideration, and potentially approval, of the controversial mega-project.
Rice's financial holdings could raise questions about her status as a neutral decision maker. The current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Rice owns stock valued between $300,000 and $600,000 in TransCanada, the company seeking a federal permit to transport tar sands crude 1,700 miles to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, crossing fragile Midwest ecosystems and the largest freshwater aquifer in North America.
Beyond that, according to financial disclosure reports, about a third of Rice’s personal net worth is tied up in oil producers, pipeline operators, and related energy industries north of the 49th parallel -- including companies with poor environmental and safety records on both U.S. and Canadian soil. Rice and her husband own at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers, as ranked by Forbes magazine. That includes Enbridge, which spilled more than a million gallons of toxic bitumen into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 -- the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.
Rice also has smaller stakes in several other big Canadian energy firms, as well as the country’s transportation companies and coal-fired utilities. Another 20 percent or so of her personal wealth is derived from investments in five Canadian banks. These are some of the institutions that provide loans and financial backing to TransCanada and its competitors for tar sands extraction and major infrastructure projects, such as Keystone XL and Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would stretch 700 miles from Alberta to the Canadian coast.
The rest: http://www.onearth.org/article/susan-rice-obama-secretary-state-tar-sands-finances
Here's her financial disclosure info: http://www.opensecrets.org/pfds/CIDsummary.php?CID=N99999935&year=2009
UPDATE: Mother Jones has picked up the story: http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/11/obamas-secretary-state-financial-stake-keystone
I'm not familiar with the publication OnEarth. But this does not thrill me.
Don't shoot the messenger. This just came across my desk. Thoughts?
"Democrats Ready to Fight for Susan Rice"
Anyone who thinks that the "caustic reaction" from GOP senators on their meeting with Susan Rice yesterday gives Democrats any pause on a Rice nomination for Secretary of State, should think again, a Democratic Senate aide tells First Read.
Said the aide: "People are happy to fight for her. This is getting people's back up. The general sense of the mood is this is ridiculous. She's obviously qualified."
"The aide also questioned whether Republicans besides McCain, Graham, and Ayotte would think this is a 'smart fight to pick' given Rice's qualifications and that this would mean a 'high-profile fight with a qualified African-American woman.' As to the threat of holds from Ayotte and Graham, the aide said that if Rice is nominated and presents well at her confirmation hearing, there's a 'good chance cooler heads prevail' and there would be more than enough votes to confirm her. That would make Ayotte and Graham's holds 'moot' once it goes to a cloture vote, the aide said, because "either we have the votes or we don't.'"
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/28/democrats_ready_to_fight_for_susan_rice.html
Profile Information
Name: William Rivers PittGender: Male
Hometown: Boston
Member since: 2001
Number of posts: 58,179
