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Stewart on Brian Williams: Finally! Someone Held Accountable for Iraq Lies

"Never again will Brian Williams mislead this great nation about being shot at in a war we probably wouldn't have ended up in if the media had applied this level of scrutiny to the actual fucking war!"

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stewart-on-brian-williams-finally-someone-held-accountable-for-iraq-lies/

The vid has been yanked from YouTube, but you can still watch it at the link above.

Actors of Color Get Real About What It's Like To Play a Stereotype

Obama Won't Rule Out Sending Weapons to Ukraine

Some Alabama counties refuse marriage licenses to gay couples despite ruling

Source: The Guardian (UK)

Hundreds of same-sex couples married in Alabama on Monday, surrounded by rainbow flags and cheering supporters, as a disparate map of marriage equality emerged in the state in which dozens more were denied the right to marry by state judges who refused to obey a federal order to allow such weddings.

Alabama is legally the 37th state to allow same-sex marriage, but couples like Robert Povilat and Milton Persinger spent the day frustrated outside a courthouse because a county judge refused to abide by the ruling.

“We’ll stay until the office closes at the end of the day,” said Povilat, who arrived at the Mobile County marriage license department just before 7am on Monday.

Mobile County judge Don Davis closed his office doors and windows for more than two hours on Monday, eventually opening for people seeking other services like deeds. Meanwhile, Povilat said he and about a dozen others were still waiting in line at 3pm local time because Davis, like a number of other judges across the state, refused to issue marriage licenses.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/09/some-alabama-counties-refuse-marriage-licences-gay-couples

GOP challenges Obama over flood risks from climate change

Source: McClatchy

WASHINGTON — Underscoring the political challenges President Barack Obama faces as he presses ahead to combat climate change, eight Republican senators are contesting the legality of his Jan. 30 directive toughening floodplain standards for new federal projects.

In a letter to Obama last week that was coordinated by Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran, the newly empowered chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the senators expressed concern about “the vast implications” that the standards would have for families and workers in coastal communities.

They demanded to know which governors, mayors and other stakeholders had provided input for the new policy, as required by legislation passed weeks ago that continued funding for the federal government.

Obama’s executive order specifies that the administration received input from “governors, mayors and other stakeholders.” Less clear is how many of them were Republicans.



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/02/09/256050/gop-challenges-obama-over-flood.html

George Carlin - Euphemisms

Colbert, Oliver, Stewart, all great. But this man is, and Shall Ever Be, the Master.

Avatar Change

Started out as a tree. Changed it tonight---to Red Wings! AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! Corrected it just now!
(This sinus medication is potent.)

“American Sniper” is rife with lies: U.S. veteran

After watching the movie “American Sniper,” I called a friend named Garett Reppenhagen who was an American sniper in Iraq. He deployed with a cavalry scout unit from 2004 to 2005 and was stationed near FOB Warhorse. I asked him if he thought this movie really mattered. “Every portrayal of a historical event should be historically accurate,” he explained. ”A movie like this is a cultural symbol that influences the way people remember history and feel about war.”

Garett and I met through our antiwar and veteran support work, which he’s been involved with for almost a decade. He served in Iraq. I served in Afghanistan. But both of us know how powerful mass media and mass culture are. They shaped how we thought of the wars when we joined, so we felt it was important to tell our stories when we came home and spoke out.

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Chris Kyle didn’t view Iraq like me and Garett, but neither of us have attacked him for it. He’s not the problem. We don’t care about the lies that Chris Kyle may or may not have told. They don’t matter. We care about the lies that Chris Kyle believed. The lie that Iraq was culpable for September 11. The lie that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The lie that people do evil things because they are evil.

The film “American Sniper” is also rife with lies. This was not Chris Kyle’s story. And Bradley Cooper was not Chris Kyle. It was Jason Hall’s story, a one-time actor in “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and screenwriter for “American Sniper,” who called his film a “character study.” Don’t believe him. His movie is as fictional as Buffy Summers.

http://www.salon.com/2015/02/07/im_a_u_s_veteran_and_american_sniper_is_filled_with_lies_partner/

The selling of Elizabeth Warren: What’s behind progressives’ debilitating fantasy: Salon

Not just Salon, but Joan Walsh herself!

Link

I’m a huge admirer of Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She’s the best new leader to emerge in the Democratic Party in decades. If she wants to run for president, I hope she does so.

But I don’t think she wants to run for president. She’s told us that in many different ways and places. I was particularly struck by her no-nonsense answer when asked by colleague Sheila Bair, but she’s basically given no-nonsense negative answers since the effort to “draft” her began.

So I’m coming to find the “draft Warren” juggernaut a little bit perplexing. I know the participants have wonderful motives and genuinely would welcome a Warren candidacy. But with every email I receive, I get a tiny bit more cynical. It doesn’t feel so much like groups are using their organizational strength to help Warren, but enlisting Warren to help build their organizational strength.

Don’t get me wrong, I think MoveOn and Democracy for America have done important infrastructure and leadership building on the left of the Democratic Party. But I’m not really sure that the “Draft Warren “effort does much more for progressives than encourage a cult of personality – and risk member disillusionment when Warren all but certainly declines to make the race.