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  • Idiot Quote of the Day: The “Gayer” Obama

    Idiot Quote of the Day: The Gayer Obama

    Rand Paul: Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his [Obama's] views on marriage could get any gayer. We won't call Rand cynical. Ignorant, bigoted asshole is more fitting. An adult using ...

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  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    Happy Friday. The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. "President Obama came out with approval of same-sex marriage. He said that over the years, he has ...

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  • What The Hell Is The Problem With Gay Republicans?

    What The Hell Is The Problem With Gay Republicans?

    I've never understood Log Cabin Republicans - gay conservatives who give their support to a homophobic political party that derides their sexuality and refuses to grant them equal rights under ...

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  • Obama – Same-Sex Marriage and Doing The Right Thing

    Obama - Same-Sex Marriage and Doing The Right Thing

    Finally. “I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own ...

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  • Another Day, Another Vote – Indiana, NC and Wisconsin

    Another Day, Another Vote - Indiana, NC and Wisconsin

    Election roundup: Indiana. As polls forecast, the Tea Party's efforts to cleanse the GOP of any impure conservatives has Dick Lugar out and teabagger Richard Mourdock in. Mourdock is the new Republican ...

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  • ‘Romney – The Man Who Saved The Auto Industry’ and Other Fairy Tales

    'Romney - The Man Who Saved The Auto Industry' and Other Fairy Tales

    There are lies...and then there are lies. My own view, by the way, was that the auto companies needed to go through bankruptcy before government help. And frankly, that’s finally what ...

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  • A Madman and Fox News

    A Madman and Fox News

    From the papers captured last year at Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout comes this. Like any public figures, bin Laden and his advisers were mindful of the media. Adam Gadahn, one ...

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  • Late Night Political Humor

    Late Night Political Humor

    The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. Happy Friday. "Today Mitt Romney visited a firehouse here in New York City. Of course, he was disappointed ...

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  • New GOP Logo

    New GOP Logo

    ___ Follow MarioPiperniDotCom on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. .

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  • Can Obama Be Swift-Boated?

    Can Obama Be Swift-Boated?

    It happened to Kerry. Can it happen to Obama? Nope says Margaret Carlson. Obama’s belief system -- in that hopey-changey business and the post-partisanship thing -- has been altered by reality. ...

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  • Quote of the Day: The Gay Republican

    Quote of the Day: The Gay Republican

    Sullivan: What do Republicans call a gay man with neoconservative passion, a committed relationship and personal courage? A faggot. Exactly right, but then could one expect anything different from a political party that ...

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  • Christian Pastor: Fixing Gay Is Like Squashing a Cockroach

    Christian Pastor: Fixing Gay Is Like Squashing a Cockroach

    And they claim that atheists are immoral? The ugly side of religion shows its face once again. The words below were spoken at a Sunday sermon by Sean Harris, a pastor ...

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  • GM Alive, bin Laden Dead

    GM Alive, bin Laden Dead

    It's been fun watching conservatives and Romney twist themselves into pretzels trying to undo Mitt's past words on GM and bin Laden. Romney, April 2007: It’s not worth moving heaven and earth ...

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  • Republicans Are The Problem

    Republicans Are The Problem

      In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, a couple of scholars from liberal and conservative think tanks, discuss the state of American politics. We have been studying Washington politics and ...

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  • Marco Rubio – Just Another Weasel

    Marco Rubio - Just Another Weasel

    Romney's VP-in-waiting, Marco Rubio, is perfecting the conservative sleaze play. He has proposed his version of the Dream Act in which people who entered the country illegally as children will be ...

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  • Obama’s Move Forward

    Obama's Move Forward

    Beyond the rhetoric, the political BS, the lies - that is, the concerted effort by the right-wing noise machine to distort and misinform at every opportunity - is the very ...

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  • Romney’s Etch A Sketch Fun Time Has Arrived

    Romney's Etch A Sketch Fun Time Has Arrived

      It was never a matter of 'if'...only of 'when'. Two constituencies that President Obama is holding onto about as strongly now as he did four years ago are voters under 30 ...

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  • Romney’s Weirdness

    Romney's Weirdness

    I'm not sure what one does with information of this sort but I thought it important you know. From Alex Pareene's new ebook, The Rude Guide To Mitt. Every good Romney ...

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  • Newsmax and Me

    Newsmax and Me

    Guess whose illustration made the May cover of a national magazine? Mine!   I'm quite sure there isn't much Stephen Moore/Newsmax and I share in common as far as politics goes but ...

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  • Catholic Bishop Spews Right-Wing Garbage

    Catholic Bishop Spews Right-Wing Garbage

    Jesus (c. 30 CE): Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of the Catholic diocese of Peoria, Illinois (2012 ...

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Blagojevich is Impeached

I had to write something about Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment.  Actually, I need to thank the former Illinois Governor for keeping me amused for the last number of weeks and more important, for giving the professional comedians out there such a rich source of material to draw from.

I think I can best sum up Blagojevich’s performance by offering you a segment of MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann’s show from last night.  Watch for the second half of this clip where Olbermann plays the highlights from this week’s late night television shows portrayal of Blagojevich.  It’s hilarious, especially the Mother Teresa, Ghandi and Stephen Colbert segments.


Creating a Filibuster-Proof Senate

Recipe for creating a 60 seat majority in the Senate.

  • Elect yourself a base of 56 Senate seats. (done)
  • Get 2 independents to caucus with your majority.  (done)
  • Hope that Al Franken is victorious in his court battle with Norm Coleman for Minnesota’s senate seat.
  • Appoint a Republican Senator from New Hampshire (Judd Gregg) as your new commerce secretary.
  • Pray that the Democrat Governor of New Hampshire appoints a Democrat to replace Gregg.

Alright, let’s add those numbers up: 56 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 60 !

If President Obama offers the commerce position to Gregg, you can bet that Republicans will plead with the New Hampshire senator to turn it down.  Interesting stuff politcs.

Republican Party – In Search Of Itself

For anyone who has paid attention for the last 8 years and were repulsed by the display of arrogance and smugness by the Republican party, you can’t help but smile these days.  The GOP is a party in disarray with no vision, no soul and no direction.

In an article in the Washington Post – For GOP, a Case of Misshapen Identity – Republicans speak of a need to redefine themselves and set a new course for the future.   They speak of their party being “broken“, in a “rebuilding time“, “trying to figure out who we are” and “soul searching“.

It is refreshing to hear some Republicans finally understand that the party’s “deeds did not match its words. Did not rein in spending. Did not rein in earmarks” and that “In many ways we got what we deserved“.

You’re damn right you did!   Bush and his minions made a mockery of not only the democratic process but of his own party as well.

All that said, let’s all hope the Republican party does, in time, become a principled political force focused on the needs of the country and not on those of a select few.  One party rule for too long a period of time is unhealthy and dangerous for any country.

So while I hope the GOP does eventually find itself, for now I’ll delight in watching them wander in the desert of mayhem and lost identity.  It sort of puts a smile on my face.

GOP on Stimulus Bill

I understand that politics is what it is and Republicans are playing the opposition game but how funny to hear them now claim they have the answers as to how to get the economy moving.  This is from a party which held the levers of power for 8 years, six of which they had complete control of both the White House and Congress.

What they fail to understand, I think, is that people voted for change.  If they wanted the same fiscal policies which drove the economy into the ground, they would have voted for John McCain.  As for President Obama, he is obviously doing his best to get a bipartisan bill but at the end of the day, it’s going to be a Democrat bill.  Republicans are not about to roll over for Obama no matter how much their partisanship further hurts the country.

Deconstructing The Bush Years

My daughter, Cristina, sent me an email today directing me to a website called Urban Dictionary.  Wikepedia had this to say about Urban Dictionary:

Urban Dictionary is a Web-based dictionary of slang words, phrases, and names based on user submissions. As of January 27, 2009, the site claims “3,661,117 definitions written since 1999.” Submissions are regulated by volunteer editors and rated by site visitors.

So I checked it out and was curious as to what the entry for my favorite person had to say.  Of course I speak of George W. Bush.  There’s a lot of silliness in the definitions submitted, both in favor, and not, of the 43rd president.  There was one I did find interesting.

“…and so he led the country to fascism. A fascist country is one that runs mostly using military power, with a strong sense of nationalism…much like a dictatorship…he used propaganda to discriminate against a certain scapegoat – usually a country or religious group.”

-History textbook
“The Rise of Hitler”

Right off the bat, allow me say that comparisons between Bush and Hitler are ridiculous. Whatever criticism we might have of Bush’s policies, comparing him to the most evil individual of the 20th century is just plain wrong and it’s not my view nor is it a discussion I’d ever enter.

What I did find interesting was the comparision of Bush’s presidency to fascism.  No, I don’t think America was a fascist state under Bush but did it have fascist tendencies?  Absolutely.  For an intelligent, balanced view of the US and fascism, see Matthen N. Lyons article, ‘Is the Bush Administration Fascist?

Wikipedia, in part, defines fascism as such:

Fascism is an authoritarian nationalist ideology focused on solving economic, political, and social problems that its supporters see as causing national decline or decadenceFascist governments typically seek to prepare a nation for armed conflict with other nations, to defend itself or to expand its state to allow for the growth of a nation.”

For anyone who has an understanding of the Bush administration’s neoconservative wing’s concerted policy of lies and deceit in taking the US to war in Iraq, the above definition is not lost on them.

Also, if there exists any group in the US which has an ideology which claims that America is in a decadent decline which can only be solved through authoritarian political means, it’s the Republican party’s Christian right base.

Food for thought.