Bless this young man

Zach Wahls

Rush tries to defend St. Ronnie

And mangles it badly...

STARK: Why is Reagan a hero to conservatives?

RUSH: “Why is Reagan a hero to conservatives?” I don’t think you… Given what you’ve said, and I’m not trying to avoid the question, I don’t think you’d ever understand it.

STARK: Well, he’s a tax raiser, an amnesty giver, a cut-and-runner, and he negotiated with terrorists. Why is he a hero to conservatives? I don’t think you understand it.

RUSH: No, I do. Most assuredly I do. I just don’t think that you would understand it. Where did you get this silly notion that Reagan raised taxes on Social Security? What websites do you read? Where did you pick that up?

STARK: Look up the Greenspan Commission. It’s not too hard to find. I mean, it’s a matter of history.

Maybe conservatives love Reagan because he was the very best they could ever deliver, an Alzheimer's patient in the White House who allowed the inmates to party in the trough of taxpayers money....

and why they longingly search for another in Hollywood. They just need a handsome kindly face and avuncular voice, they'll supply the brains.

Edit* ... they'll supply the [LACK OF] brains...

Remembering St. Ronnie...

In all his glory.

Here.

And here.

I wonder if history books will list these 'accomplishments'....

Did you ever want democracy so bad...

That you strapped bread to your head?

Who better to get health advice from than a drug addicted fat man...

This will be interesting to watch...

House Republicans Plan To Cut $32 Billion From Budget
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans announced Thursday that they plan to cut $74 billion from President Barack Obama's budget for fiscal 2011, slashing the domestic discretionary budget by $58 billion and cutting $16 billion from security spending for the rest of the year.

House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who announced the figures, did not specify which of the hundreds of government programs would see cuts, but promised they would not be the last in GOP leadership's effort to shrink government spending to 2008 levels.

The Republican proposal would only cut $32 billion from current spending levels for this fiscal year, however -- far lower than the $100 billion promised in the party's "Pledge to America."

[snip]

Despite proclaiming a hard-line stance on the budget, Republicans have proposed a number of measures that would increase the deficit, adopting budgeting rules allowing them to pass tax cuts that would increase the deficit.

The House GOP voted in January to repeal 2010's sweeping health care law, even though repeal would add $230 billion to the deficit over the next decade, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The Senate voted down an amendment to repeal the law on Wednesday.

Ryan will allow the Appropriations Committee to determine where to make cuts based on his budget plan before holding a vote on specific cuts later this month. The measure will be attached to a continuing resolution to fund the government until the end of September, the end of the 2011 fiscal year.

And yes, I am being sarcastic.

Fair is fair

We need to demand every elected official who votes to negate the women's right to control their reproductive processes must first issue a sworn statement that his wife (or husband) has never had an abortion, used birth control, or jerked off and destroyed sacred sperm. We need to know how many children they have, and if they are old enough, what their sex lives are like as well.

From soup to nuts....

A Guide: How Not To Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt

Egypt: The viral vlog of Asmaa Mahfouz that helped spark an uprising

Roger Ebert takes on Glenn Beck: Does Glenn Beck know less than you about Egypt?

Digby on Egypt and the wingnuts: Doubling Down on the Super Crazy

Tom Tomorrow and the teabaggers

Republicans and rape: H.R. 3 hides even bigger dangers than redefinition of rape

Mapping and analysis of new data documents still-segregated America

Anti-Choice Groups Unite To Increase Abortion Rate

Californian Republicans to Governor Brown: Nyah nyah nyah nyah.

Monster storms

Here and there and everywhere...

Australia



US

Update: a much more impressive photo:





Don't even THINK about coming to Southern California! We ...uh... have earthquakes!

Update: More at Bryan's excellent blog.

Tag, you're it!

From Thom Hartmann's "Rebooting the American Dream,"

The Biggest Lesson of History

As challenging as the task may seem, we’re facing nothing compared with what the Founders took on; and Franklin Roosevelt famously told us that while great wealth may hate him, “I welcome their hatred.” Presidents can lead on behalf of the people, but only when the people demand that they do so.

That’s the biggest lesson of history. It took the excesses of the Tea Act of 1773—cutting to virtually nothing the taxes the East India Company paid on tea so that it could destroy its small colonial competitors—to provoke the colonists to commit the act of anti-corporate vandalism known as the Boston Tea Party.

It took the excesses of the robber barons to provoke Teddy Roosevelt to challenge them. It took the nationwide economic destruction of the Republican Great Depression to motivate the people enough to support and encourage Franklin D. Roosevelt to institute—over three (and a fraction) presidential terms—the New Deal.

Our economy is in tatters, the result of more than 30 years of Reaganomics and Clintonomics. Our democracy is hanging by a thread, the result of 40 years of radical Supreme Court decisions steadily advancing the powers of corporations and suppressing the rights of individuals and their government. And our environment is trembling under the combined assault of the Industrial Revolution and nearly 7 billion bundles of human flesh.

It’s the perfect time. We are clearly at a nexus, a threshold, a tipping point. If the past is any indicator, things will get worse before they get better, but in that tragedy will be both the catalyst and the seeds for a very positive future.

Now is the most important time for us all to be paying attention, to show up, and to wake up our friends, family, and neighbors. Because this nation is on the edge of a radical restart, a reboot.

Tag, you’re it.