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Fake Boxer:An eruption of lies from your lies volcano, Dr. Condaliezza-lies-a-lot!

This parody of last week's Senate hearings once again proves how much truth can be told with humor. There is no mistake that Jon Stewart's audience is more informed than Bill O'Reilly's. On Scarborough Country, I heard Joe Scarborough complain that SNL 'just doesn't get it" by using President Bush in parodies. SNL has been lampooning presidents whether they be republican or democrat since it's inception, and the criticism that republicans are making against SNL is as usual ridiculous.

Welcome Free Republic. We've gotten many hits from your site to view this video. Please ask your host not to cancel our account next time for absolutely doing nothing except posting one comment that told you guys where to go to see Mel Gibson and Michael Moore on the People's Choice awards.

I don't think that counts as trolling. If it does, let m us know how.

Ah yes, do we have issues still The American Street

WASHINGTON — In the weeks after the fall of Baghdad, Iraqi looters loaded powerful explosives into pickup trucks and drove the material off the Al Qaqaa ammunition site, according to a group of U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen who said they witnessed the looting.

The soldiers said about a dozen U.S. troops guarding the sprawling facility could not prevent the theft because they were outnumbered by looters. Soldiers from one unit — the 317th Support Center based in Wiesbaden, Germany — said they sent a message to commanders in Baghdad requesting help to secure the site but received no reply.

Despite the protective shield of limited morality that the Fifty-One-Percenters used to maintain their denial of reality on Election Day, the truth will keep thwapping them in the head for weeks to come.

I’m looking forward to:

1) More details of the lousy troop support from the CiC.

2) More photos and statistics of the country we’re destroying to save it for a semblance of patriarchal strong-man democracy.

3) An end to the 15 month coverup of the Valerie Plame outing.

4) The rest of the Abu Ghraib picture show that’s being hidden.

5) Oil at $62-$63/bbl, within 7 months.

6) More intel insiders exposing the stuff Porter Goss is now covering up.

7) Any evidence at all that our hundred billion dollar Homeland Security Agency can deliver anything useful besides their stupid Crayola Alerts.

I’m not looking forward to:

8) The denial that will come when global terrorists attack again, that Bush bears any responsibility for at least two coordinated attacks on American soil. The other 42 presidents don’t bear that on their records. But I believe Bush will. And I believe the Fifty-One percenters will deceive themselves and say “God did this because some terrified teenager refused to carry her baby to term. God bless George Bush.”

Then they’ll demand that we nuke half the world as payback agains all the heathens.

I never would have dreamed that last one up on my own. God spoke to me and told me this was coming. He said: “Beware the False Prophet Number Forty Three; he shall surely lead the sheep to their slaughter.”

PERRspectives: What the health care debate was really about.

Progressive Blog Digest: Will have a ton of links- pro and con -on last night's vote

Blue Gal: Shorter President's Executive Order on Abortion

Demeur: Republican reaction to passage of HCR

Cartoon News: Cartoonist finds nothing funny about tea bag mob

The Bobblespeak Translations: This Week -March 21, 2010

UPDATE: Ah, this is still the same Obama we're used to. Apparently the appointments that went through aren't the most important ones - he's still letting them block NLRB appointees Craig Becker and Mark Pearce.

Who knew? Apparently the president does indeed have a spine:

The Senate confirmed a huge group of administration nominees on Thursday, following a tense exchange between President Barack Obama and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

At a White House meeting with bipartisan congressional leaders on Tuesday, Obama warned that he would make recess appointments if the logjam over nominees wasn’t broken before the Senate left for the Presidents’ Day break.

“Mitch, this is unprecedented,” the president said, gesturing forcefully on the Cabinet Room table, according to aides. “If you don’t move any, I’m going to do some appointments.”

The 27 confirmations mean no recess appointments will be needed during this break, top administration officials said. Recess appointments, which a president can make when Congress is not in session, are temporary and generally last to the end of the year.

In a statement Thursday night, Obama said: "At the beginning of the week, a staggering 63 nominees had been stalled in the Senate because one or more senators placed a hold on their nomination. ... And so on Tuesday, I told Senator McConnell that if Republican senators did not release these holds, I would exercise my authority to fill critically-needed positions in the federal government temporarily through the use of recess appointments. ... Since that meeting, I am gratified that Republican senators have responded by releasing many of these holds and allowing 29 nominees to receive a vote in the Senate. While this is a good first step, there are still dozens of nominees on hold who deserve a similar vote, and I will be looking for action from the Senate when it returns from recess. If they do not act, I reserve the right to use my recess appointment authority in the future."

A C&Ler named mc sent in this very good e-mail about the causes of the financial meltdown we've just witnessed and the people who helped cause it.

I have almost 40 years of experience as a retail banker and financial services provider. I opened, managed and served as country head in Spain, Korea, Canada and the US. I would like to contribute comments and blogs.

It is not so difficult to find the people who should be held accountable for the financial meltdown of 2009. It seems, however, from 2001 until the present day nobody tries to find anyone responsible for anything.

There are 2 people in government that bear the bulk of the responsibility for our financial meltdown as well as the presidents of all banks that participated in the approval of mortgages with substandard credit criteria and the packaging and selling of such mortgages as asset backed securities. Additionally, all of these banks had, or should have had, senior risk asset management committees who were equally responsible. In each case they understood the risks and didn’t care as long they increased compensation for themselves and their company

As for the politicians, 2 of them bear the primary responsibility of these bankrupting financial policies. We need look no further than John McCain’s financial advisor Phil Gramm. Gramm, on Dec. 15, 2000, snuck into a congressional bill an act which prevents the government from regulating investment banks’ credit swaps. Gramm is the one who called Americans whiners and told us that the crisis was in our heads. McCain considered him for the position of Secretary of the Treasury.

Equally responsible for our economic crises was the SEC chairman (Christopher Cox), who changed a key regulation in 2004. Under pressure from those who wanted to please their campaign contributing Wall Street buddies the SEC approved a measure that let investment banks lend out 30 times the amount of capital they had backing up their loans. Before 2004 they could only lend out 12 times the amount of capital.

A solution to the banking meltdown that would prevent it from happening again would be:

1) Reinstate the regulation of CDSs and CDOs by the SEC (assumes increasing head count & improving the quality of staff).

2) Reinstate the 12 to 1 leverage ratio.

3) Require increased capital by product where the riskier assets require more capital reserves

4) Create a regulation that requires each sale of packaged assets by a bank or investment broker to provide some percentage of recourse to the purchaser.

5) Make the board of directors have fiduciary responsibly to stock holders and face fines and civil charges

There are others that share a lot of the blame too, like Bernanke, and no doubt he could name them too. But this is right on: The conservative mania for deregulation -- they like to call it "small government" -- is the root cause of our economic meltdown.

And Sarah and the Tea Partiers are still trying to sell us on the idea that more of the same is what we need. Because, you know, a nice PCB cocktail topped off with a cigar is just what you need to cure cancer.

AMERICAblog News: White House thanks Lieberman for blocking president's reform promise, criticizes Dean for defending it. Enough...

Economist's View: Cutting wages won't help

TPM LiveWire: Franken rape amendment included in Defense Spending Bill

Oliver Willis: No longer just a handful of crazyass fringe dwellers, the John Birch Society is BACK!

Constitution Project: We welcome the enhanced transparency recommendations from the Obama administration. The rules for handling “controlled unclassified information” would standardize the system and increase government transparency, but stronger enforcement mechanisms are needed.

Bitch Ph.D.: My 3 least favorite holiday ads

tttthink: On 9/10, 2001 Donald Rumsfeld admitted the Pentagon couldn't account 2.3 trillion dollars. Then 9/11 happened and everyone forgot

AlterNet: 14 things you need to know about Joe Wilson

Lean Left: "Mr. Gorbachev, Build Up This Wall" - Jackass Rightwinger's cynical hypocrisy hits historic high

Welcome Back to Pottersville: The Big Casino

attytood: College president honors "diversity" by naming center for Dick Cheney

Garry Wills on the death of conservatism

This is pretty cool. Someone took the time to time to make this video in which the faces of all 44 Presidents are morphed into each other. My, how far we've come.

God, I love being a San Franciscan... I can't think of a more appropriate dedication for this administration.

Some presidents get carved into Mt Rushmore; others have airports, motorways, and even entire cities named in their honour. But when George Bush leaves office, his most visible memorial may be a mouldering patch of human effluent.

In November, alongside casting their ballot for the next president, the people of San Francisco will also vote on a measure to rename one of the city's largest sewage works the George W Bush Sewage Plant, to provide a "fitting monument" to the outgoing commander-in-chief's achievements.

Activists from the Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco, a mischievously-named group behind the move, will ask supporters to participate in a "synchroni(z)ed flush".

It may sound like a student prank, but the proposal is almost certain to be passed. Democrats usually secure between 70 and 80 per cent of the vote in San Francisco - and in 2006 passed a proposition to impeach Mr Bush and his Vice-President Dick Cheney by a majority of almost two to one.

"In 50 years from now, we want people to see George Bush's name on that plant, and ask each other what went wrong," said Brian McConnell, the Memorial Commission's organi(z)er. "We want them to be reminded of the Iraq war, and his other dramatic mistakes, and this is the perfect way to do it."

Let me say for the record that I am not particularly enamored of this line of questioning, because I fail to see how it materially affects one's job performance as POTUS. There are several of our finest presidents who would not have held up to that scrutiny. However, since the Republicans crossed this threshold during the Clinton administration, making it an issue worth millions of taxpayer dollars to investigate and prosecute, it is only fair to hold them to the same standards.
Cliff Schecter:

(F)rom a town hall meeting in Nashville, Tennessee Monday, mixed in with platitudes about gay marriage, we get a nice little comment from this questioner on the sanctity of marriage in McCain's life--or more to the point, sanctimony. Here is a rough transcript of her question to The Morally Righteous One, which comes at the beginning of the video (it includes McCain's answer to this question and a previous on on Hillary Clinton):

My second and final question, you talk a lot about the character issue...and...like you, um, I was opposed to gay marriage, I was in always in favor of civil unions but the basic definition of marriage....but, then I get to thinking, that is based on what we consider to be the sanctity of marriage. There is nothing....you see long-term couples splitting up, it's, it's just crazy...I know that you, your own situation, you're going to have to address that in the campaign. Infidelity is just a terrible cancer on this country....and I think if we're going to talk about...gay marriage, it has to be in the context of the preservation of marriage...which I just don't see it, I think we need to make it more difficult for people to get married, or whatever we need to do..if that's...if we're going to be consistent.

McCain ignored that part of the question, of course.