political_talk

The Governator Pokes Fun at Arizona

During his commencement address to students at Emory University on May 10, 2010, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger poked a bit of fun at the outrage of the recently enacted illegal immigration law in Arizona, which requires racial profiling to enforce.

I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, CA 1947 -

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Arizona’s immigration law. 

Source of image: John Spink/Atlanta Journal Constitution

Frank Rich: Profiles in Courage NOT the GOP

New York Times columnist, Frank Rich, in his column about the Arizona immigration law recently enacted which promotes the use of racial profiling. 

There are few profiles in courage among the leaders in this G.O.P. — only a lot of guys hiding under their desks.

Jon Stewart on Orly Taitz

  Jon Stewart, mocking Orly Taitz, while addressing the ridiculous spectacle of the birther movement.

Wait, she’s an attorney, a dentist, and a real estate agent. Are you looking to have a botched root canal, sue for damages, and then use the settlement money to buy the house of your dreams? If so, you can call me, Orly Taitz, your one-stop shop for all things legal, tooth, and shelter related.

Via Daily Show Video

George Will on Media Fascination With Sarah Palin

A surprisingly astute quote by George Will from his article dissecting the media's fascination with Sarah Palin, "Sarah Palin and the mutual loathing society". I especially liked the last two lines.

Political nature abhors a vacuum, which is what often exists for a year or two in a party after it loses a presidential election. But today's saturation journalism, mesmerized by presidential politics and ravenous for material, requires a steady stream of political novelties. In that role, Palin is united with the media in a relationship of mutual loathing. This is not her fault. But neither is it her validation.

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Source:  The Washington Post, George Will

President Obama: With all due deference to the separation of powers.......

On January 27, 2010, in his first State of the Union address to Congress and the American people, President Barack Obama leveled a strong recrimination at the Supreme Court for the controversial ruling made in the Citizens United case, decided on January 21, 2010.View the video excerpt below. The full transcript, along with the full video of the SOTU is here.

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that's why I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that corrects some of these problems

Sen. Dick Durbin to Samuel Alito: Your record raises troubling questions about whether you appreciate the checks and balances in our Constitution...

Sen. Durbin's [D-ILL] prophetic comment to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito during Alito's 2006 confirmation hearings.

Your record raises troubling questions about whether you appreciate the checks and balances in our Constitution -- the careful efforts of our Founding Fathers to protect us from a government or a president determined to seize too much power over our lives,

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Source: Associated Press

Sen. Graham Calls Glenn Beck a Cynic

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called Fox News host, the tearful Glenn Beck, a "cynic"

in his comments to those attending The Atlantic's 'First Draft of History' conference.

Only in America can you make that much money crying. Glenn Beck is not aligned with any party. He is aligned with cynicism and there has always been a market for cynics. But we became a great nation not because we are a nation of cynics. We became a great nation because we are a nation of believers.

Related:

Glenn Beck's sobbing secrets revealed: A little Vicks Vaporub gets the tears flowing

DAVID BROOKS Refutes the Myth of the Power of the Republican Talk Jocks

In his New York Times column, Republican columnist, David Brooks, on the talk radio jocks, and the myth of their power.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time. [.....]

JEFFREY HART: Both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed with Obama's speech against the Iraq War

Jeffrey Hart¹, Republican columnist for The Daily Beast, and a former speechwriter for both Reagan and Nixon, endorsed Barack Obama during the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

One thing I know is that both Nixon and Reagan would have agreed with Obama’s speech against the Iraq War… But all the organs of the conservative movement followed Bush over the cliff—as did John McCain.

¹Hart is currently professor emeritus of English at Dartmouth College, and he  wrote for the National Review for more than three decades as a senior editor.

ALAN GRAYSON: I apologize to the dead.....

  

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), apologized to the Republicans for saying that they want us to "die quickly" if we get sick.

(he said this to explain the Republican lack of support for health care reform)

I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven't voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.  

ALAN GRAYSON: the Republican Health Care Plan is this......

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) in his comments on the House floor on Sept. 29.

Grayson is, of course, referring to the actual lack of a Republican health care plan, and their ongoing obstruction of health care reform.

The Republican health care plan: don't get sick. So the Republicans have a back up plan in case you do get sick ... If you get sick in America, this is what the Republicans want you to do. If you get sick America, the Republican health care plan is this: die quickly!

Sen. John McCain on Torture

On CBS' Face the Nation today, John McCain aimed a pointy stick at former Vice President Dick Cheney, in essence contradicting Cheney's statements regarding the use of torture by the U.S. in combating Islamic extremism.

I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan, I think these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq... I think that the ability of us to work with our allies was harmed. And I believe that information, according to the FBI and others, could have been gained through other members.

I believe the president was right when he said we ought to go forward and not back. I worry about the morale and effectiveness of the CIA. I worry about this thing getting out of control and us harming our ability to carry out the struggle we are in with radical Islamic extremism.

Sen. John McCain, Republican, Arizona, 1936-

Dick Cheney: I guess the other thing that offends the hell out of me, frankly.....

In an interview with Fox News Sunday, aired today, former Vice President Dick Cheney blasted the Obama Administration and the Justice Department for it's recent decision to look at the possibility of conducting investigations in to the methods used by the Bush Administration to obtain information through the use of torture from Islamic detainees

I guess the other thing that offends the hell out of me, frankly, Chris, is we had a track record now of eight years of defending the nation against any further mass casualty attacks from al Qaeda. The approach of the Obama administration should be to come to those people who were involved in that policy and say, ' How did you do it? What were the keys to keeping this country safe over that period of time? '

Instead, they're out there now threatening to disbar the lawyers who gave us the legal opinions -- threatening contrary to what the president originally said. They're going to go out and investigate the CIA personnel who carried out those investigations

We had a president of the United States, President Obama, tell us a few months ago there wouldn't be an investigation. Now, they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic Party and they are reversing course on that.

I have serious doubts about his policies, serious doubts about the extent to which he understands and is prepared to do what needs to be done to defend the nation.

Richard B. Cheney, Republican, 46th Vice President, 1941-

Erik Prince's Christian supremacist....

Jeremy Scahill | Democrat

Scahill debated with NBC's political director, Chuck Todd, re the world's most powerful private/mercenary army, Xe, formerly known as 'Blackwater'. The quote is Scahill's "alternate" name for Blackwater.

 Erik Prince's¹ Christian supremacist fighting force to eliminate Muslims and destroy Islam globally, and then they bill taxpayers again for this killing that they're doing and they're not held to the same standard as soldiers.

Watch the video.

¹ Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater, is a multi-millionaire fundamentalist Christian from a very wealthy and powerful Michigan Republican family,
     Related: Prince Implicated in Murder

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Quotation: Huffpo Video

The G.O.P. whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie.....

The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat.

Frank Rich, Democrat, New York Times Columnist, 1949-

Source: 'The Guns of August' by Frank Rich, The New York Times, August 22, 2009

Barney Frank on Arguing With Dining Room Tables

Congressman Barney Frank | Democrat

At a townhall meeting this past week, Rep. Barney Frank, had a revealing exchange with a woman in the crowd. The woman, representative of the kind of far right-wing craziness we've been subjected to recently, asked a question when called upon.

Woman in crowd, carrying a picture of President Obama defaced to make him look like Hitler:

Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy, as Obama has expressly  supported this policy, why are you supporting it?

Barney Frank responds thusly:

On what planet do you spend most of your time? As you stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler, and compare the effort to increase healthcare to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the first amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.

Madam, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.

View the video of the incident.

Image Source: Wikipedia
Quotation transcribed by Political Talk directly from the video.

Bill Maher on Romney, Palin, and Rove

Bill Maher | Progressive

 New Rule: If Mitt Romney, Karl Rove and Sarah Palin all think America has never done anything wrong, we must be doing something wrong. Look at them: an empty suit, an empty heart and an empty head.

Source: Bill Maher Blog on The Huffington Post
Image Source: Salon.com

Rachel Maddow: The Pizza Parable aka They're Just Not That in to HealthCare Reform

Rachel Maddow | Progressive Commentator

During a recent episode of Maddow's show, Maddow demonstrated to us the utter futility of bipartisanship where healthcare reform is the end goal, through the use of a delightful parable about ordering pizza. Watch the video, and enjoy.

Referring to the contrarian Republicans in Congress and the Senate, Maddow concluded,

 They're just not that in to healthcare reform.

Image, Video and Quotation Source: MSNBC.com

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