So Long, 2010. Bad Jib Jab Video.

I got to be honest. This year's Jib Jab sucks. I've watched and enjoyed 2008 and 2009, as well as several of their earlier works, because they had a great song and were creative with the narrative.

But this year's falls flat. The song is bad, the puppets were unrecognizable (that's supposed to be Biden--and there's one that's supposed to be jihad jane), and worst of all they missed a lot of big stories. For example, there is nothing about airport scanners and the Chilean miners. Yet they had a whole segment teasing Michelle Obama being a princess because she went to Spain (did you even know that story?)

Let me know what you think:

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

the Compromise

2011 will be something like this:

Obama/Democrats: The Earth is round. Republicans: No! it's flat!
The compromise: The Earth is a triangle.

Xmas Present for Forced Child Brides from GOP

Last week, Ros-Lehtinen, Rep. Dan Burton (Ind.) and other Republicans worked to block the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act (S. 987).

The bill would ensure that child marriage is recognized as a human rights violation, and develop comprehensive strategies to prevent such marriages around the world.

The act unanimously passed the Senate and appropriated no new funds, but the Republicans objected to it on fiscal grounds anyway. Since the bill would have used existing resources, voting it down saved the country no money. It was politics--the GOP so desperate not to pass anything that could somehow be construed as a victory for Obama.

So Merry Xmas girls! Instead of going to school, the barbaric practice of forced marriages and rapes will force millions more girls into a life of slavery, sex abuse, domestic violence, and servitude will continue.

But at least we can stick it to Obama...

What to Say Instead of Happy Holidays

As Festivus ends and Christmas Eve begins, I am reminded of how blessed we are that we have soldiers fighting for us in this awful war. I, of course, am not talking about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, but the real war... the Fox News created "War on Christmas".

Anyone who dares to say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas is undermining our very Christian survival. I spoke of this war last year, and came up with a brilliant alternative to happy holidays.

Click the link for your appropriate greeting.

More Evidence Stupid People Vote in Florida

Here's the problem. Exhibit A in my local paper:My Word by Bill Barnes

Starts with this...

According to the Social Security Administration, the Consumer Price Index has not risen since 2008, and benefits will not increase in 2011. Congress just approved an $858 billion package of tax cuts but rejected a bill to give each retiree $250.

Then goes to this...

When I retired in 2000, our annual health insurance cost was $1,200. Today, the cost is $10,960. This amount does not include the amount my former employer continues to pay. Next month, our health insurance will increase by $600.

Here is what he concludes with...

So what do retirees have to look forward to? We could sit around, run out of money and die. Or we could mobilize with the Tea Party and hound elected officials until they cut spending and taxes and help retirees who worked a lifetime to make America great.

Okay Moron. You don't complain about overspending in the same letter you demand that every retiree get $250. That's number one. Number two--you complain about high health care costs, but then decide that your solution should be to join a group that sided with the very insurance industry that is currently gouging you.

I don't know why your are complaining, Mr. Barnes. It sounds like you got everything you voted for.


PS--to anyone bashing our prez: just remember that it was he who compromised with the GOP by caving into their demand that the uber-wealthy get an extra tax cut so he could SAVE YOUR middle-class tax cut along with the unemployment checks this holiday season. Your f*&^ing welcome.

Cutting Taxes for Superwealthy Has NEVER Created Jobs

During the first three years of the Bush tax cuts, America’s job total actually went down, from 132 million jobs in 2001 to 131.4 million in 2004. Job growth did improve during Bush’s second term, but overall the rate was “anemic” compared to that under President Bill Clinton.

The problem is that when wealthy people are given more money, their main priority is usually to use it to make even more money.

Several economic studies have indicated that the wealthiest people -- the top 3 percent who make more than $250,000 per year -- are more likely to invest tax cuts in stocks or other assets than to create jobs. Democrats point out that this year many large American corporations are posting record profits without sinking that money into payroll. Instead of spending money on tax cuts, money should be spent on actual jobs -- which, in turn, will bring businesses the customers they need to thrive.

Bottom line: Giving a multi-millionaire or billionaire another tax cut is not going to create work. It will definetly add hundreds of billions to the deficit, but not create jobs. If that was the case, the Bush years would have shown unprecedented job creation. Instead, it was just the opposite. The idea that tax cuts create jobs shows a fundamental misreading of capitalism. Businesses hire when there is a market need, not when their taxes are cut. Why would a business hire more people if there are no more customers?

PS-- The rant in today's Sentinel was posted by the author: The sheer refusal to help Americans in need during the holiday season unless the wealthiest Americans get another tax cut they don't need and we can't afford is morally reprehensible.

Senate GOP Whining About Working After Christmas

The only time I've ever posted anything from Harry Reid. We needed this fighting Reid two years ago. Here's hoping we see more of this--maybe the election really did wake his ass up.

DeMint and Kyl, the two men MOST RESPONSIBLE for wasting the people's time in the Senate, are whining about working after Christmas... calling it disrepectful. Well, the work has to get done, so I suggest you 2 bozos get to work and quit stalling! (PS, so does the 99% of the country that has to go back to work after Xmas hate Christians too?)

And by the way, who the hell is Jon Kyl to lecture anyone on anything? MR. my parents paid off my whore and all i got was this venereal disease. Stuff a stocking in it mister.

Boehner: Weeper in Chief

Babba Wawa hit the nail on the head. He has a real problem. He cries every single time he talks about anything but tax cuts. If Nancy Pelosi had crying fits like he did, she would be crucified by the right as weak. This is the GOP leader: Crybaby.

Also good point... he cries about his own life but has no tolerance for anyone else's suffering. An out of work single mom with a kid and no support he is kicking to the curb. He is fighting tooth and nail to stop her unemployment check this holiday season... but is willing to spend $700 billion to give the rich an EXTRA tax cut. A cut, I might add, that never produced any jobs.

Wipe your tears, crybaby. If anyone deserves to cry, its the American people.

Exactly 10 years ago today, America changed.

One partisan vote changed the face of America, and we suffer the awful legacy bestowed to this day:

Dante Atkins:

Ten years ago today, in a baffling and overtly political 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court decided that the only way to protect the equal voting rights of the people of Florida was to stop counting their votes--but only in this particular instance and no other, because they only wanted the votes to stop being counted when George W Bush was ahead.

The Bush legacy is one written in the red ink of debt, greed and death. An occupation of the nation hosting that did attack us, botched from an overweening desire to wage a preemptive war against a country that did not. Thousands of American lives and potentially hundreds of thousands of native lives lost in the process. Torture prisons in the name of national security. Warrantless wiretapping and other forms of surveillance and entrapment against United States citizens and nonviolent peace groups.

Not that the nation was just morally bankrupt: George W Bush did a number on our nation's fiscal health as well, with massive transfers of its wealth into the hands of those who needed the least help, and permission for private entities to loot the land and natural resources of this nation with no return to its taxpayers. And ten years later, virtually nobody has paid the price.

Many progressives--myself included-- felt that the Bush years should have been a national nightmare that we would just wake up from. That the immoral, absurd and illegal practices of those times were just a mere interregnum permitted by the ascension of a Manichean president operating during a time of national crisis, and that once he was out of office, we would instinctively revert to the comparative sanity we had under Bill Clinton. But we haven't yet, and it's likely that without systemic structural change, we never will.

The executive power grab is not restored, nor does it seem that the irresponsible, nearly trillion dollar tax cut for the superwealthy will be rescinded either. Let's bankrupt our nation further by adding $700 billion to our debt so Paris Hilton can get another $100,000 gift from the taxpayers. Nicely done, teabaggers and complicit Dems. Happy Anniversary all!

What Obama Can Learn from Clinton

I enjoyed watching the History Channel’s 2004 series "The Presidents", which I watched on You Tube yesterday. When they got to Presdient Clinton, Leon Panetta explained his showdown with Newt Gingrich. Clinton, like Obama, was dispirited after the 1994 election. But he said Clinton knew politics and KNEW that he had to draw a line in the sand. Gringrich thought he could bully Clinton with threatening to shut donw the government if he didn’t get his way.

Clinton didn't show weakness with the terrorist. He stood firm. He didn’t cave.

Gov’t did shut down for a bit. And people were outraged... not at Clinton, but at Newt and the GOP. It was Newt that came back to the bargaining table. It was newt and the GOP that suffered seat losses in 1996, along with the defeat of Bob Dole. Newt himself had a very close re-election bid, and he was spooked enough to give a speech that essentially said "message received loud and clear".

We have the high ground here. DEMOCRATS voted for a straight middle-class tax cut. GOP filibustered it. GOP is willing to hold the unemployment benefits for struggling families hostage unless every millionaire and billionaire in this country gets $100,000 of tax payer money. They are willing to add $700 billion to the national debt for the wealthiest Americans, but say a few billion to help people who can’t find work this holiday season is too expensive. They don’t have a leg to stand on.

The only way to lose is not to fight. I hear on the radio yet another spineless Dem saying we need to take whatever deal is offered because the GOP is better at messaging than us, and that we will get blamed if taxes go up. I say enough is enough. I don’t know aobut you, but I am sick to death of this... right now we still have a SUPER majority in the House and Senate, and a Dem Prez, WHY are we still cowering? Do you really think if a deal is made the GOP will play nice?

Draw a line, dammit. No further. NO MORE. You rethug SOBs want to filibuster? DO IT!!

Maybe, just maybe, the American people will wise up to the REAL priorities of the GOP and maybe even bother to vote next time!

If the Dems can’t win this message war over what is blatantly obvious...they deserve to lose. If the Dems cave on this, who do you think is going to show up at the polls in 2012?

Draw the damn line.

PS:
WHY THE F*&^ ARE WE NEGOTIATING ANYWAY? We still have a super majority in the House, and we can do Budget Reconciliation in the Senate! That is what W. did to pass these massive breaks to the wealthy in the first place. Am I missing something?