Thursday, February 23, 2012

You Think Your Luck Is Bad? Think Again...


In battle you never want to be standing beside a guy who's unlucky. Case in point... On May 3, 1846 the Mexican Army began a siege and artillery bombardment of Fort Texas, overlooking Matamoros. After 2 days of continual bombardment an American soldier, a man named Sergeant Weigart, one of the "Cotton Bailers" of the famous 7th Infantry, was hit by a shell. A short time later, as he lay bleeding on the surgeon's table, Weigart was hit by another shell, killing him instantly. Shortly after he was buried, a 3rd shell "exhumed" his battered, dismembered body and sent it flying through the air. He was the only American killed in the siege that marked the beginning of one of the most shameful chapters in American history, the Mexican-American War.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Mitt's Bully Backer Uses His Billions To Intimidate, Silence Critics - Help Fight Back

Caveat: Everything in post is my Consitutionally protected personal opinion, and if you don't like it, I'm looking at you, Frank, you can sue me. I can always use a good laugh...


Required Reading: Glenn Greenwald has an important story up at Salon about Mitt Romney's billionaire bully Frank VanderSloot. VaderSloot is the CEO of a controversial multi-level marketing company, aka pyramid sales, Melaleuca, Inc., that peddles dietary supplements and cleaning products and is a major power player in right wing politics and the Mormon Church with a long history of anti-gay activism.

VaderSloot is also the finance co-chair of Mitt Romney's presidential campaign. In addition, his company, Melaleuca, has donated $1 million to a pro-Romney supposedly independent SuperPAC, Restore Our Future.

Greenwald details how this billionaire bully uses threats of petty, frivolous, but expensive to defend against lawsuits to silence his critics, including major magazines, journalists and even small bloggers that dare to report on VanderSloot's activities. Greenwald writes...
But it is VanderSloot’s chronic bullying threats to bring patently frivolous lawsuit against his political critics — magazines, journalists, and bloggers — that makes him particularly pernicious and worthy of more attention. In the last month alone, VanderSloot, using threats of expensive defamation actions, has successfully forced Forbes, Mother Jones and at least one local gay blogger in Idaho to remove articles that critically focused on his political and business practices
...
This tactic almost always succeeds in silencing its targets, because even journalists and their employers who have done nothing wrong are afraid of the potentially ruinous costs they will incur when sued by a litigious billionaire.
...
To allow this scheme to continue — whereby billionaires can use their bottomless wealth to intimidate ordinary citizens and media outlets out of writing about them — is to permit the wealthiest in America to thuggishly shield themselves from legitimate criticism and scrutiny.
It's a long piece, and one everyone should read. Greenwald details a number of cases, including the case of a brave blogger fighting back against a Bully's billions. Read the piece, then use your outrage to help journalists and bloggers fight back against this bullying wingnut POS. I, for one, hope this filthy stinking bleephole sues me, too, and I encourage everyone to blog about his despicable actions, spread the word on Facebook and tell everyone you know.

This nasty quackery pushing con-man prick wants to sue anyone and everyone who dares to tell the truth about him? I say let's give him 1 million targets and see how long he can keep it up, then use state laws against using lawsuits as intimidation to prosecute him criminally wherever and whenever possible. Maybe we can give his team of hired Brooks Brothers thugs something to keep them busy when they're not trying to censor VaderSloot's many critics. In the meantime, this bleephole's intimidation, threats and suppression of the free press, and Romney's connection to this POS, will finally get some much deserved attention.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Ousted Komen VP Karen Handel's Whine Country Tour Features Lies, Lies and More Lies

Ousted Komen VP Karen Handel, not content to let teh stupid quietly fade away, is on a
crusade. It's difficult to be sure, but she's either out to destroy Planned Parenthood or
she's out to destroy whatever shreds remain of her own credibility. Her first stop on the whine country tour was wingnut propaganda central, aka Fox News, of course. Today Handel went running to the TheDailyBeast to whine, bitch, moan and lie, lie, lie...

Here's some exceprts from the interview, along with some much needed reality to dispell
Handel's endless stream of bullshit:

“The idea that anyone would suggest Komen had a political agenda is absurd,” Handel told  The Daily Beast. “Komen is a breast-cancer organization—that’s what it does.” Instead, she accused Planned Parenthood of making the matter political, saying the group had “unleashed Armageddon” by launching a social-media firestorm. “Planned Parenthood is a gigantic bully, using Komen as its own personal punching bag,” she said.
In point of fact, PP has no magical, mystical sway over the denizens of Twitter or Facebook. The social media firestorm was spontaneous, instantaneous and in direct response to January 31 AP exclusive report of  Komen's blatantly political decision.
“It’s no secret that for some years—long before my time—Komen was dealing with a controversy regarding Planned Parenthood grants. The issue would flare up, then die down, then flare up again. It was fairly cyclical. But over the summer, it intensified. More donors said they were pulling out. The issue was ratcheting up. It wasn’t dying down. “Two dozen Catholic bishops were saying not to support Komen,” she continued. “We needed to find some options for moving to neutral ground. I was tasked with doing that.” She added, “An inordinate amount of staff time was spent trying to manage the controversy. We should be able to focus on our own mission and not be distracted by the controversy of another organization.”

Okay, so the decision obviously WAS entirely political, and had everything to do with abortion, the "controversy" to which you refer. Gotcha...
The decision to cut funding was vetted by the board, she said, and it was in line with Komen regulations not to fund organizations that have been barred from receiving government funding. Planned Parenthood has been barred from receiving funding in some states, she said.
YOU set the asinine, now trashed "under investigation" policy, Karen, and no, Karen, PP has most certainly NOT "been barred" from receiving funding in any state for any reason, not now, not ever. Your claim is what is known in technical circles is known as BULLSHIT.
“There was an open and candid conversation (with PP pres Cecile Richards) about the (totally non-politica) controversy (over the politics of abortion) and the effect on Komen. There was a gentle ladies’ agreement, if you will, that no one was going to go to the press about this,” Handel said. In the agreement, she said, Komen offered to continue funding current grants, but not future ones.
Um, a "gentle ladies" agreement? Gag...
“What happened is nothing short of a disgrace. Cecile Richards put this issue in the press. There was a coordinated effort to get sites like moveon.org and change.org involved. There was an orchestrated, premeditated attempt to put this issue in the press. Talk about betrayal by Planned Parenthood—against an organization that took up for it for years.”
Bullshit. This is a pure, unadulterated Grade AAA USDA Prime lie. No, Karen, in point of fact Cecile Richards DID NOT go the press. That's a lie. In point of fact, it was ANTI-CHOICE right wing websites that bragged about Komen's political move, after they learned about it from anti-choice Komen insiders.

The AP exclusive that "broke" this story ran on January 31. But Christian website LifeNews had reported the story six weeks before, on December 14th and again on the 20th. ChristianNewsBuzz picked up the story on December 28. The Alliance Defense Fund, Lifeway Christian Resources, Americans United for Life and other anti-choice groups were bragging on Komen's PP slap-down back in December and taking credit for pressuring them into this balatantly political action. It was from these and other anti-choice sources that the AP first learned of Komen's decision. The rest of the media then responded to the AP report.

And no, the social media firestorm was NOT "generated." Only a paranoid wingnut imbecile would posit that anyone or any group had the magical, mystical power to make Facebook and Twitter erupt on command within minutes of the AP report hitting the mainstream press.
Handel, who ran for governor of Georgia in 2010 on an anti-abortion platform, denied that her political views played a role at Komen. She laughed when she heard that a blog had called her a “martyr for the pro-life cause.” She said, “There’s a great deal of irony in that when I ran for governor, I was not pro-life enough.” Her plan now, she said, “is going for some runs.”
Oh, cry me a river, you lying sack of wingnut poop. "Not pro-life enough"? Going for runs? More like striking out.

So, when you ran for Gov as a tea bagger with an anti-choice platform as your primary issue and promised that, if elected, you'd ban Planned Parenthood, that just wasn't anti-choice enough? When you wrote...

"I am staunchly and unequivocally pro-life.  I believe in the sanctity and inherent dignity of human life, and I will be a pro-life governor who will work tirelessly to promote a culture of life in Georgia,"
...that wasn't anti-choice enough?

Really?

<blink-blink>

Or how about this quote...

First, let me be clear, since I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood.
Who is it you think stupid enough to buy into the huge, steaming pile of happy horse poop you're peddling, Karen?