Month: August 2013
President Obama used his Weekly Address to address the eventual full implementation of ObamaCare or the Affordable Care Act – a law that will allow millions of Americans to be finally able to afford healthcare. And again, he pointed out the fact that there are still Republicans hell bent on making sure these Americans don’t get healthcare.
Many Members of Congress, in both parties, are working hard to inform their constituents about these benefits, protections, and affordable plans. But there’s also a group of Republicans in Congress working hard to confuse people, and making empty promises that they’ll either shut down the health care law, or, if they don’t get their way, they’ll shut down the government.
Think about that. They’re actually having a debate between hurting Americans who will no longer be denied affordable care just because they’ve been sick – and harming the economy and millions of Americans in the process. And many Republicans are more concerned with how badly this debate will hurt them politically than they are with how badly it’ll hurt the country.
A lot of Republicans seem to believe that if they can gum up the works and make this law fail, they’ll somehow be sticking it to me. But they’d just be sticking it to you.
US First Lady Michelle Obama says in remarks published Friday that America is ready for a woman president, but would not comment on prospects for Hillary Clinton getting the job.
Obama’s comments came in an interview with Parade magazine, excerpts of which were published on its website.
Asked if she thinks the country will see a female president in her lifetime, the wife of President Barack Obama said: “Yes, I think the country is ready for it. It’s just a question of who’s the best person out there.”
She declined to comment on the prospects for Clinton running to succeed Obama in 2016.
Now I can officially say that I’ve heard of it all. I have thought this was the case for a long time, but now, this story proves to me that Republicans would say and do anything to get free press.
Republican and Conservative talk show host Byran Fischer is floating around a theory that president Obama was not even in the Situation Room the night Osama bin Laden was captured and killed.
Fischer states, with much conviction I might add, that the photo showing the President, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Obama’s Security advisors in the Situation Room the night Bin Laden died, was achieved through Photoshope.
Fischers theory goes something like this: the president looks down on everyone, so they had to find a photo of him looking up. They had one, and they managed to insert that photo of Obama looking up into the famous Situation Room photo. Fischer explains:
“President Obama never looks up at anything; he looks down on everybody at all times in all circumstances. He’s got his nose up in the air looking down on you, looking down on me, looking down on the press, looking down on the American people.”
Fischer also explains that Hillary Clinton would be unfit to be president because she was “horrified” at what she was looking at.
“She’s horrified, she frightened. Is that the woman you want to get the 3am phone call? You want her to get the 3 am phone call? Seriously! She’s sitting there at the table with her hand over her mouth, in shock. Now the guys around the table, they’re sober, they’re focused, they’re intent, but they are not freaked out. Hillary Clinton is freaked out by what she is seeing on the screen. Do we want her taking the 3 am phone call? I don’t think so”:
See the unbelievable nonsense unfold below.
Dr. Gupta writes: Over the last year, I have been working on a new documentary called “Weed.” The title “Weed” may sound cavalier, but the content is not.
I traveled around the world to interview medical leaders, experts, growers and patients. I spoke candidly to them, asking tough questions. What I found was stunning.
Long before I began this project, I had steadily reviewed the scientific literature on medical marijuana from the United States and thought it was fairly unimpressive. Reading these papers five years ago, it was hard to make a case for medicinal marijuana. I even wrote about this in a TIME magazine article, back in 2009, titled “Why I would Vote No on Pot.”
Well, I am here to apologize.
I apologize because I didn’t look hard enough, until now. I didn’t look far enough. I didn’t review papers from smaller labs in other countries doing some remarkable research, and I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis.
Instead, I lumped them with the high-visibility malingerers, just looking to get high. I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance because of sound scientific proof. Surely, they must have quality reasoning as to why marijuana is in the category of the most dangerous drugs that have “no accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse.”
They didn’t have the science to support that claim, and I now know that when it comes to marijuana neither of those things are true. It doesn’t have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works. Take the case of Charlotte Figi, who I met in Colorado. She started having seizures soon after birth. By age 3, she was having 300 a week, despite being on seven different medications. Medical marijuana has calmed her brain, limiting her seizures to 2 or 3 per month.
I have seen more patients like Charlotte first hand, spent time with them and come to the realization that it is irresponsible not to provide the best care we can as a medical community, care that could involve marijuana.
We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that.
I hope this article and upcoming documentary will help set the record straight.
First it was “Stop and Frisk,” a controversial policy that targets minorities in New York at unprecedented levels. You know, Racial profiling.
Now, Mayor Bloomberg wants to fingerprint the residents of public housing. Residents that just happen to be poor minorities.
In other words, Bloomsburg’s plan is to assume that minorities are all criminals, that way, when they commit their eventual crime, their information wiuld already be on file.
You know, you’re guilty until proven guilty.
Bloomberg’s latest crime-fighting idea had a lot of people riled up on Friday.
The mayor wants to fingerprint more than 600,000 people who live in public housing. He said it would be done to make the projects safer.
Bloomberg was responding to questions about Federal Judge Shira Schendlin’s ruling on the stop-and-frisk program when the topic shifted to security and the New York City Housing Authority. Bloomberg said there has to be a way to make the projects safer.
“Five percent of our population lives in NYCHA housing, 20 percent of the crime is in NYCHA housing – numbers like that. And we’ve just got to find some way to keep bringing crime down there. And we have a whole group of police officers assigned to NYCHA housing,” Bloomberg said. “The people that live there, most of them, want more police protection. They want more people. If you have strangers walking in the halls of your apartment building, don’t you want somebody to stop and say, ‘Who are you, why are you here?’”
But residents who live within the confines of NYCHA buildings said the mayor’s fingerprinting idea goes too far.
“That’s like invading someone’s privacy or something. Why you want to fingerprint somebody? It is bad enough you get arrested, you get finger printed, so why you want to fingerprint us? Now Bloomberg needs to get a job. Get out of here already. He’s done. Bloomberg is done,” Chelsea Houses resident Nino Alayon said.
Beck’s problem with Winfrey is that she compared the Trayvon Martin murder to that of Emmett Till.
Since Oprah made the comparison a few weeks ago after Zimmerman got away with murder, Beck has come to his defense, and Oprah’s personal opinion has put her in Beck’s crisshairs.
But Beck had laid off Oprah recently, until kast night when she made the comparison agaun on CNN’s Anderson Cooper. How dare she attack Beck’s new best friend for life, George Zimmerman!
Beck revived his one way feud with Ms Winfrey, and in the process, compared himself to the Statue of Liberty.
“Oprah Winfrey, you disgust me.”
“…As a woman, who has gone through hell and back and made it, and pulled yourself out by the bootstraps, you made it.
“You grew up with hate from your own race, you grew up with rape in your own race. And the American people, both black and white, yellow and red, it doesn’t matter the color, they saw you make it! They saw you overcome everything you had faced, and we celebrated that!”
Beck then made his own comparison, comparing himself to the Lady Liberty.
“Oprah, I choose to be the person that America thought you were.
…Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free,” he said. “Give me the ones that you have told ‘you’ll never make it.’ Send them to me. The tempest-tost, because I hold my lamp beside a golden door.”
Side note: Glenn Beck got kicked out of Fox News. How disgusting do you have to be to get kicked out of Fox News?
A lawsuit was filed Thursday in California federal court by Ribin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and Clifford Harris against Marvin Gaye’s family and the owner of some of Gaye’s compositions, Bridgeport Music.
The purpose of the suit is to protect Thicke’s Summer hit Blurred Lines. At issue are complaints about similarities between “Blurred Lines” and at least two songs.
According to the suit, a copy of which was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, “Plaintiffs, who have the utmost respect for and admiration of Marvin Gaye, Funkadelic and their musical legacies, reluctantly file this action in the face of multiple adverse claims from alleged successors in interest to those artists. Defendants continue to insist that plaintiffs’ massively successful composition, ‘Blurred Lines,’ copies ‘their’ compositions
The suit claims the Gaye family is alleging that “Blurred Lines” and Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up” “feel” or “sound” the same, and that the “Gaye defendants are claiming ownership of an entire genre, as opposed to a specific work.”
As for Funkadelic, there’s said to be claimed similarity between Thicke’s hit and Funakedlic’s “Sexy Ways.”
“But there are no similarities between plaintiffs’ composition and those the claimants allege they own, other than commonplace musical elements,” states the lawsuit. “Plaintiffs created a hit and did it without copying anyone else’s composition.”
A New York TImes critic has noted that “Blurred Lines” is “influenced heavily” by Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up,” but the lawsuit makes the point that “being reminiscent of a ‘sound’ is not copyright infringement. The intent in producing ‘Blurred Lines’ was to evoke an era.”
The Gayes and Bridgeport are said to be threatening litigation should the plaintiffs not pay a monetary settlement. Rather than wait for such a lawsuit to proceed, the plaintiffs are going to court to determine the parties’ respective rights and obligations.
You be the judge.
Marvin Gaye’s Git To Give It Up:
Robin Thicke’s Blurred Lines:
For a change, someone in the Republican party spoke the truth, and that’s because the topic was not President Obama. If the topic wad the president, then the same old Republican lies and talking points would have been told.
But in this case, Newt Gingrich was talking about the gradual but speedy dismantling of his party and the fact that they have failed to learn past lessons. And on that topic, Gingruch actually said something noteworthy.
“We are caught up in a culture where as long as we are negative, as long as we are vicious and as long as we can tear down our opponent, we don’t have to learn anything.”
Gingrich also finally admitted that while his party has focused on tearing down the president and his policies, they have offered zero alternatives for the American people.
If Gingrich keeps this up, Republicans would surely revoke his membership card. Truth is apparently not allowed in that party and anyone who insist on telling it, walks alone.
WWE superstar Darren Young just dropped a bombshell, telling TMZ, he’s gay … and no, this isn’t part of the act.
Darren was at LAX Wednesday when we asked whether a gay wrestler could succeed in WWE, and Darren laughed, saying, “Absolutely. Look at me. I’m a WWE superstar and to be honest with you, I’ll tell you right now, I’m gay. And I’m happy. I’m very happy.”
For the record, Darren is now the first openly gay wrestler ever at WWE … and the first headlining wrestler ever to come out while still signed to a major promotion.
Other pro wrestlers have been rumored to be gay, but that’s it … just rumors.
Bottom line: this is big, big news. For all its chauvinism and testosterone-driven bravado, coming out in WWE is tantamount to coming out in the NFL
Christian conservatives are condemning a YouTube video where a young boy is praying for President Obama.
In the video, the boy clasps his hands and lowers his head before thanking the president for “all the stuff that you helped us with.”
Later in the video, the boy says, “God has given you a special power, and you are going to handle it just fine.” At the end, he opens his eyes and raises his hands, yelling a triumphant, “Barack Obama!”
…CainTV’s Robert Laurie wrote, “If you thought that Barack Obama was just a mortal man elected to a temporary position in office, you thought wrong. According to this video, he’s much, much, more than that. He is a divine instrument, replete with God-given ‘special powers.’”
WorldNetDaily condemned the young boy for “praying TO Obama. Not for him. Not about him. TO him.” This is despite the fact that the first words out of the boy’s mouth are “A prayer for President Barack Obama.”
And Alex Jones’ InfoWars took its criticism of the video to yet another level: “The controversial prayer video is just the latest example of the type of feverish leader worship historically only witnessed in communist and totalitarian regimes, such as North Korea, Mao’s China and Nazi Germany.”
h/t Alan
A conservative Texas lawmaker is inviting a rodeo clown banned from the Missouri state fair to perform in the Lone Star State instead.
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Tex.) says that the unidentified rodeo clown and his colleagues have been unfairly targeted by liberals “to create a climate of fear.” He invited them to come perform at a fair in his southeastern Texas district instead.
“Liberals want to bronco bust dissent. But Texans value speech, even if its speech they don’t agree with,” Stockman said in a statement issued by his office Wednesday. “From Molly Ivins to Louie Gohmert and every opinion between Texans value free and open political speech. I’m sure any rodeo in Texas would be proud to have performers.”
Missouri state and fair officials reacted swiftly over the weekend after a rodeo clown donned a mask of President Obama and asked people if they want to see the president “run down by a bull.”
State Fair officials labeled the show “inappropriate” and said it “does not reflect the opinions or standards” of the fair.
Stockman said Wednesday that the reaction was typical of liberals.
“The liberal reaction is straight out of (Saul) Alinsky. They want to crush dissent by isolating and polarizing anyone who questions Obama, even if it’s a rodeo clown with a harmless gag,” he said. “The idea to create a state of fear and make people afraid to trivialize Obama. No one tried to personally destroy the rodeo clown who wore a George H.W. Bush mask.”
Stockman represents a new district in the southeastern corner of Texas that was created as a result of population growth tabulated during the 2010 census. He was first elected to Congress in 1994, but only served on term, and was reelected last year. He’s an outspoken conservative critic of Obama, who said in January that he was willing to initiate impeachment proceedings against the president if the White House implemented new restrictions on firearms through executive action.