Justice Souter plans to retire

Thursday, April 30, 2009
By GottaLaff
Officials have told MSNBC that Justice Souter intends to retire.

This won't change the tenor of the Supreme Court much, although appointed by Bush 41. He tends to vote more "liberal".

Political News Update

Obama Spokesman Crushes Sean Hannity

The President -100 Days

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Sojourner Truth becomes first black woman to be honored among statues at U.S. Capitol

Today at the new Capitol Visitors' Center, Sojourner Truth became the first African American woman to have a place of honor among the statues in the U.S. Capitol.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the ceremony that unveiled the memorial statue in Emancipation Hall, so-named because slaves helped build the Capitol. Pelosi, the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives in U.S. history, said the former slave who met Abraham Lincoln had come home "to her rightful place."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the placement of Truth's statue "an achievement that did not come quickly or easily" and noted, "We're here because of barriers she tore down."

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, the Texas Democrat who with Hillary Clinton spearheaded the drive to honor Truth with a statue, spoke of how much the current generation owes to previous ones, saying "the truth will prevail." Actress Cicely Tyson recited Truth's speech to suffragettes.

Several other lawmakers also spoke -- House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

But the headliner of today's event was First Lady Michelle Obama, who said that Sojourner Truth did not allow the indignity of slavery o destroy her spirit, "who fought for her own freedom, and then used her powers, young people -- then she used her power to help others; who fought for the right to vote and for the rights of all women." In short, she said, "The power of this bust will not just be in the metal that delineates Sojourner Truth's face; it will also be in the message that defines her legacy."
Story from the LA Times

Waxman Smacks Down Gingrich On Cap-And-Trade Talking Point

Morning Joe speaking about Arlen Spector and the GOP

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DNC Web Ad: Meet The New GOP

Another Democrat-Arlen Spector

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Veteran Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter told colleagues Tuesday that he switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party, Sen. Harry Reid says.

The Specter party switch would give Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate majority of 60 seats if Al Franken holds his current lead in the disputed Minnesota Senate race.

"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right," Specter said in a statement posted by his office on PoliticsPA.com.

"Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans."

Specter, a five-term Senate veteran, was greeted by a loud, sustained round of applause by dozens of constituents outside his Washington office shortly after the news broke.

"I don't have to say anything to them," a smiling Specter said. "They've said it to me."

Specter was expected to face a very tough primary challenge in 2010 from former Rep. Pat Toomey, who nearly defeated Specter in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary in 2004.

A Quinnipiac University survey of registered Pennsylvania voters released last month showed Specter trailing the more conservative Toomey in a hypothetical primary matchup, 41 to 27 percent.

A separate Franklin & Marshall survey showed Specter leading Toomey 33 to 18 percent. Another 42 percent, however, were undecided.

More than half of the Republicans polled in the Franklin & Marshall survey said they would prefer to see someone new in the Senate.

Numerous Republicans are angry with Specter over his recent vote in support of President Obama's $787 billion stimulus plan.

Specter, one of only three GOP senators to vote for the measure, has been part of a dwindling group of GOP moderates from the northeastern part of the country.

Stimulus Package (Help Is On the Way)

Pretty Good Information,Beatand Video

Five Members Of Congress Arrested

Five members of Congress and two Darfur activists had themselves arrested Monday outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C., to draw attention to the continuing humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Uniformed Secret Service officers put plastic handcuffs on Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), John Lewis (D-Ga.), Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), along with Save Darfur Coalition president Jerry Fowler and Enough Project co-founder John Prendergast after the group stepped behind yellow police tape in front of the embassy.

Before being taken into custody, each of the arrestees addressed a small crowd of reporters and other activists who had been tipped off about the event. Each speaker called on the Obama administration to do more to stop the conflict in Sudan.

"Almost a half a million people have been killed," said Rep. Lewis before crossing the line. "This terror, this violence must end and it must end soon."

After their statements, the gang lifted up the police tape and waited patiently (and quietly) for the police to arrest them. An officer issued three warnings before the cuffs came out. Officers frisked each of the lawbreakers and went through their pockets before stuffing them in a paddywagon and a cruiser.

The group met Monday morning at the Religious Action Center before marching the short distance to the embassy. As they went over their plan, some of the members put their wallets and other personal belongings into plastic bags. Ellison took the extra step of removing his shoelaces. The Huffington Post asked Ellison if he'd been arrested before.

"Not on something like this," he said.

The protesters had hired criminal defense attorney Laura Rhodes to get them out from behind bars. Rhodes seemed pretty confident in her game.

"For those of you anxious about going to jail, I've gotten people out who've killed people," she said.


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Bill Maher Says: The GOP: divorced from reality

Opinion
The GOP: divorced from reality
The Republican base is behaving like a guy who just got dumped by his wife.
By Bill Maher
April 24, 2009
If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.

It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because ... well, nobody knows. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Even though they're not quite sure what "it" is. But they know they're fed up with "it," and that "it" has got to stop.

Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law.

And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.

Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?

It's sad what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they're the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.

The GOP base is convinced that Obama is going to raise their taxes, which he just lowered. But, you say, "Bill, that's just the fringe of the Republican Party." No, it's not. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that ... Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I'm not sure exactly what Perry's independent nation would look like, but I'm pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned Parenthood. And I would have to totally rethink my position on a border fence.

I know. It's not about what Obama's done. It's what he's planning. But you can't be sick and tired of something someone might do.



Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota recently said she fears that Obama will build "reeducation" camps to indoctrinate young people. But Obama hasn't made any moves toward taking anyone's guns, and with money as tight as it is, the last thing the president wants to do is run a camp where he has to shelter and feed a bunch of fat, angry white people.

Look, I get it, "real America." After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You've come home to find your things out on the front lawn -- or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You're not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.

That's what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him -- obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.

But it's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new. And it's a black guy.

The healthy thing to do is to just get past it and learn to cherish the memories. You'll always have New Orleans and Abu Ghraib.

And if today's conservatives are insulted by this, because they feel they're better than the people who have the microphone in their party, then I say to them what I would say to moderate Muslims: Denounce your radicals. To paraphrase George W. Bush, either you're with them or you're embarrassed by them.

The thing that you people out of power have to remember is that the people in power are not secretly plotting against you. They don't need to. They already beat you in public.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."

Applause, Applause, Applause

A.G. Holder: Investigate Torture

Debate Over 'Assault Weapons'

Powerful Photo

Jamaica Hi Jacking

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Fox News: The Official Tea Party Network!

"TMZ and The Prsidential Pup"

Apparently President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle were trying to keep the whole Presidential dog thing under wraps -- and then we came along...

The White House had offered The Washington Post a "puppy exclusive" when the time came, according to The Washington Post! But last Friday, we got all the details.

-- the pup was coming from a Texas kennel
-- the kennel had sold Senator Ted Kennedy 3 Portuguese Water Dogs in the past, all from the same lineage
-- the dog the Obama's were getting is also from the same lineage as the Kennedy dogs
-- the Obama dog was originally sold to a private owner, who returned it
-- the dog was named Charlie, but the Obamas planned to rename it
-- the dog was going to be "re-homed" to the Obamas from the kennel, and presented to the Obamas by the Kennedy family
-- the reason it's important that the dog was "re-homed" is because the Obamas could not accept the dog as a gift, and re-homing averts the problem.
-- the dog will be officially presented to the Obamas by the Kennedys on Tuesday

So that's what we said Friday. And sure enough, The Post is now saying the dog was renamed Bo, after Bo Diddley.

We got a pic of a pooch that appears to be Bo. Today, The Post ran a pic of the doggie with the Prez, Michelle, Sasha and Malia.

BTW, there are reports that Ted Kennedy gave the puppy to the First Family as a gift -- untrue. It was re-homed by the kennel and the Kennedy family only facilitated the transfer.

No More Words Needed.

Sarkozy receives new death threat

A letter containing threats and two bullets arrived at French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office, a judicial source said.

The letter, posted on Wednesday in southern France, was similar to previous ones received in recent weeks by Sarkozy and members of his government, the source in the Paris prosecutor's office said.

Last month police arrested and then released without charge a man on suspicion of sending Sarkozy, several of his ministers and other politicians envelopes containing a 9 mm cartridge and identical letters with threats including "you are all dead men walking".

Anti-terrorist police have been investigating the incidents.

Wax museum to unveil Michelle Obama

WASHINGTON (CNN) — First lady Michelle Obama joins an elite group Tuesday.

She is to become the third U.S. presidential spouse with a lifelike wax figure on display at Madame Tussauds, a museum and tourist attraction.

Figures of Jacqueline Kennedy and Hillary Clinton stand in the museum alongside lookalikes of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, George Washington and Martin Luther King Jr. as well as Angelina Jolie and Will Smith.

Madame Tussauds touts its new addition as an "incredibly lifelike" figure in a sleeveless red dress based on the purple dress she wore when her husband claimed the Democratic nomination for president.


The museum unveiled a figure of President Barack Obama in February.

Queen tells off Berlusconi

Tavis Smiley

In his book "Accountable," talk show host Tavis Smiley says President Obama and black America will be better served if Obama is held to a high standard.

Talk Show Host are learning to negotiate what talk show host and author Tavis Smiley calls an "unfamiliar dance." If you push too forcefully, he says he has learned, you risk your credibility in the community.

That's what happened to Smiley last year, when he was the one in the commentator's chair on Tom Joyner's syndicated morning radio program. During the heated Democratic primary, Smiley questioned Obama's decision not to attend his annual State of the Black Union conference and said he hoped Obama would make it through the campaign "with his soul intact." The push-back was "brutal," Smiley recalls. Angry listeners called him a "sellout," an "Obama hater" and "Uncle Tom." Surprised and hurt, Smiley left Joyner's show but now uses the rough patch to make the case for a new book he co-wrote, "Accountable: Making America as Good as Its Promise."

The book, Smiley's third about issues facing black Americans, has a picture of Obama on the cover and outlines the president's promises during the campaign to elevate the status of his fellow African Americans. Smiley wants readers to use the book as a tool to measure the new administration.

"If President Obama succeeds, there is the chance that we will have another person of color as president. If he succeeds, there is the chance that we will at some point have a woman as president. But if he fails . . . it may be another 400 years before we get another African American president," Smiley says, arguing that tough questions will make Obama a better leader.

"I know what I'm up against," he continues, because he is still accused of "casting aspersion on Barack Obama or having some issue with Barack Obama."

Pardon Sought for Pioneering Athlete

WASHINGTON (April 1) -- Sen. John McCain wants a presidential pardon for Jack Johnson, who became the nation's first black heavyweight boxing champion 100 years before Barack Obama became its first black president.
McCain feels Johnson was wronged by a 1913 conviction of violating the Mann Act by having a consensual relationship with a white woman — a conviction widely seen as racially motivated."I've been a very big fight fan, I was a mediocre boxer myself," McCain, R-Ariz., said in a telephone interview. "I had admired Jack Johnson's prowess in the ring. And the more I found out about him, the more I thought a grave injustice was done."On Wednesday, McCain will join Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., filmmaker Ken Burns and Johnson's great niece, Linda Haywood, at a Capitol Hill news conference to unveil a resolution urging a presidential pardon for Johnson. Similar legislation offered in 2004 and last year failed to pass both chambers of Congress.
King, a recreational boxer, said a pardon would "remove a cloud that's been over the American sporting scene ever since (Johnson) was convicted on these trumped-up charges."
"I think the moment is now," King said.

Johnson won the world heavyweight title on Dec. 26, 1908, after police in Australia stopped his 14-round match against the severely battered Canadian world champion, Tommy Burns. That led to a search for a "Great White Hope" who could beat Johnson. Two years later, the American world titleholder Johnson had tried for years to fight, Jim Jeffries, came out of retirement but lost in a match called "The Battle of the Century," resulting in deadly riots.Johnson lost the heavyweight title to Jess Willard in 1915.

Obama Gives Queen of England an iPod

President Barack Obama gifted the Queen of England with an iPod during his visit to Buckingham Palace today.

The Apple music player was loaded with video footage and photographs from her 2007 trip to the U.S., London's Daily Telegraph reports.

The Queen, in turn, gave the president a silver-framed photograph of herself, the standard present for visiting dignitaries.

The Obamas' gift-giving was closely monitored in the UK after the couple came under fire for giving England's prime minister a set of American movie DVDs that weren't formatted for European players during his White House visit earlier this month.