Tag Archives: whitehouse

Made a couple of changes to the old homestead.

It looks like I will need to start making my embeds a little smaller, and perhaps apply a few other tweaks, but for the most part this should be the

President Obama launches plan to overhaul No Child Left Behind. About damn time!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy I have to admit I am more than a little apprehensive with the President’s plan. I ma definitely in the camp that sees NCLB as a steaming pile of shit, and it is hard to see ANY changes to hat bill as being bad, but I wonder if what Obama is planning will really do the job of reforming education in this country. Here are some of the features in the President’s education reform blueprint. — By 2020, all students graduating from high school would need to be ready for college or a career. That’s a shift away from the current law, which calls for all students to be performing at grade level in reading and math by 2014. Okay this sounds promising. — Give more rewards — money and flexibility — to high-poverty schools that are seeing big gains in student achievement and use them as a model for other schools in low-income neighborhoods that struggle with performance. I like the idea of rewarding good teachers, and more flexibility will really help teachers to use their creativity to address teaching challenges. — Punish the lowest-performing 5 percent of schools using aggressive measures, such as having the state take over federal funding for poor students, replacing the principal and half the teaching staff or closing the school altogether. No.

Keith Olbermann’s father has passed away.

This from Keith’s blog, “Baseball Nerd”, which you can visit by clicking the title. My father died, in the city of his birth, New York, at 3:50 EST this afternoon. Keith goes on to eloquently (of course) describe the man that was his father, and his unwavering support

New Rules from March 12, 2010.

Watch how Maher addresses the mass firing of teachers in Rhode Island at the end. I think he expresses the same opinion that many of you expressed in the comments section last week. By the way, watch it quick because sometimes HBO makes YouTube yank the clip until later in the week.

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New Rules from March 12, 2010.

Sarah Palin gives speech in Florida where she lashes out at condescending liberals and the media. I decide to write a condescending post about it.

(Sarah Palin shocks crowd by delivering entire speech using naked sock puppets.) Sarah Palin lashed out at Washington, the media and condescending liberals Friday night at an Orlando Republican fund-raising event, and predicted the GOP would restore “common sense” to government in the upcoming November elections. Palin said those notes she wrote on her hand at a National Tea Party event — where the media and White House later “busted me for using a poor-man’s teleprompter” — explained just what the country needed: a strong energy policy, tax cuts; and “lifting America’s spirits.” “Americans get it,” Palin said. “In Washington, they don’t get it.” I think what Palin is trying to say here is that she does not believe these “Americans” she speaks of are as intelligent as the people in Washington, who immediately knew that the fact Palin wrote notes on her hand demonstrated an incredible level of ignorance and immaturity. The wildly popular, but equally polarizing former vice presidential candidate packed the Orange County Republican Party’s annual Lincoln Day fundraiser, attracting 1,300 fans to the Shingle Creek Resort. Orange GOP Chairman Lew Oliver said he expected the event to net the party more than $110,000. Does that amount even cover her speaking fee? I am just asking. While Sarah was up on stage polishing her verbal moose turds she took a moment out to attack a wildly popular local politician. The fearless Alan Grayson. While advocating for standard GOP issues — lower taxes, less spending, more freedom and smaller government — Palin also singled out one Central Florida Democratic politician: U.S Rep. Alan Grayson of Orlando. Palin said voters need to remove the fiery millionaire lawyer in November.”Do it for the rest of America,” she said in a speech lasting about 40 minutes. Yeah Florida, get rid of one of the few really effective and dedicated Democratic politicians in Washington. Because he kind of scares the shit out of the GOP who, apparently, are the only people that Palin considers to be “real Americans”. I assume she puts the people of Florida who voted for Grayson, and sent him to Washington, to be in some separate category. What is your best guess? Socialists, communists, or gay Nazis? Gee I wonder what Rep. Grayson has to say in response to that. “I’m sure Palin knows all about politics in Central Florida, since from her porch she can see Winter Park,” Grayson responded. Nice. Still Palin did manage to impress a few people. Listen to what this woman, who clearly does not have access to the internet, had to say about Palin. “I love her morals, her character and the way she says what she believes,” said Connie Albers, a self-described 40-something, stay-at-home mom from Winter Garden. Gee I wonder if the rock this woman is living under has air conditioning. I mean it can get so hot in Florida. As long as there are still enough people like this lady around Palin will always be able to attract an audience too unaware and uninformed to realize that their opinion is based on a fantasy that Palin, with the help of Fox News and certain websites, has crafted to help her empty the pockets of the disaffected and disillusioned. For some of these people it is really only a choice between buying aluminum siding from swindlers, sending their money to a televangelist, or paying to watch Sarah Palin speak. Same audience, different line of bullshit.

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Sarah Palin gives speech in Florida where she lashes out at condescending liberals and the media. I decide to write a condescending post about it.

Keith Olbermann gives us an update on his father’s condition and talks about the importance of living wills.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy

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Keith Olbermann gives us an update on his father’s condition and talks about the importance of living wills.

James Dobson forced to resign from "Focus on the Family"? Gee, maybe there is a God.

A prominent friend and supporter of James Dobson believes Dobson was pushed aside by the new leadership of Focus on the Family, who want the powerhouse evangelical ministry to project a softer image on issues ranging from abortion to gay marriage to relations with President Obama. In February 2009, Dobson stepped down as chairman of the Colorado Springs-based group’s board of directors, after relinquishing his longtime role as president in 2003. But he kept his role of host of the popular Focus radio show, which is reportedly heard by 1.5 million Americans each day. Then, this past November, Dobson said on the show that the Focus board had asked him to give up the radio program in a few months time. Late last month, he delivered his final Focus broadcast. In little-noticed comments from the November show, Dobson seemed troubled by the board’s decision to ask him to give up the program. “[T]the board of directors voted privately on Wednesday — before we got there — to ask for my resignation, although their request was made with kindness and respect. We can only guess the reason for their decision because frankly I don’t fully know,” Dobson said. “But it apparently has to do with the desire for closure on my tenure and the beginning of another.” Well this can only be taken as good news. Though I don’t expect Focus on the Family to suddenly become a bastion for tolerance and progressive ideals, I certainly think throwing Dobson overboard gives them a chance to at least move away from the crazier side of Christianity. Remember James Dobson is the same genius who suggest that watching Spongebob Squarepants would make your children gay . He also gave serial killer Ted Bundy a kind of absolution by allowing him to suggest that pornography was to blame for his desire to rape and murder women. And perhaps most egregious of all is that Dobson and his Evangelical cohorts are the one’s to blame for John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Yes I think we can all agree that the world is a safer, saner place without the likes of James Dobson running an influential group like Focus on the Family. However, in my opinion, the world might be improved even further if groups like Focus on the Family did not exist at all. But they that is just me.

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James Dobson forced to resign from "Focus on the Family"? Gee, maybe there is a God.

Glenn Beck attempts to use a disgraced Democrat to attack the party and damn near loses his mind.

If you have not seen this video from today’s Countdown, drop everything and allow it to brighten your day. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy I have watched this like three times today and it just keeps getting better, and better.

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Glenn Beck attempts to use a disgraced Democrat to attack the party and damn near loses his mind.

Papa Heath explains family’s use of Canadian health care and accidentally calls daughter Sarah Palin out on one of her lies.

(Photo courtesy of Dennis Zaki) So as everybody and the their brother know by now, Sarah Palin has told two very different stories about her brother jumping through a campfire and burning his foot which required medical treatment either in Canada, or possibly Juneau, depending on which version you prefer. But what we have NOT known is exactly which version is the TRUE version. That is until now. The AP managed to interview the always loquacious, and often out of the loop, Chuck “I saw the baby pop out” Heath. And here is what Papa Heath had to say. “There was no road out of there at that time,” said retired teacher Chuck Heath, reached by phone in Wasilla. “The ferry schedule was very erratic. We had no doctor in Skagway. The plane schedule was very erratic. The winds dictated whether the planes could come in or not.” Palin’s father said his family probably boarded the train for the Whitehorse hospital only twice — once when a daughter had rheumatic fever, and once when his son, also named Chuck, severely burned his leg and an infection set in. “We much preferred to use our facilities because my insurance didn’t cover anything in Whitehorse. And even though they have socialized medicine, I still had to pay the bill, being an American citizen,” Heath said. Heath worked part-time for the White Pass & Yukon Railroad and had a pass allowing him and his family to ride for free. So there you go, end of story. Yes the Heaths took their kids to Canada (probably no more than two times) to use their medical facilities. But there is no scandal here because being American citizens they could not take advantage of Canada’s socialized health care so Papa Heath paid the bill in good old American dollars. So all of those people saying that Sarah is a hypocrite for attacking the Obama health care plan by calling it “socialized medicine” are wrong since Sarah and her family did NOT use socialized health care! Well…that is until she married Todd..which allowed their children access to the Alaska Native Hospital…which I guess…still kind of makes her a hypocrite. Holy crap! It is just impossible to defend this woman isn’t it? No wonder Meg quit! Well at least we can finally stop talking about this “burned foot” story and move on to the nex…wait…am I forgetting something? Okay, according to Sarah’s dad the family went to Whitehorse to fix up her brother’s burned foot just like she said during her speech in Canada, but isn’t there some other version of this story that Sarah also told? Say to the Skagway News back in 2007? Palin drew from her Skagway past to illustrate her point. Her brother burned his foot badly jumping through a fire, and her mother had to take him down to Juneau on the ferry to the hospital. “All these years later, that’s still what people have to rely on here in some instances,” she said. Well gee Sarah your own father just called bullshit on the story you told the Skagway News. And do you know the ironic part? It would be this quote from that same article: A proud father, Chuck Heath, said later that his daughter was honest to the core. Really? “Honest to the core”? Sarah Palin? You see the real story here is that Sarah Palin is a liar. She lies as easily and as often as other people fill their lungs with air. She does it cover for something she did. She does it to make herself seem important or special. And sometimes she does for no good reason at all, just because she can. And she will continue to do it as long as the media lets her get away with it, and as long as there are people like RAM, C4P, and Fox News willing to provide cover for her. (Do you want to know a secret? I found this AP story over on C4P. They were using it to discredit the people calling Palin out for her Canadian health care story. Don’tcha just love it?)

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Papa Heath explains family’s use of Canadian health care and accidentally calls daughter Sarah Palin out on one of her lies.

Stephen Colbert asks Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein to help him understand what is happening with the Health Care bill.

The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Action Center – Health Care Bill – Ezra Klein www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Skate Expectations

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Stephen Colbert asks Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein to help him understand what is happening with the Health Care bill.