Haslam Can't Decide...Support Animal Abusers or Go With Public Opinion

This statement is a dead giveaway that the bill is intended to block activists ability to shine a light on abusive practices:

“There are a lot of agriculture people who feel like this isn’t just about people who mistreat animals; this is really about people who really aren’t fans of cattle growers and other livestock producers,” Haslam said.

KNS Story

From Our "ESPN Reporter Chris Brousard Is a Dick" Department

 ESPN reporter Chris Broussard, stated on an ESPN show that NBA player Jason Collins was waging an "open rebellion to God" for coming out of the closet.

 I think Mr. Broussard should be condemned and removed from his TV job, not because I disagree with his religious beliefs (though I most certainly do), but because he was using his position in an attempt to impose religious condemnation upon someone who differs from his rather narrow view.

TPM Story

In Honor of the Dedication Of The Bush Presidential Library

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

The full letter 

Scenes From The Chase and Capture

There are surreal moments in all of this. Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was being handcuffed by Watertown Mass police officers when his younger brother drove at the police who had his brother on the ground. The younger brother appears to have killed his own brother by running over him with the stolen SUV.

One of his officers put his cruiser into gear and jumped out of it, letting it roll at the suspects to draw fire, he said. The suspects peppered the car with bullets. After several minutes, the elder brother, Tamerlan, walked toward the officers, firing his gun until he appeared to run out of bullets, Deveau said. Officers tackled him and were trying to get handcuffs on him, when the stolen SUV came roaring at them, the younger brother at the wheel. The officers scattered and the SUV plowed over Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dragged briefly under the car, he said.

The TPM story

War Cannot Fight Terrorism Any More Than a Sword Can Cut Down a Flame

So yesterday was a beautiful spring day, sunshine blue skies, so we had tickets to see Bluegrass Underground. That's right, we spent that beautiful spring sunshiny day in a cave. When I came out I was not surprised to find the usual neo-con US Senators engaged in their usual seditious rant about treating the captured Boston bomber as an enemy combatant and sending him to Guantanamo. Very convenient for the Neo-Cons. That gets him away from investigative journalists so the narrative can be shaped to fit into Senators Lindsay Graham's and John McCain's incessant drumbeat for permanent war. We need to determine the exact relationship of the bomber to Chechen rebels if any. Otherwise Republican servants of the Military Industrial complex will use that knob to hang their rabid speculation about terror monsters under your bed and the need for even more war spending.

...never forget that "a poor man's war is terrorism while a rich man's terrorism is war" - and sometimes those lines cross for the purposes of big-power politics. War and terrorism seem to work in sync that way.

The Chechen thing

Will we ever learn that you can't shoot all the terrorists? All you do is create martyrs and more insane enemies willing to kill your wives and your children without compassion because you killed theirs with your bombs and your drones. War as an antidote to terrorism is an insane plan with no hope of a peaceful outcome.

In fact, terrorism is an extremely minor blip in the course of the American existence and war only compounds the tragedy. The deaths of a couple of thousand Americans, as in the case of 9-11, was a springboard for Neo-Con President George W Bush to kill 1,500,000 Iraqis and cause the deaths of several times the number of American Troops than American citizens harmed in the original at of terrorism, horrendous though it was. The current puppet masters of the Republican Party are enemies of a peaceful America. Watch and you'll see...

Exactly!

If the Republicans won't pass anything the president proposes, then why not propose something good, and argue for it, and make a case for it, and defend the principles and ideals that have defined the Democratic Party since the New Deal, thus drawing a clear contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans both on policy and politics?

Read

Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher...A Personal Obituary

I hope I'm not being reductive but it seems Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others.

Brilliant!

Huh?...Alexander Thinks 99% of Americans Will Have Estate Taxes?

"A huge waste of money" was Alexander's description of the renewable energy tax credit.

"But it was more important to vote for a bill that permanently preserved lower tax rates for 99 percent of American taxpayers on their individual taxes, their estate and gift taxes, their dividends and capital gains," he added in a prepared statement.

Exactly how out of touch are these people?