INQUIRER: Airforce One will touch down at 3:45 p.m. at Philadelphia International Airport. A motorcade will then travel up Interstate 95 to the Convention Center for a 4 p.m. reception for 750 invitees. More than 1,000 people are expected to attend the event which organizers hope will raise $2.5 million for Specter’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. MORE CQ POLITICS: Coaxing Arlen Specter into switching parties and running for re-election as a Democrat was a major coup for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who is bending the Senate’s schedule to accommodate a presidential fundraiser for Specter Tuesday afternoon […]
DOOMSDAY: Libraries To Close October 1st If State Legislature Is Still Dicking Around With Budget Fix
INQUIRER: The Free Library of Philadelphia has posted notices at its branches and on its web site advising users that all libraries will close at the end of business on Oct. 2 if the state Legislature does not act on the city’s budget request. The notices also say that all material will now be due Oct. 1 and that nothing can be borrowed after Sept. 30. Besides closing libraries, the Nutter administration’s so-called Plan C doomsday budget includes eliminating court-system funding, shutting down all recreation centers and laying off up to 3,000 workers, including police and firefighters. MORE PHILLY CLOUT: […]
PASS THE HENNESSY: Kanye Joe Wilsons The VMAs
[Photo courtesy of JUST JARED] MTV: The rapper stormed the stage just after the first award, for Best Female Video, was presented to Taylor Swift. He cut the teen singer off, grabbing the mic and protesting in support of Beyonce. “I’m sorry, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time,” he proclaimed as B looked on from the crowd, stunned. His protest against Swift, however, was not well received. West stood briefly on the stage after his comments as the crowd was silent. Audience members then began to clap in support of Swift after West left the […]
HOT DOCUMENT: Good Things Come To Those Who Sellout The Public Option For A Little Filthy Lucre
CNN: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in comments at separate news conferences, said they would support any provision that increases competition and accessibility for health insurance – whether or not it is the public option favored by most Democrats. Pelosi, who said as recently as Tuesday that a public option was essential for passing a health-care bill in the House, on Thursday used language on the issue similar to Obama’s speech. MORE OPEN LEFT: This announcement came just hours before Steve Elmendorf, a registered UnitedHealth lobbyist and the head of UnitedHealth’s lobbying firm Elmendorf Strategies, […]
HYPOCRITIC OATH: Government-Run Health Care Is Bad For America But Good For Joe Wilson’s Family
NEWSWEEK: JOE WILSON (R-SC) IS PASSIONATE ABOUT STOPPING GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTH CARE! Except that he’s not — at least not when it comes to his, and his family’s, government-run health care. As a retired Army National Guard colonel, Wilson gets a lot of benefits (one of which, apparently, was not a full appreciation of the customs, traditions, and courtesies that mandate respect for one’s commander in chief). And with four sons in the armed services, the entire Wilson brood has enjoyed multiple generations of free military medical coverage, known as TRICARE. Yes, it’s true. As politicos and town-hall criers debate […]
GLENN BECKISTAN: Lawyers Threaten Defamation Suit Against Web Site, But Still No Denial
ARS TECHNICA: The Communications Decency Act basically protects registrars and web hosts from liability for the content that people put up using such services, so the letters to the registrar aren’t so much a legal threat as an attempt to get the website owner’s contact info without a subpoena. And the trademark claims made at WIPO? Levy thinks they sound “preposterous.” But the possibility of a US defamation/libel suit against the anonymous site operator is a real one. Certainly, domain names alone “can be defamatory,” Levy says, pointing out that the first iteration of the site posed the “rape and […]
BRENDAN CALLING: Make It A Federal Holiday
PW: [T]he woman who gave birth to my son was evacuated from the World Trade Center, and ferried across the Hudson to safety. So it is impossible for me, and anyone else who watched the attacks unfold, to forget. And yet to this day, while proclamations are issued and communities gather for memorial events and services, there is no federal holiday memorializing the attacks of September 11, the people who died, or the people who rushed to the rescue. There is something deeply wrong with that. One of my favorite holidays is the Martin Luther King Day of Service, which […]
POTUS: Speech On Health Care Reform
[CBS: During a special full-length primetime broadcast, President Barack Obama addressed the U.S. Congress in order to tackle concerns over the ongoing legislation and debates over health care reform.] * NEW YORK TIMES: There was high drama in the setting and most of all in the timing. After a summer of chaos, criticism and confusion, President Obama stood before Congress on Wednesday night — with three major networks broadcasting live (Fox sat out the speech in favor of the season premiere of “So You Think You Can Dance”) — and tried to seize the last word on health care reform. “And […]
TONITE: This Won’t Hurt A Bit
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] WASHINGTON POST: President Obama signaled that he would extol the value of a “public option” in health insurance reform when he addresses Congress Wednesday night on the issue but that he would stop short of threatening to veto a bill that does not include the provision. Obama’s much-anticipated nationally televised speech to a joint session of Congress at 8 p.m. Eastern time is aimed at providing details and clarification on where he stands as he attempts to push through an overhaul of a system that he says threatens to drag down the U.S. economy over time […]
ALCOHOLISTAN: Booze Banned After Major SNAFU
[Photo by VIOLINSOLDIER] THE TELEGRAPH: General Stanley McChrystal tried to contact his subordinates after a Nato strike killed 125 civilians, but too many had been “partying it up” and could not be raised. General McChrystal, head of International Forces in Afghanistan (Isaf), has since put a stop to drinking, admonishing staff for not having “their heads in the right place” on Friday morning a few hours after the attack, the Times reports. The diktat means that the coffee shops and bars where commanders used to be able to enjoy a beer or three will now be dry. The Isaf headquarters […]
THE DANGERS OF MAGICAL THINKING: Just Because There Is No Evidence That Glenn Beck Raped And Murdered A Girl In 1990 Doesn’t Prove He Didn’t
GLENNBECKRAPEDANDMURDEREDAYOUNGGIRLIN1990.COM: This site exists to try and help examine the vicious rumour that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. We don’t claim to know the truth — only that the rumour floating around saying that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990 should be discussed. So we’re going to do our part to try and help get to the bottom of this. Why won’t Glenn Beck deny these allegations? Notice: This site is parody/satire. We assume Glenn Beck did not rape and murder a young girl in 1990, although we haven’t yet seen […]
NEW LOW: Man Bites Off Another Man’s Finger At Health Care Rally, Socialist Doctors Sew It Back On
WASHINGTON POST: One of a national series of rallies for health-care reform took a violent turn Wednesday night when, according to authorities in Thousand Oaks, Calif., an unidentified man bit off the tip of another man’s pinky finger. The Thousand Oaks event attracted only about 100 people — a small group compared to the turnout at congressional town halls, which have drawn up to 1,500 people. But their passions were running high, and when a supporter of health-care reform wound up among a group of about 25 counter-protesters, an argument and fistfight broke out, Ventura County Sheriff’s Capt. Frank O’Hanlon […]
PASTOR: “I hope that God strikes Barack Obama with brain cancer so he can die like Ted Kennedy and I hope it happens today.”
MyFOXPhoenix: A Phoenix-area pastor has started to draw protesters to his congregation after he delivered a sermon titled, “Why I Hate Barack Obama,” and told his parishioners that he prays for President Obama’s death. Pastor Steven Anderson stood by his sermon in an interview with MyFOXPhoenix, which reports that the pastor continues to encourage his parishioners to join him in praying for the president’s death. “I hope that God strikes Barack Obama with brain cancer so he can die like Ted Kennedy and I hope it happens today,” he told MyFOXPhoenix on Sunday. He called his message “spiritual warfare” and […]