Year: 2009

Republicans Crouch for April 15 Teabagging Fest

Posted on by TL

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I’ve never laughed so hard in my life.

MSNBC has come up with every conceivable means of describing the great Republican Teabagging Festival set to begin tomorrow without actually coming out and defining the slang term “teabagging.”

I’m close to tears with laughter.

Take this, for example, from tonight’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann: “FOX news can’t keep it’s mouth shut about teabagging.”

And again from Olbermann, rich with the double entendres, “You’ve got Dick Army teabagging the nation.  Are you sure Howard Stern isn’t behind this?”

Yet again, “Of course, we already know how Bill O’Reilly crouches on this issue.”

Good luck to all our Republican teabagging friends.  Thank your leadership for us!

If you’re reading this from one of our affiliate sites, be sure to click through here to watch the hilarious report from MSNBC.

News from the Blagosphere: Rod Runs to Cameras at Arraignment

Posted on by TL

“You have the right to remain silent.”  Words to live by in some situations.

Rod Blagojevich can’t keep his mouth shut.

Blago ran to the media today, and even stopped for a pedestrian who asked to take a picture with him.

The former Illinois governor entered a plea of, “Not guilty.”

The media continuously refers to Blago with the adjective “disgraced.”  If I do that here, that’s fine.  This is my blog, and you know this is news and commentary interwoven.  But for the media to do that in broadcasts about Blago is wildly inappropriate.

Is the media responding to our desire for commentary?  Why were we so attentive to Walter Cronkite decades ago?  Cronkite gave us THE NEWS.  Is the mainstream media giving up on 24/7 news and giving in to 24/7 commentary?

That’s fine for the blogosphere.  Not for the media.

Back to our reason for writing today, which is news from the Blagosphere, not blogosphere…

Rod Blagojevich may run out of money soon for his defense.   If that happens, he will run to the talk shows and even more cameras.  It’s only our ability to turn the channel that will keep him silent.


Sign Petition to Break Up the Banks

Posted on by TL

Democrats.com is circulating a petition, and I would encourage you to click through to their site and sign this petition:

Treasury Secretary Geithner proposed a $1 trillion plan to help Wall Street make a killing buying “toxic assets” with our tax dollars and guarantees. And he proposed a complex regulatory scheme to keep huge financial institutions from wrecking our economy once again.

But there’s a better and simpler solution: break up those huge financial institutions. If they’re “too big to fail,” then they’re too big to exist.

Returning to the banks and insurance companies that existed before the Reagan era would not hurt our economy. As Paul Krugman writes, “that boring, primitive financial system serviced an economy that doubled living standards over the course of a generation.”

Our friends at A New Way Forward have a plan:

NATIONALIZE: Insolvent banks that are too big to fail must incur a temporary FDIC intervention – no more blank check taxpayer handouts. (see Paul Krugman on nationalization)

REORGANIZE: Current CEOs and board members must be removed and bonuses wiped out. The financial elite must share in the cost of what they have caused. (see Simon Johnson on reorganizing)

DECENTRALIZE: Banks must be broken up and sold back to the private market with new antitrust rules in place – new banks, managed by new people. Any bank that’s “too big to fail” means that it’s too big for a free market to function. (see Mike Lux on decentralization)

Thank you for your consideration on this matter!

Media Whores Randall Terry, Fred Phelps Coming to Notre Dame

Posted on by TL

Cheer, cheer for old Notre Dame!

Notre Dame President Fr. Dan Jenky will not rescind the university’s invitation to invite President Barack Obama to give the 2009 Commencement address at Notre Dame and receive an honorary Doctor of Laws degree.  Jenky is right to stand by his invitation.

The invitation has drawn the attention of two media whores: radical pro-life activist Randall Terry and radical closeted anti-gay activist Fred Phelps.

Randall Terry respects life so much that he once arranged to have a dead fetus sent to Bill Clinton at the 1992 Democratic National Convention.  No word on where or how he procured the fetus.

Terry tells The Observer that his movement had, regretfully, fallen out of the spotlight, and needed a boost.  He said he first heard the news that Obama was going to Notre Dame last month:

“And when we came back, and I followed the news of President Obama’s invitation, a light went off in my head, that, that’s the line,” Terry said. It was the “golden opportunity,” as he called it, for the pro-life movement.

So Terry packed his bags and moved himself and his family – his wife and four children – to South Bend just a week after the announcement was made. And he’s staying, he said, until the Commencement ceremonies on May 17.

“We’ve already got over 20 local volunteers, within the next 10 days we will have six full time staff on the ground. Many local alumni are bending over backward to help us because of their outrage at this,” Terry said.

Terry has already held press conferences at ND.

Members of Fred Phelps’ Westboro Baptist Church have also announced their intention to picket the Notre Dame Commencement.  The group was in Pittsburgh today picketing the funerals of the three police officers shot and killed last week.

I won’t link to Phelps’ Web site — don’t care to contribute to his Google page rank.  But the site does indicate that Fred and his group will picket at ND.  Their rationale?

Obama Hates you, take U 2 Hell! E Angela Blvd & N Notre Dame Ave How appropriate that the biggest pedophile mill in the whole entire world would have Beast Obama speaking at their 2009 Commencement.

And it goes on from there.

Terry has pledged to “make a circus” of the Commencement.  Well, the stage is set.  Phelps and Terry will have to compete for the spotlight.

Who will win?

Time to call out the angels.

Gov. Bobby Jindal is Trying to Stand Up

Posted on by TL

It’s going to be quite a ride watching the Republicans try to reorganize themselves.  They really want power.  They should focus on issues and developing policy.  Their only policy is their stubborn ideology regardless of circumstances.

Governor Bobby Jindal is trying to position himself for a presidential bid for 2012.  He says it’s time for the GOP to stand up to President Obama.

Of course it is.  Why wait until you have ideas?

From CBS 2 Chicago:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal again found himself carrying the Republican mantle opposite a primetime appearance from President Barack Obama on Tuesday, saying Republicans must be ready to defy the president when they disagree with his policies. He also joked about his widely panned response to Obama’s address to Congress last month.

“We are now in the position of being the loyal opposition,” Jindal said at a Republican congressional fundraising dinner that only by coincidence fell on the same night as Obama’s news conference. “The right question to ask is not if we want the president to fail or succeed, but whether we want America to succeed.”

Saying “the time for talking about the past is over,” Jindal said Republicans have begun to find their voice after back-to-back elections losses — motivated by what he called historic Democratic spending excess.

“The time for talking about the past is over.”  Of course it is.  The past is how we got into the mess we’re in right now: Republican policies, George W. Bush, historic Republican spending excess.

Yes, and don’t you forget it: Historic Republican spending excess.  In all the wrong places.

Stand up, Bobby.  Repackage for us the same, old, dangerous Republican policies that paved the way for the Great George W. Bush Recession — and thank Americans they tossed your party’s sorry collective asses the hell out of Dodge.

Jordan Brown, 11, Should Be Charged as a Juvenile

Posted on by TL
Jordan Brown

Tragic news out of Wampum, PA:

The 11-year-old boy accused of shooting and killing his father’s pregnant fiancée is due in court on Tuesday.

Kenzie Houk, 26, was eight months pregnant when, police said, Jordan Brown shot and killed her at her home in Wampum in Lawrence County.

Brown, who was charged as an adult in the case, is expected to appear in court on charges of first-degree murder.

Prosecutors have said his motive may have been jealousy.

There is no good way to resolve this situation.  A woman and her unborn child are dead.

But an 11-year-old boy being charged as an adult with first degree murder?

This is insane.

The crime is horrible.  Punishing this child as an adult is insane. And a crime.

Three Cheers as Old Notre Dame Invites Obama

Posted on by TL

As an alumnus of the University of Notre Dame, I was very pleased to hear that the University has invited President Barack Obama to deliver the 2009 Commencement Address.  I was in the room in 1985 when then-Gov. Mario Cuomo spoke at Washington Hall, presenting his views on abortion.   I still have my copy of his embargoed talk.

I applauded the University then, and I applaud them now as they invite the President to address the graduates.

Some Catholic groups are not so happy.  From The Observer online:

Several religious and pro-life groups nationwide are expressing outrage and threatening to protest in South Bend after the University announced President Barack Obama will deliver the 2009 Commencement address at Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony May 17.

Assistant Vice President for News and Information Dennis Brown told The Observer a rumor that University switchboards were overwhelmed with callers and had to be shut down Friday night is false – a claim made by a March 20 article on pewsitter.com.

Although many outside groups are protesting University President Fr. John Jenkins’ decision, The Observer reported in an Oct. 8, 2008 article that Obama led the student body with 52.6 percent of the vote in a mock election held by student government, in which 2,692 undergraduates and graduate students voted.

Further along in the article, we read, “A representative in the office of Cardinal Francis George, president of the USCCB, said Cardinal George declined to comment on the issue because Notre Dame is out of the organization’s jurisdiction.”

I’m sure the Bishop John D’Arcy of the Fort Wayne-South Bend diocese will weigh in.  He’s a frequent critic of the University.  But the University is doing the right thing.

I first met President Obama when he was running for the United States Senate, and was immediately convinced that he is a man of outstanding character and intellect.  I consider him a man of tremendous compassion.

I’m very proud of my Alma Mater today.  Three Cheers for Old Notre Dame!

Turning Left in Top 100 on BlogBurst

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Just wanted to say how pleased we are to announce that Turning Left has broken into the top 100 in BlogBurst, the syndication service that places blogs on top-tier online destinations, is a product of Pluck Corporation, headquartered in Austin, Texas.  There are thousands of blogs registered with BlogBurst.  We’re honored that Turning Left is rising to the top!

Many of our posts appear in the Chicago Sun-Times, but posts from Turning Left have turned up on Reuters, USA Today, and even <shock> FoxNews </shock>.

Thanks to you, our readers, and to our friends at BlogBurst for helping us spread the truth on the Left!