Seems Susan Collins (R-ME) pushed to remove funding for pandemic flu preparedness. In fact, she even posted it on her website. Brilliant!!

Prior to Collins push to remove funding, David Vitter (diapeRboy- LA), introduced an amendment that would strip the pandemic flu preparedness funding. His beef with it……he couldn’t fathom how pandemic preparedness could possibly serve to protect the economy, calling it part of a “laundry list of…big government spending items.”

Fucking brilliant!

What’s the big deal? So FOX knows it’s lowbrow viewers would rather watch a movie TV series based on lies rather than learning about what really is happening in American government (as they usually get the severely slanted version of it from Limbaugh, Beck, et al). Being drawn to lies, like moths to porch lights, FOX viewers couldn’t get enough of the last administration. But the honesty and hard work coming out of the current administration places them squarely in unfamiliar territory.

If it weren’t for your average FOX network viewer, events of the past eight years never could have unfolded as they did. See what a broken educational system can do to a nation?

Fox won’t air Obama’s prime-time press conference

(CNN) – Fox Broadcasting Company announced Monday it will not carry President Barack Obama’s prime time press conference marking his first 100 days in office, the first time a broadcast network has refused an Obama administration request for that valuable airtime.

The network will instead carry its regularly scheduled episode “Lie to Me,” according to its Web site. The show is among the network’s most popular and draws an average of 13 million viewers a week. That compares to the relatively paltry 4.2 million who watched the president’s last prime-time press conference on Fox. In all, close to 40 million watched that event on one of the eight networks that carried it.

Obama’s press conference also comes at the start of the May “sweeps” period, when viewership is watched closely to set the rate networks can charge for advertising.

Robin Trower
“Little Bit of Sympathy”

Well well well……….

George W. Bush’s Justice Department said subjecting a person to the near drowning of waterboarding was not a crime and didn’t even cause pain, but Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and three deputies for using the practice to get confessions.

Federal prosecutors secured a 10-year sentence against the sheriff and four years in prison for the deputies. But that 1983 case – which would seem to be directly on point for a legal analysis on waterboarding two decades later – was never mentioned in the four Bush administration opinions released last week.

The failure to cite the earlier waterboarding case and a half-dozen other precedents that dealt with torture is reportedly one of the critical findings of a Justice Department watchdog report that legal sources say faults former Bush administration lawyers – Jay Bybee, John Yoo and Steven Bradbury – for violating “professional standards.”

I’d like to know the reasoning behind not warning folks about this. Whoever planned this obviously was not thinking. Didn’t they know people would be terrified, believing it was a repeat of 9/11?

747, F-16s fly over lower NYC causing scare

Hundreds fled one building where employee said no warning was provided

NEW YORK – A federal government exercise Monday involving low-flying planes created a panic in New York City and parts of New Jersey.

Two fighter jets escorted a low-flying Boeing 747 over lower Manhattan as part of a photo shoot.

That’s the same part of the city where hijacked passenger jets crashed into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

John Leitner, a trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange building, said people began running outside when they saw the planes around 10 a.m. ET.

About 1,000 workers gathered along the Hudson River until a security officer told them it was a planned exercise.

Workers got no official advance notice, Leitner said.

I’m guessing the soldiers involved will be whisked out of country ASAP, but I could be wrong. No matter, this isn’t good.

Iraq’s prime minister on Sunday denounced a pre-dawn American raid in southern Iraq in which two Iraqis were killed, saying his government intends to prosecute U.S. soldiers who carried out the operation.

The incident marked the first time Iraq’s government has called for the prosecution of U.S. soldiers and sets the stage for a showdown between the two countries at a time when sectarian violence appears to be spiking.

Since the implementation this year of a bilateral security agreement, U.S. forces have been barred from conducting unilateral operations and can no longer detain Iraqis for long periods. The agreement says American forces can be prosecuted in Iraqi courtrooms for grave, premeditated crimes committed off base and off duty — criteria that U.S. officials have said effectively means American soldiers will never face Iraqi justice.

But the language of the agreement is vague, U.S. and Iraqi officials have said, which could make this a test case. If that happens, it may become an irritant in U.S.-Iraqi relations and could exacerbate hostility toward American soldiers at a time when extremists are vowing to step up attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq. American officials, speaking anonymously, suggested Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s move could be politically motivated. National elections are to be held next winter.

Jon Meacham, Walter Isaacson, and Peggy Noonan discuss Obama’s first 100 days in office. Noonan needs to put the crack pipe down and realize our current president can focus on more than one thing at a time.

Watch CBS Videos Online
Face the Nation 04/26/09
Sen. John Mccain and Sen. Patrick Leahy; Bob Woodward and Tina Brown

Meet the Press 04/26/09
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Jon Meacham of Newsweek magazine and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.

I can’t watch this show anymore……..I just can’t stand David Gregory. He creeps me out!

Ahhhhh I had a bit too much fun (if there is such a thing) yesterday and neglected to get Club Blue up last night. But hey, I saw an 82 year old woman blow a conch to the chants of “blow baby blow”……. a key lime eating contest…..the blowing up of a bridge…….and Captain and Cokes for $2.50. You’d of forgot, too!

Stocks set to fall due to swine flu worries. I guess David Obey was right and the GOP assholes were wrong……

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year’s emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse — with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans — led by Maine Senator Susan Collins — aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

George W. Bush (June 26, 2003) United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture:

“The United States is committed to the worldwide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States . . . in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture.”

Ok, let’s!!