Fact-checking Obama's State of the Union speech

Looks like President Obama did a nice job with his State-of-the-Union Speech. And his talking points seem to have stood up to independent fact-checking. See just how well the President did at: St. Petersburg Times' (2009 Pulitzer Prize Winner) PolitiFact

Group: Supreme Court justices ‘participated in political strategy sessions’ before Citizens United

Remember the "Citizens United" case where the Supreme Court gave corporations the same rights as individuals? It's back...

Read more at: Raw Story

Obama Ignores Eisenhower at Country's, World's Peril

"On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower issued his prophetic warning about the military-industrial complex, anticipating the increased political, economic, military and even cultural influence of the Pentagon and its allies. Several weeks earlier, he had privately told his senior advisers in the Oval Office, 'God help this country when someone sits in this chair who doesn't know the military as well as I do.' Several months after his inauguration in 1953, he warned against warfare that had 'humanity hanging from a cross of iron.'"

Read more about this prescient statement at: Truthout

What an Originalist United States Might Look Like

More fun discussing Justice(?) Scalia...

"Justice Antonin Scalia, the court’s leading originalist, has agreed to address the House Tea Party caucus on the separation of powers. He has also delivered speeches recently outlining his original understanding of the Constitution in areas like sex equality and the death penalty."

Hear more about Justice Scalia from Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic in NYTimes.com "Week in Review"

Republican Jesus

“Looking for Mr. Theocracy” or “How I Learned to Stop Thinking for Myself and Just Trust Republican Jesus.”

By Justin “filthy liberal scum” Rosario (Ed. note: *his* words, not ours...)

"When I was a kid, I was taught that the Pilgrims fled to the New World to escape religious persecution. Somewhere in there, I learned that we don’t have a national religion and people were free to practice whatever religion they wanted. That was kind of it as far as religion went in my history classes and overall education."

Read more about the *mysterious ways* of "Republican Jesus" at: addictinginfo.org

Republican Representatives Miss Swearing In, Vote Anyway

Two Republican congressmen missed the House swearing-in ceremony today because they were at a party. But they decided to cast some votes anyway, even though that's *against the Constitution.*

Read more on Republican hypocrisy at: Gawker.com

Dennis Kucinich Challenges Republicans On Finding Government “Waste” Everywhere But Bloated Military Budget

"The GOP wants to slash a few hundred billion dollars in spending. Dennis Kucinich wants to know why they aren't looking squarely at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
(from CAMPAIGN CORNER: A HOME FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL CAMPAIGNERS)

More details at: SunState Activist

House GOP Ends Floor Voting Rights For Delegates

One of the first acts of the new Republican-controlled House is to take away the floor voting rights of six delegates representing areas such as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa.

Five of those delegates are Democrats, while one, from the Northern Marianas Islands, is an independent.

Read more at: Huffington Post

Scalia: Women Don't Have Constitutional Protection Against Discrimination

"The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not protect against discrimination on the basis of gender or sexual orientation, according to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia"

Read the rest of what this misogynistic meathead has to say at Huffington Post

Major Health Care Reforms Take Effect January 1

"...two of the new health care law's most significant reforms take effect..."

"Starting on New Year's Day, insurance companies will have to spend at least 80 percent of the revenues they receive from premiums on actual health care. Not on salaries or overhead."

"Senior citizens -- a demographic that's skeptical of the bill -- will see real benefits. In 2011, the law will begin to close the Medicare Part D coverage gap -- the infamous 'donut hole.' "

Find out more at: Talking Points Memo

2011: Calling Time on Capitalism

"Recent decades have seen a massive redistribution of wealth, imposing the cost of successive crises on the poorest. Enough!"

"...recovery noise distracts from a more basic failure of our economic system: its fundamental instability. Recurring "downturns" – which neither private nor government actions have ever managed to prevent – impose massive costs on society. They plunge millions of effective, productive workers into unemployment and resulting personal, family and community disasters. Governments tap the collective purses of their nations chiefly to rescue just those private capitalists who were major contributors to the crisis and whose wealth insulates them from the crisis' worst effects.

Then, governments turn on their people to impose austerities (cutbacks in social programs, social security, etc) needed to restore government budgets busted by that rescue's huge costs. Like someone convicted of murdering his parents who demands leniency as an orphan, corporate America demands conservative government and austerity on the grounds of excessive budget deficits. Mainstream media and politicians take those corporate demands seriously, reminding us who controls whom."

Read the entire article at: Common Dreams