[...] Bill O'Reilly told viewers last night, "I consider myself a middle-class guy." Bill O'Reilly makes about $10 million a year. -- Steve Benen

*Now* I understand why O'Reilly didn't like McCain; McCain's middle-class cut-off was at 5 mil.

also... I think it's possible that old Billy-goat doesn't know the difference between "middle" and "middling" (mediocre)

K1: Come the revolution, this faux "middle class" will have their heads on-

K2: wait a sec,
our socialist President Obama just saved "middle class" guys like Bill from the revolutionaries
by saving the economy which was destroyed by guys like him.

K1: so you are saying that Bill is a lier?

K2: perhaps he has a distorted sense of humility.

The Media Matters fact check of the Heritage Foundation fact check is excellent and it is nearly a complete and perfect destruction of the HF article. That's good stuff.

If the president doesn't take care of the credit card bill right away, can we charge him a late fee?

I wonder why this story escaped your notice.

"White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was a “hasty decision,� in his daily press briefing with reporters.

The White house spokesman was asked whether it was a "mistake" to request the resources to close Guantanamo Bay without a plan.

"It was a mistake to set up something that became a rallying cry for enemies around the world and to hope for so long that we could simply continue to perpetuate the theory of keeping detainees there while the courts ruled otherwise," Gibbs responded.

"I don't doubt that the President--and I think he'll say this tomorrow--that we've made some hasty decisions that are now going to take some time to unwind. And closing Guantanamo Bay obviously is one of those decisions," he added.

And the laughs just keep coming with these guys. lol

Very rich that the philandering governor of a state that one can get married by Elvis while being topless at a drive through is worried about the sanctity of marriage.

Maybe it is for the best, instead of republican politicians getting caught up in male prostitute scandals, they would end up in a gay marriage scandals that would invariably end up ruing some innocent person's life.

Man, I know the Repukes are way worse, but this Gitmo shit gives me sympathy for Nader.

"The credit card bill is on its way to the president's desk."

And what do loaded guns in National Parks have to do with credit cards ?

* As expected, the Senate voted to deny funding, for now, to shut down Gitmo. The final vote was 90 to 6.

Can anyone explain why, when we were the minority, we were shoved into closets, microphones turned off when we spoke and the Repuke leedurs didn't want to hear it, we were openly told to go f#&K ourselves, we were told to shut up or the nu-cue-lar option would be put into effect, etc. ad nauseum. Yet now, as the majority, we still can't do shit? Are we that lame? Are they that strategically brilliant? I know they own the majority of the media and count on the sheeple to have little brain power, lots of bravado, and no memory, but still. What gives here?

Those people who always pay off their credit cards are called "dead beats". The credit card companies want to return to annual fees so that fiscally responsible people can "pay their share".

Don't the credit card companies take a percentage of all sales made with their card? How much profit do they need to make?

My sister's mortgage payment was raised because she only has one credit card and is therefore a credit risk. That one card is platinum.

The banks own government. The bail out was just a family loan.

And how many more fires will cash strapped CA have to fight when target practicing becomes the pastime in the national parks and starts a fire? To say nothing of some stray bullet wiping out somebody's kid. Ugh.

Very rich that the philandering governor of a state that one can get married by Elvis while being topless at a drive through is worried about the sanctity of marriage.

You guys will never get it.

Man-woman marriage is real marriage. Yeah, some people aren't very good at it. At least they started out in the right direction by marrying someone of the opposite sex, and there's always another marriage they can try harder at if the woman makes it impossible to stay married to her.

Man-man marriage is wrong from the get-go. It doesn't matter if two guys are faithful to each other if the marriage is fake to begin with.

I don't expect you guys to understand this. You've been living your alternative realities for so long.

Those people who always pay off their credit cards are called "dead beats". The credit card companies want to return to annual fees so that fiscally responsible people can "pay their share".

Don't the credit card companies take a percentage of all sales made with their card? How much profit do they need to make?

Yes. Yes, they do take a percentage.

CapitalOne is, I think, the only card that doesn't charge exorbitant fees for using your card overseas in various currencies. So CapitalOne scooped up the people who didn't feel like paying those fees, told their card issuers to shove it and got CO cards.

In this glorious free market of ours, some bank will soon get the bright idea that it can attract a lot of pissed-off fiscally responsible customers if it refuses to up its annual fees, charge interest from the day of purchase, etc., as other banks are threatening to do. I shall have no compunction about walking away from my own card issuers if they think they're going to punish me for paying in full and on time. Fuckers.

And what do loaded guns in National Parks have to do with credit cards ? -- Joe Friday, @18:38

That one's easy... If you're a "dead-beat" (ie you're paying off the entire bill, on your only credit card, 24hrs before the late payment penalties kick in), stay out of National Parks, or you'll be "dead-meat". The issuers know where you are -- they can track you through your purchases -- and they'll come after you, guns blazin'.

Personally, I consider Bill-O to be "an Iowa-class" guy, given that his delusional ego is the size of a freaking battleship....

To a normal person "It was a mistake to set up something that became a rallying cry for enemies around the world and to hope for so long that we could simply continue to perpetuate the theory of keeping detainees there while the courts ruled otherwise," Gibbs responded." is a clear repudiation of Bush's decision to keep people in Guantanamo, and not something that shows Obama's team in a particularly bad light (although the slog to close it is disheartening). It takes someone so completely delusional as to think they are the fuck ups when they find it difficult to clean up the endless shit the previous Administration left all over the floor.

Also on planet Earth:

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama will move ahead with closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, even after bipartisan objections from Congress and a warning from the FBI director about the dangers of transferring detainees to the U.S.

Obama has yet to decide what to do with the 240 suspected terrorists held at the U.S. detention facility in Cuba, once it is shut by next January, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said.

The president will use a speech in Washington tomorrow to outline what needs to be done to wind down the detention center’s operation, Gibbs told reporters today.

“He will go through some of the decisions we have to make regarding how to close down Guantanamo,� Gibbs said. “The president signed an order, early in his administration, to close it, and he intends to keep that promise.�

Advanced Caty Yodeling:

http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/05/18/funny-pictures-video-cat-yodeling/

"America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show."
Interesting, that right-wing propaganda says that the rich/conservatives are the most generous. Were they using absolute amount instead of % of income?

Re: California

A lot of people are interpreting the rejection of the ballot initiatives as a tax revolt, but many voters (me included) saw these initiative as yet another band-aid on a much bigger problem: the perversion of the initiative system by virtue of the 2/3rds vote requirement on tax increases, thanks to Prop. 13. These initiatives also had a lot of strings attached.

Nothing is going to change until a stake is driven through the heart of the Jarvis Amendment. It may mean that people will have to actually live without core government services for awhile (as opposed to passing yet another bond measure).

People think they don't want government, but they've never had to live without it because they are paying for it with borrowed money (debt), not taxes (income).

"Man-woman marriage is real marriage..."

There are also marriages between corporal persons and non-corporal persons -- such as the marriage between a monk and Jesus, or a priest (or minister or reverend) and church.

At its base: Marriage is a contract between two people overseen by the government, a religion, or other institution to ensure certain obligations, and rights within that institution, between one and the other are accomplished.

Contracts are for the most part recognized as "real," ergo binding. Therefore, if a government recognizes as binding a "marriage contract" between two people it is as real as any other marriage contract.

A religon may not recognize that same contract as binding - the Catholic Church did not recognize many of Henry VIII's contracts with his wives as binding within that system -- which did it "real" harm.

But, unless you are proposing a theocracy, just because the Church (and or churches) do not recognize something as valuable, "real" or logical does not give it the power to impose that by force (at the point of a gun) on other people.

Bill O was sexually abused in Catholic school. That makes him middle class, doesn't it?

Impressive: "America's poor donate more, in percentage terms, than higher-income groups do, surveys of charitable giving show."

How shocking to discover that rich people are greedy....

Account for donated *time*, and you'll see even more "impressive" results.

And finally, Bill O'Reilly told viewers last night, "I consider myself a middle-class guy." Bill O'Reilly makes about $10 million a year.

Isn't the obvious response that OReilly is instead a no-class guy?

Let's take a look at how much he donates to charities. Note: wingnut militias don't count.

I'm sure that O'Reilly also thinks of himself as a chick magnet.

If the president doesn't take care of the credit card bill right away, can we charge him a late fee? Posted by: Quicksand on May 20, 2009

Don't be silly. We'll just jack up the interest rate and let it build a while. These are lean times. You've got to milk the edge while you can.

I think Bill O'Really has just confused 'middle-class' with 'mediocre'.

Hey, At least BillO was advocating for 40 mpg when he said it. Give him a break. You should be bashing Ingraham for bullshitting that 40 mpg is a war on the middle class.

35-40, whatever, mpg is huge. This isnt getting enough attention. Stop getting lost in the non sense about what O'Reilly thinks of himself as. It doesnt fucking matter.

President Obama could shut down Gitmo without asking the current Congress for anything...because previous rubber-stamp Republican Congresses have already done the heavy lifting.

For instance, remember the $385 million allocated by the Republican-controlled Congress several years ago to build dozens of new maximum security detention centers around the U.S., for detaining immigrants and "for other purposes"?

"For other purposes"?

Why that leaves the door wide open for President Obama to move all the detainees from Gitmo and house them securely at one of these detention cneters, like the one being offered by the U.S. citizens at Hardin Montana, a 400-bed maximum security facility that is currently sitting empty.

Game. Set. Match.

But only if President Obama seizes the moment!!!!!

"For other purposes"?

Yes, for detaining people who criticized the Bush administration and the other Republican administrations that followed directly on its heels. And we would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for that meddling mulatto!

Testing with a small item of energy news: Energy Secretary Chu promises to support development of clean coal.

Thanks to MatthewRQuarreler and the Moderator.

Welcome to the 20th century. Yes, I know we're well into the 21st.

Don't know if anyone cares but the girlfriend made me watch Fox's new show "Glee" last night. Worst line-"My dad died in Iraq the first time we fought Osama Bin Laden."

Only Fox would pump crap like that out. It wasn't really a joke, as far as I could tell. Did anyone else see it?

From the LA times article:
"Rightly or wrongly, voters in the special election refused either to extend new tax hikes or to cap state spending."

Uhh... weren't both of those things part of prop 1A?

The voters had no choice to extend tax hikes or to cap speniding. They had a choice to extend tax hikes and cap spending or do neither.

dannyshenanigan wrote at 10:47 PM:

Did anyone else see it?

Hubby made me watch it with him. Too reminiscent of the "Sister Act" movies, and I don't see how they're going to sustain the premise for very long. I only agreed to watch it because I like Jane Lynch. I may be gay, and she may be lesbian, but she won my heart as the psychiatrist in "Two and a Half Men".

Matthew,

"Energy Secretary Chu promises to support development of clean coal."

I'm sure Chu also promises to support development of a warp drive and cloaking technology too. What they're not about to do is spend anything but a token amount of money on any of the three, as none of them yet exist.

"...Ahmadinejad announced this morning that "Iran had test-fired an upgraded surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,200 miles, according to the IRNA news agency."..."

Can you blame him...after watching what Israel (a nuclear armed nation) to the Palestinians in Gaza. That slaughter should make every nation in the region arm itself. Meanwhile Israel just goes on building and settling the West bank pushing Palestinians into a corner while lying about a two nation compromise.

Man-woman marriage is real marriage. Yeah, some people aren't very good at it. At least they started out in the right direction by marrying someone of the opposite sex, and there's always another marriage they can try harder at if the woman makes it impossible to stay married to her.

Ooh! Ooh! That is some grade A troll, baby. Notes of misogyny, homophobia, with a lingering soupcon of teh stupid wrapped in logical knots characteristic of vintage wingnut. Poor overall structure, however, and lacking the snide assholitude that passes for wit in the better Al's of the past few years.

On the study about the poor being more generous than the wealthy, as a percentage of income: if you read down in the article a ways, you find this:

That's partly because above-average numbers of poor people go to church, and church attenders give more money than non-attenders to secular and religious charities, Brooks found.

Moreover, disproportionate numbers of poor people belong to congregations that tithe.

Conservative pundits like Thomas Sowell and Dennis Prager enjoy pointing out that right-leaning regions of the country technically donate more per capita to charitable causes then the supposedly hypocritical denizens of liberal enclaves like Seattle or San Francisco, without noting that virtually all of the charity donations in states like Mississippi and Louisiana go to churches and other religious outfits and the vast majority of those donors are poor Blacks and Hispanics. That's not to say that charity to churches in these areas doesn't "count" somehow. Quite the contrary: it's often the only lifeline people in these desperately poor communities in places like the Mississippi delta have. What cracks me up is that conservative radio hosts then claim that this is proof that religious obligation to give is better than that awful liberal impulse to tax and fund welfare programs. Of course they completely miss the point that perhaps if structural inequities in society as well as poor public policy didn't create the need for so much charity in the first place, poor people wouldn't have to be giving their last penny just so their upstairs neighbor could eat. But better a neighbor starve and a poor person be able to give than a banker have to choose a S430 over an S500 come bonus time.

It's all about values, you see.

I'm sure that O'Reilly also thinks of himself as a chick magnet.

No, no!! A chickpea magnet! Falafel, baby!

Re: California

I am not sure Californians are "throwing in the towel" so much as concluding we need to scrap the old and start anew.

Like-- $28 million for a special election? And the one where Gray Davis was recalled (totally ridiculous)?

Rewrite the State Constitution. Change the 75% voting requirement to 50%. Make it much more difficult to put citizen initiatives on the ballot-- requiring triple the number of registered voters to quality.

Nobody is going to believe the powers that be are serious about saving money as long as they hand out freebies to non-citizens. End the low tuition, subsidized housing, medical care, welfare for illegals. Just end it. The gangs, the lower quality of life in the city, the closing of hospitals, the poor medical care, and traffic gridlock are just some of the reasons people are leaving California.

As for state workers, a friend has worked for the State for five years. After this short period of time, she is now entitled to a pension that is to die for, and medical insurance FOR LIFE for herself AND her spouse. All of us taxpayers are footing the bill. Stop these benefits.

I'm for teachers, but LAUSD should be scrapped. Teachers should not have tenure and a union (and I am for both teachers and unions). LAUSD should be broken down into small neighborhood, manageable units. (So should the banks, but that is a whole other matter!)

Schwarzenegger appointed his cronies to unheard of committees that do nothing but meet once a month or so. These six figure sinecures have got to go.

There is SO MUCH to be reformed and cut why should anyone have taken these proposals seriously? They were also poorly written with no guarantee the Rainy Day Fund, for example, would not be raided for other purposes.

And if there is still a deficit after all this, raise the taxes on the hugely wealthy a few percentage points. Get rid of Proposition 13, which benefits business even more than some lucky homeowners.

You seemed to miss General Elections in India.

Ironic that after a week of reporting on the Catholic church, and right to life and respect for life, we are once again hearing of the nasty history of child abuse in the Catholic church. Why is it that they fight for the right of a single cell, yet abuse the child when it is here. Also why does MSNBC give airtime to the famous holocaust denier Pat Buchanan.

The creation of a Financial Markets Commission isn't getting the attention it deserves.

--------------

So, let's put it in "quick hits".

That slaughter should make every nation in the region arm itself. Meanwhile Israel just goes on building and settling the West bank pushing Palestinians into a corner while lying about a two nation compromise.

Israel accepted a two-state compromise. They were ready and willing to make it happen. Then, the Palestinians (mostly Arafat), blinked. They said no way, there can be no state of Israel.

Sorry, but you have no one to blame but the Palestinians - who, FYI, are not Palestinians but Arab. Stop referring to them as a people who have never existed.

Another FYI: Israel has never threatened to destroy Iran. I'm pretty sure Iran has done that.

Last FYI: since the last Israeli/Palestinians cease-fire in January, Palestinians have launched over 180 rocket and mortar attacks into Israeli territory.

Are you sure the Palestinians want peace?

Because it sounds like the Arabs want another Holocaust.

No, no!! A chickpea magnet! Falafel, baby!

Fabulous.