We just think he is funny

Daily Show’: A Party in Limbaugh
Keeping in mind John Stewert is just an "entertainer" you have to see this funny clip at this link. http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20090304_a_party_in_limbaugh/

Didn't obama inherit the current financial mess less than two months ago from the Republicans, who for eight years under Bush assured us that the markets were not in any need of tighter regulation? Wasnt it GOP congressional members led by folks like Gingrich who pushed though the deregulation legislation that enabled the growth of "to big to fail" financial institutions that now have to be saved by the taxpayers?

sORRY been busy as a bee. singe full time parent to two teens both in sports right now. slave to a home and a pet and a job. Wish I had more time to play.

More like the male version of Sarah Palin. This guy is so messed up I cant believe the republicans showcased him at CPAC. Its time for the "liberal" media to take the gloves off on this bufoon.

Here’s Our Top 10 Racist Rush Limbaugh Quotes

1. I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.

Okay Rush, slavery was not a good thing for the millions of African Americans who were enslaved, raped and beaten. The streets weren’t at all safe for African Americans. Slavery not a bad thing? Someone should put Rush on a plantation for him to see how great it is. Keep on fear and race mongering Rush, you might get to Goebels status.

2. You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.

Martin Luther King is a national hero, not a black hero. Everybody in the United States celebrates his birthday, children are taught to look up to him as a hero in school. He’s earned the respect and admiration of the world and you believe the man who killed him was a hero? This is beyond racist. This is evil, mean spirited, subhuman. Praising the assassin of one of our great American heroes is beyond the scope of regular racism.

3. Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?

No but I’ve noticed that all racist bigots think like Rush Limbaugh. Comparing a respected black politician and minister to common criminals is Jim Crow racism. Maybe all black people look alike to him, but I’ve never seen a picture of a wanted criminal that looks like Jesse Jackson. A serial killer that looks like Rush Limbaugh on the other hand.

John Wayne Gacy





4. Right. So you go into Darfur and you go into South Africa, you get rid of the white government there. You put sanctions on them. You stand behind Nelson Mandela — who was bankrolled by communists for a time, had the support of certain communist leaders. You go to Ethiopia. You do the same thing.

The communist connection is an old way of dealing with black leaders. They used it on Martin Luther King, they’re using it on Barack Obama and Limbaugh used it on Nelson Mandela. By siding with the racist apartheid regime over a world-wide symbol of peace and freedom, Limbaugh has shown he’s a global racist.

5. Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.

Limbaugh is once again fear mongering and race baiting by associating professional black athletes with criminals and gangmembers. He continues the fear mongering association of good, decent, hard working African Americans as criminals.

6. The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies.

Now Limbaugh is saying that an organization with a storied tradition of representing the positive black people for change in their communities are criminals and rioters. An organization that has been represented by intelligent professional African Americans, that has played a part in the Civil Rights movement and continues to be an intelligent, concerned voice for the African American community is degraded to common criminals. There you go Rush. Keep racism alive!!!!

7. They’re 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?

Decent human beings care Rush. Someone out of that 12% may just become President of the United States. Not caring about black people? Even George Bush wouldn’t admit to that.

8. Take that bone out of your nose and call me back(to an African American female caller).

Okay Rush that’s classy. The old African bone in the nose stereotype. Wasn’t funny when the racist white school kids called the black kids that and it’s definitely not funny when a grown man with audience of millions of easily influenced dittoheads says it either.

9. I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.

I wasn’t super offended by this, the whole black quarterback/coach thing has been going on for years in sports, but the quote was so offensive that Retired General Wesley Clarke said:

There can be no excuse for such statements. Mr. Limbaugh has the right to say whatever he wants, but ABC and ESPN have no obligation to sponsor such hateful and ignorant speech. Mr. Limbaugh should be fired immediately.

When a respected, retired general condemns the statement of a sportscaster, you know he’s gone too far.

10. Limbaugh attacks on Obama. Limbaugh has called Obama a ‘halfrican American’ has said that Obama was not black but Arab because Kenya is an Arab region, even though Arabs are less than one percent of Kenya. Since mainstream America has become more accepting of African-Americans, Limbaugh has decided to play against its new racial fears, Arabs and Muslims. Despite the fact Obama graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law school, Limbaugh has called him an ‘affirmative action candidate.’ Limbaugh even has repeatedly played a song on his radio show ‘Barack the Magic Negro’ using an antiquated Jim Crow era term for black a man who many Americans are supporting for president. Way to go Rush.

So Rush Limbaugh has managed to make racist attacks on four of the most admired and respected people of African descent in the past one hundred years, in Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Colin Powell and Barack Obama. He has called for the assassin of Martin Luther King to be given a medal, and said slavery was a good thing. He has claimed that Joe the Plumber, who isn’t even a plumber is more important in this election than Colin Powell, a decorated military veteran who has served honorably in three administrations. How can the Republican party stand by this man and let their candidates appear on his show? Rush Limbaugh’s comments are so racist, they’re funny, in a Borat, Archie Bunker kind of way. What is not funny is the millions of dittoheads who listen to him, who take in and re-spout all the racist rhetoric that he spits. Limbaugh’s statements are echoed in the racist, angry Palin/McCain supporters who shout ‘kill him,’ ‘terrorist,’ ‘communist,’ ‘traitor,’ ’socialist’ and ‘off with his head.’

http://newsone.blackplanet.com/elections/top-10-racist-limbaugh-quotes/

The phony soldiers." --on U.S. service members who support withdrawal from Iraq (Source)

"He discusses his service in Iraq, the wounds he suffered there, and he says to me in this ad, 'Until you have the guts to call me a 'phony soldier' to my face, stop telling lies about my service.' You know, this is such a blatant use of a valiant combat veteran, lying to him about what I said, then strapping those lies to his belt, sending him out via the media in a TV ad to walk into as many people as he can walk into." --denouncing an ad by VoteVets.org featuring Iraq war veteran Brian McGough by likening him to a suicide bomber

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease. He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. ... This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting." --on an ad by Michael J. Fox endorsing Claire McCaskill for Senate for supporting embryonic stem cell research (Watch video)

"And don't forget, Sherrod Brown is black. There's a racial component here, too. And now, the newspaper that I'm reading all this from is The New York Times, and they, of course, don't mention that." --on the 2006 Ohio Senate primary race involving then-Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), who is white

"This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation...I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of the need to blow some steam off?" --on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal

"Too many whites are getting away with drug use...Too many whites are getting away with drug sales...The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river, too." --in 1995

"I am addicted to prescription pain medication." --in 2003

"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."

"We're not sexists, we're chauvinists -- we're male chauvinist pigs, and we're happy to be because we think that's what men were destined to be. We think that's what women want."

"She comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her -- guess what -- she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life." --on his cat

"She sounds like a screeching ex-wife." --on Sen. Hillary Clinton

"I've been racking my brain. I've been trying to figure out how Bob Dole's luggage got on my airplane...I told the doctor, I said, 'Look, I'm worried about the next election.' ... A misunderstanding." --after he was detained by custom officials for possessing Viagra with a prescription made out in someone else's name

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

"They oughtta change Black History Month to Black Progress Month and start measuring it."

"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."

"Sorry to say this, I don't think he's been that good from the get-go. I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well." --on Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, while working as a commentator on ESPN

"The only way to reduce the number of nuclear weapons is to use them."

"There are more acres of forestland in America today than when Columbus discovered the continent in 1492."

"I know these people like I know every square inch of my glorious naked body." --on Democrats

~Compiled by Daniel Kurtzman
http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/rushlimbaugh/a/limbaughquotes.htm

As the conservative writer David Frum said recently, "If you're a talk radio host and you have five million who listen and there are 50 million who hate you, you make a nice living. If you're a Republican party, you're marginalized."

It seems to be official: Rush Limbaugh is the new unofficial head of the floundering Republican Party.

The media have been all over it in the past few days.

The GOP leadership grovels.

And the dittoheads rejoice, even as they fail to realize that this could be their Waterloo.

This latest media-rich expose' of the GOP status quo underscores the desperation of today's Republican Party: When you fall short on policy, you try to make up for it in noise. And that's about all that Limbaugh is good for. Well, that and fear and hate.

This is quite the de-evolution of the party of Abe Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, which once was much more concerned with issues of conscience.

How bad is it? Just check out these charming quotes from the GOP's new Dear Leader:


"[Abu Ghraib] is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation...I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of the need to blow some steam off?"

"Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."

"We're not sexists, we're chauvinists -- we're male chauvinist pigs, and we're happy to be because we think that's what men were destined to be. We think that's what women want."

"She comes to me when she wants to be fed. And after I feed her -- guess what -- she's off to wherever she wants to be in the house, until the next time she gets hungry. She's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually a very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it, which is why I say this cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life."

"[Hillary Clinton] sounds like a screeching ex-wife."

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

"Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."

And:


"Too many whites are getting away with drug use... Too many whites are getting away with drug sales... The answer is to go out and find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river, too."

But then:


"I am addicted to prescription pain medication."

And just last week:


"So [Obama]'s moved on to health care. This is highly visible, it's news leading, gets a great focus, plus it has the great liberal lion Teddy Kennedy pushing it. Before it's all over it will be called the Ted Kennedy Memorial Health Care Bill."

And all that, dear reader, is the tip of the iceberg.

God bless America.

_______



About author
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist, with a focus on politics, human rights, and social justice. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views appear regularly in a variety of newspapers, magazines, and websites. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail:

mary@maryshawonline.com

I retain all my vitamins because I am allways STEAMED

The slugs are in charge and the leaders of the good for nothing, do nothing Republican Party will do anything they can to obstruct President Obama's determination to change our national course at home and abroad. In the face of numbing job losses - 650,000 more in February - and the unemployment rate climbing to 8.1 percent, the Republicans are squealing about federal spending.

The party that squandered the huge surpluses Bill Clinton bequeathed, drained the Treasury for tax cuts (most benefiting the most wealthy), increased discretionary spending at a pace exceeding Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, passed the prescription drug program for older Americans (the largest unfunded entitlement in history), and put the cost of two wars on the national Visa card is now lecturing us about spending restraint.

The Republican mythology about spending and big government collapses under even casual scrutiny. Just consider our recent two term presidents. Under St. Ronald Reagan government spending increased 69%. George W. Bush proved more frugal than Reagan and on his watch federal spending only increased 68%.

Under Bill Clinton, government spending increased 32%, less than half of the drunken sailor spending days of Reagan and Bush. As a percentage of the whole economy, federal spending during the Clinton years dropped from 21.45% to 18.5%. George W. Bush drove up spending as a share of the national economy from 18.5% to 22%.

Obama - facing far more difficult economic challenges that Reagan, Clinton and George W. Bush ever did - forecasts significant spending increases for the next two years, but he's shooting for a 22% share of the economy by the end of his first term, just what he inherited.

When we hear the radical Republicans sanctimoniously talking about spending and fiscal responsibility, a blunt reminder of their recent history exposes their transparently disingenuous arguments.

This is the time for government to spend. At this point, only government is ready to address the problems flowing from the failures and corruptions the unregulated, private sector heaped on the economy. Socialism didn't get us in the fix, unbridled capitalism did.

The uber hypocrisy dominates GOP rhetoric and would be laughable except for the fact that the rancid Republicans in the Senate still have enough votes to block progressive initiatives. Obama is showing admirable cool in not calling out these pitiful Neanderthals, who like Rush Limbaugh, the titular leader of their shrinking party, truly hope the president will fail and the horrible economy he inherited totally collapses..

Then they can all crow, "See, we told you. Socialism is a failure. Big government is the reason for growing poverty." The Republican strategy for dealing with the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression is to retread Herbert Hoover's flat tire and try to jump-start the economy with tax cuts and reduced government spending. That won't work and they know it. Their reasons are vile.

They see the middle class as the base of the Democratic Party and the Republicans, now the party of wealth and social royalty, will do nothing to help and comfort working and unemployed Americans.

Extending and increasing unemployment benefits, providing health insurance for those out of work, more student loans and funds for public education, investments in public resources and renewable energy sources and a government committed to watching and regulating the financial industry that fueled the economic free fall are all initiatives that strike at the heart of the corporate and special interests the Republicans have protected and nourished so successfully over the last 30 years.

The Republican Party of the 21th Century has no interest in doing anything to stop the wage inequality that chips away at the middle class. The economic "recovery" during George W. Bush's terms saw median incomes actually decline as wealth shifted to the top one percent.

Wage earning Americans are inordinately burdened with the responsibility of paying for Bush's debt while people living off investments and hedge fund managers saw their tax obligations significantly reduced. Does any sane person believe the Republicans want to upset that gravy train and change the tax codes?

If Republicans had their way, they would eliminate unions and restore despotism in the workplace, embracing the mentality that, "Hey buddy, you're lucky to have a job. If you complain you're outta here." Republicans want nothing whatsoever to do with safety and health in the workplace. The Democrats do.

We have the most expensive and inefficient health care system on earth and the Republicans are fighting to preserve the status quo. The drug companies and insurance companies profit mightily from the failed system and dump their campaign money into Republican coffers. The GOP wants to preserve Bush's privatization of many Medicare programs and Republican lawmakers still insist the government cannot negotiate prices with drug companies. How's that for a sound business practice?

The Republicans scoff at green energy and government incentives to develop and use renewable energy. They remain wed to the oil and coal companies and prefer continued dependence on imported oil and the absurd notion popularized by the intellectually challenged Sarah Palin that all we have to do to become energy independent is to "drill, drill, and drill."

The Republicans will do nothing to foster immigration reform and the problems will only get worse. The GOP will demand more walls on the Mexican border as long as they don't infringe on the property of wealthy Texas campaign contributors.

The Republicans continue to grovel before the religious right and are committed to using gay marriage, abortion, birth control and stem cell research as wedge issues. Charles Darwin is the only vestige of the 19th century the 21th century Republicans don't like. The extreme Republican right ( is there any other kind?) and their soul mates on the radio and TV shout shows love to claim the preservation of freedom as their reason for existence, their primary public purpose. Anything the government does other than spending for the military, providing corporate welfare and cutting taxes, they bellow, threatens freedom and liberty.

When we learned that George W. Bush's assaults on fundamental rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution were more vile and pervasive than previously known, we heard not a peep from these self-proclaimed defenders of freedom and liberty.

The Obama administration released memos crafted by Bush's White House Office of Legal Counsel that essentially approved the president's authority to toss out the Constitution and act as a military dictator.

The memos written by John Yoo, now a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, concluded that during war time, the president is freed from any constraints in the Bill of Rights and able to do anything on his own authority under the claim of self defense.

Murder, kidnapping, torture - you name it - are all okay as long as the president claims he's acting in the name of counterterrorism. The president can authorize any searches he chooses and people can be held without charges.

"First Amendment speech and press rights may also be subordinated to the overriding need to wage war successfully," Yoo claimed.

Of course, you don't want people to know how their rights are being trampled upon and how totalitarianism and authoritarianism are gripping a nation and government built on the principles of restraint and checks and balances.

This is where the Republican Party is really "jumping the shark." Can you image what "Mr. Conservative," Barry Goldwater would say about a presidency based on Stalin's model? Like Eisenhower before him, Goldwater, the Republican standard bearer in 1964, would find himself unwelcome in this party reduced to supporting such wholesale sacrifices of freedoms.

So, how's it working for the Grand Obstructionist Party? A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows the number of Americans who view the Republican Party positively is at an all- time low, while Obama's rating is at an all-time high. Democratic Party positive numbers are approaching its high.

New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow understands what's happening with the public rejection, writing, "Why? Because the Republicans have dissolved into a querulous lot of nags and naysayers without a voice, a direction or a clue, and we are not amused."

We need a viable, innovative Republican Party to offer real alternatives instead of the partisan rot they have put forward so far. The party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller and Barry Goldwater is now the playground for Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity (Bill O'Reilly without the brains and charm) and Congressional leaders who seek to destroy a young presidency.

Even the Republicans deserve better.
_______
BILL GALLAGEHR

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/20666

Though our Founders were well-educated and thoughtful men, this nation has a long history of anti-intellectualism. Rush Limbaugh taps into that vein daily, trading on the insecurities of his audience, a loyal core group of a loosely estimated 14-19 million listeners, mostly angry white males, who proclaim themselves to be "dittoheads" who give unthinking assent to just about anything Limbaugh says. If Limbaugh wants our new president to fail, so do they. If Limbaugh thinks women who seek equal rights are "femi-Nazis," then so do they. If Limbaugh says that the "Democrat" party is worse than Al Qaeda, they'll go along with that, too.

And when he refers to the "elites," he doesn't mean really rich people like himself; he means people like Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, whose elitism can be traced to the fact that they followed the American dream out of the lowest economic strata of our nation to win recognition based on hard work and keen intelligence, overcoming obstacles of class and race to achieve the highest position in the land, unlike that "common man" and "regular guy," George W. Bush, who had things handed to him on a gilded plate, never worked very hard at anything, and was given the rich kid's pass through our most prestigious universities based on nothing more than family connections and money. Also, George W. Bush never made the mistake of looking as though he'd gotten an education at all, and that made him unthreatening to Limbaugh and his listeners, who are mostly guys who didn't go to college, or dropped out early if they did.

The anti-intellectualism of a demagogue like Rush Limbaugh is dangerous. He emboldens stupidity, encourages prejudice, and primes the pump of rage and hatred every day. Limbaugh presides over a sour band of American discontent, a substrata of listeners who resonate to the anger, the fear, and the scapegoating he's been peddling for nearly two decades.

Like Limbaugh, most of these white males did not graduate from college and they've always been aggressively defensive about that fact, a defensiveness that expresses itself in disdain for any and all who did finish college--unless those college grads are vocally supportive of positions they've come to hold.

Like Rush, many of them found ways to avoid military service, though they think of themselves as fiercely patriotic.

Like Rush, they hate taxes, though none of them are as richly favored by fortune as he is, and though few of them have benefited from Republican tax policies like the people in Limbaugh's league.

Like Rush, many of them are overweight--cops, forklift operators, and long haul truckers who've been too sedentary and who've eaten a high fat and sugar diet.

Their heroes tend to be workers who don't work, like Joe the Plumber, and they prefer soldiers who don't fight, like George W. Bush, over soldiers who do, like John Kerry.

They trace most of their problems to a boogeyman Rush has defined for them as "the liberal," a monster that wants to take away their hard-earned money and give it to the shiftless, the godless, and the irresponsible--mostly those minorities who flood the nation with drugs, breed like rats, and suck up welfare provided by hard-working men like them.

These Limbaugh clones didn't do very well with the girls when they were in high school, and they've generally carried that lucklessness at love into adulthood. Like Rush, most of them have a divorce or three littering their personal resumes, a fact that has made them a tad cranky.

Like Rush, they never heard of a "defense" appropriation they didn't like, nor a social program they did.

Like Rush, most of them have a nasty streak and a mean sense of humor. They're the kind of people you might find yourself sitting behind in the movies, those guys who laugh in all the wrong places, and think it's funny whenever someone is getting their head blown off.

They think they believe in personal responsibility, but they take little responsibility for their bitter unhappiness, finding instead a legion of scapegoats arrayed as a barrier to their contentment. It was those ex-wives, it was feminism, it was government regulation and taxation that has made their roads more rutted than they'd expected them to be when they dropped out of college, or high school.

In their anti-intellectualism and their eagerness to find scapegoats among the least powerful, they bear an uneasy similarity to Hitler's first followers, the Brown Shirts. And, in their thirst for old-fashioned male power over passive and compliant women, they share more attitudes with the Taliban than many of them would care to acknowledge.

You probably remember these guys from when you were high school. They were always on the fringes of any after-school fight, egging on the would-be combatants, then sneaking in a taunt or a sly and anonymous kick once one of the boys was beaten to the ground. They were the bullyboys who always sought out the new kid for special harassment, or ganged together to hassle a lone black, brown, or "sissy" kid as he made his way home from school.

Life has not turned out as they'd hoped, but it's not their fault. Rush explains it to them every day. They believed in freedom, in liberty, in an "excellence" they never aspired to achieve, but claim to revere, nonetheless. They believed in the unfettered individual, but their dreams were denied because of the "liberal elites," those college-educated types who've done so much to dash their hopes and destroy their happiness.

They would be pitiable were it not for the fact that their deep and bitter unhappiness has caused the nation such grievous harm, such severe division, and such perilous hatred for the newly-elected leader Rush hopes will fail at just the time when the nation desperately needs him to succeed.
_______


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/20669

Its interesting because the main stream media never bothered with the story. It makes one wonder.

From Alan Cantwell MD
From Philip Rudnick PhD
3-8-9

Dear Drs. Eisenstein and Bradstreet:

Re: http://www.whale.to/vaccine/olmsted_h.html

In Chicago, Homefirst Medical Services treats thousands of never- vaccinated children whose parents received exemptions through Illinois' relatively permissive immunization policy. Homefirst's medical director, Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, told us he is not aware of any cases of autism in never-vaccinated children; the national rate is 1 in 175, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We have a fairly large practice," Eisenstein told us. "We have about 30,000 or 35,000 children that we've taken care of over the years, and I don't think we have a single case of autism in children delivered by us who never received vaccines. "We do have enough of a sample," Eisenstein said. "The numbers are too large to not see it. We would absolutely know. We're all family doctors. If I have a child with autism come in, there's no communication. It's frightening. You can't touch them. It's not something that anyone would miss."

Now that you've told us what you "think", when will you collect the facts and publish the results?

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

" Dr. Jeff Bradstreet, a Florida family practitioner with ties to families who homeschool their children for religious reasons, told Age of Autism he has proposed such a study in that group. "I said I know I can tap into this community and find you large numbers of unvaccinated homeschooled," said Bradstreet, "and we can do simple prevalence and incidence studies in them, and my gut reaction is that you're going to see no autism in this group.""

Now that you've told us what you "can" do, when will you do it and publish the results?

Sincerely yours,

Philip Rudnick, PhD
Professor Emeritus, Chemistry
West Chester University of Pennsylvania


Dan Olmsted

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/olmsted_h.html
"A specter is haunting the medical and journalism establishments of the United States: Where are the unvaccinated people with autism?" ---Dan Olmsted

[Dan Olmsted did the research the vaccine industry and media refused to do and found little or no autism in the unvaccinated Amish and Homefirst Medical Services children.]

Web: http://www.ageofautism.com/

Come talk to me after you raised a few kids and a family. Those of us who have do turn down overtime and work after all who will take the kids to baseball practise and appointments? I dont know were you get your ideas from but even in a union plant there are ways to fire people I have seen many fired. What a sad sad world this would be if all we did was work.

Do you believe there is a U.S. government cover-up surrounding 9/11?

Yes 89% 9447 votes

No 11% 1201 votes
http://www.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/14340.exclude.html

Iraq Fiasco Exposes Faith-Based Reasoning

NEW YORK--Attention right-wing neoconservative Republicans: We Americans have done things your way since 1981, when an actor named Reagan convinced us that we weren't entitled to anything from the government other than a canceled check for our taxes. We supported dictators against democratic movements. We started wars against tiny weak countries like Grenada and Panama and
Afghanistan just because we could. Even when we had a Democratic president, he bought into Reagan Republicanism; Clinton cut rich people's taxes, signed NAFTA and got rid of social welfare programs.

Twenty-six years into the NeoCon nightmare, everybody hates the United States. We're broke. Here's how screwed up we are: we can't even get out of a war that 91 percent of Americans are against. Republicans got us into this mess.

I say: Enough is enough. Three thousand dead soldiers and $2 trillion say it's time for anyone who ever argued in favor of invading Iraq to shut the eff up. Sell your laptop on eBay, Ms. Coulter. Use your ill-gotten gains to take some Middle Eastern history classes, Mr. Friedman. Step away from the golden EIB microphone, Mr. Limbaugh. Resign, Senators Clinton and McCain, and never show your faces in public again.

Yeah, right.

Since these pundits and politicians were and are so spectacularly wrong about such a straightforward and momentous issue as this idiotic war, no one should take them seriously again. Right-wingers deserve to be marginalized and ignored. The American left--the real, non-accommodationist, non-Hillary, left--ought to define the mainstream from now on. Only the left, from Noam Chomsky on the left left to
Howard Dean on the right left, have been consistently correct. Not to worry, we still have two legitimate political parties: Democrats and the Greens.

The post-Iraq bankruptcy of the GOP thinkers came into sharp relief the other night in the form of Dinesh D'Souza's latest radio editorial, on NPR, of all venues. "Iraq," he began, "is not Vietnam. And here's why."

I listened closely, for Stanford University's D'Souza is one of America's most--arguably the most--respected conservative thinkers. He has written several New York Times bestsellers. His speaking fees start at $10,000. D'Souza has done so well as a pundit that he lives in an exclusive gated community near San Diego. According to the San Diego Reader, his "nearly 8000-square-foot house has six bedrooms, seven and a half baths, and a four-car garage, where [he and his wife] keep their maroon 1992 Jaguar XJS."

I thought I already knew why Iraq wasn't like Vietnam: we might have won in Vietnam. Since D'Souza is raking in a lot more pundit bucks than me, however, I paid close attention.

"First, we had no vital interest in Vietnam," he said. "The United States got involved in Vietnam starting in the 1950s, due to an elaborate, but misguided theory of dominos. So if Vietnam went communist, the whole of Asia would become communist. Well, it didn't happen. But my larger point is that when Vietnam did fall to the communists, America's foreign policy interests and economic interests were largely unaffected."

Fair enough. The Domino Theory was used to sell the war by political leaders, some of whom actually believed it.

D'Souza continued: "Iraq, by contrast is strategically vital." How? My butt crept up to the edge of my seat.

"Consider [Iraq's] neighbors: Iran. Turkey. Kuwait. Jordan. Syria. Saudi Arabia. If Iraq falls into the hands of the Islamic radicals, they would control two major countries: Iran and Iraq. Next we would expect them to target Egypt and Saudi Arabia." Huh?

Call me a loser who couldn't afford to heat an 8,000-square-foot home, much less buy one, but isn't that--well--a Domino Theory?

"Second, in Vietnam," D'Souza continued, "we were allied with the bad guys. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt and tyrannical, and our only reason for supporting it was that it was a better alternative to the communist regime in the North. In politics, it is often a necessity: you ally with the bad guys in order to avoid the worse guys. But the bad guys remain bad guys. They alienate their people and the popular resentment that they provoke often carries over to us."

OK. I was with him again. We've repeatedly paid a high price for our partnerships with unsavory regimes--most recently on 9/11.

"By contrast, in Iraq," D'Souza went on---"we are allied with an elected government. Braving bullets, the Iraqi people went to the polls and elected the current regime." Ahem. Iraq's government is so corrupt that it sells weapons we give it to fight insurgents on the black market, often to the insurgents themselves. Oh, and South Vietnam did hold presidential elections in 1967, a year before the Tet Offensive turned the American public against the war. Doesn't D'Souza know that?

"We have a government that represents the will of the Iraqi majority. That's a good thing, because it means we have local allies in Iraq who have popular support."

I'd had it. "Moron! Idiot!" I shouted at the radio. This was a succinct way of expressing what I was thinking, which was: Even if it's true that the current Iraqi regime has majority (i.e., Shiite) support--and it's doubtful--the problem is what it does with that electoral legitimacy. Prime Minister Maliki employs Iraqi police units that carry out ethnic cleansing operations against Sunni citizens. Shiite death squads employed by the Maliki government dump the bodies of dozens of Sunnis in the streets of Baghdad every day, some murdered by electric drills driven into their heads. Definitely not "a good thing."

D'Souza's pleasant voice droned on.

"Finally, in Vietnam, there was no way to win the war and preserve our dignity. The United States and Vietnam faced several hundred thousand resolute communists on the other side. These were guerilla fighters fighting on familiar territory against American boys who didn't know why the heck they were going over there...Vietnam was a no-win situation. Iraq is not."

Sigh. The Pentagon itself estimates that at least 90 percent of Iraqi insurgents are locals fighting on their own turf. These guerillas are fighting American soldiers who've been fooled into thinking Saddam had something to do with 9/11. What's the difference?

"America can win in Iraq...All the strength in the world is useless if you don't have the will to fight. We saw the same loss of will over the Vietnam War. But Vietnam was a lost cause. In Iraq, we are in danger of losing a war we can win." And...? That was it. Not one single line supporting his thesis that Iraq isn't another Vietnam; if anything, I am now more convinced than ever that the two quagmires have a lot in common.

D'Souza wallows in the circular logic that has become the rhetorical currency of the right:

1. The Domino Theory that led us into Vietnam was bogus but we have to stay in Iraq because of a New Domino Theory (but we won't call it that).

2. Our South Vietnamese ally was unpopular but our Iraqi ally isn't (if you ignore the millions of Iraqi refugees voting with their feet).

3. We couldn't win Vietnam but we can win in Iraq because, well, we just can.

If this eye-rolling sophistry were a sloppy homework assignment turned in by a student in 10th grade debate, it would merit an "F" and a chuckle in the teachers' lounge. But these scattered ravings are the product of one of the brightest minds of our current political establishment, representative of thinking at the highest levels of government, and thus contribute to the deaths of thousands of people.

It's frightening that conservatives continue to believe in economic and military theories that have been proven wrong again and again. What's downright terrifying is the way they think. They don't bother to present proof, evidence or even arguments to support their claims. They believe what they believe because they believe it. That's it. Q.E.D.

I've been against the Iraq War since the beginning, yet I could compose a logical argument for staying the course. Why can't those who are for it do the same? And why is NPR--or any other media outlet--paying attention to these idiots' faith-based reasoning?
_______



About author
Ted Rall is the author of the new book "Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?," an in-depth prose and graphic novel analysis of America's next big foreign policy challenge.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/5184

I agree 100%

As the conservative writer David Frum said recently, "If you're a talk radio host and you have five million who listen and there are 50 million who hate you, you make a nice living. If you're a Republican party, you're marginalized."

Why I'm Not Now and Have Never Been the Democrats' Rush Limbaugh
by Michael Moore

I have watched with mild amusement this week the self-immolation of the Republican Party as it bows before the altar of Rush Limbaugh, begging for mercy, pleading for forgiveness, breathlessly seeking guidance and wisdom from The Oracle.

President Obama and the Democratic Party have wasted no time in pointing out to the American people this marriage from hell, tying Rush like a rock around the collective Republican neck and hoping for its quick descent to the netherworld of irrelevance.

But some commentators (Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, Chuck Todd of NBC News, etc.) have likened this to "what Republicans tried to do to the Democrats with Michael Moore." Perhaps. But there is one central difference: What I have believed in, and what I have stood for in these past eight years -- an end to the war, establishing universal health care, closing Guantanamo and banning torture, making the rich pay more taxes and aggressively going after the corporate chiefs on Wall Street -- these are all things which the majority of Americans believe in too. That's why in November the majority voted for the guy I voted for. The majority of Americans rejected the ideology of Rush and embraced the same issues I have raised consistently in my movies and books.

How did this happen? Considering how, for the past eight years, the Republican machine thought they could somehow smear and damage the Democrats if they said it was "the party of Michael Moore," it appears that the American public heard them loud and clear and decided that, 'hey, if you say Michael Moore is connected to the Democrats, then the Democrats must be OK!'

During this past election, a Democrat in Michigan, Mark Schauer, was running against the incumbent Republican congressman, Rep. Tim Walberg. Schauer asked me to endorse him and campaign for him, and I did. The Republicans were thrilled. They acted like they had been handed manna from heaven. They filled the airwaves with attack ads showing pictures of me and asking voters, 'is this the guy you want influencing your congressman?' The voters of western Michigan said "YES!" and threw the Republican out of office. The newly elected congressman told me his poll numbers had gone up once the Republicans started running ads likening him to me.

There have been over a half-dozen attack documentaries on me (Michael Moore Hates America, Fahrenhype 9/11, etc.), plus a feature film starring Kelsey Grammer and James Woods that had me being slapped silly for 83 minutes. Several books have been written by the Right in a concerted attempt to denounce me. One book, 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America, had me listed at #1. The author was so sure people would know why, he didn't even bother to write a chapter on me like he did for the other 99. You just get to the end of the book and all it says is "#1" with nothing but a big picture of me that takes up a full page.

What made the Republicans so sure that Americans would recoil upon the mere mention of my name, or by simply showing a photo of my face?

The result of this was one colossal backfire. The more they attacked me, the more the public decided to check out who this "devil" was and what he was saying. And -- oops! -- more than a few people liked what they saw. Overnight I went from having a small, loyal following to having millions go to movie theaters to watch... documentaries? Wow.

Yes, the more the Right went after me, the more people got to hear what I was saying -- and eventually the majority, for some strange reason, ended up agreeing with me -- not Rush Limbaugh -- and elected Barack Obama as president of the United States, a man who promised to end the war, bring about universal health care, close Guantanamo, stop torture, tax the rich, and rein in the abusive masters of Wall Street.

Think about this road I've traveled. At the beginning of the Bush years, I was pretty much an outsider, referred to as being on the "far left." I usually found myself holding viewpoints that differed from the majority of the people in this country. When I spoke out against the war -- before it even started -- I was marginalized by the mainstream media and then booed off the Oscar stage in "liberal Hollywood" for commenting about a "fictitious" president. Seventy percent of the public back then supported the war and approved of the job George W. Bush was doing.

But I stuck to what I believed in, kept churning out my movies, and never looked back. The Right and the White House spokespeople came after me time after time. President Bush 41 called me an "a**" on TV, and I became a favorite punching bag at both the 2004 and the 2008 Republican National Conventions in speeches by John McCain and Joe Lieberman. On the front page of this morning's Washington Post, Mark McKinnon, a top adviser to George W. Bush, revealed -- for the first time -- the Bush White House strategy of singling me out in the hopes of turning the country against me and the Democratic Party. Here's what the Post said:

Mark McKinnon, a top adviser in President George W. Bush's campaigns, acknowledged the value of picking a divisive opponent. "We used a similar strategy by making Michael Moore the face of the Democratic Party," he said of the documentary filmmaker.
In the end it all proved to be a big strategic mistake on their part. Thanks to the Republican attacks on me, average Joes and Janes started to listen to what I had to say. Contrary to Richard Wolffe's assessment that "there were no Democrats as far as I can remember who were saying they stood with Michael Moore," Democrats, in fact, have stood side by side with me during all of this. Here's the Congressional Black Caucus supporting me on Capitol Hill in 2004. Here's Terry McAuliffe, the head of the Democratic National Committee, enthusiastically attending the premiere of "Fahrenheit 9/11" with two dozen senators and members of Congress. Here's a group of Democratic congresspeople endorsing my film Sicko in the chambers of the House Judiciary Committee in 2007. And here's President Jimmy Carter inviting me to sit with him in his box at the Democratic National Convention. Far from making me into a pariah, the Republicans helped the Democratic leadership realize that to identify themselves publicly with me meant reaching the millions who followed and supported my work.

Though John Kerry lost in 2004, my focus that year had been to get young voters registered and out to vote (I visited over 60 campuses). And so, just a few short months after the release of Fahrenheit 9/11, America's young voters became the only age group that John Kerry won. They set a new record for the largest 18 to 24-year-old turnout since 1972, when 18-year-olds were given the right to vote, thus sending a signal about what would happen four years later with the youth revolution that ignited Obama's campaign.

After Fahrenheit, I kept speaking out, the Republican machine kept attacking me, and two years later, in 2006, the American public sided with me -- not Rush Limbaugh -- and voted in the Democrats to take over both houses of Congress.

And then, finally, two years after that, we won the White House.

That's the difference -- The American people agree with me, not Rush.

The American public believes that health care is a right and not a commodity.

They want tougher environmental laws and believe that global warming is real, not a myth.

They believe that the rich should be taxed more.

They want to go after the crooks on Wall Street who got us into this mess and the politicians who enabled them.

They want more money invested in education, science, technology and infrastructure -- not in more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

They believe that, whether Democrats or Republicans have been in power, wealthy corporations have been calling the shots for the past few decades and the American people's voices have not been heard as their country has slowly been driven into the ground. Our politicians and our media have been bought and paid for by the highest bidders and we don't trust them anymore.

Finally -- they want us to get the hell out of Iraq and to investigate the criminals who sent us there for fictitious reasons.

Obama and the Democrats going after Rush is a good thing and will not do for him what the Republican attack plan did for me -- namely, the majority of Americans will never be sympathetic to him because they simply don't agree with him.

The days of using my name as a pejorative are now over. The right wing turned me into an accidental spokesperson for the liberal, majority agenda. Thank you, Republican Party. You helped us elect one of the most liberal senators to the presidency of the United States. We couldn't have done it without you.

© 2009 Huffington Post
Michael Moore is an activist, author, and filmmaker. See more of his work at his website MichaelMoore.com
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/06-7