Westboro Baptist Church Plans 29 Anti-Gay/Jewish/Military Protests in San Diego (Links)
California: America’s first failed state? The state that was once held up as the epitome of the boundless opportunities of America has collapsed. Westboro Baptist Church planning 29 anti-gay/Jewish/military protests in San Diego The Kansas-based church known for its anti-gay, anti-Semitic and anti-military protests is planning four days of demonstrations at 29 locations in San Diego County next week. Happy birthday, War in Afghanistan (photos) Violence in Afghanistan has reached its most intense of the eight-year-old war despite record levels of U.S. and NATO troops being sent to fight the Taliban. War: Bipartisanship Republicans can get behind Up until now President Obama has been unable to round up any Republican backing for his major initiatives. Finally, though, it appears that the GOP will come to his rescue—because he doesn’t have enough backing within his own party. Earth feels ‘massive relief’ that Obama is in office “What’s really remarkable is that in all my years studying national reputation, I have never seen any country experience such a dramatic change in its standing as we see for the United States for 2009.” Census Bureau: U.S. lost ground on every major economic measurement under Bush Thursday’s annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau’s principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush. They tortured a man they knew to be innocent We now know that torturing a human being to get proof that he deserved to be tortured was not just a theoretical fear of mine. It happened. Bob Dole: now or never on health care If the reform proves popular, then the GOP will forever be tarred as the party that refused to help more people get health insurance or to tackle healthcare costs. Dick Cheney’s daughter to bring another ‘innocent child’ into her ‘lesbianic home’ The right-wing base loves Dick and Liz, but it dislikes the way Mary Cheney is gay and having children with her life partner. Texas gov. Perry acts to derail wrongful execution hearing Texas Gov. Rick Perry has shaken up a state commission looking into whether a man was wrongly executed in 2004. Life without parole for minors: cruel and unusual? The United States Supreme court will soon weigh in, and the question will be an early test of whether Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a former prosecutor, will align herself with the court’s tough-on-crime conservatives or join with its liberals to strike down prison policies perceived as going too far. Raines: Safire’s ‘rigid’ GOP loyalty contrasted with his openness to new information Bill Safire’s “rigid loyalty to the Republican Party stood in contrast to his intellectual habits, which were liberal in the old-fashioned sense of being comprehensive and open to new information,” writes Howell Raines. Glenn Beck uses Vaporub to get the “tears” flowing Now we see how Glenn Beck gets himself properly weepy for the cameras: a little Vicks Vaporub. He also can’t explain what he meant by ‘white culture’ Er, well, oh, er… Bill Gates has fifty thousand million dollars It’s that time of the year again when Forbes publishes their annual list of the 400 richest Americans, and the rest of us look at the billions they own, dream away for a minute or two, and then get back to reality, remembering we’ve forgotten to pay our cell phone bill.
