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image source: UTMB (yep, created here) Texas Republican invites Ted Nugent, an aging rocker and the official spokesman for Impotent White Male Rage, to the SOTU:  TPM: Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX),who threatened President Obama with impeachment over his plan to reduce gun violence, has offered a ticket to the State of the Union to Ted Nugent — whose criticism of the president once resulted in a sitdown with the Secret Service. “I am excited to have a patriot like Ted Nugent joining me in the House Chamber to hear from President Obama,” Stockman said in a statement Monday. “After the Address I’m sure Ted will have plenty to say.” ### “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” — Ted Nugent Still alive. Still free. We’re still waiting, Ted. ### Republican Rep. Stockman apparently finds the following Nugent facts admirable:  HOW NUGENT BRAVELY SHIT HIS PANTS TO AVOID THE VIETNAM DRAFT: In a July 15, 1990, Detroit Free Press interview, Nugent crowed about how he managed to dodge the draft. He claims that 30 days before his draft board physical, he disavowed personal hygiene. The last ten days he ingested nothing but junk food and Pepsi, and with a week to go until the physical, he stopped using the bathroom altogether. When the big day came, he had been living in excrement-caked and urine-stained pants. Always the hero, however, Nugent reassured the Free Press, “But if I would have gone over there, I’d have been killed, or I’d have killed all the Hippies in the foxholes. I would have killed everybody.” (via: campusprogress.org) FAMILY VALUES: Ted Nugent fathered SEVEN kids with FIVE different women, to which only two of whom he was married.(via: debbieschlussel.com) RICK PERRY’S 2007 INAUGURAL BALL:  The Motor City Madman played his scorching set draped in a confederate flag shirt – a symbol of slavery in just about everyone’s book – showing his pride for the South and his disrespect for African-American heritage in one crushing blow of 70’s-era guitar force. Perry danced on stage in his tuxedo, grinning contentedly. (via: austinist.com) NUGENT ON SUPPORTING PERRY’S 2012 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: “If I’m not given an authorized position in the campaign [it’s] because I’m too divisive,” Nugent told Billboard.com “I don’t know if I’ll get a stamp of approval because I am so volatile and because the line in the sand in a political campaign can be so ambiguous — and I’m anything but. […] on a rock ‘n’ roll stage, I can tell Hillary Clinton to straddle my machine gun.” (via: Rick Perry blog) …OR TELL PRESIDENT OBAMA to suck on his machine gun. (see YouTubevideo) Nugent was investigated by the Secret Service earlier this year after he urged NRA members to “chop [Democrats’] heads off in November.” COMPARED GUN OWNERS TO ROSA PARKS’ CIVIL RIGHTS ACTION: “There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed,” said Nugent in an interview to WorldNetDaily. THINKS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BEST IF THE SOUTH HAD WON THE CIVIL WAR: “Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.” — Seattle PI NUGENT, BORN IN 1948, is now 64 years old. An old man with no wisdom. The GOP’s rebranding effort continues to fail miserably: Ted Nugent’s SOTU invite
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image source: UTMB (yep, created here)

Texas Republican invites Ted Nugent, an aging rocker and the official spokesman for Impotent White Male Rage, to the SOTU: 

TPM: Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX),who threatened President Obama with impeachment over his plan to reduce gun violence, has offered a ticket to the State of the Union to Ted Nugent — whose criticism of the president once resulted in a sitdown with the Secret Service. “I am excited to have a patriot like Ted Nugent joining me in the House Chamber to hear from President Obama,” Stockman said in a statement Monday. “After the Address I’m sure Ted will have plenty to say.”

###

“If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year.” — Ted Nugent

Still alive. Still free. We’re still waiting, Ted.

###

Republican Rep. Stockman apparently finds the following Nugent facts admirable: 

  • HOW NUGENT BRAVELY SHIT HIS PANTS TO AVOID THE VIETNAM DRAFT: In a July 15, 1990, Detroit Free Press interview, Nugent crowed about how he managed to dodge the draft. He claims that 30 days before his draft board physical, he disavowed personal hygiene. The last ten days he ingested nothing but junk food and Pepsi, and with a week to go until the physical, he stopped using the bathroom altogether. When the big day came, he had been living in excrement-caked and urine-stained pants. Always the hero, however, Nugent reassured the Free Press, “But if I would have gone over there, I’d have been killed, or I’d have killed all the Hippies in the foxholes. I would have killed everybody.” (via: campusprogress.org)
  • FAMILY VALUES: Ted Nugent fathered SEVEN kids with FIVE different women, to which only two of whom he was married.(via: debbieschlussel.com)
  • RICK PERRY’S 2007 INAUGURAL BALL:  The Motor City Madman played his scorching set draped in a confederate flag shirt – a symbol of slavery in just about everyone’s book – showing his pride for the South and his disrespect for African-American heritage in one crushing blow of 70’s-era guitar force. Perry danced on stage in his tuxedo, grinning contentedly. (via: austinist.com)
  • NUGENT ON SUPPORTING PERRY’S 2012 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: “If I’m not given an authorized position in the campaign [it’s] because I’m too divisive,” Nugent told Billboard.com “I don’t know if I’ll get a stamp of approval because I am so volatile and because the line in the sand in a political campaign can be so ambiguous — and I’m anything but. […] on a rock ‘n’ roll stage, I can tell Hillary Clinton to straddle my machine gun.” (via: Rick Perry blog)
  • COMPARED GUN OWNERS TO ROSA PARKS’ CIVIL RIGHTS ACTION: “There will come a time when the gun owners of America, the law-abiding gun owners of America, will be the Rosa Parks and we will sit down on the front seat of the bus, case closed,” said Nugent in an interview to WorldNetDaily.
  • THINKS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BEST IF THE SOUTH HAD WON THE CIVIL WAR: “Because our legislative, judicial and executive branches of government hold the 10th Amendment in contempt, I’m beginning to wonder if it would have been best had the South won the Civil War.” — Seattle PI
  • NUGENT, BORN IN 1948, is now 64 years old. An old man with no wisdom.

The GOP’s rebranding effort continues to fail miserably: Ted Nugent’s SOTU invite

nbcnews: Pomp and circumstance: Obama’s second inaugural kicks off (Photo: Mladen Antonov / AFP - Getty Images) The pomp and circumstance of President Barack Obama’s second inauguration were underway Monday morning in Washington, as the president engaged in a series of quadrennial traditions leading up to his formal swearing-in on Capitol Hill. Read the complete story.
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nbcnews:

Pomp and circumstance: Obama’s second inaugural kicks off

(Photo: Mladen Antonov / AFP - Getty Images)

The pomp and circumstance of President Barack Obama’s second inauguration were underway Monday morning in Washington, as the president engaged in a series of quadrennial traditions leading up to his formal swearing-in on Capitol Hill.

To properly evaluate the 112th, consider the record of its predecessor, the 111th Congress, which ran from January 2009 to January 2011. The fighting 111th passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the “stimulus”), the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. It passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and expanded both the Serve America Act for community service and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It created significant new anti-tobacco regulations, ratified the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty, ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the armed forces and agreed to the 2010 tax deal, which extended the Bush tax cuts in return for the passage of middle- class stimulus…

What’s the record of the 112th Congress? Well, it almost shut down the government and almost breached the debt ceiling. It almost went over the fiscal cliff (which it had designed in the first place). It cut a trillion dollars of discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act and scheduled another trillion in spending cuts through an automatic sequester, which everyone agrees is terrible policy. It achieved nothing of note on housing, energy, stimulus, immigration, guns, tax reform, infrastructure, climate change or, really, anything. It’s hard to identify a single significant problem that existed prior to the 112th Congress that was in any way improved by its two years of rule.
Ezra Klein, “Good Riddance to Rottenest Congress in History.” (via quickhits)
Increasingly, it is becoming clear that the party is against everything and for nothing.

Nothing on taxes. Nothing on gun control. Nothing on climate change. Nothing on gay marriage. Nothing on immigration reform (or an incremental, piece-by-piece approach, which will result in nothing). It’s a very odd situation when the losing party is the party refusing to negotiate. It may be how you disrupt, but it is not how you govern, or how you ever hope to regain a majority.

And so, we have a Republican Party today willing to eliminate any prospect for a decent future for anyone, including itself, if it cannot be a future that is 100 percent in accordance with its core beliefs and principles. That’s not governing. That’s just lobbing hand grenades. If you’re only standing on principle to appear taller, then you appear smaller. And the GOP is shrinking daily before our eyes.
Mark McKinnon, former aide to both George W. Bush and John McCain. (via quickhits)
tpmmedia: America is headed over the fiscal cliff, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared on Thursday morning, blaming Speaker John Boehner. Business Insider: “Reid opened the Senate session by launching into a lengthy criticism of the House and Speaker John Boehner, saying he “seems to care more about his Speakership” than making a deal on the cliff. The House is being run “by a dictatorship of the Speaker,” Reid said. He accused Boehner of waiting until the election of the Speaker on Jan. 3 to get involved with negotiations. And he urged the lower chamber to pass the Middle Class Tax Cut Act, which the Senate narrowly passed in July. The bill made permanent all of the Bush-era tax cuts on incomes of less than $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals. Reid also slammed the House for not being in session on Thursday. He said that instead of being in Washington, Republicans are “out watching movies.” “They had to have a conference call,” he said.”
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tpmmedia:

America is headed over the fiscal cliff, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared on Thursday morning, blaming Speaker John Boehner.

Business Insider: “Reid opened the Senate session by launching into a lengthy criticism of the House and Speaker John Boehner, saying he “seems to care more about his Speakership” than making a deal on the cliff. The House is being run “by a dictatorship of the Speaker,” Reid said. He accused Boehner of waiting until the election of the Speaker on Jan. 3 to get involved with negotiations. And he urged the lower chamber to pass the Middle Class Tax Cut Act, which the Senate narrowly passed in July. The bill made permanent all of the Bush-era tax cuts on incomes of less than $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for individuals. Reid also slammed the House for not being in session on Thursday. He said that instead of being in Washington, Republicans are “out watching movies.”

“They had to have a conference call,” he said.”

nbcnews: Mobile, Ala. hit by Christmas Day tornado (Photo: Mike Kittrell / AP) A major winter storm pummeled large parts of the U.S. on Tuesday, dropping heavy snow on the Southern Plains and spinning off damaging tornadoes in warmer areas southward. Treacherous holiday travel was expected to become even more of an ordeal by the time the storm arrives in the Northeast later this week. Read the complete story.
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nbcnews:

Mobile, Ala. hit by Christmas Day tornado

(Photo: Mike Kittrell / AP)

A major winter storm pummeled large parts of the U.S. on Tuesday, dropping heavy snow on the Southern Plains and spinning off damaging tornadoes in warmer areas southward. Treacherous holiday travel was expected to become even more of an ordeal by the time the storm arrives in the Northeast later this week.

Read the complete story.

It’s really a ‘right to work’… around the union for the corporation. It’s one of those things that are actually named for the opposite of the thing they do, like strip bars call themselves ‘gentlemen’s clubs.’ Or the TV network, dedicated to making us stupider, is called ‘The Learning Channel.’ Or a TV show that airs four days a week calls itself The Daily Show.
JON STEWART, The Daily Show (via inothernews)
nbcnews: Citigroup plans to cut 11,000 jobs, close some branches (Photo: Shannon Stapleton / Reuters) Banking giant Citigroup announced Wednesday that it would cut about 11,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of its global work force, and shutter some branches in an attempt to save as much as $1.1 billion a year in costs. Read the complete story. THE REAL QUESTION: But how much of an increase in pay and bonuses will the upper management / board of directors get this year?
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nbcnews:

Citigroup plans to cut 11,000 jobs, close some branches

(Photo: Shannon Stapleton / Reuters)

Banking giant Citigroup announced Wednesday that it would cut about 11,000 jobs, or about 4 percent of its global work force, and shutter some branches in an attempt to save as much as $1.1 billion a year in costs.

THE REAL QUESTION: But how much of an increase in pay and bonuses will the upper management / board of directors get this year?

America’s military is astonishingly top heavy, with 945 generals and admirals on active duty as of March 2012. That’s one flag-rank officer for every 1,500 officers and enlisted personnel. With one general for every 1,000 airmen, the Air Force is the worst offender, but the Navy and Army aren’t far behind. For example, the Army has 10 active-duty divisions — and 109 major generals to command them. Between September 2001 and April 2011, the military actually added another 93 generals and admirals to its ranks (including 37 of the three- or four-star variety). The glut extends to the ranks of full colonel (or, in the Navy, captain). The Air Force has roughly 100 active-duty combat wings — and 3,712 colonels to command them. The Navy has 285 ships — and 3,335 captains to command them. Indeed, today’s Navy has nearly as many admirals (245 as of March 2012) as ships.
William Astore from “Generals Behaving Badly” at TomDispatch.com (via nickturse)
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