News Roundup for 5/10/12

Rep. Michele Bachmann

-Headline of the Day-
"Bachmann Withdraws Dual Swiss Citizenship."

After news that Rep. Bachmann had switched sides in the war between 'Murka and Yurp, Shelly beat a hasty retreat from her allegiance with the Schweizer Menace.

"I took this action because I want to make it perfectly clear," she said, "I was born in America and I am a proud American citizen." And it had nothing to do with the fact that her family would've been covered by that commie Swiss healthcare and the freedom-hating social safety net.

How do we know that? Well, because if Shelly's the only one pulling out, her family will still be covered by that commie Swiss healthcare and the freedom-hating social safety net, since they decided to go get their official Swiss Army knives "as a family."

So nice try, Comrade Bachmann. But no one's buying it. Your story has more holes in it than a certain type of cheese. (Talking Points Memo)


-Cartoon time with Mark Fiore-
Hey kids, have you heard about all this austerity stuff in Europe? Yeah, that didn't work out so well. Here's Uncle Mark to explain everything.


Click for animation

I guess it's true all over the world. When something's not working, a conservative thinks that just means you need to do more of it. (MarkFiore.com)


-Bonus HotD-
"Bristol Palin Slams Obama For Listening To His Daughters On Gay Marriage."

Because no one brings the sanctity of marriage to mind like Bristol Freakin' Palin. (Business Insider)

Stories to Watch: 11/13/11

Dealt with leaves again yesterday. There's this Norway maple in the back that holds onto it's leaves until the last minute, so when everyone else is done with their raking, I'm just getting started. It's about done now, but there's no guarantee they'll all fall before the snow comes. Now here's the news...

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Images wider than my center column have always been a problem for me, so I've added another upgrade to the site. Opening the image in a new window has been the solution I've been going with, but I don't like switching between tabs to look at charts, graphs, illustrations, etc. that go along with posts. Maybe it's just me, but I find it breaks the chain of thought.

So now when you see a "click to enlarge" link, click it or the thumbnail to open the image. It'll open in the same window and shrink to fit to your screen, if necessary. To view the image at full resolution, click the diagonal arrow at the bottom center and drag the image with your mouse to scroll. Click the arrow again to return to resized. And click the close button at the top or hit escape to return to the page. In a gallery, hit the left and right arrow icons to navigate. Here, try it. Pick a thumbnail.



This should be universal, but on the off-chance it doesn't work with your browser, images should just open in the conventional manner.

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Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul complain that last night's GOP debate was unfair -- and they're right. Team Bachmann got hold of a CBS News email saying that she would "not going to get many questions during the debate and she's nearly off the charts." Yes, it's true that Bachmann no longer stands a chance in hell of the nomination, but by using polling to decide how many questions she gets that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Here again, we see presidential debates as a way for the media to generate news stories -- and not as an informative part of the democratic process.


Bill O'Reilly's book on the Lincoln assassination is like everything else Bill does -- it's complete bullshit.


Occupy Portland defies a police order to clear out.


Herman Cain has conversations with God, who -- according to Cain -- told him to run for president. Oh, and Herman's just like Moses. That's what you want in a president; delusional megalomania.


Michele Bachmann thinks America should be more like a China that exists only in her imagination.


Finally, it's back. Republican candidates say we shouldn't torture people -- we should just do things that are torture and call it something else. Because that's what good people do.

Related articles

• Bill O'Reilly: "What's this Kenji Economics?" (notesandobservations.me)
• Cain, Bachmann want to reinstate waterboarding (sfgate.com)
• Live Blog for #Occupy Movement: Day 57, Occupy Portland Survives Night but Still Faces Eviction (dissenter.firedoglake.com)
• Ore. Occupy protesters defy deadline to leave (abclocal.go.com)