Social Studies [soh-shul-stuh-dees] -pl.n (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
A course of study including geography, history, government, and sociology, taught in school.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, leveling harsh criticism against the Obama administration.
After Gingrich assailed the administration for reading Miranda Rights to Detroit undie bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Stewart drew a comparison to something that happened under George W. Bush.
"Didn't they do the same with Richard Reid, who was the shoe bomber?" he asked the Republican icon.
"Richard Reid was an American citizen," insisted Gingrich.
Reid is actually a British citizen of Jamaican descent.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, leveling harsh criticism against the Obama administration.
After Gingrich assailed the administration for reading Miranda Rights to Detroit undie bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Stewart drew a comparison to something that happened under George W. Bush.
"Didn't they do the same with Richard Reid, who was the shoe bomber?" he asked the Republican icon.
"Richard Reid was an American citizen," insisted Gingrich.
Reid is actually a British citizen of Jamaican descent.
Sarah Palin dropped out of a 5k race on Thanksgiving Day in Kennewick, Wash. The former vice presidential candidate and Alaska Governor quit the race because she wanted to avoid the crowds that were waiting for her at the end, according to The Tri-Cities Harold.
Palin was 1 of about 3,000 participants. The paper reported that her presence drew a "mass of onlookers." Palin announced that she would be running the race on Twitter.
The former Republican vice-presidential candidate visited nearby Richland, Wash., to spend the holiday with relatives. She said it's good to be back in the Tri-Cities to reconnect with "the roots." Her grandparents, Clem and Helen Sheeran, came to Richland in 1943.
(Oct. 25) - A fictitious article that claimed President Barack Obama slammed the Constitution in his college thesis had some people fooled into thinking it was the real thing -- including Rush Limbaugh.
The conservative radio show host reported the story as fact on his show Friday after an obscure blogger, Michael Leeden, picked it up from a satire Web site last week, the New York Daily News reported Sunday. But after Limbaugh found out the piece was a fake, he didn't apologize for his mistake.
Limbaugh sounded off on the false report about a college thesis written by Obama, titled "Aristocracy Reborn." In it, the report claimed, the president criticized the nation's Founding Fathers, the Constitution and the distribution of wealth.
"While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned," read the fake report on Obama's Columbia University thesis, referring to the Constitution. "While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."
Limbaugh went off on his show.
"So here is who we have as our president of the United States: an anti-constitutionalist man who finds it an obstacle and is finding ways around it on purpose, unconstitutionally," Limbaugh said.
"Much of what he's doing is unconstitutional, and I'm waiting for the lawsuits to be filed by some of these people at some point," he added. "How is that hope and change working out for ya, folks?"
Later in the program, Limbaugh learned the report was a fake and alerted his listeners. But he insisted the fabricated thesis was still in line with what the president thinks, the New York Daily news reported.
"So I shout from the mountaintops: 'It was satire!'" Limbaugh said on the program. "But we know he (Obama) thinks it. Good comedy, to be comedy, must contain an element of truth, and we know how he feels about distribution of wealth."
Leeden has since apologized for making the mistake.
"The hoax/satire was written in August, so it’s not connected to any current event. I came across it on Twitter, read the blog, found it interesting, and posted on it. I failed to notice that one of the tags was 'satire,'" he wrote.
Glenn Beck's "9-12" logo based on Communist & Socialists designs.
September 13, 2009 | 10:30am
Ever since Glenn Beck took to the Fox television airwaves recently to offer a bizarre reading of the art commissioned 70 years ago for New York's Rockefeller Center, I've been puzzled by the graphic design element of his 9-12 Project. The logo (pictured) for his affiliated groups' rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend derives from century-old communist, socialist and other left-wing designs.
Those were the motifs he railed against in his Rockefeller rant.
For the logo, three raised and clenched red fists are superimposed over the U.S. Capitol. Obviously the bloody fist represents the tea-baggers' themes of unity and resistance.
Unity and resistance are what the fist represented in 1917, when it was first employed by the Industrial Workers of the World, a union organization founded by socialists. And in the 1940s, when it stood for various nations' communist party organizations.
That's also what it meant when it was revived in the 1960s, appearing as a symbol for the SDS, as well as anti-war and feminist movements. It was the basis for the black-power salute given by John Carlos and Tommie Smith at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. And today, it's the symbol for the Progressive Labor Party (pictured), a political outfit whose website says it "fights to smash capitalism."
Turnout for the 9-12 Project's Saturday march on Washington was a bust; 30,000 protesters signed up in advance (MSNBC reporter David Shuster tweeted that D.C. park police called that figure "generous"). But even if three times that many actually showed up, the number would fall far short of the hundreds of thousands (and even millions) claimed to be planning to attend. Even in that reduced crowd, however, surely someone recognized how odd the right-wing gathering's left-wing logo was.
None of the beers consumed at the recent "Beer Summit" between President Barack Obama, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr & Sgt. James Crowley are American owned companies!
Governor Mark Sanford (Republican) ~South Carolina
By Emma Ruby-Sachs
Civil Lawyer
From HuffingtonPost.com
It's satisfying to lambast a staunch social conservative for an extramarital affair on another continent. Governor Sanford voted to impeach Bill Clinton, has been a solid opponent of gay marriage and often invokes the "word of God" to support his conservative policies. I understand, those emails were hilarious and the press conference was pathetic and those of us without full rights in the United States certainly want Sanford's career to stay in the dumps.
But, all this hubub over an affair? As my parents would say, it's just inappropriate sex.
The real failure in this sad story is a political platform based on a personal moral code.
Laws are put in place, ideally, to protect the most vulnerable members of society from those stronger than them. It's why we have criminal law, tax law, family law, securities law, etc. A good law maker identifies a weak party and works to protect them, thus representing their constituents.
When law makers choose, instead, to identify a moral agenda, one that ignores the actual reality of people living in their district, and attempts to impose certain value systems based on that moral agenda, they target minorities and establish legal restrictions that fail to relate to problems voters face.
So, instead of working to find homes for children without parents, politicians like Governor Sanford oppose gay adoptions. Instead of ensuring that each taxpayer is given a credit for their dependents, Governor Sanford opposes the tax rights associated with gay marriage.
And like anyone who loses touch with reality, Sanford fell victim to his own fictions. His moral code bears no relation to the diverse country in which he lives. It turns out, his moral code bears little relation to his own life.
Moral politics ignore reality, they serve to ostracize and isolate vulnerable members of society and they are inevitably impossible to follow. Their separation from the messy human condition means that even the people imposing the morally based laws are sinners and transgressors.
We have a lot in common with Governor Sanford. We too have had to grapple with what we are taught is right and what we feel is honest and true. He's just learning the lesson a little later in life. Perhaps his tragedy will teach others the folly of moral political policies and encourage law making that addresses the diverse populations facing difficult and myriad problems in the U.S. today.
07-04-2009 by muckraker A conservative Governor with a liberal penis.
Glenn Beck Fails To Get GM CEO To Bash The United Auto Workers
~From HuffingtonPost.com
In an amazing interview on Thursday afternoon, Glenn Beck consistently attempted to goad recently-promoted GM CEO Fritz Henderson into bashing the automaker's partners: the United Auto Workers and the federal government. Throughout the interview, Henderson sat there and gamely deflected Beck's rants and calmly explained how his company works.
From the start, after praising the company and proudly describing his ownership of a Saturn, Beck lashed into the government and the unions, telling Henderson:
"You're now in bed with the federal government... What kind of nasty K-car are we going to be getting in the future?"
Henderson talked down Beck, telling him that the government was not GM's master, saying that "we're appreciative of the support we've gotten from the administration, starting with financing. Frankly, we wouldn't have made it had we not received the support."
Granted, Henderson is smart enough not to knock his federal benefactors - he added that the government has not been meddling in the automaker's business, such as their advertising budget.
When Beck claimed that the unions are "strangling" GM, Henderson shot him down:
"They've been more part of the solution than the problem... yes, we have significant legacy costs that we're trying to address. Frankly, they're trying to help us address those issues at the same time... I view the unions are more part of the solution than the problem. Me personally."
Once again the simple-minded media and its pundits are confused about the nature of Americanism and language. When President Obama today inferred consideration of holding former administration officials accountable to law, he was immediately accused of violating his belief that we should "look forward." Had President Ford "looked forward" in his decision as to whether or not to hold Nixon accountable, he perhaps would have seen the Bush administration abuse of power coming and chosen to be genuinely tough on crime -- you know, "tough on crime" -- sending Nixon to jail and deterring this recent avalanche of abuse.
Further, the criticisms of President Obama's warm greeting toward President Chavez of Venezuela have been the posturing of our nation's most bitter and humanly impotent voices. Why is anyone listening to former Vice President Cheney? He's the one person alive proven wrong on virtually every topic. Then there's Newt Gingrich, who commented on the Chavez greeting as being approached wrong. He suggested that the meeting itself may not be improper, but that it should have been handled with a cold demeanor. This is a pattern of bad acting advice from bad actors. (All wimps think playing a tough guy is done in one-note coldness.) With a friend, or an enemy, our president will gain greater strategic position with a smile.
I know President Chavez well. Whether or not one agrees with all his policies, what is certainly true of Chavez is that he is a warm and friendly man with a robust sense of humor (who daily risks his own life for his country in ways Dick Cheney could never imagine). To treat such a man coldly is akin to spitting on him. As a country we've done enough of that. Say what you will, but it has only resulted in the self-celebration of our smirking spitters, while costing us international respect, American lives, and left wounds in the hands of our children's future. The Cheneys, down to the O'Reillys and Hannitys and Limbaughs, effectively hate the principles upon which we were founded. They are among the greatest cowards in all of American history. I applaud an American President who's tough enough...to smile.
06-14-2009 by muckraker "We gotta get some new rules like pronto or we'll all just be bogus too"
There is not currently a bio section here on Failurisms, so let me introduce myself. I drive a truck for a living, sing and try to play music and write for enjoyment. I love my Harley and I feel like I'm being forced into paying attention to politics for many reasons.
I am not a communist, more a Social-Democrat with a wide Libertarian streak. I know these ideologies seem at odds with each other, please let me explain. In an ideal world, the basic Libertarian idea that rights come with responsibilities would be universal and we could rely on our neighbors to live up to them. Ideas like ' it's in our own self-interest to help those less fortunate, because they'll turn into customers when they get on their feet,' aren't much different from 'we need to help those less fortunate because it's the right thing to do.' It's just a matter of who is doing the helping and why- the end result is the same.
Fortunately, I am a realist as well. My faith in human nature has been damaged over the years until it's just this pathetic little guttering flicker. Humans need government to keep a check on the idiots who still think that might makes right whether that might comes from a fist or a large bank account. Governments need the real threat of revolution hanging over their collective heads to keep them from infringing unnecessarily on its subjects lifestyles and rights.
I'm all for freedom of religion, but not to the point of someone ramming their ideologies down my throat with legislation. I'm all for a single-payer universal healthcare system, just as I'm all for the right of the populace to be well armed for self-defense against criminals – both those on the street and those in our houses of government. I'm all for paying taxes on fuel in order to maintain the roads, but I can see that the internal combustion engine may be the death of our ecosystem. I'm all for shrinking governments, but not to the point that they can no longer perform the very real job of governing. I'm all for property rights, but not if a river runs through your land and you decide it's OK to build an outhouse over it. I'm all for the end of the “War on Drugs”, but God help you if it can be proven that your intoxication led to someone else's injury. I'm all for making a profit, but not the expense of another's dignity or the health of our planet. I'm all for free education, but not if the recipient is only using it figure out how to game the system. My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins, unless you've violated my nose already - then all bets are off and a can of whoop-ass will be opened.
So that's the kind of wild-eyed radicalism you can expect from me,
On November 4th, 2008, the people of America perpetrated a failure that will echo down the halls of history. It was the failure of hatred, fear and prejudice. It was the failure of almost 400 years of institutionalized and societal oppression of any person whose skin tone was darker than a sun tanned Anglo-Saxon. It was the failure of the legacy of lynch mobs and the KKK. It was the failure of Jim Crow laws and segregation. It was the failure of the idea that America has any second class citizens.
It was a failure of the American people to continue to follow a failed political and economic ideology. It was the failure of voters to continue to swallow any more of the fear mongering, jingoistic,corporatist propaganda conservatives continued to spew. It was the failure of John McCain to convince America of his knowledge of how to “get bin Laden” or that “The fundamentals of the economy are strong,” or that even he had any real faith in that spectacular, idiotic failure, Sarah Palin.
We must not fail to do more than just hope that the 44th President will be able to lead us out of these desperate times; we can take an active role in helping each other. We must not fail to urge our Representatives and Senators to work on solving the myriad problems facing our faltering country. We must not fail to demand that former officials be held accountable for their illegal actions. We must not fail to show the world and future generations that we a nation ruled by law and not by men. The health of our nation demands that we pay attention to more than the full-contact “sport” of elections. We must not fail to hold up our own end of the social contract. We must not fail to live up to Benjamin Franklin's answer to a question regarding what kind of government the Constitutional Convention gave us: “A Republic; if you can keep it.”
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