Rush Limbaugh hospitalized with chest pains

msnbc.com

Conservative U.S. radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh was resting comfortably at a hospital in Hawaii after suffering chest pains, his Web site said.

Local KITV television, citing unnamed sources, said earlier that Limbaugh, 58, was in serious condition at Honolulu's Queen's Medical Center after being treated at a hotel by paramedics.

Limbaugh's Web site, RushLimbaugh.com, said, "Rush was admitted to a Honolulu hospital today and is resting comfortably after suffering chest pains."

We wish Mr. Limbaugh a full recovery and a lengthy period of  well-deserved rest and recuperation away from the microphones and cameras.

Finally

Rep Eric Massa (D-NY) finally says what needs to be said:

• Dick Cheney is a coward who needs to STFU so we can solve the problems he created.
• Jim DeMint has put Americans at risk for political gain.
• No one complained when Dubbya took SIX DAYS to come out and make a statement about the "Shoe Bomber"
  
• More Dems need to kick back against Republican liars like Cheney, King, DeMint, and Hoekstra who are making this failed attack by the Undiebomber into a political issue.

Link, for those who can't see embedded vids: http://www.dailykos.com/tv/w/002457/



More Dems like this, please.

Comment Moderation Is Enabled Again

Due to a particularly noxious infestation of trollus off-topicus anonymous, the management has been forced to re-enable comment moderation. If you don't see your comment immediately, I'll get to it ASAP.

Comments that disagree with me on the topic of the post are welcome, in fact encouraged; comments that merely repeat generic off-topic slurs and tired old discredited wingnuttery regarding President Obama, liberals, "leftists", "socialists," etc. will be deleted, as will whines about my language or the "tone" of my responses or suggestions that I suffer from some sort of mental illness. The last is well-documented and requires no reiteration.

This is not an attempt to stifle dissent or discussion; it is an attempt to stifle tiresome idiots. Like that anonymouse from Rochester NY, for example, who likes to talk shit from behind what he thinks is a wall of anonymity.

All decisions of the management are final. Thank you, and God bless.

Hysteria

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Watch Pat Buchanan in this bit, and I think you'll understand, if you didn't already, how insane the wingnuts really are. Watch as Buchanan, supposedly some kind of right wing elder statesman, gets more and more hysterical, his voice climbing almost into a range only dogs can hear, as he demands that the Undiebomber be tortured, even though the reports are that he's already cooperating. Then he demands that we kill his entire family.

Then contrast that with the commentary from Washington Independent reporter Spencer Ackerman, who sounds like an adult. I particularly like the bit about "Muslim supermen with Muslim heat vision". A tip of the hat to Ta-Nehisi Coates, who's rapidly becoming one of my favorite bloggers, for cluing me in on this one.

I certainly hope the adults win this conversation. I wish, however, that more Democrats would grow a spine and push back against this hysteria and fearmongering, not to mention calling these assholes out for politicizing this failed attack to raise funds and get votes.

Republican Congressman: For Terrorism Before He was Against It

New York Congressman Peter King has certainly been a busy little fellow since the Christmas Wannabe managed to burn his nuts off while trying and failing to bring down an American airliner. He's demanded that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab be tried before a military tribunal instead of charged criminally:

"I think that the administration has made a mistake by treating this terrorist as a common criminal — by putting him into the criminal justice system. I wish they would have put him into a military tribunal so we could get as much intelligence and information out of him as we could."

He's called for profiling because, and I quote, "100% of the Islamic terrorists are Muslims," which, I suppose, is strictly true.

And it seems that whenever the networks need a soundbite about the failed attack and how President Obama's screwing everything up, you see either King or the egregious Pete Hoekstra, who's actually using the fear he's whipping up over the attack as a fundraising tool for his gubernatorial campaign.

But Mr. King wasn't always such a foe of terrorists:

[H]e told an IRA rally in 1982, "We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry." Two years later Mr King's "legitimate guerrilla army" came close to assassinating Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Subsequently there were bombs in the City and Docklands, plus a mortar assault on 10 Downing Street amongst many, many other outrages.

Wonder why all the reporters and pundits lining up to take down every pearl of wisdom that drips from Rep. King's jowly mug don't ever bring that up?

Liberal media my ass.

Chutzpah, Part II, or They Were For Civilian Trials Before They Were Against Them

Former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge:

"I take a look at this individual who has been charged criminally, does that mean he gets his Miranda warnings? The only information we get is if he volunteers it?" Ridge said. "He's not a citizen of this country. He's a terrorist, and I don't think he deserves the full range of protections of our criminal justice system embodied in the Constitution of the United States."

However, as Talking Points Memo points out:

The AbdulMutallab case is virtually identical to the Richard Reid "Shoe Bomber" case from December 2001 -- to an uncanny degree. Same explosive, (PETN), same MO (blowing up an airliner bound for the US), same failed attempt.

It's really about as close to identical cases and you get. And, of course, Reid was tried in civilian courts and is now serving a life sentence. Seemed to work fine in his case. And unless I'm misremembering, I don't remember anybody criticizing this approach at the time.

More chutzpah from the failed Bush Administration.

Chutzpah

Chutzpah: Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish defines chutzpah as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to." In this sense, chutzpah expresses both strong disapproval and a grudging admiration. In the same work Rosten also defined the term as "that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan."

Washingtonpost.com:

An alleged attempt to blow up a transatlantic flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas would be all-consuming for the administrator of the Transportation Security Administration -- if there were one.

Instead, the post remains vacant because Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has held up President Obama's nominee in an effort to prevent TSA workers from joining a labor union.

DeMint, in a statement, said Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's alleged attempted attack in Detroit "is a perfect example of why the Obama administration should not unionize the TSA."

Get that? If the TSA unionizes, it won't be able to stop terrorist attacks. We're so dedicated to this principle, we're going to render the TSA leaderless. The fact that there was an attempted terrorist attack during this interregnum just proves our point, even though the TSA was not, at the time of the attempt, unionized.

Sheer chutzpah.