(Disclaimer- I know and like Dick Durbin. The only time I have found major fault with him was when he caved into pressure when he was complaining about torture committed by the CIA and US troops. If he had stood tall, perhaps some of the worst parts of the Cheney Bush Admin could have been reversed or slowed)

Dick is one smart, knowledgable, and professional person. Any state would be lucky to have him.

Oberwurst? I'll bet he doesn't even know how to milk a cow. Once he inherited his family fortune in milk and ice cream, I doubt that he even knew which end of the cow to milk.

Oberwurst came out fighting, but mostly he seemed to be trying to explain why he had no answer, while Durbin was directly answering tough questions, with well thought out explanations.

According to the International Business Times:


A threat to leak nude photos of actress Emma Watson following her game-changing HeForShe gender equality speech at the United Nations in New York this week has been revealed to be a hoax. Rantic Marketing, the social media enterprise behind the buzzed-about website EmmaYouAreNext.com, which included a countdown clock for when nude images of the British film star were set to be released on 4chan, used the platform to promote an anti-4chan campaign.

At midnight Wednesday, instead of releasing the rumored forthcoming nudes of the 24-year-old “Harry Potter” star, the website redirected visitors to Rantic.com, where they were met with a message pledging to #SHUTDOWN4CHAN. “Spread the word!” reads the page’s welcome announcement. The hoax comes three weeks after the first round of female celebrities' hacked images were leaked on the site and Reddit’s “The Fappening” boards. “Join us as we shut down 4chan and prevent more private pictures from being leaked,” said Rantic. “None of these women deserve this, and together we can make a change.”

Rantic claims to have been hired by unidentified celebrity publicists to create the hoax in an effort to shut down the controversial image-sharing site following the recent nude photo scandals that have affected stars such as “The Hunger Games” actress Jennifer Lawrence, actress Gabrielle Union, Olympian McKayla Maroney and reality-TV star Kim Kardashian.


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While many of the criticisms here may be valid, if we go around calling 4chan terrorists, especially in view of the above, we end up looking like the ones we have criticized. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025573731

You first allowed the locals handle the situation, which is almost always the right thing to do.
When they proved to be idiots in search of a village to shoot up, you made the right decisions.
Your choice of who would be in charge locally was inspired.
You dealt with a potentially deadly and explosive situation very smartly.

Some might criticize you for not moving fast enough, but seriously, what rational person would expect the police to start riots, shooting tear gas at media groups, arresting journalists or having a quasi military response that only made things worse?

Congrats, Mr. Nixon. You done did good. I suspect the people of Ferguson will thank you for it. As will all other rational thinkers.

Here's a letter I wrote to NBC about Me Depressed.

What village idiot decided that Gregory could handle a tough and important assignment like Meet the Press? Whoever it was deserves to be fired since they obviously have no clue about:

a. What the program entails. (Hint - intelligent conversation about one important topic)
b. How a well run program like MTP should and could offer a great deal to the political discourse in this country. There is a huge potential audience, if they weren't having their sensibility, taste, and intelligence insulted by the likes of Gregory.
c. How bad Gregory is at his job. Seriously. Ask around.
d. The toxic mix of Gregory and his standard stable of GOP old white farts turns people off faster than Sarah Palin orating about hard work, family values, ethics and the newspapers she reads.
e. The general public would be better suited if NBC simply shut the whole mess down and replaced it with 30 minutes of the old fashioned black and white TV test pattern that was used in the 1950s and 60s.

Can you people be so dense as to not realize what an embarrassment Gregory is?

If you do plan to fix MTP instead of shutting the whole mess down, here are a few suggestions. The first step is simple. NEVER LET GREGORY NEAR A LIVE CAMERA AGAIN. Next, pick someone who is not a media whore, but who learns about a subject, understands his or her role, and grills the target politely, but firmly. No talking points allowed. Your host should never allow those to control the discussion. Oh god, and please, no more McCain, Rinse Preibus, Graham, or any other standard GOP sTalking head. PLEASE! Finally, no refusal to answer the question. If some Teabagger decides to recite their scripted crap, either call them on it, or shut them down. Embarrassment is the best medicine for tepid idiocy.

Your new host can be female, male, or trans. I really don't care. Liberal? conservative? White, black, hispanic, oriental - It does not matter. But character and ethics, intellectual honesty, knowledge, and hard questioning done in a fair manner do. Gregory has none of those. In abundance.

If you wish to write them, try this: contact.nbcnews@nbcuni.com

And it struck me how far news has fallen in this country. Lamborghini? A news story? And Aussie actress?
Wha da fa?

That said, is there anything as funny and exciting as the upcoming battle between the open carry assholes of texass and the NRA? It was bound to happen at some point, but of all places, Texas really deserves to be the battleground in this 10 round, no gloves, no rules, no neutral corner event.

No, seriously, I read that he died. Actually some years ago.

I've turned on C? Spun 2 and to my surprise, one of three nominees to the federal bench was approved, by a huge majority.
Now, Nancy Rosenstengel in Illinois is rolling 84+ in favor, to nada against.
Problem is, she was nominated 7 months ago, and has been stewing and cooling her heels because of GOP obstruction.
My problem is that I know nothing about her, other than she was the clerk of the court for some time in Central Ill.

There is yet a 3d nominee up today. If they get three passed today, I will be amazed. Perhaps the GOP was reeling from the beatings in the polls about their obstructionism. More likely, some DINOs probably agreed to support them in secret on some dastardly decision.

Some years back, Israel complained that the Palestinian leadership was too fractured, too insecure, and incapable of representing the entire collection of Palestine, ergo, talks would be pointless.

Now, with Palestine putting aside internal squabbles, unifying behind one government, Isreal complains that it cannot talk to those who make up some of the unified government.

It strikes me that Israel will say and do anything to avoid peace talks, and continually shift its positions should the Palestinians make the mistake of accepting some Israeli demand.

At some point, Israel has to recognize that it is losing support with its incredible stances, and that its reactionary positions do it no good long term.

Having lost the race for president the last four elections, by ever widening margins, an obviously energized, yet grey-skinned and tottering Todd Cruz, former senator from Texas, who resigned after a sexy video of him and a very young female aide was accidentally released during a family values convention, announced his fifth run for president. His announcement was greeted with faint cheers and piped in sounds of applause.

The convention press observers mistakenly confused two life support attendants and one ICU elder care specialist assigned to the conference as members, instead of providing necessary care and the occasional cardiac stimulus to the 100 or so bed and wheelchair ridden actual attendees. After the misidentification, Those three people of color took strong steps to distance themselves from the convention, while promising to provide good, solid, and effective health care under what they called "existing" law.

GOP house leader promised never to give up the fight, despite 1,877 attempts to overturn the law had previously failed. Eft Gingrich, the illegitimate child of the famous family values pol Newt Gingrich, provided the most fireworks with his plans to invade Paraguay for its perceived insults directed to America about its flat earth, creationist GOP.

Bristol Palin, fresh from a three day stint as emcee of the reality show called Amazing Arizona, also suggested that she may seek higher office, even though she resigned from congress a month after being elected. She was obviously hoping that the Koch brothers, again in suspended animation between their complete organ re-grow and transplant surgeries, would fund her campaign, much like when they underwrote her mother's career over the decades. Because the thawing out takes a minimum of 2 weeks, the Kochs were not able to attend, although nano-bots would be injected into their brains so they would experience the whole convention personally.