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I have no idea whether the death threats against our first black president have been bad enough that the Secret Service actually has decided to employ a food taster to make sure that he isn't poisoned, but as Tommy Christopher pointed out, if it is true, he wouldn't be the first. That didn't stop the likes of Swanson heir Tucker Carlson and his rag, The Daily Caller, along with every other right-winger on the Internet from going crazy and using it as an excuse to attack President Obama for acting like "royalty."

Here's more from Wonkette: Sequester Eliminates Position Of White House Taster, President To Starve:

Bammerz is still holding his lame ass meetings with Congressional Republicans in his latest flailing attempt to show them that he too wants to inflict as much needless pain on the vulnerable with stupid spending cuts. Apparently it was Susan Collins’ turn to have her special day with the President and as such she brought a Maine-themed feast full of shellfish and blueberry pie. However the President didn’t touch this succulent lunch, and not because he felt uncomfortable with Senator Collins bringing him a big plate of aphrodisiacs:

“Unfortunately, you know, the president can’t….He looked longingly at it..He honestly did look longingly at it, but apparently he has to have essentially a taster, and I pointed out to him that we were all tasters for him, that if the food had been poisoned all of us would have keeled over so, but he did look longingly at it and he remarked that we have far better food than the Democrats do, and I said that was because I was hosting.”

Okay it seems that we’ve learned a few things from this. First of all thanks to the President we now know that Senator Klobuchar’s “Taconite Tater Tot Hot Dish” is as gross as it sounds. Secondly: Obama has a food taster? Oh sweet Indonesian Curried Dog Stew we are never going to hear the end of this.

Sadly, despite the fact that story first came from the incredibly accurate source known as the Daily Caller and has since hit the right wing echo chamber thanks to AIM Investigative Reporter of the year Jim Hoft, it seems that the President is protected by a food taster. Why the nation’s first black president would feel compelled to employ someone meant to protect his food in this wonderful era of complete racial transcendence and political civility is beyond our comprehension, but it does automatically mean that Obama is an evil aristocratic dictator whose tyranny is only matched by his disdain for the common people. Read on...

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Fox News host Geraldo Rivera on Friday said that "angry, old, white men" like Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) demanded Susan Rice give up any ambition to be secretary of state as a "minimum price" for the September attacks in Benghazi.

Speaking to the hosts of Fox & Friends, Rivera explained that female Republican Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) and Susan Collins (R-ME) gave cover to "the angry, old, white men" by joining in their attack on Rice "and then it couldn't be a male-female issue against this poor, beleaguered black woman."

"Angry, old, white men?" asked co-host Gretchen Carlson.

"I am speaking expansively and metaphorically and for effect here," Rivera insisted. "But it became clear she couldn't be the beleaguered damsel in distress -- the poor, black, embattled ambassador. It became clear that she was the minimum price... she was the minimum price to pay for the administrations dissembling on the facts and circumstances of the Benghazi attacks. She was going to be the minimum price that the Democrats, that the Obama administration had to pay for that clear offense."

"In Washington, you make minimum prices. She's the sacrificial lamb."

NBC News White House correspondent Chuck Todd, however, on Thursday said that Rice had also been a victim of conservative media outlets like Fox News.

"She became victim of the attacks. ... and it was all driven, in many cases, by conservative outlets who were making her the center of the Benghazi story," Todd told MSNBC's Martin Bashir. "It's too easy now in the way our media landscape is set up: You can become collateral damage in a hurry, in the way you can just get piled on — whether it's Twitter, whether its advocacy journalism, talk radio. ... That's what she was. Make no mistake, she was political collateral damage."

(h/t: Mediaite)

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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) seems confident she has found a way to get the Zadroga bill passed after it died last week. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) is already on board, and Snowe & Collins of Maine, as well as Murkowski of Alaska are believed to be votes as well. There is a fair amount of Fox News "fair and balanced" in this ABC report but at least the mainstream media is bothering to mention the root causes of this failure, perhaps shamed into it by Jon Stewart.

Via ABC News:

Senate Republicans last week derailed a bill that would provide $7.4 billion in health care and compensation to 9/11 responders and survivors, but Gillibrand today voiced confidence that the Senate will pass the bill in the next week, now that lawmakers have agreed on how to pay for the measure.

"We have the votes we need," Gillibrand said today at a press conference on Capitol Hill. "We've had indications from several Republicans that they very much want to vote for this bill.

"They would like to vote for a stand-alone bill," she said. "There is general agreement on a new pay-for that we're going to offer, so the hope is to get to the bill as soon as the START bill is completed."

And what is this face-saving move that will allow Republicans to vote for it? Susan Collins of Maine (again) details the Republican objections:

Collins is the GOP's point person on the matter, and has been working with Gillibrand to find new means to off-set the costs of the $7.4 billion bill.

"I support the 9/11 health bill on the merits, and I have talked with Senator Gillibrand about the need for legitimate ways of offsetting its cost," Collins said in a statement on Thursday. "If the Majority Leader were to bring the bill to the floor with appropriate offsets, I would support the legislation."

Gillibrand's new offer.

The off-set in the House-passed measure would close tax loopholes for foreign companies, a move that Collins has objected to on the grounds that it would violate international tax treaties.

Today Gillibrand said that the new off-set would be a 2 percent fee on procurement contracts for certain countries, combined with a visa fee.

As Think Progress noted, Collins and the Republicans reasons are completely bogus.

‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Lobbied To Help GOP Kill Bill To Provide Health Care To 9/11 First Responders

Last night, the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart skewered Republicans for killing deficit neutral legislation to provide health care to the 9/11 first responders and emergency workers who suffered illnesses from working at Ground Zero. He also mocked the celebrity-obsessed media that has completely ignored the story. Republicans, like Sen. John Thune (R-SD), filibustered the bill because they said tax cuts for the richest 2 percent were a higher priority for Congress. While Republicans quietly snuffed out efforts to compensate 9/11 heroes, they were aided by a quiet lobbying campaign by the powerful lobbying front — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber fought to help kill the 9/11 compensation bill because it was funded by ending a special tax loophole exploited by foreign corporations doing business in the United States.

Apparently, according to Republicans even modest tax increases to foreign corporations is not legitimate anymore. "Whose side are you on?" indeed.

Repealing "don't ask, don't tell" is one more popular bill Congress somehow manages to snatch from the jaws of victory.

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The House came back into emergency session and passed the state aid bill, but not without a ton of carping by Republicans about how this is just another "bailout" for the states, all the while still demanding that the Bush tax cuts for the rich stay in place, which are not paid for and will add to that deficit they keep wailing about.

House Passes State Aid Bill, Saving An Estimated 300,000 Jobs:

This afternoon, the House, reconvened for a special emergency vote, passed a $26.1 billion bill providing aid to cash-strapped state governments. The bill provides $16.1 billion in Medicaid funding and $10 billion to help states keep teachers on the payroll.

The Senate passed the deficit-neutral bill last week, 61 to 39. The vote came down on party lines, save for Maine Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins. After the Senate passed the package, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the Speaker of the House, called members back from their home districts for a special vote on the bill. More than 400 House members returned, and Democrats passed a rule on the measure, 229 to 173. The bill passed 247 to 161, mostly on party lines. Republican Reps. Anh “Joseph” Cao (La.) and Mike Castle (Del.) voted for the bill; Democratic Reps. Gene Taylor (Miss.), Bobby Bright (Ala.) and Jim Cooper (Tenn.) voted no. Read on...

Rachel did a really great segment yesterday on why this money is so badly needed.

Continue reading »

From TPM -- This Is Entertaining:

Susan Collins is on MSNBC right now trying to justify her earlier criticisms of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's interrogation after new information has emerged suggesting that putting him through the Court system has actually revealed quite good intelligence. Now she's upset that the right intelligence officials weren't consulted. She's truly an embarrassment.

And D-Day at FDL -- Susan Collins Struggles To Reconcile Her Fearmongering With New Information On Abdulmutallab:

Andrea Mitchell just hosted Sen. Susan Collins, who has taken the lead on Republican attacks against the Justice Department for reading Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab his Miranda rights and providing him with a lawyer. And Mitchell was not her usual self – she was actually willing to challenge Collins’ false claims, and provide the context that Abdulmutallab is now cooperating after members of his family were brought in to earn trust.

[...]

It’s fun to see the Republicans run aground on their talking points today. They don’t even have them straight. Later in the show, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said that the Administration did the right thing by asking the family to help get Abdulmutallab to talk, and claimed that this proved he was right all along, and they should have done more than 50 minutes of interrogation initially. I have no idea what that means. Should the US have immediately teleported over Abdulmutallab’s entire family moments after the Christmas bombing attempt?

Maybe they’ll realize that life isn’t 24. But I doubt it.

And more from The Wonk Room -- Facts Get In The Way Of Conservatives’ Abdulmuttalab Scare Story.

Andrea Mitchell looked like she almost remembered how to be a reporter again today with this interview of Collins. And Collins is supposed to be a moderate. If this is what you call moderate, what's an extremist?

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January 30, 2010 C-SPAN

U.S. President Barack Obama has a "blind spot" when it comes to the "war on terrorism," a Republican Party spokeswoman said Saturday.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaking during the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address, criticized the Obama administration for treating terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as "an ordinary criminal" rather than as an enemy combatant, thus showing "a blind spot when it comes to the war on terrorism."

"Because of that blindness, this administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them, fresh from an attempt to blow a plane out of the sky on Christmas Day," she said.

"There's no other way to explain the irresponsible, indeed dangerous, decision on Abdulmutallab's interrogation. There's no other way to explain the inconceivable treatment of him as if he were a common criminal."

Collins, a member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, blasted what she had was a decision by Abdulmutallab's interrogators to read him his Miranda rights shortly after being arrested for allegedly trying to ignite a bomb aboard a Christmas Day Northwest Airlines flight. She said Abdulmutallab, who had been talking to investigators for 50 minutes up until that point, wouldn't talk afterward. (UPI)

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Susan Collins wants to offer amendments to the health care bill that she will not vote for in order to "improve" it. From Digby:

This is what I was talking about last night when I wrote "this bill probably isn't bad enough for Lieberman and his cronies to allow Democrats to commit political suicide with it."

Nobody who has announced that they will not vote for this bill should be allowed to "improve" it at this point. Unless, of course, the point is to take out every remaining piece that could even slightly offset the mandate. Which it might be. After all, Republicans are really messed up these days and need something clean and simple to run on. The least the Democrats can do is help them out.

I agree. They should not be allowing this, but they've been doing that from day one with all of the Republican amendments that were accepted in the Finance Committee. Heaven forbid they might stop now.