TomCat

How McConnell Stood Up for Women

Posted by TomCat at 12:26 am Politics

Apr 192014

Few campers are more unhappy these days than Mitch McConnell (R-KY), because he’s trailing in the polls to both his Bagger primary challenger and the next Senator from Kentucky, Alison Grimes (D). In an attempt to save his job, he now claims he stood up for women in the investigation of Senator Bob Packwood (R-OR), when Packwood became Senator Pokewood. The problem is that McConnell is engaging in Republicans’ 2nd favorite pastime, behind stealing elections. Bought Bitch Mitch is lying.

Facing his toughest reelection battle in years against a well-known and well-financed female opponent, Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recently boasted that he led the Senate in ousting a GOP colleague accused of sexual harassment in 1995. But news reports from that time show that late in the investigation, McConnell tried to stall the probe against his fellow Republican, Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.). He derided efforts by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) to hold public hearings on Packwood as "frolic and detour"—after the Senate ethics committee had substantiated nearly two-dozen claims of sexual harassment leveled against Packwood by female lobbyists and former staffers.

Talking about the Packwood scandal this past week, McConnell noted that he was chair of the Senate ethics committee when Packwood resigned. In a Tuesday interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader, McConnell said he had taken "the toughest possible position." The newspaper reported that McConnell had "offered himself as an example of how elected officials should handle situations when a member of their own party is accused of sexual harassment."

But the bulk of the ethics probe against Packwood took place when the committee was chaired by a Democrat. When Republicans regained a majority in the Senate after the 1994 elections and McConnell became chair of the committee, he transformed the Packwood investigation into a partisan mess… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Mother Jones>

Click through for more.

As an interesting side note, Packwood was actually quite progressive in his day, aside from the scandal that he brought on himself. He was the very last Republican for whom I actually voted.

In any case, Bought Bitch Mitch may well lose his job. For some strange reason, nobody seems to be crying.

Open Thread–4/19/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:25 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 192014

I’m writing for tomorrow and am feeling quite tired. It’s been a busy day, and I’m up well past my bedtime, waiting for a delivery that cannot be made unless I am up to receive it. They came two days in a row and could not get in, because the front desk was unattended. Now they have instructions to call me to let them in.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:54 (average 4:10). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From The New Yorker: With an eye toward a Presidential run in 2016, Rick Perry, the Texas governor, is hoping that a two-pronged strategy of wearing glasses and not speaking will make him appear smarter to voters, aides to the Governor confirmed today.

“After the 2012 Republican primary, we knew that we needed to solve what we called the Governor’s smartness problem,” said Harland Dorrinson, an aide to Perry. “The fix that we came up with was glasses, but, as it turned out, that was only half the solution.”

After outfitting Perry with designer eyewear, aides sent him on the road to reintroduce himself to voters, but the response, Mr. Dorrinson said, was underwhelming: “The problem was, he was still talking.”

A round of focus groups convinced aides that only through a combination of wearing glasses and not emitting any sounds could Perry overcome voters’ initial impressions of him.

He’ll never maintain the silence. Verbal TEAbuggery is an integral part of InsaniTEA.

From Daily Kos:

The Washington Post has published an opinion piece from Justice John Paul Stevens in which he analyzes the history of the second amendment, and recent Supreme Court decisions to support his contention that the interpretation of the Second Amendment advanced by the NRA (and recently accepted by the courts) is contrary to the intent of the framers. According to Stevens:

For more than 200 years following the adoption of that amendment, federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by that text was limited in two ways: First, it applied only to keeping and bearing arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms. Thus, in United States v. Miller, decided in 1939, the court unanimously held that Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that sort of weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a “well regulated Militia.”

When I joined the court in 1975, that holding was generally understood as limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to uses of arms that were related to military activities. During the years when Warren Burger was chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge or justice expressed any doubt about the limited coverage of the amendment, and I cannot recall any judge suggesting that the amendment might place any limit on state authority to do anything.

Excellent piece. Click through for the the rest of what the NRA, The Republican Party, and the Fascist Five Injustices of SCROTUS don’t want you to know.

From NY Times: President Obama announced Thursday that eight million people have signed up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, including what the White House said were a sufficient number of young, healthy adults, a critical milestone that might counter election-year attacks by Republicans on the law’s success and viability.

The total number of enrollees exceeds by a million the target set by the administration for people to buy insurance through government-run health care exchanges. In particular, the number of young people signing up appears to have surged during the final weeks of enrollment.

That does not even count the three million who are receiving healthcare through expanded Medicaid or the three million young people now covered on their parents’ policies. In short, Republicans are trying to take healthcare away from fourteen million people.

Cartoon:

0419Cartoon

Just Say No to Big Oil

Posted by TomCat at 1:26 am Politics

Apr 182014

One of the best words that could be used to describe the Oil Industry is greedy. I think they see that the carbon paradigm must come to an end, but they are determined to squeeze every last bit of profit from earth, no matter now much damage they do in the process. Now they want to drill the Arctic, an area particularly hazardous for drilling, and especially sensitive to environmental damage.

Four years ago this week, BP’s Deepwater Horizon drill platform exploded. Eleven workers died that day. Their bodies were never found. Over the next 87 days, 210 million gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico. It fouled fishing grounds, ravaged the coastline, and shut down tourism. The world got an ugly look at some of the terrible hidden costs of fossil fuels. Spill-related health problems plague the people and the wildlife of the Gulf to this very day.

I personally hoped that we, as a nation, would quickly learn from this tragedy and move swiftly to prevent a repeat disaster in our most vulnerable coastal environments. So it boggles the mind that Shell Oil is still determined to drill in one of the most fragile and remote ecosystems on Earth: the Arctic Ocean — the last bastion of America’s polar bears, endangered bowhead whales and other rare wildlife. For Native Alaskans who live along the coast, this ocean has been the source of their food security and a way of life since time immemorial.

It’s sheer madness to drill in the Arctic — in treacherous conditions of gale-force winds, 20-foot seas, sub-zero temperatures, shifting currents — and for eight months of the year — solid pack ice. If the oil industry was utterly unprepared for a blowout in the balmy Gulf of Mexico, how in the world can we trust them in a treacherous environment like the Arctic? Nobody knows how to clean up oil there, even during the open water season. And once the ice and long Arctic night close in, there’d be zero hope of plugging a blow-out or containing a spill

Those harsh conditions also guarantee human and mechanical error. During a disastrous 2012 attempt at Arctic drilling, Shell Oil experienced fires, leaks, slipped anchors, emergency gear that was "crushed like a beer car," and a 30-mile iceberg that sent its ships fleeing.

A just-released Coast Guard report says Shell’s reckless and failed attempt to tow its Arctic Ocean drill rig in 2012 was riddled with poor planning and judgment — and involved numerous potential violations of the law… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

Click through for more.

I can almost envision Sarah Palin, aka Drill Baby Dingbat, old and gray forty years from now, saying “I can still see the spills from my front porch. Drill Baby Drill!”

Just say NO to Big Oil!

Yvonne White Has a BIG Mouth! ;-)

Posted by TomCat at 1:26 am Blog News, Politics

Apr 182014

52-Yvonne

This is Yvonne’s first Big Mouth Award, although she had commented here intermittently here for over two years. She hails from Illinois and is a denizen of Care2. She loves freedom, Obama, Women’s Rights, and Animals. She can’t stand InsaniTEA. Her comments contribute to the quality of this site, and we’re proud to have her. Please join me in giving her the kudos she deserves.

Open Thread–4/18/2014

Posted by TomCat at 1:25 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 182014

I’m writing for tomorrow and feel somewhat tired, as it’s late in the afternoon on a busy day.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:04 (average 6:05). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Upworthy: This video sure has a good point about humanity’s baser instincts. Why can’t we overcome them?

The reason for this search phenomena is the proliferation of websites in the Republican echo chamber. They mindlessly parrot the memes in the Republican War on Women.

From Daily Kos: Brian Beutler catches the latest Obamacare fauxrage from Fox News: millions of people won’t be able to sign up for health insurance until November. So all those young people who Republicans, and Fox News, told that they shouldn’t be signing up because [of?] freedom are now deprived of freedom by having to wait until the next open enrollment period. Here’s Fox News [Faux Noise delinked]:

There is yet another ObamaCare surprise waiting for consumers: from now until the next open enrollment at the end of this year, most people will simply not be able to buy any health insurance at all, even outside the exchanges.

That’s not really news. The practice of enrollment periods, embraced by the law, was designed specifically to address those "free-riders" Fox News would in any other circumstance hate—the people who would wait until they needed health insurance to get it. The difference now, though, is that if those people get sick while they’re uninsured, they don’t have to worry about that preventing them from getting insurance once open enrollment kicks in again.

What hypocrites! If sheeple need insurance and have to wait for it now, only because they did not buy it, because they obeyed Faux Noise, the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, they only have one complaint to make: BA-A-A-A-A-A!!

From Huffington Post: As a result of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision, billionaires and large corporations can now spend an unlimited amount of money to influence the political process. The results of that decision are clear. In the coming months and years the Koch brothers and other extraordinarily wealthy families will spend billions of dollars to elect right-wing candidates to the Senate, the House, governors’ mansions and the presidency of the United States. These billionaires already own much of our economy. That, apparently, is not enough. Now, they want to own the United States government as well.

Four years ago, the Supreme Court handed down the 5-4 ruling in Citizens United vs the Federal Election Commission. A few weeks ago, they announced another horrendous campaign finance decision in McCutcheon vs. FEC giving even more political power to the rich. Now, many Republicans want to push this Supreme Court to go even further. In the name of "free speech," they want the Court to eliminate all restrictions on campaign spending – a position that Justice Thomas supported in McCutcheon – and a view supported by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Importantly, as a means of being able to exercise unprecedented power over the political process, this has been the position of the Koch brothers for at least the last 34 years.

The Koch brothers are the second wealthiest family in America, making most of their money in the fossil fuel industry. According to Forbes Magazine, they saw their wealth increase last year from $68 billion to $80 billion. In other words, under the "anti-business", "socialist" and "oppressive" Obama administration, their wealth went up by $12 billion in one year.

Click through for the rest of this excellent Bernie Sanders piece on the Kochs that Republicans so love to suck.

Cartoon:

0418Cartoon

Rabid Republican Terrorism

Posted by TomCat at 12:35 am Politics

Apr 172014

I have long said That Al Dubya (as in G Dubya Bush) is far more dangerous, when it comes to terrorism in the US, than Al Qaeda ever was. For out latest example, here’s a white supremacist hate-crime, how his tea party mayor supports him, his sordid history, and how the hate groups that the Republican Party has embraced are linked together in a terror network.

The mayor of a small Missouri town has mostly nice things to say about the white supremacist accused of killing three people at Jewish facilities last weekend.

Marionville, Mo. Mayor Dan Clevenger spoke warmly this week of Frazier Glenn Miller, who allegedly went on a killing rampage on Sunday in Overland Park, Kan.

"He was always nice and friendly and respectful of elder people, you know, he respected his elders greatly. As long as they were the same color as him," Clevenger said while laughing, according to television station KSPR. "Very fair and honest and never had a bit of problems out of him."

Clevenger said he sympathized with some of Miller’s views, but didn’t like to broadcast that.

"Kind of agreed with him on some things but, I don’t like to express that too much," Clevenger, the owner of a local repair shop, said… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <TPM>

Miller is not the lone nut-job the media is making him not to be, but part of a well organized web of terror.

Rachel Maddow had more to say about Miller, after an extensive discussion of some of his allies.

I think it’s long past time to release that Homeland Security report on rabid right terrorism, r4egardless of Republican objections. Furthermore, DOJ needs to return to indicting these terrorists for sedition, in spite of their Republican support.

Open Thread–4/17/2014

Posted by TomCat at 12:34 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Apr 172014

I’m writing for tomorrow and am feeling quite tired. Store to Door delivered groceries, and I’m still not recovered from my schedule.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 2:45 (average 5:14). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Special Events:

0417Lynn

Short Takes:

From Daily Kos: TeaParty Militia Leader, Richard Mack has been pretending he’s a bad ass for years. But when he and his TeaParty brethren went to help millionare rancher, Cliven Bundy violently violate a Court order, they proved they are nothing but a bunch of gun-toting, wimpy-ass loud mouths who planned to use women as human shields against any potential gun battle they initiated with the Federal government.

What craven cowards these seditious Republicans are to hide behind the skirts of their women.

From MoveOn: Check out this Tax Day message from Robert Reich:

As usual, the Reich on the left is right, and the Reich on the right is Republican. Sign the petition to tax the bastards!!

From Crooks and Liars: The next frontier in corrupt election politics: Is it permissible for candidates to run ads that are outright lies?

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in another election law case. This one concerns an ad run by Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-birth organization, against Rep. Steven Driehaus. In the ad, SBA List accuses Driehaus of voting to allow taxpayer funds to be used to fund abortions, despite the last-minute protections built in to ensure that didn’t happen.

Sadly, I’m pretty sure about how the fascist five Injustices at SCROTUS (Republican Constitutional VD) will rule: IOKIYAR

Cartoon:

0417Cartoon

Bill Maher–New Rules–4/11

Posted by TomCat at 12:02 am Plus, Politics

Apr 162014

Although I do not always agree with Bill, his sense of humor is so outrageous that it reminds me of my own. He invariably leaves me in stiches. Therefore, I bring him to you, whenever I can find him in a video format available to all.

Maher

Last night [Friday], Bill Maher closed with a New Rule explaining just why right-wing radio is so abundant.

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

"They don’t want to go to the moon. They want to howl at it!" I could not have said it better.

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