TomCat

America 91 – GOP 0

Posted by TomCat at 4:07 am Politics

Mar 132013

It is highly unusual for 91% of Americans to favor anything, but when we do, one might think that political support for such things would be nearly universal. But that does not take into account today’s Republican Party, that continues to goose-step in lock step behind Wayne LaPierre and the gun industry.

A Senate committee approved legislation on Tuesday that would expand background checks covering all U.S. firearms sales, part of a federal gun-control push prompted by December’s school massacre in Connecticut.

The Judiciary Committee decision by a party-line vote of 10-8 cleared the way for the Democratic-crafted background check measure to be debated and put to a vote in the full Senate.

Less clear is the fate of a proposed ban on military assault rifles proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. The panel put off a vote on that plan, but is expected to revisit it as early as Thursday.

There is little expectation Feinstein’s proposal, which President Barack Obama backs along with expanded background checks and other steps, will win congressional approval due mainly to stiff opposition from lawmakers aligned with the politically potent National Rifle Association… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <CNN>

Photo credit: Care2

Rachel Maddow covered the state of firearms legislation in detail and interviewed Elizabeth Esty (D-CT). She also covered the historical background, including how the NRA assisted, albeit unwittingly, in the assassination of JFK.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Let me reiterate. Nobody has sponsored legislation to take away people’s right to own and use firearms responsibly. I want to see is legislation to bring the requirements for responsible firearms ownership and use up to the same level as it is for responsible motor vehicle ownership and use. Instead, universal background checks, the most popular measure, received ZERO Republican votes.

Open Thread–3/13/2013

Posted by TomCat at 4:06 am Holiday, Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 132013

I’m still tired, but I’m back. Yesterday was supposed to be a volunteer day, but the prison is still closed for activities. Turning 39 for the 27th time is just like it was the 26th time. I’m current with replies. Tomorrow appears routine.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:31 (average 5:29). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: The Obama administration has decided that it will appeal to the Supreme Court a sweeping ruling by an appeals court in January that President Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate in making three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board last year.

While the dispute grew out of a narrow and novel legal question — whether brief “pro forma” sessions by the Senate could prevent the president from making recess appointments during a lengthy winter break by lawmakers — the appeals court blew past that issue and called into question nearly two centuries of recess appointments by presidents of both parties.

The three-judge panel of the appeals court in Washington ruled that presidents may bypass the confirmation process only during the sort of recess that occurs between formal sessions of Congress, rather than other breaks throughout the year. The gaps between formal sessions generally arise just once a year and sometimes — as in 2012, when the Senate had not formally adjourned before the next session began — are skipped entirely.

This is judicial activism taken to extremes. None of the matters on which the court ruled were even before the court.

From The New Yorker: Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) was jubilant today after his newly unveiled budget plan picked up a key endorsement from the novelist Ayn Rand.

It was a rare public utterance for the late Ms. Rand, who has been damned to eternal torment in Satan’s lake of fire since 1982.

“This is a budget I wish I had written,” said Ms. Rand, pausing to scream as white-hot flames licked her face. “Paul Ryan is a great man and I look forward to meeting him someday.”

To be sure, if that’s where she is, they will get to have a very long chat. Winking smile

From The Star-Telegram: George Prescott Bush filed the paperwork Tuesday to run for Texas land commissioner next year, hoping to use a little-known but powerful post to continue his family’s political dynasty in one of the country’s most conservative states.

That’s too high a post for a Republican let alone a Bush!

Cartoon:

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Open Thread–3/12/2013

Posted by TomCat at 1:41 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 122013

Yesterday I could not sleep. I have no idea why. My COPD was no more severe than normal. Sleep just would not come. The upshot is that I feel exhausted, so I’m posting just this to avoid overtaxing myself. I’m current with replies and should return to normal tomorrow.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 5:25 (average 7:23). To do it click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Salem News: America has moved backward over the last half century. There is now representation without taxation, which is the opposite of the founding philosophy. What America has now is a culture where a few thousand people control the political and corporate worlds and are not taxed. Because they control the political process, they have almost entirely freed themselves of a tax burden.

The reality of inequity has become skewed beyond recognition, and preventing more equity is the mission of the Republican Party.

From NY Times: What’s really needed is a new act that makes access to the polls a universal American right. The Voting Rights Act remains necessary to prevent continuing racial discrimination, but bringing lawsuits under Section 2 of the act (which applies to the entire country and is not being challenged) is enormously difficult and costly. Preliminary injunctions to stop discriminatory election practices outside covered areas are rarely granted.

Racial prejudice was the principal target of the 1965 act, but the partisans who control so many state election systems have often gone beyond race in their attempts to rig voting to their advantage. Voter ID laws that impose a burden on students, the elderly or the poor, for example, should become as presumptively illegal as racial burdens are now. So should registration systems that make it harder for immigrants or non-English speakers to get on the rolls, or districts gerrymandered for political gain.

A country that takes pride in its democratic system should provide all voters with basic voting standards. Though Ms. Miller and other Republicans seem to think that federal mandates “would disrupt our already well-run system of elections” in the states, millions of voters have experienced something very different. Solving that problem is as urgent now as it was 50 years ago.

I could not agree more.

From MSNBC: Ed Schultz covered the same Republican hate that I did Sunday.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In the Republican War on Women violence and threats of violence are too extreme a tactic to allow.

Cartoon:

12Cartoon

This was the first move in the “banana wars” to maker Latin America safe for United Fruit.

Remember the Dixie Chicks?

Posted by TomCat at 3:17 am Personal, Politics

Mar 112013

It was March 2003. I had been following the run-up to the Iraq War, debunking the lies, and being called a traitor on a regular basis for posting articles that said the the Bush Regime was not giving us an accurate representation of the facts. To be frank, I was feeling pretty much alone in the world, because folks like me, who actually took the trouble to learn the truth, were few and far between. It was a breath of fresh air to learn that I had support from the last place I would have expected it.

It was ten years ago tonight that the Dixie Chicks, extremely popular then and far from controversial, caused a massive stir when singer Natalie Maines declared on stage in London: “Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.” It was a little more than a week before their fellow Texan launched a war based on lies.

Of course, hatred was quickly spewed in the Chicks’ direction by media types, political figures and country music yahoos—who never then or now get so excited when right-wing entertainers and media celebs make threats against a Democratic president.

Boycotts were immediately announced. Maines clarified two days later, “I feel the president is ignoring the opinions of many in the US and alienating the rest of the world.” But record sales and advance sales of concert tickets plunged… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <The Nation>

These women paid a high price for their integrity, and I am grateful that they, as true patriots, were willing to make that sacrifice. Here’s a clip of theirs to enjoy while remembering and reflecting.

More Clean Jobs

Posted by TomCat at 3:16 am Politics

Mar 112013

Every once in a great while, the news I have to share is actually good news. and this is one of those occasions. We not only have more clean jobs than we did before, but also, more than we thought we would have.

A new report by Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2), flagged this past week by the San Antonio Business Journal, found that over 110,000 new clean energy jobs were announced in 2012. The group tracked over 300 project announcements across multiple sectors and in every region of the country.

A few of the noteworthy 2012 trends in E2′s report include:

Public transportation drove clean job growth nationwide, clocking in at over 43,000 jobs over the course of the year. Power generation, most of which came from solar, wind, and geothermal, came in second with more than 30,000 jobs.

Solar power was a strong and steady job creator throughout the year, and especially in the fourth quarter, providing over 19,000 jobs between the manufacturing and power generation sectors.

Investment in energy efficiency hit a record high of $5.6 billion in 2012, according to E2′s analysis of government data, thanks to the announcement of as many as 9,000 new jobs.

Uncertainty over the production tax credit hit wind energy, leading to a decline in job creation announcements in the fourth quarter, even as capacity installation ramped up at the end of the year to get in under the anticipated expiration. But now that the “fiscal cliff” deal has extended the credit for another year, 2013 expectations show wind energy regaining some of its momentum.

… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Think Progress>

The biggest obstacle we face to increasing this trend is the massive subsidies we taxpayers provide to dirty energy, enabling them to maintain obscene profit levels while selling their products at a lower cost than they could in a truly unfettered market. That means that the best way forward for our society is to shift the subsidies from dirty to clean.

Open Thread–3/11/2013

Posted by TomCat at 3:16 am Open Thread, Personal, Politics

Mar 112013

After yesterday’s grocery delivery, I’m quite pooped, but still going. I’m current with replies, and tomorrow appears routine.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:14 (average 4:35). To do it, click here. How did you do?

Short Takes:

From NY Times: Right now, a sustainable deficit would be around $460 billion. The actual deficit is bigger than that. But according to new estimates by the budget office, half of our current deficit reflects the effects of a still-depressed economy. The “cyclically adjusted” deficit — what the deficit would be if we were near full employment — is only about $423 billion, which puts it in the sustainable range; next year the budget office expects that number to fall to just $172 billion. And that’s why budget office projections show the nation’s debt position more or less stable over the next decade.

So we do not, repeat do not, face any kind of deficit crisis either now or for years to come.

There are, of course, longer-term fiscal issues: rising health costs and an aging population will put the budget under growing pressure over the course of the 2020s. But I have yet to see any coherent explanation of why these longer-run concerns should determine budget policy right now. And as I said, given the needs of the economy, the deficit is currently too small.

Put it this way: Smart fiscal policy involves having the government spend when the private sector won’t, supporting the economy when it is weak and reducing debt only when it is strong. Yet the cyclically adjusted deficit as a share of G.D.P. is currently about what it was in 2006, at the height of the housing boom — and it is headed down.

Click through for the rest of Krugman’s editorial on what Republicans don’t want you to know.

From The Guardian: New York City took a step closer to having its first female and openly gay mayor on Sunday with the formal announcement that strongly tipped Democrat Christine Quinn will run for the post.

The city council speaker and veteran of New York politics confirmed her intention via a tweet and released a video in which she vowed to fight for middle- and working-class New Yorkers.

An early favourite to get the Democratic nomination for the mayoralty, she is also expected to get the backing of Republican-turned-independent mayor Michael Bloomberg.

She sounds like she may be an improvement.

From UPI: U.S. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan says his budget blueprint will promote repealing President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

Oh my! What a surprise!

Cartoon:

11Cartoon

How Good Is Your Memory?

Posted by TomCat at 3:28 am Holiday, Plus, Politics

Mar 102013

SpringAhead

Republican Replies to Rape

Posted by TomCat at 3:27 am Politics

Mar 102013

The level of hatred that pervades the Republican right never ceases to amaze me. This hatred seems especially intense among the sheeple who regularly pollute their brains with Faux Noise, the Republican Ministry of Propaganda. In this example, the response of Fox brainwashed Republicans is enough to boggle the mind.

Zerlina Maxwell is a feminist writer and frequent guest on Fox News. Last week, while a guest on Sean Hannity’s show, Maxwell argued that arming women is not a way to solve the problem of rape. Among other things, she pointed out that “if firearms were the answer, then the military would be the safest place for women, and it’s not.” You can watch her full segment below:

In the wake of her appearance, Maxwell was bombarded with harassing messages calling for her to be raped or murdered, often in explicitly racist terms. She provided ThinkProgress with screenshots of three examples:

These kinds of online threats are not simply cowardly and repulsive, they also may be criminal. In New York, where Maxwell resides, a person who “[w]ith intent to harass, annoy or alarm a specific person, intentionally engages in a course of conduct directed at such person which is likely to cause such person to reasonably fear physical injury or serious physical injury, the commission of a sex offense against, or the kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment or death of such person or a member of such person’s immediate family” is guilty of stalking in the third degree, and may be punished by up to one year in prison. At least some of the attacks on Maxwell also could qualify as hate crimes, which would lead to a higher sentence…

Inserted from <Think Progress>

For once, I did not find Hannity excessively offensive. I disagree with his opinion, but he fell well short of his normal level of disrespect. However, the problem is that the Republican Party not only celebrates such expression, but also, uses it to further their own political ends.

I do hope that the Republican in the top tweet is located and prosecuted.

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