Politics Plus

Another day, another dollar so to speak . . . or in my case, another 69.86 cents!  Physio went well but having not slept well last night, I napped this afternoon.  Tomorrow's outing is lunch with some lady friends.  Then suddenly it is Friday again!  Where does the time go?

Short Takes

Huffington Post — One Toronto all-girls school is hoping to educate the community on what gender transition entails.

Branksome Hall, a private school for girls near the city's downtown core, released their annual winter alumnae magazine The Read featuring two transgender men on the cover, former students Andy Sprung and Reed Wanless. Inside, they detail their unique gender transition stories.

Branksome is pioneering long overdue discussions about the LGBT community in an effort to be inclusive and understanding.  Click through the school's paper, The Read, for articles about Andy Sprung and Reed Wanless on pages 12-17.

Politico — BARF BAG ALERT! — Sarah Palin addressed the “elephant in the room” at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally for Donald Trump on Wednesday, linking her son Track’s recent arrest on domestic violence charges to President Barack Obama’s neglect of veterans.

“I can talk personally about this. I guess it’s kind of the elephant in the room — because my own family, going through what we’re going through today with my son, a combat vet having served in a Stryker brigade fighting for you all, America, in the war zone. But my son, like so many others, they come back a bit different. They come back hardened,” Palin said.

More unintelligible drivel from Bull's Eye Barbie.  She tries to lay her son's problems at the feet of Obama when she should be going after Baby Bush and his cadret that started the war in Iraq in the first place, and the Republican dominated Congress who consistently ignored veterans.  Nobody can accuse Palin of telling the truth.

Politicususa — Senate Democrats challenged Republicans to vote on Donald Trump’s plan to ban all Muslims from the United States. Republicans refused, so Democrats blocked a GOP bill that would have killed the Syrian refugee program.

Reid explained why the Democrats blocked the bill:

Democrats stood ready to have a serious national security debate if Republicans would have allowed Democrats to hold votes on key national security issues including closing the terrorist gun loophole, funding for local and federal anti-terrorism efforts and voting down Trump’s proposal to impose a religious test on immigration to the United States. But Republicans would rather see their bill fail than take four simple amendment votes. Democrats will seek future opportunities to vote on these important issues.

As written, this Republican refugee bill cannot be signed into law. It is a step in the wrong direction – the direction of Donald Trump. I’m disappointed that the Republican leader broke his word in an attempt to bring up this failed legislation.

You would think that after the years dealing with McConnell, Harry Reid would know that the man has no honour . . . that he cannot be trusted.  On the other hand, this shows just how fractured the Republican Party is!

My Universe —

Today was an uneventful day . . . church, lunch, snuggling with the furbabes, short nap, snuggling with the furbabes, reading and preparing this post, snuggling with the furbabes, and so on.  This coming week will be busy with various appointments/commitments as was last week, so relaxing was the order of the day.  I hope you all did some relaxing too!

Short Takes

The Nation — The whole mess has also cost Planned Parenthood millions of dollars—so the organization claims in a major lawsuit filed Thursday against CMP and affiliated individuals. The 65-page complaint accuses the group of racketeering, fraud, and a variety of other charges. It seeks compensation for financial losses due to the videos and the public backlash, as well as other damages. Although Planned Parenthood has sued a handful of states that sought to revoke public funding in the wake of the videos, this is the first legal challenge the organization has made directly to the makers of the videos. Planned Parenthood waited months to file the suit because it was a “very complex conspiracy,” according to Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens, who spoke with reporters Thursday. “It really has taken some time to investigate the network of people who perpetrated this fraud and the multiple laws that they broke in the process.”

I for one am extremely happy that Planned Parenthood is taking this step.  It should not be necessary, but extremists have made it so.  As to the first amendment rights of CMP, surely those rights do not extend to the fabrication of erroneous claims!

Washington Post — Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders would raise income taxes across the board — and by substantially more on high earners — to pay for an ambitious single-payer health-care plan, under details released Sunday night.

The senator from Vermont said the $1.38-trillion-a-year plan, which was outlined before a Democratic debate here, would ultimately save most families thousands of dollars a year on out-of-pocket health-care costs.

Sanders would pay for it largely through higher income taxes. Those making more than $250,000 a year would pay a marginal tax rate of 37 percent, up a few percentage points from what they now pay.

Sanders would add three more tax brackets, with marginal rates topping out at 52 percent for those making $10 million a year — significantly more than the current top rate of 39.6 percent.

Do I like the idea of universal health care? . . . absolutely!  Assuming that Sanders' numbers are correct, go for it.  However, I also know that the Congress as it stands, will never approve it.  There has to be a wholesale political revolution that says 'No' to the party of 'No' before universal health care can rise.

Foreign Policy — It has been more than a decade since warring parties signed a deal to end Liberia’s bloody conflict. Fueled by the pillaging of the country’s rich natural resources — diamonds, gold, iron, and timber — the two civil wars that raged across 14 years left more than 250,000 people dead and displaced more than 1 million others. When the final peace deal was signedin 2003, however, the resources that had sustained the war for so long were not mentioned at all. The oversight, though common, has often proved disastrous for countries trying to break free from years of violence.

According to a new report by the international nonprofit Forest Trends, which analyzed more than 800 peace agreements signed since 1945, fewer than 15 percent mentioned natural resources. Even fewer take the necessary steps to prevent these resources from being used to sustain — or even restart — fighting. It is a glaring omission considering that the U.N. Environment Program estimates that at least 40 percent of conflicts have a link to natural resources. About half of all peace agreements fail within five years, often because the warring factions exploit resources in order to fuel the return to conflict.

As globalization drives growing markets for more commodities and a changing climate upsets existing patterns of resource use, the international community must take the governance of natural resources much more seriously — simply as a matter of peace and security. Restarting resource extraction post-conflict before rebuilding broken governments not only fails to deliver on promises of a revitalized national economy — often a primary goal in rebuilding war-torn countries — but also threatens the peace. And without the safeguards of governance, unregulated extraction risks returning countries to conflict by reviving the unsustainable and inequitable practices that fueled grievance in the first place.

What are most, if not all, wars about? . . . power . . . the acquiring of and maintaining of power.  To do that requires money for manpower and  materiel.  And money is generated by exploiting natural resources.  Natural resources must be acknowledged in the peace process.

My Universe —

Who needs Brauny papertowel when you have a toddler and 3 cats?

Today has been a very quiet day fortunately because it has rained all day and I really didn't want to get wet.  The furbabes are snuggled together on my bed, Annie with her arms around Winnie.  I relaxed today, all day, and took time to watch part of the movie AVATAR so I could keep my knee elevated for a while.  I'll watch the rest when I retire for the night, that is I stay awake long enough.

Short Takes

Take Part — Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying announced Wednesday [13/01/2016] that his government will end its legal ivory trade.

That market is considered a facilitator of illegal ivory transport into mainland China, the world’s largest consumer of smuggled ivory.  …

Hong Kong’s move comes as the price of elephant ivory plummets. In a report by conservation group Save the Elephants, the cost of raw ivory on the black market has fallen by almost half over the past 18 months. …

“If the trade closes, the value of ivory as an investment depreciates,” Knights said. “We see Hong Kong prices going down because of the public backlash against ivory, and that should have an impact on poaching. Couple that with stepped-up efforts in Africa to deter poachers, and the ivory trade ends up getting squeezed at both ends.”

In a BBC article almost a year ago, word came that China instituted a one year ban on the importation of ivory.  Now China is taking the next step.  This is an issue that Obama and the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, spoke about during a visit in 2015.

Upworthy — What are the chances a 6th-grader from the biggest slum in Kenya ends up on stage in New York City, speaking to thousands of people?

Not very great, but Eunice Akoth did it. She's living her dream.

Eunice's dreams aren't exactly uncommon for a girl her age: to travel the world and to become a doctor. But the possibility of seeing them through is extra difficult simply because of where she was born.

Between unemployment rates, gender discrimination, and violence in her slum of Kibera — it's a long road out for girls like her.

My student faced the same type of childhood as many of the girls in Kibera . . . no education, beaten, married very young, raising babies when she was still a child herself.  Her dream is to see her children, all of them, get an education, the education she never had.  And to remind her of this, she has a painted rock in the garden that says "Dream".

Mother Jones — During his State of the Union address Tuesday night, President Barack Obama reiterated his call to eliminate federal subsidies for fossil fuels in an effort to speed up the transition to cleaner energy sources. It's something he's asked for nearly every year of his presidency, and it hasn't happened yet. But this year, he added something new: a plan to charge oil and coal companies more for leases on federal land, to offset the damage their products do to the climate.  …

The onslaught started at the end of December, when China announced plans to close 1,000 coal mines as part of its campaign to reduce crippling air pollution and the world's highest greenhouse gas emissions.  …

Coal's future doesn't seem much brighter. More than two dozen coal-reliant states are suing the Obama administration over its climate plan.

As reported in another article by the same author in Mother Jones on 15 January 2016,

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced on Friday that she was placing a moratorium on new coal-mining leases on public land and that her department would begin a multiyear review of how those lease contracts are awarded. The policy change is likely to make the leases more expensive for mining companies, to generate increased royalties for the government, and to offset the damage coal production and consumption do to the environment.

"We haven't done a top-to-bottom review of the coal program in 30 years," Jewell told reporters. She added that her department will search for ways "to manage [coal] in a way that is consistent with the climate change agenda."

Coal has had its day and no amount of interference from the Republicans should change that course, but if they win the White House in November, look out!  There is no reason why a small percentage of Americans, relatively speaking, should override the concerns of all Americans.  Although Republicans will appear to agitate for coal workers, really they are in bed with the coal companies.  With coal producing high green house gas levels, the planet can't afford to keep burning dirty coal.  I had to chuckle at the author's comment,

But he [Lee-Ashley] said the financial overhaul should enjoy bipartisan support, since it boils down to giving the American people a fair price for their natural resources.

"When you look at the money being lost to taxpayers through these loopholes, anybody who believes in good business should be able to carry it forward," he said.

"Fair price" to a Republican does not meet our standards.  Republicans are in the coal bin with the coal companies.  Have a look at the article I presented back in October 2015, The Fall of King Coal.

My Universe — The third kitten, a liitle grey and white furball, has the longest meow I have ever heard . . . and all in one tiny body!