– Today in apt metaphors.
– A good health care rundown and Q&A.
– of course not all ACA situations will be the same, but this is pretty great.
– A Shutdown Is Just What Conservatives Want, And It Sucks
– I am talking, of course, about octopus wrestling is the greatest thing anyone has ever written on any subject in this, or any other, universe.
The stock market’s down 180 points.
@1 Oh goody! Cheap stocks!
The NYC motorcycle gang attack against an SUV driver and his family has migrated from YouTube sensation to mainstream media headlines. NBC News reports that police had already arrested 15 bikers, confiscated 55 motorcycles, and issued 68 traffic citations before these thugs trapped and assaulted the family. Hopefully more criminal charges against the bikers will be forthcoming and some of them will do serious prison time.
@2
And getting cheaper all the time, we’re at -135 now.
How low does it have to go before the folks that own the Republicans in congress tell them to give it up?
If I want to get a sampling of Tea-Bagger opinion, I just need to open the web site of my hometown paper.
After a couple days of silence, it was flooded with articles, political speaches, and letters to the editors supporting the Tea Bag Repubilcans in the House. One crowed that the government shutdown as a good thing, because it meant that HUD, the IRS, and the EPA were out of work, which he claimed did more damage to the country than anything Obamacare did.
So in his mind, the Republicans can undo some 60 years of reforms (in some cases 100+ years_ if they just keep the government shut down – regardless of the Affordable Health Act issue.
Yeah, I’ve run into a lot of that. They think they want to take America back to a pre-civilwar state, but I doubt very much that they’d like it when they got there.
This poem sums things up nicely. You’ll have to click through to read the last couple stanzas.
Those Guys Out There
Those guys were
supposed
to be out there
fixing the car,
tuning the engine,
changing the oil,
checking the plugs,
washing the windows.
But since they
didn’t want
anyone to have
affordable healthcare
http://www.nailedmagazine.com/.....-shutdown/
@4 The stock market usually starts low and moves up during the trading day. Today is no exception.
@4 “How low does it have to go before the folks that own the Republicans in congress tell them to give it up?”
That’s the problem, they don’t own the Teabag faction, and therefore can’t tell them what to do. Establishment Republicans are already on board for a “clean” CR, which would pass if Boehner allowed a vote, so ending the standoff really comes down to what he decides to do.
I went back to Ohio
But my Head Start was gone
There was no VA Administration
There was no Federal Government
The Speaker had disappeared
All my favorite programs
My government had been pulled down
Reduced to empty compromise phrases
Eh, Oh, way to go Ohio
I think Boener would take any position which (a) was consistent with his re-election hopes, and (b) kept his speakership. If the Tea Party changed it’s tune, he would swivel on a dime.
It’s that damned Hastert rule that is putting Boehner’s panty’s in a twist!
Wait. What?
Denny Hastert Disses the ‘Hastert Rule’: It ‘Never Really Existed’
D’oh!
Input for Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!
GOP Rep. Gets Into Heated Exchange With Park Ranger (VIDEO)
Yogi Bear can get away with messing with Park Rangers. This flag waving enema bag… not so much.
Eric Cantor has a “strategy” he wants his CRAZY! caucus to keep in mind.
That’s some strategy. If only there were some sort of common-sense in the CRAZY! caucus to allow a vote on a clean CR that has the Republican budget number.
BREAKING –
Shots heard at Capitol, building under lockdown
News reports said that the President met with GOP leadership, and told them he wanted a “clean” continuing resolution. Once that was done, they could talk about other issues. The Republicans left with no agreements.
I agree that we need a clean bill, but what is there to talk about? The Affordable Health Care Act was passed in the House, survived a filibuster threat in the Senate, survived court challenges, and was an issue in the last Presidential election in which the Republican candidate lost. They now want a handful of House members to force the President to change the law?
SHOTS FIRED, COP INJURED, AT U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING
No details at this time, except media sources say “reports of injuries.”
Media sources also are reporting that a Republican congressman was physically assaulted outside the Capitol Building in an apparently unrelated incident. Sources say a man approached the congressman, screamed at him, and grabbed his arm.
And Roger, lest we forget, those US Capitol policemen who are putting life and limb on the line working to protect people today are NOT GETTING PAID because House Republicans demand 20 million Americans not be able to acquire affordable health insurance as a condition for the US Capitol police to get paid.
Think about that y’all.
@18 Yes, but it goes without saying that House Republicans should not be screamed at, spit on, grabbed, stabbed, shot at, or otherwise physically intimidated or assaulted just for being asshole politicians — although I doubt very much that’s what’s behind today’s Capitol shooting incident. In all likelihood, it’s just another madman exercising his Second Amendment Freedomz (TM).
Correction, madwoman — we’re now told the suspect is a female.
“Federal law enforcement believes the shooting situation near the U.S. Capitol has been resolved. An intelligence source says so far, there is no tie to terrorism. A motorist apparently trying to get through security barriers on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House was chased by police, according to the U.S. Secret Service. A government official said gunfire was exchanged at Capitol Hill.” — CNN
Looks like maybe the president was the intended target? — RR
Politico is reporting
It remains to be seen whether this was an attempt to assassinate the president. Based on what’s been reported so far, it appears an armed female in a vehicle tried to breach White House security barriers, was pursued by police, and shot it out with the police when cornered. The Capitol Building simply is the locale where the chase ended.
CNN now reports there was a child in the shooter’s car.
@21
Hmm, ya think she was “inspired” by the whispering voices coming out of her right-wing radio?
The Dow’s down 136 points.
A couple more days of this and stocks might actually be accurately valued.
Fascinating. I’m a progressive in a sea of conservatives at work. Around the water cooler, we ventured into discussing politics, something I rarely do. They see the tactics of the republicans as perfectly justified, as the next logical step when the democrats won’t work with them to find a middle ground. And the only reason they say they are against the ACA is that they think it will raise their rates. The goverment shut down doesn’t effect them directly much, All the pain of the government shutting down is an acceptable trade off so their rates don’t rise.
Today’s D.C. incident is shaping up as a possible police overreaction. We’re now being told by the media that the dead woman wasn’t armed and all the “shots fired” were from police guns. Yah, she used her car as a weapon, but there are ways to stop a car without shooting at the driver — such as shooting out the tires and/or radiator. The problem is, number one, it wasn’t necessary to kill this reportedly mentally ill woman, and number one, there was a child in the car that was peppered with police gunfire who luckily wasn’t, but easily could have been, killed too. Don’t they teach cops how to disable cars in the police academy? It just seems like a lot of cops are too quick to shoot nowadays.
or
Has to be a black female DUMMOCRETIN from Connecticut.
Dear John Boehner,
Rule #1 of bare knuckle politics. If you can’t take a punch, then don’t play the game.
At this point we have a shut down government and we’re starting to trash the economy because John Boehner can’t take a punch.
@13
Not very “heated” by my way of viewing things. But, man, you don’t ever treat a park ranger like that. That congressman needs slapped.
Not exactly what we need at the moment.
@33,
Thank goodness for North Dakota Shale Oil!
Harry Reid,
Cold-hearted fanatic on ObummerCare.
@34 Uncle Puddles!
Why? Because the blizzard winding up in the plains states at the same time the hurricane hits the Gulf is only supposed to hit as far north as South Dakota?
Just pass a clean CR and use the democratic process to get the ACA repealed. If it’s going to be so bad, a clear majority will be clamoring to get it repealed. What are the republicans afraid of?
Admit it HA DUMMOCRETINS,
You all were hopefully thinking this was some rogue tea party person. And if it turns out to be a crazy DUMMOCRETIN? Oh no! It was Miriam Carey, a black 34-year-old dental hygienist. Puddy bets if they find she’s a DUMMOCRETIN her party affiliation will be covered up. If she’s a conservative it will be in the first paragraph!
Watch! Roger will show up about an hour later with the same thing.
Was the victim of today’s D.C. police shooting simply a woman driver who got lost, panicked, and was mowed down by trigger-happy cops? That’s what some comments on various blogs are suggesting. Meanwhile, after it came out that police pumped massive gunfire into a vehicle with a 1-year-old infant in it, the cops are increasingly defensive as they try to justify their actions. In other words, they’re portraying the victim as a possible terrorist; searching her apartment; praising the “heroic” officers who unleashed gunfire on a frightened citizen, etc. Oh yeah, she was BLACK. That may be the key to the whole thing.
@34,
Blizzard in ND? They are used to that!
Sorry to disappoint you, piddles, but the story I’m hearing is that a scared black woman who took a wrong turn got blown away by BLAZING SADDLES.
When asked on NPR this afternoon why the House Republicans don’t just put a clean CR on the floor for an up or down vote,
Washington’s own 5th congressional district Representative and Chair of the House Republican Conference, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (recently famous for promising a yet to be passed by her House Farm Bill in July 2012)
answered “because it doesn’t solve the problem”.
Get that?
You got yourselves a real winner in WA-05!
@34
Record month in ND:
The platforms in the Gulf that are being shut down are around 80K-120K per platform, per day.
ND’s output isn’t enough to help much and the cost of fracking, moving the oil, and refining it are so high there serious doubts about anyone making money off it. Plus the fall of rate on fracked wells is so steep that they wont be in production long. In the end, I doubt fracking will have been worth it.
@43 You forgot to mention the RADIOACTIVE wastewater that fracking releases into aquifers.
@43 Given that USA consumes over 19 million bpd, energy independence cannot be far away! Merely find two dozen more North Dakotas and you’ve got it! For a few years, anyway.
@2 & 4
Right wing radio is still begging
lemmingspeople to buy gold. If you bought and held in 2010 you missed the boat. And if you’re buying now, you’re buying a commodity that has lost 26% of value year to date.I know this will come as a shock, but I think Goldline might be in the business of making commissions and not in making investors money.
@46
I’ve been the executor of the estate for a number of my great aunts and uncles after they passed away. These are folks that came of age during the great depression and every single one of them had a little stash of silver coins tucked away. I was always more than happy to take part of my small fee for taking care of things in those silver coins.
If I ever do get around to selling the silver I’ll make a pretty handsome % on it. But, I think I’ll have to pass on Goldline’s offer.
46, 47 — Right now, the market price of gold is roughly 50 bucks above the average cost of mining it.
Business Week: Republicans Are No Longer the Party of Business
http://www.businessweek.com/ar.....f-business
Holden vs. SPD
Liveleaks.com has posted a video of Seattle police officers’ belligerent confrontation with Stranger reporter Eric Holden. Anyone viewing this video would have a hard time not concluding this officer should be removed from the streets, if not from the force. The reason? He takes his job too personally, and is too emotionally involved, which makes it impossible to carry out his duties professionally.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=85d_1380818225
13)The Park Ranger did not cause the government shutdown, so why take it out on them?
Meanwhile, in Germany, coalition talks are about to begin between the governing Christian Democrats and the opposition Social Democrats. Usually Chancellor Merkel would be having these discussions with her liberal, pro-business allies, the Free Democrats, but their members are packing up their Berlin offices right now, as they only got about 4.8%, their worse showing in their history. It’s going to be a tough negotiation, Merkel was only 4 seats shy of being in a position not seen for a German Chancellor since Konrad Adenauer, an outright majority. http://www.globalpost.com/disp.....-democrats
If the Social Democrats don’t join her government, Merkel’s next bet is the Greens.
Lovely!
@38 – Puffy she was mentally ill, have some respect. See, if it was a Tea Party person, it wouldn’t have been because of mental illness, it would have been done out of bitterness because that they are poor white folk.
Republican jackassery knows no bounds.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....ister?lite
Gen. Giap Dies
Associated Press reports that Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who defeated the French and Americans in Indochina, has died at age 102.
Oregon’s Supreme Court ruled that Occupy Portland protestors charged with criminal offenses have a constitutional right to jury trials even though city prosecutors downgraded the charges to non-jail infractions.
http://blogs.seattletimes.com/.....to-trials/
@57
Yay!
To Roger @39,
It’s amazing the things DUMMOCRETINS will say, do, high and pat each other on the back so they can self-flagellate and congratulate each other.
gleeeeeeeeeeeeeeman,
1) It wasn’t Puddy who claimed she was hearing right wing voices
2) It wasn’t Puddy immediately thought she was a Tea Party individual.
Puddy has ALWAYS claimed libtardoism is a mental disease gleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeman. You are a prime example.
Sux to be you gleeeman.
To GOATBOY @59,
It’s amazing the things RETHUG TEAHADISTS will say, do, high(?) and pat each other on the back so they can FUCK GOATS and congratulate each other.
Did you see the RETHUG TEAHADISTS jumping for joy after they shut down the government?
Even the US Chamber of Commerce had told the RETHUG TEAHADISTS not to shut down the government. And what do the RETHUG TEAHADISTS do? They shut down the government. Only a RETHUG TEAHADIST can think it is a good thing to piss off the CORPORATE MONEY that has traditionally bankrolled the RETHUGS.
@60 Puffy you are a Genius……….a genius of stupidity!
I’m trying to decide, would you classify the performance by the person playing Puddy to be more Teabagger or Evangelical?
How would you rate him? I’m thinking Evangelical. He is too freaked out by gay issues.
MSM finally are questioning whether the D.C. police killing of an unarmed, mentally ill, and apparently confused and frightened female motorist with a baby in her car was justified.
I wouldn’t call it murder, but it sure as hell looks like overreaction. And I have a question for America’s police officers, and the people who train them: When you have to stop someone by shooting them, why don’t you just shoot them once or twice — and give them a chance to survive the encounter — and why do you routinely fire numerous (sometimes dozens) of rounds? That does look like a premeditated intent to kill.
I see growing evidence of an alarming militarization of America’s police, whose mindset now seems to be “kill first, justify later” instead of “serve and protect.”
http://investigations.nbcnews......ified?lite
Meanwhile, the NYC motorcycle gang case continues to develop. The biker lying comatose in a hospital with his spine smashed has hired — or rather, his family has hired — celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who is issuing press releases to the effect that her client was trying to protect the SUV driver and his family.
That’s utter bullshit. He was a member of a vicious mob that had engaged in massive lawbreaking in the minutes leading up to their attack on a terrified middle class family. The injured biker in question is an habitual lawbreaker with a rap sheet six pages long. On the day of these tragic — and completely unnecesssary — events, he was driving with a revoked license without insurance. He was standing in front of the car, blocking its escape path, while his buddies smashed out the windows and assaulted the driver. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been run over. It should be noted here that new photos surfacing overnight reveal that the bikers not only smashed out the driver’s side window, but also smashed out the passenger’s side window too, presumably so they could drag his wife out of the car and do … what? … to her. And they tried to smash the rear window to get access to the rear seat, whose only occupant was the couple’s infant. A reasonable jury could conclude the mob’s intent was to lynch the entire family including the infant.
We’ve also now learned that a NYC undercover cop was at the scene and did nothing. He not only didn’t intervene, he didn’t even call 911. He’s being investigated by NYPD Internal Affairs … one would assume for dereliction of duty.
The maimed biker does need a lawyer. He’s probably going to spend the rest of his life in a nursing home, at a cost of millions. But he should sue his fellow bikers, not the SUV driver. Every single participant in that mob should chip in a couple hundred thousand for his medical expenses and future care. There wasn’t an innocent person in that mob, and when you behave like a criminal, legal liability attaches for the harm your behavior causes. That’s the law, and the law should be enforced in this case, because the harm was very great.
“Law enforcement officials who briefed NBC News on the case said that officers fired a total of 26 rounds at the driver, 34-year-old Miriam Carey of Stamford, Conn., who never left her vehicle.”
http://investigations.nbcnews......ified?lite
Roger Rabbit Commentary: How is this not excessive force? Here’s the answer:
“Washington, D.C., police, who apparently were not involved in the shooting, are investigating whether U.S. Capitol Police and Secret Service officers complied with department policies on the use of deadly force in the killing of Carey on Thursday after a high-speed chase that began at the White House.
“Most law enforcement agencies have policies that allow the use of deadly force only when officers have reason to believe that they are threatened by death or serious physical injury, raising questions about the gunfire that officers of the Secret Service and Capitol Police directed at her black Infiniti.
“‘There are definitely some major questions here,’ said Eugene O’Donnell, a professor of law at John Jay College, who has studied the issue of the use of deadly force. Among the key ones, he said, were what threat the officers believed Carey posed at the time they fired the shots and whether they were influenced by police radio transmissions reporting that there were ‘shots fired,’ causing them to conclude – wrongly, as it turned out — that Carey was armed and dangerous.”
And then there’s this:
“Initial reports that the car tried to drive through a barrier onto the White House grounds were not correct, according to witnesses quoted by the Washington Post. Officers told the driver to stop, and placed a temporary barrier behind her car, and the driver backed into this fence and sped away, they said.”
Should we be shocked that a young woman with her baby in the car, finding herself surrounded by yelling men pointing guns at her, impulsively tried to flee?
This doesn’t look like a police murder just yet, although it’s certainly heading in that direction, but at a minimum it is a police clusterfuck of major proportions.
26 shots fired by cops at a vehicle containing an unarmed and very frightened woman — and a baby. No comment needed;
it speaks for itself.
America’s cops are out of control, and that’s a serious problem.
Not when we also find out that she was also having some sort of issue with mental illness. The mentally ill, pretty much by definition, aren’t going to act “how we think people should act” in a high stress situation.
However, the police didn’t know who she was or what she was doing. From the video clip that I saw it looked like some shots were fired while she was driving towards a police officer. Those particular shots may have been justified.
@68
Yep.
@69 Those weren’t the shots that killed her. The incompetents who fired those shots missed.
And did you also notice from the videos how many bystanders were in the vicinity? Given how the cops were slinging lead, it’s extremely lucky that none of them were hit.
Which brings to mind the NYC case where something like 9 innocent bystanders were hit by police gunfire.
How do you miss a car from point blank range?
Yeah, sounds like they’re out of control.
Look at this…the quote above is the puddybigot @59.
First, he’s using the term ‘self-flagellate’ that I started using a few weeks ago – to describe his behavior here. Another instance of whatever it (puddy) is, using relatively novel terms introduced by others in his own posts, usually, as here, in a clumsy way.
Second, he’s using it very incorrectly. Clearly from the context he means something celebratory or self-congratulatory…like ‘self-fellate’ perhaps, though that isn’t even a group act. It really makes no sense.
He’s using big words he doesn’t know the meaning of.
Or, as I’m beginning to suspect more, is that he’s some sort of talk-bot. This was tossed around some time ago – somewhat refuted by those who claim to have met the puddybigot in person. I suspect, rather, some sort of bot or algorithm that has a great deal of human input, an ‘insult engine’ if you will, run by a Tallibangelical hate-putz with a poor grasp of the English language.
The GOP are tearing themselves apart.
There goes SCHMUCKO-MORON again… IT’S ALL ABOUT SCHMUCKO-MORON. The world revolves around SCHMUCKO-MORON thoughts. The word use appears back in 2005 on HA SCHMUCKO-MORON! Butt in your self-created cocoon, yeah it only counts when you use the word in a thread!
The stooooooooooooooooopid is strong in this one!
And you don’t get it again… What did Roger SENILE DUMBASS and LUNATIC write above? When you figger it out SCHMUCKO-MORON you’ll cum to the conclusion:
Sux to be a SCHMUCKO-MORON! A really self absorbed diseased DUMMOCRETIN!
@75 “you’ll cum to the conclusion”
Oh my, now puddles is writing porno posts! I wonder if he’s doing this on the company ‘puter. I wonder if his boss knows.