– Happy Women’s History Month.
– I’m not as opposed to the bike tax as a lot of people who ride bikes, but Rep. Ed Orcutt, um, doesn’t make a good case for it.
– Who could have guessed that conservative justices would be making things up?
– If hell exists, Dick Cheney’s spot is next to Walter Jones.
– (a) Gwen Moore is awesome. (b) Suzan DelBene looks less than happy to be in the frame.
How far has Keith Olbermann fallen?
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03.....1&
He’s reduced to doing minstrel shows (see that guy on Olbermann’s right in the photograph, Lib Sci? Recognize him?).
Olbermsnn is suing Current TV for $70 million. If ke wins, he won’t have to worry about money. I think he will lose the lawsuit, though. Al Gore sold Current TV to al-Jezeera, and I bet they’ve got some good lawyers.
The president takes Roger Rabbit’s advice.
…Obama is done trying to work with Republicans in 2013 and 2014. He is abandoning any real effort for bipartisan immigration, gun, or energy reform. The bulk of his effort will now be devoted to eliminating all Republican power in Washington.
And Obama’s first step in that campaign will be to maximize the amount of pain the sequester inflicts on the American people. ABC News reports: “Now that the sequester has gone into effect — bringing on the spending cuts Obama once guaranteed would never happen — the president is in the awkward place of rooting for it be felt as he and his administration has predicted.”
http://washingtonexaminer.com/.....le/2523155
You deserve the president you elect. Good and hard, you deserve it.
The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne Jr. writes:
So true.
@ 4
Good one.
Comedy is not pretty.
In solidarity, we are cruelly slashing 2.3 percent off our normal price of $14.97, which means we will receive 34 cents less per annual subscription. So you can now get a year’s worth of Reason – 11 issues – for just $14.63! This rate is good for new subscribers, existing subscribers, and folks who want it via Kindle, Nook, Sony, and other e-readers.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/03.....-special-s
# 3: Deflect much? The Republicans are trying to cover for the last four years of predicting economic disaster under the Obama administration, and then doing everything they could to make it so. After all, in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Republican House Speaker Boeing said “Our Number One priority is making sure Presidente Obama is a one-term President”.
Republicans then proceeded to filibuster just about every legislation and appointment made by President Obama in the first two years, then when they got control of the House following the 2010 elections they proceeded to demand that the most pain be inflicted on the American working class, holding them as hostages to ensure even more favorable tax benefits for the wealthiest Americans.
– Who could have guessed that conservative justices would be make things up?
Problem here, Carl, is Congress didn’t have 2010 voter data when they reauthorized VRA in 2006. Until we see an opinion contribute to by CJ Roberts, we probably won’t know for sure if he was using 2010 data or if he was using data more relevant to the decision-making behind the 2060 reauthorization by Congress of VRA.
Nice discussion on the Althouse blog (I know Darryl loves him some Ann Althouse. Glad to oblige.) One contributor was a professor from the Pepperdine Law School (Didn’t Kenneth Starr go there when he was done with Clinton? But I digress.):
For Chief Justice Roberts (I think), the concern is the coverage formula. And the coverage formula was reauthorized in 2006. And the last available voter data was 2004. It’s unsurprising, then, that the lower court’s dissenting opinion, at 11-14, look[s] at the voting data from 2004. It specifically refers to this Census data,Table 4a.
Within that table, one can see that the turnout rate for African-Americans in Mississippi in 2004 was 66.8%, MoE 5.2. In Massachusetts, it was 43.5%, MoE 9.6. So assuming one wants to stretch the MoE, the low end of MS would have been 61.6%, and the high end of MA would have been 53.1%. Ms. Totenberg’s calculation to “factor in the margins of error at their extremes” would result in the same confidence that MA African-American turnout was worse than MS.
As to the citizen voting-age population question, one can run a quick check in the MA data to see that it would rise from 43.5% to 46.5%, while MS would remain largely the same — and I’m fairly confident that even a change in the MoE would not put MA in a statistical range in which it would be better than MS.
Now, this is important data because *it is 2004 data*, the data that Congress would have used (and, taking into account time and space, absent a DeLorean, *could* have used) when it reauthorized the coverage formula.
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2......html#more
Now, you might argue that things changed, as might be demonstrated in any changes between 2004 and 2010 data.
My response is, yes indeed, things change. And times have changed.
I’m pretty sure that’s the basis for the argument that VRA shouldn’t have been applied in 2006 given the parity that existed in 2004.
Unless you want to claim that Mississippi, relative to Massachusetts, backslid between 2004 and 2010.
Just a reminder that the Republican strategy of obstructionism and crisis-creation has stalled important legislation, such as turning the compromise “Romney/Obamacare” into a more rational single-payer system, and working on infrastructure repairs while it is still cheap (due to a shortage of private demand for heavy construction projects).
If you are wondering why we need to advance past the Romney/Obamacare compromise, all you need to look at is the private “managed care” system for the elderly in the U.S. In California, an 87 year old woman in a private nursing/retirement home collapsed on the ground, and the staff did nothing other than call 9/11, “pursuant to corporate policy”. A 911 operater pleaded with the nurse on staff to perform CPR or find someone who could until the aid car arrived, but she was told by her superiors not to do so.
@ 7
Boehner, not Boeing.
It was McConnell who used the phrase you mangled, not Boehner.
Pelosi had a de facto filibuster equivalent. She kept from coming to the floor any GOP-authored bills she didn’t like. “We won the election. We wrote the bill.” Remember that?
You’re doing better, though. If I assume ‘Presidente’ was intentional, this might be your first-ever post without misspellings.
@ 9
Er, no. That policy is a nod to tort and medical malpractice threats should people who work in nursing homes attempt CPR and fail in their endeavors.
You want to change that? You talk to the ABA, not to HCA’s Board of Directors. Or, perhaps, talk to their union.
There was a recent episode in California wherein government-paid ‘first-responders’ stood on the beach and refused to rescue a drowning man. They fucking stood there while another beachgoer went in and got the guy.
On Memorial Day at Alameda’s Robert W. Crown Memorial State Beach, police officers and firefighters stood by as Raymond Zack, 53, stood in the water, apparently intent on suicide, until he drowned. They would not go into the water after him, they explained, because a 2009 department policy prohibited water rescues in this island community. An unidentified woman finally swam out and brought his body to shore.
…
According to news reports, firefighters and police watched Zack for about an hour. Domenick Weaver, president of the city firefighters union, estimated that a dozen first responders were present.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/.....z2Mb8VBIha
Blame that on GOP obstructionism. Make sure to avoid researching to find out if the guys who watched a man drown are union members.
A counterpoint, of sorts, to @4:
Importantly, if we didn’t have income inequality we’d have to invent it. As McGill University economist Reuven Brenner pointed out so brilliantly in his essential book History: The Human Gamble, it is gaps in wealth that drive creativity among the citizenry. Seeing the immense wealth possessed by the most successful, those not in the rich club strive mightily to join the wealthy; their innovations redounding to individuals of all income classes.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jo.....nequality/
# 11: Corporate avoidance of tort liability is bad management when a company which markets it’s programs to seniors prohibits it’s nursing staff from conducting life-saving CPR.
Tort law simply means you shouldn’t negiglently do harm, and the level of care for a professional is the standard level of care expected of them, usually as testified to by their fellow practitioners. Good-samaritan laws probably don’t apply here because they had a duty to provide the care. In this case, the family would be well within their rights to sue for the company NOT providing the care.
The corporate interests who would increase their profits by lowering the standard of care and avoid liability (insurance companies, large private health-care companies, etc.) like to blame it on the lawyers, and they often have doctors themselves convinced of the danger. But if they spent a fraction of the money, time, and effort in teaching doctors how to avoid liability by simply taking the time to provide good care, the results would be much better.
As for the water-rescue case to which you referred, I’m not familiar with the details (and don’t have time to research it here). But I did notice that you referred to police officers and firefighters, not trained lifeguards or water-rescue teams. I used to be a lifeguard myself, and I know that they are risky endeavors – every time you go into the water you risk having the victim drown you in a panic, or getting caught into the same conditions which got the original victim in trouble. Basic lifeguard training teaches you to use a boat hook, rope, or life-buoy first, and only go into the water with the victim as a last resort. Initial training also includes how to keep out of the grasp of the victim, get out of a headlock while in the water, and how to put the victim into a control hold which keeps them from moving until you get them to shore.
Just last week I was reading about a fellow, an under-sheriff’s deputy in Snohomish County, that nearly died while rescuing his dog. Sadly, you often hear of people dying while trying to rescue children, spouses, etc. from the water. And I don’t know the exact location of this incident in Alameda Bay, but I know that large parts of the coastline around San Francisco can be treacherous due to swift undercurrents, etc.
So I think the policy against attempting a water rescue was probably borne of such concerns – the safety of the first responders. I seriously doubt a nurse performing CPR in a retirement home has the same level of risk.
# 7, 10: Mea Culpa. (a) You write Boeing often enough, it’s hard not to do so once you start a name beginning with “Boe…”. (b) Yep, after I posted it, I had doubts, thinking that McConnell might have been the one to say that, rather than Boener. (c) No, “Presidente” was, in fact, a typo.
@ 13
Nice response. An hour is an awfully long time to watch a guy from the shoreline. Alameda isn’t in the sticks. It’s a suburb of Oakland, essentially.
@ 14
See, if you had just written Boner like everyone else around here I woulda said nothing.
LMAO!!! Oh this is a side splitter.
What kind of union Bob??? The kind of union that a Scott Walker dare not screw???
Shit Bob if a nutjob like Walker can’t screw a public safety union. Who can???
Maybe a Gov Steve King? Or Governor Michelle Bachmann or a Gov Louie Gohmert??
Oh the outrage Bob! Woooh! This is too funny!
@ 16
Congratulations, YLB, for remaining within the current decade.
Union member in your household? I believe someone said that in a weekend thread.
Bullied or not Bullied – this is a bunch of horse shit and everyone should be ashamed for what this society has become. I wonder if this family really cares about politics now that their son has died.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....06711.html
@3
Cereal keeps posting Washington Examiner links. Might as well quote infowars.com or link to coast to coast radio.
“Lookee here, Obama’s Interior Department is stockpiling Anthrax. Here’s the proof at Artbell.com” -Cereal
Another responsible gun owner – can’t blame this one on a mental person.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_new.....mself?lite
@ 18
A little day-brightener for ya, then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isfn4OxCPQs
Sometime, the bull? He win.
17 – And thank you for the entertainment Bob. I’ve found that knee jerk right wing hatreds are bound at some time or another to trip up those poor souls afflicted with them..
Please spare me the bullshit about time.. Right wingers here always disparage Democrats for the sins they committed before LBJ signed the VRA and CRA… Republicanism has done wonders for those previously staunchly Democratic places.
As far as unions go, at one time in this country’s history over 30 percent of the population belonged to one..
Geez every third or fourth person you see a union member. Damn that would have been a very difficult time for someone like you Bob.
@ 22
Geez every third or fourth person you see a union member. Damn that would have been a very difficult time for someone like you Bob.
Maybe in your household, YLB.
In the real world, they’re increasingly less common. That decline is part of Detroit’s problem, in fact.
Do you want a couple of links showing the decline in union membership, particularly in the private sector, YLB? Or would you like to restate or, as is your wont, to instead yell “Squirrel!” again and throw out something from the Carter era?
It’s a lot closer to every 8-9 persons than every 3-4.
@ 23
New math, YLB style:
In 2012, the union membership rate–the percent of wage and salary workers who were
members of a union–was 11.3 percent, down from 11.8 percent in 2011, the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics reported today. The number of wage and salary workers belonging
to unions, at 14.4 million, also declined over the year. In 1983, the first year for
which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent,
and there were 17.7 million union workers.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
YLB, if only 14.4 million union workers exist in a country with 300+ million people, then only about one in twenty people ‘you see’ is a union member.
So I was off a little, as well. I wasn’t accounting for all those people who aren’t in the labor force right now.
Percent of union members is higher in your household, though. Must be what contributes to that skewed vision of the world that you hold.
Yeah, I’m really not all that unhappy that Romney lost.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....ory_2.html
Read about his perspectives on nuclear power, Yucca Mountain, fracking, import/export of natural gas.
Dick Cheney has more and more reasons to smile these days.
This must be that victory lap Obama is taking after kicking GOP ass on that sequester debate just concluded. Right?
From 20,
Yes, and recently the Pierce County SWAT team terrorized a 78-year-old woman. They had the wrong address, and the woman had done nothing wrong. The sheriff’s SWAT boys even managed to terrorize the poor woman’s daughter, who is an invalid with MS.
Wow, those Pierce County SWAT Team boys are some really manly men, aren’t they? How much courage does it take to threaten to kill an unarmed little old lady?
This episode demonstrates that the police aren’t to be trusted with firearms.
Interesting factoid. The Republicans haven’t won the White House with a ticket that didn’t have Nixon or a Bush on it since 1928.
@ 19
OK, cz, this one’s just for you.
Obama’s Fault
By BILL KELLER
Published: March 3, 2013
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03.....&_r=0
Was that better?
My favorite line:
But by the weekend even the president was sounding helpless, if not acquiescent.
That’s from the NYT.
Barack Obama might not be a dictator. Garmentless emperor, now……
We’ll see.
@3 Republicans can get along with Obama if they want to. All they have to do is be reasonable.
What planet is Bob on now??
I said AT ONE TIME unions represented over 30 percent of workers in this country..
The exact figure is 35.9 percent of workers in 1954.. Imagine Bob living in 1954, the only balm in union-dominated Gilead being Joe McCarthy!
What a reading-comprehension challenged dope!
Poor right wing “mind” suffering from paranoia of those things it fears and loathes: unions, women having control over their bodies, swarthy types like Saddam Hussein.. Utter lunacy…
@ 27
Lincoln was killed in a theater and the killer then hid in a warehouse.
Kennedy was killed by a guy in a warehouse who then ran and hid in a theater.
Lincoln’s secretary’s name was Kennedy.
Kennedy’s secretary’s name was Lincoln.
I think I recall that from one of those plastic coin cases that holds a Lincoln penny and a Kennedy half-dollar, back when I was a kid.
@4 The thing to do is buy dividend stocks and quit your day job. Corporate profits are now more than 14% of GDP, the highest level since 1950. Forget about working, no one is hiring anyway. We all have to be capitalists now.
@ 30
Well, I guess that would make @ 23 @ 24 my own little Emily Litella moment.
Yes, you did, YLB. Consider this my apology.
@6 Nobody reads that rag unless they give it away.
@9 Death panels, anyone? They were there all along, but our conservative friends couldn’t find them, because they looked in the wrong place. They’re in the private health care sector.
@11 “tort and medical malpractice threats”
ha ha ha! The standard Republican excuse for everything relating to health care. A hospital charges a patient $77 for a box of gauze pads you can buy at Rite-Aid for $1.79? It’s the trial lawyers’ fault! A woman dies in a retirement home because company “policy” is to not perform CPR on residents unless they’re paying the company’s assisted living or nursing home rate? It’s the trial lawyers’ fault!
Tell me something, Mr. Conservative Know It All, given that this company is willing to perform CPR on its assisted living and nursing home residents, but not on its retirement home residents, is that because there’s no “tort and medical malpractice threat” to its assisted living and nursing facilities? Or is it possible they denied this woman basic life-saving first-aid because she was paying the lower retirement home rate?
@12 Uh-huh. We’d all be billionaires if we worked harder …
@25 “Yeah, I’m really not all that unhappy that Romney lost.”
he he he! The sidesplitters from Kap’n Kornflake just keep coming! Is this the new wingnut laugh line? Cue canned laughter …
@27 What will they do when they run out of Nixons and Bushes?
@31 Yep, it’s all foreordained, just like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who should be making their appearance any day now. Got your Rapture Kit ready, Bob? Remember, no checked luggage allowed on the Rapture Flight, carry-on bags only! So be prepared to travel light when the angels appear to carry you up.
Now that Sequester is here, Wall Street loves it!!! Who needs a job? Not me! My stocks just keep going up up and awaaaay …
We don’t need all that defense spending anyway. Sure, it creates make-work jobs in places like Alabama and South Carolina, but it doesn’t win wars. Has anyone besides me noticed that?
Now that defense budgets are measured in trillions instead of millions, we’re losing all our wars? When a guerilla with an AK-47 that costs $200 can hold off a superpower with squadrons of F-16s and B-1s or MIG-27s that cost hundreds of millions of dollars (rubles) each, that’s usually a better deal for the farmers of the poor country than the taxpayers of the rich country.
So let’s just get rid of all that useless shit and subcontract our future wars to the NRA. Their boys will take care of it with their Mini-Rugers and Glocks. We taxpayers have better things to do with our money.
Funny how the more we pay for weapons, the fewer wars we win. Is it possible that weapons technology has effective limits?
From 44,
Our “wars” are low-intensity conflicts now. There is less and less need for a massive armor assault with combined infantry movements than in WWII, for example. Some of these high-tech weapons don’t really matter when the opposing forces are pretty much invisible and strike in small attacks to wear down our forces.
All in all, I’d just like to see us end all of these foreign excursions and simply be concerned with the US.
# 27: I was about to say “Eisenhower”, but then remembered that Nixon was VP on that ticket.
Well, the Republicans still have Jeb Bush, if they can convince him to run. Last time around he had enough sense to stay out of it. I’m guessing he could see how this one would play out, and he didn’t want to provide an easy target for “Bush-bashing”. But next time around if Clinton is on the ticket, it might be a different story – Jeb might decide to run. But there is the possibility that he has a few peronsal skeletons in his closit which he didn’t want to come out in the heat of a national campaign. That seems to be what dissuaded Colin Powell from running, although the Republicans courted him to run against Clinton.
@43 Well, it does seem nowadays that drone technology is changing that. It’s definitely war on the cheap. On the other hand, how do you define “victory” unless some ground-pounder shows up to pee on the enemy’s trees? Also, if the technology’s cheap it means it’s also going to be available to…well, anyone. Where that leads could turn out either very nasty or very boring.
Republican idea of compromise I guess.
Proving yet again, Republicans don’t care about the deficit. The only thing that matters is tax cuts for rich people who don’t need them.
Amazing. Only days before the November elections, conservative website The Daily Caller ran with a story accusing Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of visiting prostitutes during a vacation to the Dominican Republic, based on a videotape from the supposed prostitutes themselves. An FBI investigation wasn’t able to find any evidence supporting the story, and now it turns out the whole thing looks to have been faked.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/.....etail=hide
A republican media source lying? I am shocked! Shocked I tell you!
You think Serial Con can apologize for trying to spread FUD with a fake story?
http://horsesass.org/?p=49133#comment-1214499
Ever heard of this guy name John Bolton? He was GWB’s ambassador to the UN. The guy’s a war hawk, wanting for the US to get involved in every mess on the globe. He’s worse than John McCain about wanting to interject the US into everything, and, of course, that means military intervention just about everywhere.
I did a little checking on the guy and found he never served a day in the military. Why is it that these war hawk Republicans never actually put themselves at risk when we trot off to do battle with some little, itty-bitty country on the other side of the planet?
@47 “Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., insisted that any revenue from a tax overhaul would have to be reserved for reducing tax rates and not used to fund government spending or lower the deficit.”
All the proof you need that what keeps Republicans awake at night is how to reduce taxes on millionaires, not how to reduce the deficit.
@45 Jeb made some noise yesterday about running in 2016, but my guess is the Bush family name will remain toxic for at least another 30 years. But that’s not so bad when compared to the plutonium waste at Hanford … at least he has a slight chance of outliving the damage his brother did to his family’s reputation.
Why do right wingers who rely on right wing degenerate propaganda sources always “run”???
i.e. silent when their bullshit is shown to be mmmm… bullshit…
At last! State Rep Ed Orcutt (R Tacoma) has zeroed in on the cause of global warming, and wrote the stupidest thing of the 2013 legislative session.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2.....polluters/
Awhile back, I shared a link to a story about how last year, Amtrak lost the least amount of money since 1975, and now it seems, according to a report 4 corridors were profitable. Washington D.C to Lynchburg, both the major services on the Northeast Corridor(the Acela Express and the Northeast Regional, and the NYC-Montreal Adirondack service. Although I would dispute the NEC claims, since Amtrak ow s and maintains that trackage.
http://www.newsadvance.com/new.....f6878.html
ROTFLMBBAO… Hey Pluto boy, when did Scott Walker become CA guvnur?
Deflect much schmucko? And Scott Walker was reelected Pluto boy!
Sux to be U!
So you want Serial Conservative to post left wrong puke sites instead?
Come on checkmate… you can’t be serious!
Spot on commentary.
This is all one paragraph and it sums up Obummer. The community organizer has no clue how to preside. It’s continuous campaign mode with TOTUS. He went all over the “57” states claiming Obummergeddon if the sequester wasn’t stopped. Well Obummer told everyone last November 2011 he would veto anything against the sequester. Then in 2012 campaign Obummer claimed the sequester was not his idea. Oh really? Well we now know Bob Woodward blew that lie apart. Doesn’t Obummer realize the internet blows apart his lying ways? Read the comments libtard fools!
When did you learn to read for comprehension O Zero Percent homonculus?
The correct answer is NEVER?
At least Bob is challenged. You are PERMANENTLY brain-damaged in reading comprehension.
57 – Yawwwn.. Typical right wing vomit..
@28
Been a long day for you? Bill “I think Judith Miller is an excellent employee” Keller? Bill “Outing Valerie Plame is no big deal” Keller? Bill “chuck Hegel’s wartime service makes him a bad choice for defense” Keller? Bill “Mitt Romeny has a solid grasp of foreign policy” Keller?
Might as well go with an old Alan Colmes clip and say, “See, even Fox news agrees with me!”
@56
No Piddles. I expect, if one is to be taken seriously, that they don’t hold up Phil Anschultz’s free rag of unabashed Randian propaganda as a persuasive source of objective opinion.
A fair comparison would be a left leaning commentor using OpEds from “The Organizer.”
@57 Obama doesn’t have to elect Democrats. Republicans do it for him.
Wahh. Obama is not “negotiating” with the Republicans. This sums up why
# 63: Republicans whining over the President not calling them and negotiating reminds me a lot like Kim Jung Um’s comment to Dennis Rodman, hinting that if Pres. Obama would just call him, he wouldn’t start a war.