– Good on Governor Kitzhaber for his opposition to coal exports.
– I’m looking forward to someday riding on US Bike Route 10.
– Do any of these 4 Seattle Police Chief candidates inspire you, or is it going to be more of the same under any of them?
– So much about the conservative movement is a scam.
– It’s too bad about Oregon’s health care exchange (NY Times link).
– 5 Insane Lessons from My Christian Fundamentalist Childhood
Yes, absolutely, good on Governor Kitzhaber:
Q&A: Kitzhaber Signs Health Insurance Exchange
Beth: What did the governor say as he signed it into law?
Kristian: Well he called it a great day for Oregon. He said the exchange is going to provide significant benefits to small businesses and individuals. It’s going to allow people to compare the quality and cost of insurance plans. And, he says it’s going to be a great resource for Oregonians:
John Kitzhaber: “It is going to be a central contributor to the success of our larger health care reform effort, by setting the setting the standards for plans that they reduce cost, that they maintain quality and that everyone has access to the kind of coverage that they need and deserve in this state.”
http://www.opb.org/news/articl.....-exchange/
Finally, John Kitzhaber awakens to Cover Oregon debacle (guest opinion)
Oregon Gov. “Rip Van Winkle” Kitzhaber seems to have finally awoken from a long slumber and realized that Cover Oregon, Oregon’s failed health care exchange, is the laughingstock of the nation. Oregon, under Dr. Kitzhaber’s watch, has the only exchange in the country yet to be able to sign up even one applicant online.
“I knew nothing,” has been the governor’s mantra for months. Kitzhaber’s detachment is disturbing at best, outrageously incompetent at worst. In a caustic, early January interview with KATU-TV, Kitzhaber claimed he was completely unaware of problems with the exchange until late October 2013.
jayne-carroll-cropView full sizeJayne Carroll
KATU reporters Dusty Lane and Hillary Lake questioned Kitzhaber’s claims to be in the dark about problems with Cover Oregon. They reported in early February, “the claim was incredible because the website had already missed its Oct. 1 launch date.”
Lane and Lake also doubted Kitzhaber’s denial because there were “mountains of red flag reports” for almost two years from the state’s quality-assurance contractor, a stringent set of checks and balances to prevent the project from spiraling out of control, and there were thousands of pages of e-mails and reports with key figures in the Kitzhaber administration including the governor.
http://www.oregonlive.com/hill.....akens.html
It’s outrageous that Oregon couldn’t build a working website. There are literally thousands of private sector companies that could have done in for them. Companies like Oracle. It just goes to show that when you let the government do something instead of farming it out to private industry you get what you paid for. Oh…wait…
Donald Sterling a registered republican since 1998? who would have thunk it?
If it’s okay to confiscate a grieving widow’s home for $6.30 of unpaid taxes, why shouldn’t it be okay to confiscate a deadbeat rancher’s cows for $1.2 million of intentionally unpaid grazing fees?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ju.....er-6-bill/
I have a question for the Property Rights/Gun Rights/Stand Your Ground folks.
If it’s okay for this guy to shoot a teenager for trespassing on his property, why can’t BLM agents shoot Cliven Bundy for trespassing
on BLM land?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mo.....is-garage/
Interesting, because Donald Rumsfeld was a lobbyist for Swiss technology and engineering firm ABB, he is receiving 5000 Francs a year in Swiss Social Security. Very odd for a country that prides itself on neutrality.
http://www.thelocal.ch/2014042.....its-report
Swiss rail car builder Stadler Rail has won another contract in the US for it’s light Diesel Multiple Unit. This time, BART in California, specifically for the eBART line in eastern Contra Costa County. This will also most likely be a first for BART, standard gauge.
http://www.railwaygazette.com/.....tract.html
@5
Some of my conservative friends have alerted me to this ‘theory’ that the Federal Government cannot own a parcel of land larger than 10SqMi based on the creation of the District in Article 1 of the Constitution. Such a lame-brained idea championed by Ron Paul among others ignores that Article IV designates Congress Authority to regulate, tax, sell whatever Federal Land AND the fact that as a precursor to ratifying the Constitution the States ceded their claims on Western lands to the Federal Government.
So why does Article IV not specify the size of land Congress can oversee? Well because there was a damn lot more than ten square miles of Federal Land in the Western Territory owned by the Federal Governmnet during the Constitutional Convention. The framers couldn’t fathom that 200 years later some morons would claim that land the Federal Government already owned could not belong to the Federal Government because it was bigger than the District. They were smart men and could not imagine anyone would be so stupid as to suggest that Federal land was NOT Federal land.
And to complete the life cycle of the dominionist imbecile, this 10SqMi ‘constitution’ implies that when Jefferson completed the Louisiana purchase, only a small parcel of land became United States territory and the rest became the property of a yet to be established State Legislature in the general vicinity of Louisiana. More specific to the current idiocy, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was not in fact signed between the U.S. and Mexico but between Mexico and Texas for part of it and between Mexico and California for another bit and between Mexico and the does not exist territory of Nevada for the rest.
Right. Perfectly clear.
@8 Smart men do anticipate the arguments of stupid and silly men. That’s why legal documents read like this:
“I hereby give, bequeath, bestow, convey, and otherwise transfer all of my property, both real and personal, including but not limited to my land and all improvements thereon, all buildings, structures, dwellings, shelters, barns, sheds, coops, and other constructions of any nature whatsoever, together with all of my chattels, furnishings, personal effects, tools, equipment, and all other tangible things of any nature whatsoever, to my nephew Ralph …”
Of course, no matter how much redundancy a lawyer builds into a legal document, he inevitably leaves something out, which invites the other interested parties to lawyer up and fight tooth and claw over what Uncle Ned meant. It happens every time.
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