Peace and Renewal

If Only It Were the Season for Reason!

I have friends who watch Fox News. They are good people and I care about them as much as any of my other, possibly more thoughtful, friends. This is for them: If you believe anything you are told by Fox News without verifying it from several sources and giving it some serious contemplation... you are misinformed. Surveys prove this repeatedly, but I'm hoping to demonstrate it right here and now.

As one instance, and there are thousands, Fox claims Jesus and Santa Claus are white men and that's that. They offer no proof whatsover, like most of what they claim. Well first of all, and I hate to break this to Fox News people, Santa is a figment of the imagination. Santa does not exist, anymore than Fox News credibility exists. A poet created him out of bits and pieces of legend and tradition. This was a manifestation of the continuing Church takeover of the quite popular Winter Solstice celebration. Santa is made up and you can make him up to look like a Scandinavian or a Samoan, if you so choose. Also...Reindeer don't fly or have high beam red noses.

As for Jesus, he may or may not have existed, depending on your religious traditions, but accepting the New Testament for the moment, his mother was of African descent and his father was God. If God exists and is white ( Yes, we are skipping all sorts of points of discussion by making that leap of faith, but it is a leap of faith after all, right?) then that would make Jesus a mixed race child, any way you look at it. With one parent (Godly?) white and the other African, Jesus would look like most any other child with one white parent and one African parent....Barack Obama, for example.

Happy Holidays my Foxy friends! I love you and wish you the very best in these times of celebration.

Governor Haslam Not Doing His Job and Playing Games With the Press Claiming He's Been Hard at Work..."Hard Work!"

Jeff Woods is one of the few journalists who seems willing to call Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam out for lying.

Already Haslam effectively has rejected more than $1 billion in federal money for next year—an idiocy that would have been unthinkable before the Tea Party took over the Republican Party. He isn’t interested in negotiating at all, but only in dodging responsibility for damaging the state’s economy and leaving tens of thousands of working poor in Tennessee without health insurance.

Can We Add Tennessee To This List?

Florida and Texas lead the nation in uninsured. The two states also lead the nation in dollars lost by their refusal to expand. Now they'll lead the nation in people really pissed off when they realize that the only reason they can't get health coverage is because they are represented by assholes.

More

From Our "The Right Wing Lies to Everybody" Dept: Quote of the Day

MSNBC Chris Hayes speaking to Right Wing Think Tank Director Ben Domenech:

“These hucksters tell you things that are false. They lie to you. Ted Cruz lies to you. Heritage Action lies to you. Everybody lies to you. There is a whole cottage industry before the election to tell you, you are winning the election, they are losing. They tell you, your ideas are popular when they are not. They tell you your party is winning when it is not. They tell you the president is losing this and he looks terrible because people are storming the WWII memorial — At what point do grass roots conservatives stop allowing their leadership to lie to them?”

 (Heartland Institute) Ben Domenech replies:

 “Well, I think that you have to keep in mind, the leadership lies to themselves, as well.

They lie to themselves about their ability to control the situation. They lie to themselves about the ability to offer an alternative approach from the senate side that they could take it up by the house at the get-go. I think that essentially you are seeing a lot of people who are lying to each other about the nature of the policies and nature of the political strategy that they are employing.”

 The video is HERE

ObamaCare Website Problems? Newt Gingrich's Fault!

Republicans have learned that they can destroy the effectiveness of America's government by controlling the House of Representatives, even though that is against the wishes of a majority of voters. If it weren't for gerrymandering, Democrats would control the House and we would be out of this recession, major corrections would be in place in national healthcare, Guantanamo would be closed, we would be out of Afghanistan already, and the middle class would be seeing its earnings increasing at a fair rate instead of the 1% sucking up every penny of additional income. There is also a good chance we would have reinstated Glass-Seagal and the Fairness Doctrine. Problems don't happen overnight and the destruction of the American government's ability to serve the majority of its citizens was plotted over 40 years ago and was behind the PR campaign that installed Ronald Reagan into the Presidency. Three straight terms of Republican presidency saw the national debt skyrocket while the unemployment rate rose. We became a debtor nation and reacted by electing a democratic president, Bill Clinton. Using massive amounts of dark money and a servile corporate press, Republicans hammered on Clinton's personal life, even though nearly all of them were committing the same and worse transgressions. As a result we saw the Gingrich revolution take over the House and install Newt as Speaker. Gingrich is a slimeball of a person but a shrewd political operator unencumbered by personal ethics. he was forced to resign as Speaker of the House and Congress due to a fairly transparent method of receiving bribes by having his ghostwritten books purchased in truckload quantities by corporate shills. Gingrich received outlandish royalty percentages, pocketed millions, and resigned in disgrace. This method continues to thrive today, as anyone who has tried to read a Sarah Palin book can vouch for. At any rate, before he was ousted Gingrich led the Republican House to dismantle as much of the citizen protections as he could, turning things over to corporations and well connected "low bidders". Outsourcing technical offices to partisan shops is just one form of destruction but it happens to be relevant right now. (Gingrich) "...killed a tiny federal agency called the Office of Technology Assessment. Established in 1972 as Congress' nonpartisan in-house think tank, the OTA studied new technologies and offered recommendations on how Washington could adapt to them. But then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) turned off its lights." In one of its final reports the OTA warned, "Changes in the health care delivery system, including the emergence of managed health care and integrated delivery systems, are breaking down the organizational barriers that have stood between care providers, insurers, medical researchers, and public health professionals..." It specifically mentioned the problems with digital data transfers and the management of information, the exact problem with www.HealthCare.gov! There's much more to this and I encourage a thorough read of this piece:

To prevent another Healthcare.gov, Washington could use a digital brain trust. Too bad Newt Gingrich killed the one it had. —By Tim Murphy and Tasneem Raja

What I'm doing today

Used a headlamp to get this going at dawn's early dark.

More Pith

I've added Pith in the Wind to the links on the right. Go there and the why should be obvious.

From Our "Racism Is Dead In Tennessee" Dept: Trooper Refuses Black Judge Entry to Courthouse

Tennessee's only black female appellate court judge was turned away by a TN Trooper when she was trying to drop papers off to another judge. The trouper was disciplined and has now retired. The official reason for discipline? "Blatant disregard for procedure." The trooper has apologized via email. A bit more. And a bit more

Lamar Stands Zero Chance of Losing...Sucks Up To Crazy People Anyway

It's OK now to just lie straight out if you are a Republican. Who's going to call you on it? I mean since "news" organizations don't do news anymore I guess it's up to bloggers to do facts and things...

Seeking to fend off a rabid (if feckless) tea-party primary opponent, Sen. Lamar Alexander has been warming up for 2014 by rebranding himself as hostile to the kind of pragmatic moderation that once framed his centrist political persona. With an op-ed in the Washington Post late last week assailing the move by Senate Democrats to do away with the filbuster on executive and judicial nominations, Alexander demonstrates he is also working hard to rebrand himself as hostile to facts and reality. The Post piece is a model of intellectual dishonesty.

Bruce Barry maybe?

Biblical Folks Might Have Been Tripping...O wow like Really!

"The wine was flavoured with honey, mint, cinnamon bark, juniper berries and even mysterious "psychotropic resins", which might explain why people in the biblical era spent so much time spouting prophesies and wearing technicolor dreamcoats."

Haslam Worried About Accepting $300 Million Form Feds Because Future President Might Be Republican?

I did almost spew coffee out my nostrils...Too funny!

Even though the federal government is promising to pay 100 percent of the new Medicaid costs for the first three years and most of the costs after that, Mr. Haslam said he was worried that later administrations might renege on that promise.

 Or too sad. You pick!

NYT story suggests Haslam will be next Governor to accept billions of dollars for Tennessee and help provide health care to its citizens.

Al Gore Calls for Occupy Climate Movement

God, I wish!

Powerful Interview With Sarah Palin

Matt Lauer:  "What are we hearing from the Tea Party in terms of an absolute, realistic plan that can be an alternative to Obamacare?"

Said Palin: "The plan is to allow those things that had been proposed over many years to reform a health-care system in America that certainly does need more help so that there's more competition, there's less tort reform threat, there's less trajectory of the cost increases, and those plans have been proposed over and over again. And what thwarts those plans? It's the far left. It's President Obama and his supporters who will not allow the Republicans to usher in free market, patient-centered, doctor-patient relationship links to reform health care."

Sign that the Apocalypse happened and we missed it, I guess. 

"From our Senator Linsey Graham is a lying D**k-head" Department

The Benghazi incident has morphed into a full blown conservative news hoax. If you don't know that it was NOT a US Embassy nor a State Department ooperation, you can thank your corporate news sources. It was a consulate being run by the CIA. Yes it was a tragedy, much like the 13 similar tragedies that occurred during the Bush Administration over which we have heard not a peep in mock outrage from conservatives. Conservatives only get all mocky and outragey when one one 13th of what they did happens during a Democratic administration. And then they lie about it.

60 Minutes reporter, Laura Logan,  went all Dan Rather on an eye witness account of the horror of the Benghazi attack with serious talk show concern on every expression as she listened intently to a man who was using a false name. He looked exactly like a slimeball who is feeding a pretty woman a line of total bullshit in a pick up bar.  It was all about the horrors and failures of the protection surrounding our Ambassador who was killed in the attack. The only truth here is that the ambassador was killed in a tragic set of circumstances. The rest is a complete fabrication and Lara Logan apparently did not do the slightest bit of fact investigative journalism for the most prestigious investigative journalism show in history.


Remember when CBS 60 minutes anchor Dan Rather had his career ended by reporting a story that was ultimately factual but has some questions about one document? Why does Laura Logan still have a job at 60 Minutes on CBS? She belongs on Fox News.

 Linsey Graham seized the moment and as a result of the show, he once again got went mock outrage, telling his own set of whoppers.

Linsey Graham has a bad habit of telling stories that are not true that are politically beneficial as he claims, " ...this white house has a bad habit of telling stories that are not true that are politically beneficial." Graham went all out and doubled down on perpetrating the Benghazi hoax as he claimed the FBI reports backed up the 60 minutes story, as if he had ever read an FBI report. he hadn't, the report definitively proves the 60 minute report was a total fabrication and some of the worst investigative journalism in history. United States Senator Linsey Graham was lying when he claimed the Obama Administration was lying. Where is his apology?


At what point does conservative credibility evaporate?

How many lies can they tell and get away with it?

Why is a serial liar like Linsey Graham still allowed to filibuster President Obama's nominations based on his own lies? 

The Daily Show
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Southern Beale is on a Roll!

What are these armed men getting ready to shoot at?

Turns out it is a small group of mothers who are concerned about idiots with weapons running all over town threatening people they think are going to take their guns...

Go read Southern Beale!

New Jersey Gov Race Should Be Writing On The Wall For Haslam

Exit polls on Tuesday, with the same voters who handed Republican Chris Christie a landslide win as New Jersey governor, showed that  Christie would lose New Jersey 48%-44% in a match up with Democrat Hillary Clinton. Contrary to what the punditocracy is saying this morning, that doesn't look good for the GOP.

Gov. Christie's big achievement seems to be that he took all the Federal money he could get when Sandy trashed the Jersey shore. The best opportunity for this in Tennessee is to embrace the ACA and get rural hospitals the help they need to stay alive. Pay attention Governor Ramsey! I'm talking to you...

Other than his high profile Hurricane Sandy tour, Chris Christie has a fine schtick in front of the camera and, in prep for the 2016 presidential campaign, had his stomach operated on hoping to lose a few hundred pounds, much like Mike Huckabee. Calling Chistie a "moderate" is code for borderline sociopathy as opposed to a full blown personality disorder near as I can tell.

As for Christie's job creation ability, his state continues at 8.5% unemployment as it lost another 1500 jobs in most recent reports. I hope everyone remembers that Christie refused a federally funded project that would have created ten times that number of jobs in his state.

If a governor doesn't bring home the bacon by getting as much of our tax money back from the federal government then they ought to be turned out. It looks like Jersey held its nose and voted for Christie while waiting for someone better to come along. Can you say, "Hillary", boys and girls?

We have a very flawed Constitution. Calling Re-Write!

  Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison in 1789, the year our (constitution took effect). "The earth belongs always to the living generation and not to the dead .… Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years."

 I would hate to see what we would get if we let our current powers that be write a new document to guide America. There doesn't seem to be anything noble or good for the majority of Americans coming out of Congress at the moment, and no, both parties aren't equally to blame. Having said that, I'm as interested in what a new constitution that lived up to the dictates of the Preamble:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Somehow that paragraph has become, "Protect rich people's money and their ability to make more at all costs...Democracy be damned!"

According to researchers who analyzed all 729 constitutions adopted between 1946 and 2006, the U.S. Constitution is rarely used as a model. What's more, "the American example is being rejected to an even greater extent by America's allies than by the global community at large,"

So here we go. What would you write into the new constitution? I'll start.

1. Representation must be based on people not power or money. All Congressmen and Senators shall represent the same number of people. (Alaska and Tennessee shouldn't have the same number of Senators as California)

 2. While a citizen's right to believe in supernatural things shall be granted, it shall have no standing whatsoever in governance. There shall be no special tax considerations for organizations based on the supernatural. The SHALL be tax considerations for organizations that are based on science being used for the greater good.

3. Laws shall only be enacted if they promote a better living condition and healthier environment.

4. No law shall force a citizen to have or not have any medical proceedure unless that proceedure promotes the common good. (Citizens will have vacinations that stop the spread of disease)

And so on. I have about 50 more but it's your turn.  Post 'em!


The US needs a Constitution.

What Does the First Amendment Do in Alabama?

I'm going to have to find out a lot more about this but it appears that you can't write things about prominent people in Alabama.  In Tennessee of course, you can write anything you want too about a political opponent. We have a judges ruling on that.


The story

Those Nasty Hateful Sexist Homophobic Fascist Right Wing Posts in the Comments...Hired Trolls

We knew this was happening but we didn't think it was Fox News leading the charge.

In ‘Murdoch’s World,’ Folkenflik confirms what many social media users have known for a long time. Many right-wing commenters are using fake profiles and they are getting paid for spewing their filth around the web. Folkenflik reveals that these paid commenters use a wide range of deceptive tactics to hide their true identities... The right-wing agenda being pushed by these paid commenters, hired by Fox and other sources, doesn’t just include tax breaks for the rich and the myth of corporate person-hood. It includes racism, sexism, homophobia, hatred of the poor and much more...

I keep a tight reign on my commenters, not to weed out dissenting opinions but to weed out false information and personal attacks. That pretty much takes care of the hired trolls. It would be really nice if every information source did the same thing. Let's note for the record that nearly all conservative sites censor differing opinions from their comments.


  The article is here

Quote of the Day...Conservative Pundit Edition

“These hucksters tell you things that are false. They lie to you. Ted Cruz lies to you. Heritage Action lies to you. Everybody lies to you. There is a whole cottage industry before the election to tell you, you are winning the election, they are losing. They tell you, your ideas are popular when they are not. They tell you your party is winning when it is not. They tell you the president is losing this and he looks terrible because people are storming the WWII memorial -- At what point do grass roots conservatives stop allowing their leadership to lie to them?”

Exactly! Ben Domenech of the Heartland Institute

Quote of the Day...Distinguished Alumni Edition

No regular person in the middle of a federal investigation gets called up by his alma mater and offered an important award. So, what's this nonsense? It looks like Jimmy's brother and some of his buddies decided Jimmy needed a little pick-me-up. So, here it is. They've arranged it.

Betsey

Discussing With Conservatives as Deprogramming

I do not think that agents of a malevolent foreign power could jeopardize the United States of America more than Republicans are at this very moment. The very life of our country is at stake right now. I believe this. I think this. The two are not the same. Yet, when we try to have this crucial discussion, some folks either spout things as facts that are obviously false or they turn away from the discussion altogether. It is very difficult to have any sort of discussion with a lot of people when they come to the discussion with sloganeering sound bites and otherwise ignorance. It is the same as discussing science with a creationist. There is something cowardly about refusing to question your own beliefs and statements, but that is the norm with these folks. Why is this? Well there is a strong and entrenched coalition of people and entities who hang on to power and enrich themselves by stroking the creationist/conservative/republican mind. It is a fear and ignorance driven process but a very purposeful process. In this piece, by Donald Prothero, you can substitute conservative for creationist for cultist and have perfect parity. Here is a snippet but I hope you'll read the whole piece. What we need to do now is deprogram these people... Our country's survival as a democracy is at stake.

Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi, in his 2009 book The Great Derangement, describes going undercover in an evangelical church for many months. He found that creationists live in a very cloistered cultish subculture, where they read only what their church elders tell them to read, attend many church meetings and intensive weekend retreats to receive constant reinforcement, and avoid listening to or reading any outside sources that might challenge their worldview. No wonder they never bother to learn about the actual facts of science or evolution, but instead they get a distorted view of science from their creationist leaders. And such cult-like isolation from the real world explains why no amount of presenting science to them in an appealing manner will ever reach them. As long as the conclusions of science threaten their cherished worldview, they are not going to change their minds or learn to distinguish real science from creationist bunk. Instead, as Rosenhouse details again and again, they are easily swayed by shallow intuitive arguments that sound good when you don’t think hard about them.

 Donald Prothero in eSkeptic

No Fair! Texas Has Louie Gomert and All We Have Is Marsha Blackburn

Much like football basketball, Tennessee is so outmatched in the crazy elected official contest. They have Louie and we have Marsha.

Well it's close and getting closer, but not yet. Our governor is goofy fer sure but he's not f*****g goofy like theirs is.

Texas... You win!

And then there's this...

Quote of the Day...Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) Begs Dems to Bail Out Republicans on Shutdown

We won't be the last political party to overplay our hand. It might happen one day on the Democratic side. And if it did, would Republicans, for the good of the country, kinda give a little? We really did go too far. We screwed up. But their response is making things worse, not better.

That is just cute as it can be. Hey, we all know the GOP would give the Dems a little just to help them save face. In my dreams and your nightmares, Lindsey!

Quote of the Day

After years of cruel jackassery in the legislature, tormenting gays and lesbians and children and women — just to mention a few population segments — state Sen. Stacey Campfield is having trouble finding a public place willing to host a fundraiser for his reelection campaign. Imagine that. Pol Pot would have an easier time of it.

Tennessee Republicans give way too many writers way many opportunities to use "cruel jackassery" in a sentence. 

Pith

Blackburn One of 50 GOP Congressional Members On Letter to Cut Social Security to Fix Debt

This letter should be held up as proof that the GOP is emphatically driven by greed and fealty to a corrupt financial industry and not good sense or one whit of love for the American people. There are several false statements in the letter, such as the claim that Social Security is an entitlement program that is driving our national debt. That's a flat out lie, as SS is solvent for a generation and has contributed not one penny to our national debt. We should realize that when TN Rep. Marsha Blackburn joins Senator Bob Corker in making noises about cutting Social Security we are seeing several things in action.  Corker and Blackburn are not dumb and they know full well that what they are doing is trying to get the Social Security lockbox out of the safe hands of the federal government and into the clutches of the financial industry they serve so well. They area also willing to repeatedly lie to us in the process.

Here's the letter if you are interested in a well written piece of crap.

Just for fun let's remember who actually crashed our national economy. Was it Social Security or the recently deregulated financial industry? Who cost us a trillion and a half dollars in a bailout and then gave their people 130 million dollars in bonuses, Social Security or the financial industry?

Now let's look at who a recent AARP study says pumps a Trillion dollars INTO our economy each year instead of sucking it out? Why it's Social Security! The financial industry won't even cover the cost of its own government book keeping, thanks to Blackburn and Corker opposing any attempts at imposing fees to pay for the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) keeping up with stock trades and financial regulations.

Any elected politician who cares about Tennesseans would act immediately to regulate the financial industry and protect Social Security. We're just not seeing that.

Let me see if I have this right...

So GOP, you lost the Presidential election, you lost the vote in Congress 42 times, you lost the Supreme Court decision with your own political operative now Chief Justice voting against you, and Obamacare, a grand compromise in the first place, is the law of the land but somehow you demand MORE compromise. You know that once it fully kicks in and 30 million preciously uninsured Americans get health insurance (that they'll pay for) and everybody sees that it's a major benefit for All Americans, except maybe insurance companies, everyone will see that the GOP is nothing more than the Koch Brother lackey in Congress and has been lying, lying, lying about... well... everything.

At some point all those people who were listening to you scream "Freedom" and "socialism" every time we tried to make things better for all Americans, all those people are going to realize that you don't WANT to make things better for ALL Americans. In fact, all you want to do, GOP, is tear America apart, so much so that when you hit a dribble of an infield hit and got thrown out at first base, you grabbed the ball and are now threatening the umpire with your bat that if he doesn't "compromise" and give you a home run you are going to blow up the stadium with all the American people inside it.

Why do you hate America?

EPA Adminstrators for Nixon, Reagan, G H W Bush, G W Bush "We Must Address Climate Change"

Here's a little jewel form the TCWP Newsletter:

Republican former EPA heads endorse climate action

On August 1, The New York Times carried an OpEd by four former EPA administrators who had served during Republican administrations: William Ruckelshaus (Nixon; Reagan), Lee Thomas (Reagan), Bill Reilly (Bush, Sr.), and Christine Todd Whitman (Bush, Jr,). Their message: “The United States must move now on substantive steps to curb climate change, at home and internationally.”
There is no longer any credible scientific debate about the basic facts, they say, and the costs of inaction are undeniable. Because the best path to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, a carbon tax, is unachievable in the current political gridlock, they recommend the achievable actions laid out in Pres. Obama’s June climate action plan (NL310 ¶6A). “Rather than argue against his proposals, our leaders in Congress should endorse them and start the overdue debate about what bigger steps are needed and how to achieve them — domestically and internationally.”

They remind us that “conservative principles” that guided their actions under four Republican presidents helped them tackle major environmental challenges to the nation and the world, e.g., major water pollution, the ozone hole, and acid rain. “And despite critics’ warnings, our economy has continued to grow. … We can have both a strong economy and a livable climate.”

Their conclusion: “The only uncertainty about our warming world is how bad the changes will get, and how soon. What is most clear is that there is no time to waste.”

The Affordable Care Act In Plain English

Look, the ACA contains over 400 amendments put in there by Republicans. It has flaws. That said it's a huge step in the right direction. 

Here you go.

If Health Insurance is an Open Question As GOP Claims...

So we completely compromised (caved) to Republicans and enacted a Republican Plan (Obamacare) and left Single Payer and Public Option health insurance on the cutting room floor and THIS is how they act? The GOP has shut down the government (except for their salaries) in a childish snit over an act that passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by the President. If this is how they want to abdicate their responsibility for civil governance I say we put Single Payer and Public Options right back on the table and do this again...Along with Gerrymandering reform, which would eliminate their illegitimate majority in Congress and give this nation some relief from these creeps.

GOP Shutdown

We have an idiot GOP congressman in Tennessee who says we'll never even notice the shutdown of the United States of America. It appears that the Tea Party has accomplished what the Nazis, Communists, fascists, anarchists, militant theocratists, and libertarians have been unable to do, even with bombs and armies. Now that fake news person, Chuck Todd, has explained that his job is to help catapult the propaganda rather than call balls and strike and ask tough questions of both sides rather than just Democrats, we are for clarity and enlightenment left to the last bastion of truth justice and the American way, comedians.

Some of then have potty mouths or rather potty fingers but they have facts and truth, as in this case...

Wonkette


Talking Points Memo

But hey, you'll probably never notice that the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, one of the greatest drivers of the economy in East Tennessee, has been shut down.

There are good pundits and there are bad pundits. Bad pundits lead with with claims that "gridlock" in Washington caused the first federal government shutdown in 17 years. They claim that the shutdown is a "pox on both your houses" type of deal, and use phrases like the White House and Congress "trading blame" or "pointing fingers" for shutting down the government.  
Good pundits write about the fact that the shutdown is the result of House Republican behavior. Specifically, House Republicans, led by the nose by the Tea Party, are throwing a tantrum because, boo hoo, they didn't win a presidential election in 2008 and 2012.

Daily Kos

Cuban Canadian Senator Fake Filibuster Boiled Down From Mush To Its Essence...Purified Distilled Mush

I'm having trouble with why it is that a Cuban Canadian..

gets to spend millions of tax payer dollars reading Green Eggs and Ham to his children from the floor of the United States Senate? Near as I can tell the bottom line is that Ted Cruz and his anti American Tea Publican cronies in the House and Senate want to end the Federal government so you can pay your taxes directly to the Koch brothers without having to deal with that nasty old IRS which wants to oppress conservatives by making then follow the same rules as everybody else. This move by the Koch financed Tea Party will upset Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney when it actually happens because they need you to give your tax money to the IRS so they can take it and make millions of dollars profiteering on wars they lie us into.When asked about this Cheney said, "So why haven't we bombed Syria already?"

Ted also seems to be upset that Obama refuses to compromise with the GOP and delay/destroy/defund/whatever Obamacare. This is apparently because Ted, a megalomaniac asshole by the accounts of even his closest friends sycophants, doesn't recognize realities that contradict the mythology in his head, namely that everyone pretty much wanted single payer healthcare but the GOP graciously gave Obama everything he wanted in a magnanimous act of gracious compromise on their part, thereby creating the greatest gift to insurance companies ever devised by the Heritage Foundation known as Obamacare.

Bad as it is, Obamacare is worlds better than the GOP's ideal system in which rich people get fabulous medical care and jump to the front of the line for new organs even when they totally don't meet the criteria except that they are rich from war profiteering, while poor people get nothing, and the middle class gets nearly nothing except high co-pays and gets kicked off their insurance rolls if they actually do get sick. Insurance after all is not for sick people, just ask any health insurance company CEO. Diabolical Obamacare actually pays insurance companies to provide insurance, albeit at a reasonable rate.

And now back to Ted Cruz, eh? Several people actually suffered through Ted's fake filibuster so we didn't have to be scarred for life. Wonkette is my go to source for clarity in matters like this. CSPAN put it this way...

Chuck Todd Announces Abdication of Constitutional Responsibility

 In our nation the Press is given special consideration and privilege because they are supposed to be the arbiters of truth. If they aren't going to do that why are they still given special privileges? I mean, why should I not be given a ride on Air Force One instead of Chuck? And then you!

Go read Southern Beale.

Pro Hunger Republicans

How does TN Congressman Fincher vote to deny food stamps to children and yet vote FOR the farm welfare bill that has given him $3.7 million dollars? Conservative Republican logic looks more like criminal selfishness than logic.

These are strange times when conservative voters let these rats get away with this thievery. The Republican party in Congress isn't  entirely made up of scum, almost but not quite. Here's the rest of the story. There's a lot more going on in this as you'll see, including a move by Fincher and others to split the Farm Subsidy bill away from the Food Stamp (SNAP) bill so that they can vote to keep their own welfare while denying food to children. Nice people, these Republicans.

 I can't find out how my Congressman Flieshman voted and it actually looks like he managed to not vote. Anybody know?

Pith has more

And then there's THIS!

Bad Guy With Gun Shoots Good Guy With Gun Takes Gun Shoots More Good Guys

Can we start ignoring people who robo-regurgitate that tired old lie, "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun"?

After firing down on people, the gunman began to search for more people to shoot, and as he searched, he was confronted by a security guard near an exit, according to the officials. The gunman shot the guard and took his semiautomatic handgun, then headed back to the atrium. “He runs back upstairs and cranks off more rounds with the handgun and then heads to another stairwell, where he confronts a worker there and shoots him,” the official said.

NYTimes Article on Naval Yard Shooter denied assault weapon because of Virginia Gun Law.

So gun restrictions never work, unless maybe you consider the number of people Alexis could have killed with a semiautomatic rifle with a high-capacity magazine.

Think About This

From Our Ron Ramsey Is a S******d Dept

I can't believe this. After how many lectures we got in the naughts about W is the President after all and all that, we get this crap! Look...Barack Obama is a decent person. His record as a decent human being is like spotless. He cares about you and me and Ron Ramsey apparently doesn't. We deserve better in this state... We do! Shamefull!

Gorvernor's Personal Aide As the Man Behind The (Transparent) Curtain

This kind of farce is to be expected from Alexander and Ingram, who have made nice careers out of ladling bullshit to the public. But do the Tennessee media have to participate?

Pith

I'm Talking About You, Liz Cheney!

Hey, any woman who would throw her sister under the bus would not even think twice about tying grandma to the railroad tracks. Juanita said so...

Talking

Hey, any woman who would throw her sister under the bus would not even think twice about tying grandma to the railroad tracks.

Atheists Claim Religions Get Tax Advantages

OK, this is kinda weird but see if you can follow the arguments here:

The standoff is the latest twist in a court battle over the parsonage exemption for clergy, a tax break that allows “ministers of the gospel” to claim part of their salary as a tax-free housing allowance. Gaylor’s organization says the exemption gives religious groups an unfair advantage. That makes it unconstitutional, the foundation’s lawsuit contends. But government lawyers say atheist leaders can still be ministers, because atheism can function as a religion. So leaders of an atheist organization may qualify for the exemption after all.

So the IRS is trying to make the case that atheism is a religion, something akin to claiming lawn maintenance is a religion. There are interesting arguments on both sides but the government is trying to wiggle around using the word "supernatural" by claiming that belief in a deity is not necessary to being a religion, such as Taoism and Buddhism, and that atheists have revered symbols such as the Darwin fish and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Look people, these are not revered symbols...They're jokes! And, they certainly don't reference supernatural things, exactly the opposite. By that argument the president of the East Tennessee Small Mouth Bass Club is a minister and worthy of having the tax deduction.

The foundation is also suing the government over several nonprofit laws that govern churches. They want the government to enforce rules that ban pastors from giving political endorsements and to require churches to file the same 990 tax returns as other charities.

Look, a philosophy does not have to be a religion. More to the point, a discipline is NOT a religion if it does not involve an acceptance of the supernatural. It seems like the IRS is trying to make the case that there is no difference between a religion and a martial art, like say Southern Baptists and Professional Wrestling. Oh, wait... Tennessean article

TN Should Pass This Law!

A bill in Lansing would put to the test the elementary school-level skills of Michigan’s 110 state representatives and 38 senators, as well as the governor, state superintendent of education and state Board of Education. All would be required to take standardized tests required of Michigan’s third- eighth- and 11th-grade students under the proposed Mandatory Public School Test Validation Act. Their results would be posted online.

More

Photo of the Day

Our Congressman plays to his base...

Tasers...school shooter ammo clips...Racists...check! Chuck's got it covered!

Current (TV) Flows into History

Current TV was almost good. It never quite settled into anything solid and was always morphing into the next thing before any of its shows could rise up. Current will die and Al Jazeera TV will instantly emerge at 3 P.M. EDST today. This is going to be interesting. Some things were good about Current. We got to see what a rock star Jennifer Grandholm is, for instance. She's a former Governor of Michigan but can never be president because, like Ted Cruz, she was born in Canada. Ted is a GOP Tea Party presidential hopeful who claims he was born an American citizen and can serve as president. To demonstrate this he released his Canadian birth certificate. I don't understand conservatives but apparently Ted does. Ted thinks they will totally accept his Americanhood by birth right after he renounces his Canadian citizenship. So anyway Current TV will blink out and Al Jazeera will rise full blown phoenix-like from the ashes. It's been here all along, actually. I personally have been interviewed by Al Jazeera in connection with the TVA ash disaster. The folks on the TV team were as professional as anyone and better than most. They actually got what I said and took some pains not to muddle up my interview to make it fit some preconceived narrative. I recognized the interviewer as an ex NBC reporter. That seems to be a theme of Al Jazeera, use comfortable white people as the front for the American TV channel.

“I am here because the promise of doing good work is just exceptional,” said David Doss, a veteran of ABC, NBC and CNN who is Al-Jazeera America’s senior vice president of news programming.

So far I've found very accurate and comprehensive reporting in the Al Jazeera pieces I have good knowledge of. I'll be watching with a raised eyebrow and hope, but I'm going to miss Current TV.

Obamacare...Today's Must Read From A Former Republican Party County Chairman

I couldn't have written this better and I was only Vice Chair of the County DEMOCRATIC Party.

The U.S House of Representatives has once again voted to repeal all or parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, Obamacare) ... for the 40th time. Many of the people leading this effort come from the South, my home... People who know these men describe them as good, church-going people. So, why don't they open up and see the light? Why do they say, in effect, "do not confuse me with the facts, I have made up my mind"? I personally believe that much of this goes back to the Nixonian "Southern Strategy" of the 1970s, pushed to new depths by Reagan and others. This strategy essentially dictated that the Republican Party would write off the black vote. The GOP would appeal to the worst aspects of the white southern electorate, hinting (and sometimes outright saying) that the basic cause of many of their troubles is racial preference due to the federal government favoring minorities.

Cheney's Halliburton Admits Obstruction of Justice...Which Corporate Person Will Do the Time?

Halliburton has admitted destroying evidence in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and will plead guilty to a criminal charge, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

Link

The Kids on the Left Are All Right

The Young Democrats at the University of Memphis have been giving some thought to Whether or not Tennessee needs another Term of Bill Haslam as Governor and who might be a good person to replace him:

This laundry list of scandals, mismanagement, and disregard for the livelihood of Tennesseans is emblematic of the leadership crisis facing our state. Haslam’s passion for political patronage endangers the welfare of ordinary Tennesseans and threatens to cause serious long-term damage to the state we all love. For the good of the state, Tennesseans need a candidate for governor whose leadership offers a clear contrast with Gov. Haslam and his self-serving Capitol Hill cronies.

Read the entire piece. It's worth the time. Isn't it nice to see the difference between Democrats and Republicans laid out so plainly?

TN Congress Critter Calls GW Bush Enviro-Leftist

I'm thinking about taking down the Hunter fans I have mounted all over my house...

Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn offered the policy rider to the Energy-Water appropriations bill (HR 2609), saying companies such as Memphis, Tenn.-based Hunter Fans cannot afford burdensome regulations that would drive up the price of products. The amendment, which would block funding for writing the regulations, was adopted by voice vote.

I mean really...

The relevant law was passed in 2005 under the tyranny of the Bush administration and a set of House Republicans that, let's face it, were nothing more than a pack of jackbooted environmentalist thugs. Real Republicans know that energy efficiency standards are anti-Jesus. Or more to the point, the current Congress is just made up of crooks, since the old law was enacted to avoid state-by-state regulations of the same thing:

The juice

The Horrible Punishment Heaped Upon Tea Party Groups by the IRS

Let's overlook for just a minute that, even though they are screaming the loudest, Tea Party groups were a minority of those targeted, and that only one group lost its non profit status and that was Progress Texas, anything but a conservative group.

So what did the IRS do to these groups that has them screaming about being persecuted?

 Paperwork!

Yes, that's correct...The horrendous punishment wrought by the IRS was that Tea Partiers had to do more paperwork to complete their application for tax exempt status which they all received. I know you are thinking, "Really? That's what all this is about?" But you have to understand these people...No wonder they're screaming. It requires being able to read and write and that's totally unfair!

 Actually, the real scandal here, judging from what I know about the Roane County Tea Party group is that any of them got their tax exempt status.

Read this...I mean Really...Go Read This and think about it...

This is an NPR interview with Chris Hedges. He's one of those intellectuals you've been warned about. He learns and thinks about stuff...

if you go back and look at all of the writers on totalitarianism, whether it's Hannah Arendt, Fritz Stern, Karl Popper, they all talk about that despair as essentially driving you into a non-reality-based belief system. And the despair is only growing. I think we have powerful proto-fascist movements in this country, and I look at the Tea Party, the militia, the Christian right, where they celebrate the language of violence, they celebrate the gun culture. And they channel what I would describe as a very legitimate rage and a legitimate sense of betrayal towards the vulnerable, towards Muslims, towards undocumented workers, towards homosexuals, intellectuals, feminists, liberals. They have a long list of people they don't like. And I think that is a very - remains a very frightening and powerful undercurrent within American society.

The whole interview is here.

Blood in the Water?

Several trucking companies have banded together and hired former Director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, to investigate the Haslam family business.

Senate Gets Things Done In a Hurry...Not Jobs Bill - Fishing

Lamar filibusters jobs bills, healthcare bills, spending bills, debt limit bills, background check bills, and nearly everything else, but by golly he will step up and protect a fisherman's right to break the law and  risk his life to fish at the base of a dam.

"The U.S. Senate has once again sent a clear message to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, this time through legislation that would stop Big Brother in Washington from holding the hands of fishermen in Tennessee and Kentucky," Alexander said. "We're moving forward because the Corps continues to relentlessly pursue its unreasonable restrictions, wasting taxpayer dollars and ignoring elected representatives who are fighting to preserve the freedom to fish below publicly owned dams on the Cumberland River."

Story

Quote of the Day

Hatred of the "Other" is the puppet string upon which we dangle. When you hate someone you have never met for who they are or what they believe, you are doing the work of those whose joy is in your rage.

William Rivers Pitt       Read it!

About That Bible and Abortion Thing

Haslam Can't Decide...Support Animal Abusers or Go With Public Opinion

This statement is a dead giveaway that the bill is intended to block activists ability to shine a light on abusive practices:

“There are a lot of agriculture people who feel like this isn’t just about people who mistreat animals; this is really about people who really aren’t fans of cattle growers and other livestock producers,” Haslam said.

KNS Story

From Our "ESPN Reporter Chris Brousard Is a Dick" Department

 ESPN reporter Chris Broussard, stated on an ESPN show that NBA player Jason Collins was waging an "open rebellion to God" for coming out of the closet.

 I think Mr. Broussard should be condemned and removed from his TV job, not because I disagree with his religious beliefs (though I most certainly do), but because he was using his position in an attempt to impose religious condemnation upon someone who differs from his rather narrow view.

TPM Story

In Honor of the Dedication Of The Bush Presidential Library

Your positions of authority, your millions of dollars of personal wealth, your public relations consultants, your privilege and your power cannot mask the hollowness of your character. You sent us to fight and die in Iraq after you, Mr. Cheney, dodged the draft in Vietnam, and you, Mr. Bush, went AWOL from your National Guard unit. Your cowardice and selfishness were established decades ago. You were not willing to risk yourselves for our nation but you sent hundreds of thousands of young men and women to be sacrificed in a senseless war with no more thought than it takes to put out the garbage.

The full letter 

Scenes From The Chase and Capture

There are surreal moments in all of this. Boston Bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was being handcuffed by Watertown Mass police officers when his younger brother drove at the police who had his brother on the ground. The younger brother appears to have killed his own brother by running over him with the stolen SUV.

One of his officers put his cruiser into gear and jumped out of it, letting it roll at the suspects to draw fire, he said. The suspects peppered the car with bullets. After several minutes, the elder brother, Tamerlan, walked toward the officers, firing his gun until he appeared to run out of bullets, Deveau said. Officers tackled him and were trying to get handcuffs on him, when the stolen SUV came roaring at them, the younger brother at the wheel. The officers scattered and the SUV plowed over Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was dragged briefly under the car, he said.

The TPM story

War Cannot Fight Terrorism Any More Than a Sword Can Cut Down a Flame

So yesterday was a beautiful spring day, sunshine blue skies, so we had tickets to see Bluegrass Underground. That's right, we spent that beautiful spring sunshiny day in a cave. When I came out I was not surprised to find the usual neo-con US Senators engaged in their usual seditious rant about treating the captured Boston bomber as an enemy combatant and sending him to Guantanamo. Very convenient for the Neo-Cons. That gets him away from investigative journalists so the narrative can be shaped to fit into Senators Lindsay Graham's and John McCain's incessant drumbeat for permanent war. We need to determine the exact relationship of the bomber to Chechen rebels if any. Otherwise Republican servants of the Military Industrial complex will use that knob to hang their rabid speculation about terror monsters under your bed and the need for even more war spending.

...never forget that "a poor man's war is terrorism while a rich man's terrorism is war" - and sometimes those lines cross for the purposes of big-power politics. War and terrorism seem to work in sync that way.

The Chechen thing

Will we ever learn that you can't shoot all the terrorists? All you do is create martyrs and more insane enemies willing to kill your wives and your children without compassion because you killed theirs with your bombs and your drones. War as an antidote to terrorism is an insane plan with no hope of a peaceful outcome.

In fact, terrorism is an extremely minor blip in the course of the American existence and war only compounds the tragedy. The deaths of a couple of thousand Americans, as in the case of 9-11, was a springboard for Neo-Con President George W Bush to kill 1,500,000 Iraqis and cause the deaths of several times the number of American Troops than American citizens harmed in the original at of terrorism, horrendous though it was. The current puppet masters of the Republican Party are enemies of a peaceful America. Watch and you'll see...

Exactly!

If the Republicans won't pass anything the president proposes, then why not propose something good, and argue for it, and make a case for it, and defend the principles and ideals that have defined the Democratic Party since the New Deal, thus drawing a clear contrast between the Democrats and the Republicans both on policy and politics?

Read

Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher...A Personal Obituary

I hope I'm not being reductive but it seems Thatcher's time in power was solely spent diminishing the resources of those who had least for the advancement of those who had most. I know from my own indulgence in selfish behaviour that it's much easier to get what you want if you remove from consideration the effect your actions will have on others.

Brilliant!

Huh?...Alexander Thinks 99% of Americans Will Have Estate Taxes?

"A huge waste of money" was Alexander's description of the renewable energy tax credit.

"But it was more important to vote for a bill that permanently preserved lower tax rates for 99 percent of American taxpayers on their individual taxes, their estate and gift taxes, their dividends and capital gains," he added in a prepared statement.

Exactly how out of touch are these people?

Using Words From Approved School Text Gets Teacher In Hot Water

There's always someone who can't stand to hear the word "vagina" used in a biology class and who attacks the teacher. Look...vagina is the word. It refers to the female genitalia. The word for the male genitalia is "penis".  About half of us have one of these and the other half have the other one of these. This is a scientific fact. Bashing a teacher for using the scientific term for a body part in conjunction with a School Board approved text and lesson is nothing short of idiocy. I propose we help these people by using exposure therapy, so here:

Penis, vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina,
 penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, penis, vagina, penis. vagina, and so on...

It's just like saying man, woman, man, woman, and so on. These are scientific terms. They are the ones the doctor will use when examining your children. They are medical terms. It is the height f stupidity for anyone to investigate a science teacher for using scientific terms in conjunction with the state approved curriculum. It appears that Mormons don't want their children taught the appropriate term for vagina. In that case may I suggest the term, "pussy"? It's one that they already know.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/27/1197450/-Idaho-Teacher-Under-Investigation-For-Saying-Vagina-During-Biology-Lesson

The Iraq War Blot on America's Soul

 I have, like many other disabled veterans, suffered from the inadequate and often inept care provided by the Veterans Administration. I have, like many other disabled veterans, come to realize that our mental and physical wounds are of no interest to you, perhaps of no interest to any politician. We were used. We were betrayed. And we have been abandoned. You, Mr. Bush, make much pretense of being a Christian. But isn’t lying a sin? Isn’t murder a sin? Aren’t theft and selfish ambition sins? I am not a Christian. But I believe in the Christian ideal. I believe that what you do to the least of your brothers you finally do to yourself, to your own soul.

The Letter

We were told that the Iraq war would be paid for by Iraqi oil. That made it OK? Of course it was a lie and we are facing a 6 trillion dollar ultimate cost of that war put on the back of the American worker.

But I've never understood how the party that drove the Iraq war could be so callous to the veterans who fought for them. They feed and care for their hunting dogs better.

Corker Has His Hands Dirty on the Deficit He Wants To Fix By Robbing Your Social Security

The Sunday reading assignment has to do with Republican's hysteria over budget deficits, even though they are the reason we have them. The GOP is making a big fuss over the deficits they created and want to correct by killing Social Security , Medicare, and the regulations that keep the 1% from stealing what little wealth the rest of us have left.


A few people know that Republicans filibustered two Democratic bills that would have stopped the draconian fiscal cuts known as the "sequester". What most folks don't realize is that the sequester was supposed to be so horrendous that it would force Democrats and Republicans into a compromise for the good of the whole country. 

During the "fiscal cliff" negotiations that opened 2013, President Obama laid out a fix to the sequester mess, limiting domestic and defense spending cuts to $200 billion. He sought to make up the difference by leveraging government purchasing power to reap $400 billion in health-care savings and banked another $200 billion by ending waste in farm subsidies and other "mandatory" spending. Obama rounded out his proposal by demanding sacrifice both from the wealthiest – limiting tax deductions and loopholes for the rich – and from future retirees, trimming Social Security payouts by adjusting the way Washington measures inflation. Twenty years ago, this is the kind of self-negotiated proposal that might have been floated by Republican Sen. Bob Dole. But the party of Eric Cantor and John Boehner reacted as if it had been proposed by Hugo Chávez.

That is from today's must read.

 

Senator Bob Corker says the problem with the budget deficit is Social Security and Medicare. Actually Bob Corker is the problem with the budget deficit. The Iraq war, which he has supported since he got to the Senate, will add 6 trillion dollars to the deficit.

Here's Corker's War history.

Why Romney Lost

First let's get something straight...Matt Lauer is a lying toad with a very nice smile. Scott Prouty did not, as Lauer claimed on NBC this morning,  "secretly" tape Mitt Romney. His camera was only one of lots of cameras in the room. It was sitting on the bar in front of Mr. Prouty in plain view of the Secret Service agent who was right behind him.  There many other people who videoed Romney's speech. Scott Prouty was the only person in the room brave enough to release it to the world.

A short clip of the speech was released in May of 2012. It was not the famous 47% clip. Prouty agonized over whether to release the video, fearing for his jobs (He works at more than one) and even his life. He knew he was going to be attacked by the right wing smear machine...Watch for it. After the short clip was released, Mitt Romney went on interviews claiming he was selectively edited and that he wished that the entire video would be released so people could see what he really said. Seeing that, Scott Prouty did as Mr. Romney requested.

Mitt Romney defended a deceptively edited video ad produced by his own campaign, the famous "You didn't build that" ad. When asked about it, Romney said, "That's how the game is played." I suppose the main stream media agreed with him since they let that statement go unchallenged. It appears that the media agrees that Americans want a President who has proved that he can lie to them with a straight face. Romney's campaign repeatedly released deceptively edited videos that gave false impressions of what Obama actually said. He also repeatedly defended this tactic of lying to the American people.

Mitt Romney is now supposed to have lost the election because Scott Prouty released a secret video of Romney that irrevocably damaged his campaign so that he received an ironic tally of 47% of the popular vote and lost the electoral vote by a landslide. He claimed it was "edited". It wasn't.  It wasn't secret and it wasn't edited and it was Mitt Romney's real words as he said them and as he meant them.

Mitt Romney lost the election for several reasons but a major factor had to be that someone released a video of...perhaps the only time he did it in his entire years long campaign of his lying and falsely edited videos of his opponent... a video of Mitt Romney telling the truth.

Republicans Just Want to Get Along With Obama

President Obama invited five Republicans to a White House screening of Lincoln attended by Steven Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, and James Spader—and not a single one of them accepted his invitation.

The rest of the post

Sunday Tidbits

The message of Sesame Street is clear. Sesame Street was funded by public funds with the hope that it would help poor kids. But it helped middle class kids because the parents sat with them and explained it, and the gap in knowing your letters between the poor and affluent was bigger after Sesame Street than before. 

  If you remove all forms of tax subsidies from the calculation, wind power is by far the least expensive form of electric power, solar is slightly more expensive than coal and gas but will pass them before a power plant started today could be finished.

Who ever judged a man for not being home to cook his child's dinner or wipe her nose? Or opting not to take paternity leave? Why this incessant drumbeat about women and the work/life choices they make? Why should only women shoulder the double burden of work and family responsibilities? And why hasn't the workplace caught up to the needs of the women who have been flooding into it for years now?

The not for profit voter registration organization, ACORN, has been completely exonerated, even though it no longer exists. Several of those involved in making and editing the videotapes have lost court cases and paid hefty damages to the people at Acorn, including $100,000.00 to the woman who James O'keefe falsely claimed did not call police after his pimp and prostitute attempt to catch them making illegal registrations. 

I have yet to meet a Republican who knows that, the day prior to it going into effect, the GOP filibustered two Senate bills that would have avoided the manufactured crisis known as the "sequester".

Your turn...

One Year Ago

Trayvon Martin was killed one year ago this week. He was walking through his own neighborhood and was confronted by a self proclaimed vigilante who apparently started a fight with Trayvon and then shot him claiming he was justified because the 17 year old kid was winning.

Kill Cows, Save Lives?

There's new noise on the Mediterranean diet and its heart disease prevention properties. It seems sensible and is certainly tasty enough. I got curious as to what kills Americans anyway and found this from the CDC on mortality in the USA:

• Number of deaths: 2,468,435
• Death rate: 799.5 deaths per 100,000 population
• Life expectancy: 78.7 years
• Infant Mortality rate: 6.15 deaths per 1,000 live births

Number of deaths for leading causes of death:

• Heart disease: 597,689
• Cancer: 574,743
• Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 138,080
• Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 129,476
• Accidents (unintentional injuries): 120,859
• Alzheimer's disease: 83,494
• Diabetes: 69,071
• Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 50,476
• Influenza and Pneumonia: 50,097
• Intentional self-harm (suicide): 38,364

So Alzheimer's is a much bigger deal than I thought, and of course tobacco use, but the cow? What if only 10% of heart attacks each year are from eating red meat? (The New England Journal of Medicine says it's over 30%)By outlawing the meat of the cow we would still save nearly 60,000 lives. Tell me again why pot is illegal?

From Our "Told You He Was a Creep" Dept

Robert Bork says President Richard Nixon promised him the next Supreme Court vacancy after Bork complied with Nixon’s order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in 1973.

Coolest First Lady Ever! Oh Yeah...

Obama Didn't Raise Your Taxes...Jimmy Duncan Did

Don't let anyone get away with claiming Obama raised your taxes. 

Why 50,000 People Marched to the White House

The last time we had a low temperature record winter was over three decades ago. The Sun is at a low output stage and the weather cycles that should take 1500 years are happening in 30, faster than the most pessimistic predictions of ten years ago.

It is time to move past fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Do we as a society have the courage it will take?

More

Go Read Sothern Beale

This is, specifically, about the Catholic church preaching against contraception for years and years and years and nobody paying attention — hell, even Catholic priests and nuns have ignored that piece of church doctrine. The church hierarchy wants the U.S. government to do what they’ve been unable to do, which is to get people to stop using birth control by making it too expensive and too hard to obtain.

Because It's Not About Birth Control...It's about CONTROL

Disinformation Is Our Business

Why does anyone watch a false news channel that intentionally misinforms the gullible?

Fox News

Cooper Co Sponsors Bill to Remove Half Billion Dollar Gift to Amgen Hidden in Fiscal Cliff Bill

This shows what a sleezey outfit our Congress has turned into.

The Amgen deal "confirms the American public's worst suspicions of how Congress operates," Representative Welch told us this week. "As the nation's economy teetered on the edge of a Congressional-created fiscal cliff, lobbyists for a private, for-profit company seized an opportunity to feed at the public trough. It's no wonder cockroaches and root canals are more popular than Congress."

"That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God"

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

President Obama

Darwin

My good friend Charles Darwin spent a little time in East Tennessee this weekend. He seemed pleased to see all the Sandhill Cranes and to spend a little time with folks in the very town that put his theory of the "Origin of Species" on trial. The irony was delicious and thoroughly enjoyed.

TN Environmental Orgs Send Open Letter to Corker and Alexander Regarding Blocking TVA Board Member Dr. Marylin Brown

From a Tennessean Editorial:

 The Georgia Tech professor was the only person on the board of the giant federal utility with expertise in energy efficiency and sustainability. Think of that: the only director for a seven-state utility who would know the best practices for saving ratepayers’ hard-earned money; yet Alexander and Corker deemed her unsuitable for the board of an agency that is going to need all the expertise in sustainability that it can get in coming decades.

 While the editorial boards of several newspapers around the state are calling our good Senators on the carpet for Blocking the impressively credentialed Dr. Brown from the TVA Board, Community and environmental organizations are asking how in the world the Senators can make the statement that they want someone with better qualifications?  They were really nice about it but the letter hits hard...

Read the Letter

 Behind the scenes the buzz is that she was a threat to the Chairman Bill Sansom holding on to that position. Without Dr. Brown on the Board the thrust could continue to be build more power plants even in the face of the well crafted Sierra Club report that showed we can easily save energy costs and eliminate the need for any new power plants with no cost to the greater economy.

The call is building for Corker and Brown to withdraw their opposition to the only Board member with credentials in energy efficiency and climate change and for President Obama to renominate Dr. Brown to the TVA Board.

Quote of the Day

"Obama isn't going to take your guns.He just wants to take your weapons of mass destruction."  That was me, btw.

Was Dr. Marylin Brown Removed From TVA Board For Trying to Save Ratepayers Money?

Dang sure looks like it:

The move by Tennessee’s two U.S. senators to block the reappointment of Georgia Tech professor Marilyn Brown to the Tennessee Valley Authority board of directors threatens energy efficiency efforts that could save ratepayers billions of dollars...

This continues to get interesting. It remains to be seen how many people call out Senators Corer and Alexander and demand that President Obama re-submit Dr. Brown's name for the TVA Board.

Neither Alexander nor Corker would explain why he didn’t think Brown qualified for reappointment. Both also declined to answer questions about whether the TVA should continue with energy efficiency efforts.

Tennessean Article

Want To Understand the Bailout? Ignore WSJ and NYT...Subscribe to Rolling Stone

We should be shocked at:

  the complete immunity of the elite Wall Street folks who caused this crisis through fraud, who became wealthy because of those frauds, and were then bailed out as a result of their frauds. None of them are being prosecuted.

...robo-signing, ...means what they were doing was lying systematically to the tune, typically, of the large places, of 10,000 times a month, so over 100,000 times a year, committing felonies that would lead to people being made homeless in America, in many cases. It’s just an astonishing aspect that nobody has gone to prison for all of this and that they gave them one of the largest grants of immunity you’ll ever see.

An interesting read (skip the video) of an interview with Matt Taibbi and William Black.

No elite Wall Street creeps were prosecuted, nobody from the banks who feloniously foreclosed on innocent homeowners has gone to jail.

Sunday Reader: A Short History of the NRA Descent Into Crazy

Part One in which we see Ronald Reagan become a gun control advocate well before he got shot. Hint: It was because he found out blacks could legally own and carry guns.

 Part Two: In which we learn that a Sportsman's organization was taken over by gun cultists in a convention coup. Hint: Sportsmen apparently haven't realized that their gun club is now primarily serving aspiring vigilantes and arms merchants.

The Next Quote of the Day...

"The findings in the report are a three-alarm fire," said Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif. "Climate change is already causing widespread disruption across the nation. We are in deep trouble if we don't act forcefully this year." More

Quote of the Day

"We're not going to have a clean-energy economy if the same companies that are polluting our rivers and oceans are also polluting our elections." Sierra Club Exec Director Michael Brune

Saturday Funnies

From our "Aren't Conservatives Just Darling?" Department:

Michelle Bachmann is refusing to pay staff members from her failed Presidential campaign unless they sign a document agreeing to commit obstruction of justice. No, Really...

Crafting legislation is often compared to making sausage (both are grisly tasks, you see), so every once in a while you hear Congress being referred to as the sausage factory. I must confess the analogy never struck me as particularly apt.
I suppose I could see it if the sausage factory was, say, only open two or three days a week. Or if any one employee of the sausage factory could put a blanket hold on the making of today's sausage, or tomorrow's, or next week's. Or if half the employees kept trying to put rat poison in the sausages.
But I guess where the analogy really breaks down for me is that I just can't see workers at an actual sausage factory having that kind of top-notch health insurance... From KOS

Why Comment Trolls Suck...from Mother Jones:

There's a science to why people are Climate change deniers, it is exploited by the folks who make money on things that are killing us, and you're an idiot if you don't believe me. (Sorry to be rude but if you read the piece you might get the point...Not climate change deniers, of course.)

  And Tennessee Treasure Clay Bennett...  

(click here to view)

Clay Bennett Chattanooga Times Free PressJan 11, 2013 EditorialCartoonists.com

     

We Need a Democratic Party in This State

The Executive Committee of the Tennessee Democratic  Party is about to elect its new chair person. There are several good and qualified people who have offered themselves up for the position. While I think each and every one of them is qualified, I would like to say that what they are qualified for is not necessarily the chair person position. This wagon train needs a driver.

I wrote about this sometime back. Go read this and come back. I'll wait...

Ok, anyone who was pissed off by that rant, well good. It was aimed at you. You know who you are.

We keep treating the TNDEM Chair race as a beauty contest. This is wrong, wrong, wrong! We are electing a leader. We should be looking at an operative for this job. A community organizer with muscle and fangs. Democrats have a great messages and we need to get them out there.

You want good schools you have to elect Democrats because Republicans are just going to sell them to their friends.

You want decent health care you have to elect Democrats because Republicans are the ones who brought us forever increasing insurance costs and only getting the 34th best care in the world for our money. They are the reason your mother is on Medicare and they are trying their damnedest to kill that.

You want Social Security you have to elect Democrats because Republicans are trying to tell you it is causing deficits, which is a lie on the face of it, and that it is an entitlement even though we all pay for it.

You want safe schools you have to elect Democrats because Republicans can only bow down to the NRA, who would have told you the answer to drunk driving deaths is more alcohol.

You want your kids to have clean water to swim in and clean air to breathe you have to elect Democrats because Republicans think the only value those things have is what they can be sold for.

We need a candidate running for every elected office at every level who carries those messages and more... We need a drummer at the head of the boat pounding incessantly on the beat of a resurgent Democratic Party and who will pound on the head of anyone who thinks the way to be a Democrat is to be a moderate Republican. There aren't any moderate Republicans anymore. Get that through your heads and get us a leader who understands what it takes to build a revolution in this state.

 Who is our drummer?

Grrrr!

Steve

Read what Left Wing Cracker says about the race to be the new TNDEM Chair.