The tea party Insists that Extremist Ken Cuccinelli Not Extreme Enough

The Richmond tea party says Cuccinelli hasn't taken a sufficient stand against "Obamacare, immigration, and moral decline." …

 

We all know that Ken Cuccinelli is sinking faster than the Lusitania, which lasted a whole 18 minutes after being torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1915. The difference between the two is that nobody torpedoed Ken Cuccinelli, or rather, he torpedoed himself. The deadly weapon is the repugican’s own extremism. The tea party response, of course, is to ignore polls that say only 5 percent of Virginia’s think Cuccinelli is too liberal and insist that he is not extreme enough. It is as though they think being more of what makes him unpopular will somehow make him more popular. It’s a strange way of thinking but not much about tea party extremism makes sense to the non-diseased human brain.
Bad enough the (anti)Family Research Council thought sending Rick Santorum to lead a special “strikeforce” to “save” Cuccinelli was a great idea. That alone is more than enough to doom the man given what Virginians already think about him.
But the Richmond tea party’s executive director Larry Nordvig told Breitbart last month that Cuccinelli isn’t wingnut enough because he hadn’t taken a sufficient stand against “Obamacare, immigration, and moral decline.”
Never mind that as Right Wing Watch reports, “Cuccinelli was the first state attorney general to file a lawsuit challenging Obamacare — even winning a case on the district court level against the individual mandate before the Supreme Court ultimately upheld the mandate as constitutional — and has called for civil disobedience against the law.”
And apparently, criminalizing oral sex between married couples isn’t a strong enough stance against moral decline.
Nordvig says Cuccinelli needs to “fight for their deepest-held beliefs.” Kissing up to the tea party to assuage their fragile egos, Nordvig said, also wouldn’t hurt.
As John Farmer wrote a few days ago at New Jersey Online, “odds are he [Cuccinelli] wishes now he’d never heard of them.”
I think we all feel his pain.
Look, here are the facts on the ground. Right Wing Watch lists a few of Cuccinelli’s extremist stances:

• Opposition to Obamacare;
• Support for Arizona’s SB 1070;
• Opposition to abortion. Cuccinelli has said god will punish America for legalizing abortion;
• Wants to criminalize some forms of birth control; and,
• Opposition to job protections for LGBT employees.

It’s difficult to see how Cuccinelli could get more extreme without instituting “a sort of Spanish Inquisition.” That might be effective because, as we all know, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. But seriously, what more does the man have to do to prove his hater bona fides? The tea party does, on some level, realize we have a Constitution, do they not? They do realize that in a civil society there are limits to the expression of their hate?
It is also interesting that repugicans always think in terms of “re-engaging” their base as though it takes no more than their base to win elections. Evidence to the contrary from past elections is ignored; they don’t seem to understand that expanding their base just might be a better idea.
But rather than appeal to a wider cross-section of voters, rather than trying to engage moderates and independents, they attack the problem by attacking voting rights.
In a sense tea partiers have no choice. Think about the facts even if they won’t: The tea party is inherently, as we have argued before – like the Nazi Party – a völkisch – that is, ethnic nationalist – organization. It is at its heart a modern pro-confederacy movement supported by “almost half of white Southerners (47.1%).”
The League of the South agrees, reports Warren Throckmorton, saying ethnic nationalism is better than democratic process. And if, as the League of the South also insists, the South is an “Anglo-Celtic” homeland, just who, other than angry, white, evangelical, and probably wistful Midwesterners, can the tea party reach out to outside of an angry, old, white evangelical Southerners?
Even if racism is not the driving force behind the tea party movement, there are enough other unsavory ingredients that have dictated their tent be very small. All they have is each other: angry white christians lashing out at everyone around them. Apartheid is such a hard sell to everyone else, after all, and there are a lot of someone else’s in America these days.
As Tom Davis, former repugican congressman for Virginia, put it, “We have nominated a ticket that Virginians don’t want to buy.” Virginians, and increasingly, Americans.

The Vile Koch Scheme to Make $100 Billion Destroying The Environment With KeystoneXL

If a person or an organization is inclined to conceal their intentions, or not to disclose information they feel may portray them in a negative light they are considered secretive. Americans are learning more every day that the billionaire Koch brothers go to great lengths to conceal their involvement in directing the repugicans’ in Congress and state legislatures through their political action committees and various belief tanks. One area the Kochs have been secretive about is their dark money connection to any and all attempts in the states and nationally to kill clean air requirements enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency that, according to the Kochs, is their mortal enemy.
It should come as no surprise to any American keeping tabs on the Kochs that they have spent a great deal of money to hasten the construction of the KeystoneXL pipeline, but it is not just because the dirty energy fascists will add to their fortune by refining tar sand prior to shipping it to Texas for export to China and Europe; it is because they stand to make tens-of-billions of dollars before the tar ever enters American territory.
Over the past couple of days, there have been two reports that should enrage Americans concerned about the quality of the air they breathe or the rapidly changing climate, and likely the Koch brothers want to keep their dirty involvement away from the public’s eye. Both stories directly tie the Kochs to the KeystoneXL pipeline that oil-whore repugicans and Speaker John Boehner are frantic to see constructed to profit the oil industry and Boehner’s personal stock portfolio. However, where John Boehner will profit from the pipeline’s construction because he owns stock in seven Canadian tar sand companies, building the Keystone XL pipeline would generate $100 billion in profits for Charles and David Koch, according to a report released a few days ago.
According to the International Forum on Globalization (IFG), the Koch brothers and their privately-owned company, Koch Industries, are holding close to 2 million acres of land in Alberta, Canada, where the Keystone pipeline will originate. In fact, there are many Koch Industry subsidiaries that will “benefit from the pipeline’s construction, including Koch Exploration Canada, which would profit from oil development on its land, and Koch Supply and Trading, which would benefit from oil derivatives trading.” Throughout the Republican drive to push President Obama to approve Keystone’s construction, officials from Koch Industries have asserted the “Keystone XL pipeline has nothing to do with any of our businesses.” The IFG report revealed the Koch’s dirty secret that Keystone XL has everything to do with their business and it is why they fund Republican efforts to pressure the President to approve the pipeline’s immediate construction.
What should be obvious to anyone familiar with repugican oil-whores is that IFG estimates the billionaire oil magnates have paid about $50 million to wingnut belief-tanks and members of Congress to support inaction on climate change as well as push for the pipeline’s construction. The repugicans advocating for the pipeline’s approval have never admitted to the people that not one drop of refined tar sand will be available for domestic consumers, or that as a foreign export pipeline the oil is already slated for Europe and China. Environmentalists are rightly worried about the devastating climate and environmental impacts the pipeline will have that includes intensely higher greenhouse gas emissions that an esteemed NASA climatologist warns means “game over for the environment.”  For Americans living in and around Chicago, it did not take a noted climatologist to tell them it is game over for their local environment due to the Koch brothers storing refuge from refining tar sands.
In and around south Chicago, the dirty by-product of refining Canadian tar sand, “petcoke,” is responsible for polluting the air and water with toxic vanadium contained in the black dust the Kochs are piling up waiting to export to countries without environmental protections. Petcoke, short for petroleum coke, is the waste from refining tar sand oil and as its production increases petcoke is piling up near refineries across the Midwest and jeopardizing air and water quality the Koch brothers have no regard for.
Petcoke is just one tar sand residue that is worse for the environment than burning dirty coal, and its danger is one item a Koch-associated energy firm omitted from a State Department analysis claiming developing Canada’s vast tar sand reserves and sending it through the Keystone XL pipeline will not raise greenhouse gas emissions. The giant piles of petcoke stored along the Calumet River near Chicago are part of the Koch brothers’ business empire because a Koch Industries subsidiary, KCBX, owns “large parcels of land along the Calumet river” where tar sand residue is shipped in, stored, and distributed close to middle class homes.
What Chicago residents should be enraged over is that not only is their air being poisoned by the existing piles of petcoke, a new refinery’s “coker” which will be the second largest in the world “is growing by leaps and bounds” according to an Environmental Task Force member who said “It’s coming at a breathtaking rate.” When Tom Shepherd says breathtaking, he means it literally and figuratively because the toxic dust hangs in the air on its way to coating the surrounding environment that according to the Koch brothers is their dog-given right as free-market capitalists.
The Koch brothers and their Americans for Prosperity activist arm have secretly sought to derail and roll back clean energy regulations and environmental protections in states across the nation. The news they own 2 million acres around Alberta Canada’s tar sand reserves coupled with their intent to pile up residue from their tar sand refining efforts explains just one reason they are on a crusade to eliminate clean air and water standards.
If Americans have learned anything about the Koch brothers fascist government interference, it is that their agendas all include harming Americans for profit and to satisfy the greed for power to “fundamentally transform America” to their vision of a nation sans environmental safeguards. The Koch brothers spend tens-of-millions of dollars to kill Americans whether it is stopping the Affordable Care Act, eliminating Social Security and Medicare, slashing food assistance for poor women and children, or poisoning Americans with toxic dust from their tar sand residue. Now that it is no longer a secret they own millions of acres where the Keystone pipeline will originate, and are piling up giant mounds of petcoke around neighborhoods in Chicago, it is incumbent on decent Americans to demand that the State Department and President Obama permanently deny construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Fraud Countrywide in America

Or rather in Bank of America.

A federal jury in Manhattan sided with prosecutors who alleged Countrywide Financial Corp. churned out risky home loans in a process called "the hustle" and then sold them to mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The Calabasas company, once considered the crown jewel of American mortgage lending, made big profits unloading loans that were later rendered worthless during the housing crisis in 2008.
The decision is the first civil fraud verdict against countrywide, and experts said the decision would probably invite more aggrieved investors to sue and could embolden other investigations aimed at countrywide or other banks. - LA Times

We are "outraged" at computer software glitches on a program that is meant to help people ... let's see if the public is "outraged" at this blatant corruption that brought our country's economy to the brink and inflicted pain on fellow Americans.

Oh, and that mofo, Angelo Mozilo, former head of Countrywide has a luxurious spread in Santa Barbara.
We think it's time to bring back public shaming. you see this criminal walking around the tony streets of Montecito, tell him how treasonous he is to sell out his country's economic future. And kick him. Hard.

‘Open government’ launch marred by spelling mistake

Kathleen Wynne, Premier of Ontario in Canada was forced to spell-check her own press conference when a reporter pointed out a glaring but previously unnoticed spelling mistake.

The podium the Premier was standing at had the words “open goverment” written across the front.

“That is really not good,” she said when the mistake was pointed out.

She was given a pen by someone off-camera and tried to insert the missing ‘n.’

Video.

Daily Comic Relief

Things You Might Not Know About Calvin And Hobbes

Calvin and Hobbes is a daily comic strip that was written and illustrated by American cartoonist Bill Watterson, and syndicated from November 18, 1985, to December 31, 1995. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger.

Here are 7 things you might not know about Calvin and Hobbes.

Restaurant makes diners eat in silence

No talking at the dinner table. That is the new idea at a restaurant called Eat in Brooklyn, New York. Eat's creator Nicholas Nauman says the quiet time is essential to be able to fully enjoy the meal.

"It's like when you take a piece of lettuce and you put it against your lips, there are an incredible number of sensations going on that we are not paying any attention to.

"And to actually have an opportunity to engage that, to explore that, to just be with that is really rare," he says. With only the sound of utensils clanking against the plates, diners enjoyed or endured their meal in silence on Friday.

YouTube link.

"I actually liked it. I thought it helped me slow down and think about every bite, instead of just devouring it and then realizing it was gone. So I really enjoyed it. And it brought out a lot of the flavour in the food and it was good," said silent diner Jessica.

Miraculous escape as baby born in train toilet survives unharmed after falling on to tracks

A newborn baby miraculously escaped unhurt after birth when she slipped down the outlet of the toilet of a moving train on to the tracks.

Afroza Bibi with her pregnant daughter Rehani Bibi, a resident of Jhumka village in Murshidabad, West Bengal, India, were traveling on the Lalgola passenger train.

The incident took place near Nadia district's Palashi railway station at around 6.30pm on Tuesday, railway officials said. Upon hearing the cries of her daughter, Afroza rushed to the toilet and asked for help from passengers, who then stopped the train and rescued the newborn.

Both the mother and child were immediately rushed to Mira Primary Health Centre at the railway station. "The baby and mother are fit and safe now. But it is very miraculous that there was no injury marks on the newborn baby's body," a doctor attending to them said.

Inside 9 Of The Planet's Creepiest Abandoned Cottages

 

The cottage: cozy, homely, comfortable. Unless it's been abandoned in a hurry, that is. Holiday cottages might be all pretty gardens and gorgeous furnishings, but cottages that have long since been left behind are altogether different.

For a growing number of urban explorers and photographers, venturing into unoccupied buildings is the perfect pastime. The results? Compelling images of decay and desertion, many with an edge of eerie beauty.

The Real Life Locations of 5 Horror Movie Locations

What do you think of when you watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre? I'm no psychic, but I'm willing to be it has nothing to do with food. But if you go to the iconic house where the Leatherface resided in the film, you won't find a bunch of rotting body parts, but a dinner called the Grand Central Cafe. They do have Texas Chainsaw Massacre memorabilia on the second floor, so you can look at pictures of a family of cannibals enjoying their dinner before you enjoy yours.
Believe it or not, that's not the only weird transformation of past horror movie locations either. Cracked has four more you won't want to miss as well.

Awesome Pictures

Astronomers Discover Universe’s Most Distant Galaxy

Astronomers Discover Universe’s Most Distant Galaxy

Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin may be former football rivals, but the Lone Star State’s two research giants have teamed up to detect the most distant spectroscopically confirmed galaxy ever […]

The World's Only Galloping Insect Runs Like A Race Horse

Most insects walk with an ambling, tripod gait, keeping at least three legs on the ground while the others move. But somewhere along the line, three species of dung beetle decided to break away from the alternating-leg pack, developing the only gallop in the insect world.

Instead of moving legs on each side separately, Pachysoma endroedyi, P. hippocrates and P. glentoni move each set of legs in synch, like a bounding rabbit or a speedy horse. Why exactly these beetles might have developed this gallop is unclear.

Wallaby spotted hopping around Highgate Cemetery in London

Visitors to Highgate West Cemetery in north London have spotted a wallaby hopping between the graves. Visitor and volunteer coordinator Melanie Wynyard said: “To spot a wallaby in London is quite strange.

“It’s quite extraordinary and so unexpected,” she said. “The West Cemetery is quite secure so it’s a mystery how he got in there but now he’s in, it’s quite a good place to be as he won’t be crossing the roads.”

YouTube link.

Highgate zoologist Maurice Melzak, who gives ecology advice to Highgate Cemetery, was one of two visitors who filmed the wallaby. He thinks it is a Bennett’s wallaby, a species known to be living in the wild in small colonies across the UK.

YouTube link.

Mr Melzak said: “Highgate Cemetery is a mysterious and wonderful place. It already has many non-native species, including all sorts of insects and arachnids, grey squirrels, ring-necked parakeets and the occasional muntjak deer. So maybe the odd wallaby isn’t such a bizarre notion?”

The Animals That Defy Belief

They are the creatures that seem like they should not really exist. In some cases they could even be mistaken for being mythical beasts. Here are some of the most extraordinary and unbelievable animals to have been found on Earth.

Dog found abandoned in the woods is making recovery

Animal welfare officials have issued an appeal for information after a dog with heavily matted fur and in desperate condition was found in Burford, southwestern Ontario, Canada. The dog, who is now being called Shrek because he looked liked a swamp creature when he was discovered last Wednesday, is healing and finally receiving the love that he needs.

But officials at the Brant County SPCA want to know where he came from and how it is that he came to be in a wooded area to fend for himself. “We're appealing to anyone who may know anything about this dog to give us a call,” Brandon James of the Brant County SPCA, said. “He was in terrible condition when he was found - his fur was badly matted and it's obvious that he had been outdoors for quite some time.”

Shrek is being cared for by Dr. Brenda Gough, of the Park Road Veterinary Clinic and the Southern Cross Equestrian Facility. It was through the clinic that Shrek has received the care he needs. “I think he is a puppy mill dog and I'll bet he has spent most, if not all of his life, in a cage,” Gough said. “He was anaemic, had very low protein and he could barely walk because his legs were hurting from all of that hair and mud caked on him for so long.”

She and others who saw Shrek's condition can't believe that anyone would let something like this happen to an animal. They're outraged by what has happened. Still, Shrek cleaned up really well and looks wonderful after all the matted fur was shaved off. “The biggest issue for him is behavioural,” Gough said. “He's afraid of his own shadow. He isn't mean or aggressive but it's obvious that he doesn't know what love is.”

There's a news video here and a photo gallery showing Shrek's transformation here.

Animal Pictures

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Today in History

1415		An English army under Henry V defeats the French at Agincourt, France. The French had out numbered Henry's troops 60,000 to 12,000 but British longbows turned the tide of the battle.
1760		George III of England crowned.
1854		During the Crimean War, a brigade of British light infantry is destroyed by Russian artillery as they charge down a narrow corridor in full view of the Russians.
1916		German pilot Rudolf von Eschwege shoots down his first enemy plane, a Nieuport 12 of the Royal Naval Air Service over Bulgaria.
1923		The Teapot Dome scandal comes to public attention as Senator Thomas J. Walsh of Montana, subcommittee chairman, reveals the findings of the past 18 months of investigation. His case will result in the conviction of Harry F. Sinclair of Mammoth Oil, and later Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall, the first cabinet member in American history to go to jail. The scandal, named for the Teapot Dome oil reserves in Wyoming, involved Fall secretly leasing naval oil reserve lands to private companies.
1940		German troops capture Kharkov and launch a new drive toward Moscow.
1944		The Japanese are defeated in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the world's largest sea engagement. From this point on, the depleted Japanese Navy increasingly resorts to the suicidal attacks of Kamikaze fighters.
1950		Chinese Communist Forces launch their first-phase offensive across the Yalu River into North Korea.
1951		In a general election, England's Labour Party loses to Conservatives. Winston Churchill becomes prime minister, and Anthony Eden becomes foreign secretary.
1954		President Eisenhower conducts the first televised Cabinet meeting.
1958		The last U.S. troops leave Beirut.
1960		Martin Luther King, Jr., is sentenced to four months in jail for a sit-in.
1962		Adlai Stevenson shows photos to the UN Security Council that prove Soviet missiles have been installed in Cuba.
1962		In South Africa, civil rights activist Nelson Mandela is sentenced to 5 years in prison.
1971		United Nations expels the Republic of China and seats the People's Republic of China.
1983		1,800 U.S. troops and 300 Caribbean troops land on Grenada. U.S. forces soon turn up evidence of a strong Cuban and Soviet presence–large stores of arms and documents suggesting close links to Cuba.
1991		The last soldiers of the Yugoslav People's Army leaves the Republic of Slovenia.
2009		Terrorist bombings in Baghdad kill over 150 and wound over 700.

Want Your Youngest Child to Achieve?

Treat Him Like He's Your Oldest

by Sarah B. Weir

A new study indicates that first-born children perform better in school and also suggests why. It's not that they are smarter or have higher self-esteem, but that their parents are tougher on them. "People shouldn't feel limited because they are the second or third child," V. Joseph Host of Duke University, tells Yahoo Shine. "Yes, there are birth order patterns to what we accomplish, but these accomplishments are influenced by many different factors, including how we are raised by our parents." Host co-authored the paper with Juan Patano of Washington University.

The authors, who are both economists, looked at data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which surveyed more than 12,000 participants. The study controlled gender, divorce, family size, and other factors that might have influenced the outcomes. They found that parents of earlier-born children were harder on them when they brought home poor grades than they were with later-born children. Parents were also more lax with their rules for their younger kids when it came to television watching, video games, and other activities that might diminish time dedicated to homework. The study found that the oldest child in a family of four is significantly more likely to "face daily homework monitoring relative to the last born in that family." As a result, oldest children were more likely to be at the top of their classes and the youngest more likely to be at the bottom. What's also interesting is that the survey found that parents took a tougher approach because they were trying to establish their reputation as a disciplinarian. Once they felt their tough-love style had been established with the first child, they had the tendency to slack off.
Susan Whitbourne, a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts, says she appreciates the study's approach because it's focusing on the role of the parent rather than something intrinsic to a child. "There is so much that's written on birth order that seems very deterministic," she tells Yahoo Shine. "There is the tendency for parents to assume that the oldest is going to be better in school, so they put that expectation on them."
The fascination with birth order and its effect on personality and success goes back more than 100 years, when Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, first theorized that birth order has an inherent role in shaping personality and classified characteristics of first-, second-, and last-born children as well as only children and twins. To simplify, he characterized oldest children as attention seekers who were confused about their place after being usurped by their siblings. Middle children were competitive and in their adult lives needed to feel superior because they had successfully won their parents' attention and also had authority over their younger siblings. As for youngest children, he described them as being overprotected and prone to feeling inferior.
Since Adler's era, there have been more than 1,000 scholarly articles and many books published on the topic. The result of such intense interest is that today, the idea of birth-order-influenced traits has become codified – almost like one's zodiac sign. At the same time, because people believe so strongly in the significance of birth order, they impose stereotypes on their children, which become self-fulfilling. The eldest is pushed to be a high achiever, the youngest is babied, and so on.
A 2012 review looked at 200 studies on the topic and found that certain themes did emerge in defining the characteristics of people depending on when they were born. According to their tabulation of the data:
First-born children are often highly motivated, Type A personalities who are vulnerable to stress. They are the most conformist and influenced by authority.
Middle children are sociable and least prone to "acting out." They can also exhibit feelings of being an outsider.
Youngest children show the highest degree of sociability and empathy. They are also the most rebellious.

Only children have a strong need to achieve, are intelligent, and exhibit the most behavioral problems.
But, Whitbourne stresses that birth order is not destiny. She encourages parents to look at their own biases and nurture each of their individual children's strengths. That might mean letting your eldest child's grades slide on occasion and telling your youngest to turn off the TV and hit the books.