The Daily Drift

Through the misty morning fog I see ...

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Today in History

425   Theodosius effectively founds a university in Constantinople.
1531   German Protestants form the League of Schmalkalden to resist the power of the emperor.  
1700   The Pacific Island of New Britain is discovered.  
1814   Napoleon's Marshal Nicholas Oudinot is pushed back at Barsur-Aube by the Emperor's allied enemies shortly before his abdication.  
1827   The first Mardi-Gras celebration is held in New Orleans.  
1864   The first Union prisoners arrive at Andersonville Prison in Georgia.  
1865   Confederate raider William Quantrill and his bushwackers attack Hickman, Kentucky, shooting women and children.  
1905   The Japanese push Russians back in Manchuria and cross the Sha River.  
1908   The forty-sixth star is added to the U.S. flag, signifying Oklahoma's admission to statehood.  
1920   The United States rejects a Soviet peace offer as propaganda.  
1925   Glacier Bay National Monument is dedicated in Alaska.  
1933   The burning down of the Reichstag building in Berlin gives the Nazis the opportunity to suspend personal liberty with increased power.  
1939   The Supreme Court outlaws sit-down strikes.  
1942   British Commandos raid a German radar station at Bruneval on the French coast.  
1953   F-84 Thunderjets raid North Korean base on Yalu River.  
1962   South Vietnamese president Ngo Dinh Diem is unharmed as two planes bomb the presidential palace in Saigon.  
1963   The Soviet Union says that 10,000 troops will remain in Cuba.  
1969   Thousands of students protest President Richard Nixon's arrival in Rome.  
1973   U.S. Supreme Court rules that a Virginia pool club can't bar residents because of color.  
1988   Debi Thomas becomes the first African American to win a medal at the Winter Olympics.  
1991  Coalition forces liberate Kuwait after seven months of occupation by the Iraqi army.

Non Sequitur

Voting rights law gets Supreme Court challenge

 

The most potent weapon in fighting discrimination at the ballot box was before the Supreme Court on Wednesday in a case that weighs the nation's enormous progress in civil rights against the need to continue to protect minority voters.

The justices were hearing arguments in a challenge to the part of the Voting Rights Act that forces places with a history of discrimination, mainly in the Deep South, to get approval before they make any change in the way elections are held.

The lawsuit from Shelby County, Ala., near Birmingham, says the "dire local conditions" that once justified strict federal oversight of elections no longer exist.

The Obama administration and civil rights groups acknowledge the progress, but also argue that Congress was justified in maintaining the advance approval, or pre-clearance, provision when the law was last renewed in 2006.

Last week, President Barack Obama weighed in on behalf of the law in a radio interview with SiriusXM host Joe Madison. "It would be hard for us to catch those things up front to make sure that elections are done in an equitable way" if the need for advance approval from the Justice Department or federal judges in Washington were stripped away, Obama said.

The Supreme Court already has expressed deep skepticism about the ongoing need for the law. In 2009, the justices heard a similar challenge in which Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court that the law's past success "is not adequate justification to retain the pre-clearance requirements." But the court sidestepped the question of the law's constitutionality in its 2009 decision.

Advance approval has been successful because it requires the governments to demonstrate that their proposed election changes will not discriminate, the law's advocates say. "It moved the burden from victims to perpetrators," said Sherrilyn Ifill, the head of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund.

Just last year, federal judges in Washington refused to sign off on two separate Texas plans to institute a tough photo identification law for voters and redistricting plans for the state's congressional delegation and Legislature. Also, South Carolina's plan to put in place its own voter ID law was delayed beyond the 2012 election and then allowed to take effect only after the state carved out an exception for some people who lack photo identification.

Opponents say those examples should not be enough to save the measure. Advance approval is strong medicine that has been upheld in the past as an emergency response to longstanding discrimination, lawyer Bert Rein said in his brief for Shelby County.
Congress overstepped its authority when it renewed the law and its formula that relied on 40-year-old data, without taking account of dramatic increases in the voter registration and participation by minorities, or of problems in places not covered by the law, Rein said.
The advance approval was adopted in the Voting Rights Act in 1965 to give federal officials a way to get ahead of persistent efforts to keep blacks from voting.
The provision was a huge success, and Congress periodically has renewed it over the years. The most recent time was in 2006, when a repugican-led Congress overwhelmingly approved and the shrub signed a 25-year extension.
The requirement currently applies to the states of Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia. It also covers certain counties in California, Florida, New York, North Carolina and South Dakota, and some local jurisdictions in Michigan and New Hampshire. Coverage has been triggered by past discrimination not only against blacks, but also against American Indians, Asian-Americans, Alaskan Natives and Hispanics.
Among the covered states, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas are siding with Shelby County, while California, Mississippi, New York and North Carolina argue that the law should be upheld.
Nearly 250 of the 12,000 state, county and local governments covered by the law have used an escape hatch to get out from under the special oversight by demonstrating that they and smaller places within their borders no longer discriminate in voting.
Thousands more jurisdictions also may be eligible, said voting rights expert Gerry Hebert. But that list probably does not include Shelby County, because one of its cities, Calera, defied the voting rights law in 2008 and provoked intervention by the Justice Department in the shrub jumta.

Wingnuts on Supreme Court cast doubt on voting law

 

Wingnut Supreme Court justices on Wednesday signaled strong doubts about the ongoing validity of a key part of the Voting Rights Act, passed in 1965 after a century of attempts by formerly slave-holding Southern states to block blacks from voting.

During a tense oral argument, which went beyond the scheduled one hour, the nine justices considered the claim made by officials from Shelby County, Alabama, that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act was no longer needed.

Attempts to limit Section 5 come amid what critics call concerted efforts by Republicans at the state level to suppress the vote of blacks and other Democratic-minded demographic groups.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama, the first black U.S. president, decried barriers to voting in America and announced a nonpartisan commission to address voting issues.

Section 5 enables Congress to exercise its authority under the Constitution's 15th Amendment, which gave blacks the right to vote, to require some states, mainly in the South, to show that any proposed election-law change would not discriminate against minority voters.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court's swing vote on racial issues, at one point during the argument said "times change" when it comes to weighing whether the nine states in question should be treated differently from other states.

This appeared to be a view shared by other justices on the wingnuts of the court, including Chief Justice John Roberts.

At one point, the chief justice asked the Obama administration's lawyer, Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, if it was the government's position that "citizens in the South are more racist than citizens in the North." Verrilli said that was not the government's position.

Justice Antonin Scalia, one of the other wingnuts, said that the court should be skeptical of Congress' decision to reauthorize the law in 2006 because it would be politically damaging for politicians to vote against it.

He described the political phenomenon as the "perpetuation of racial entitlement" for minority voters.
The court's liberal justices mounted a spirited defense of the law, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor a vigorous and persistent questioner throughout. She referred to Shelby County as "the epitome of why this law was passed."

Daily Comic Relief

Did you know ...

That for some landlords, there's real money in the homeless

About mandatory insurance for gun owners?

A leading geneticist: human intelligence is declining

What's it like to wake up from a tea-party binge? just ask Florida!

Anti-gun Democrat wins primary to replace Jackson

 

The newly elected Democratic nominee to replace disgraced former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. vowed to become a leader in the fight for federal gun control and directly challenged the National Rifle Association in her victory speech.

Robin Kelly, a former state representative, emerged early as a voice for gun control after Jackson resigned in November. Then she gained huge momentum when New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's super PAC poured $2 million into anti-gun television ads that blasted one of her Democratic opponents, former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, for receiving a previous high rating from the NRA.

Kelly supports an assault weapons ban, while Halvorson does not.
"We were on the right side of the issue, and our message resonated," Kelly said shortly after her win.

In her victory speech, she promised to fight "until gun violence is no longer a nightly feature on the evening news" and directly addressed the NRA, saying "their days of holding our country hostage are coming to an end."

Bloomberg called Kelly's win an important victory for "common-sense leadership" on gun violence, saying in a statement that voters nationwide are demanding change.

But other Democratic front-runners accused Bloomberg of buying a race and interfering in the heavily urban district that also includes some Chicago suburbs and rural areas.

"It shows, unfortunately, you can't go up against that big money. ... That's the problem with super PACs," said Halvorson, who unsuccessfully challenged Jackson in a primary last year. "There is nothing I could have done differently."
Because the district is overwhelmingly Democratic, Kelly's primary win all but assures she will sail through the April 9 general election and head to Washington.

In the repugican contest, Chicago resident Paul McKinley led Eric Wallace, a publisher of christian books, by 23 votes with a handful of precincts still uncounted. McKinley, a former felon, describes himself as a grassroots activist on behalf of ex-offenders.

The race was the district's first wide-open primary since 1995, when Jackson was first elected to Congress. He resigned in November after a months-long medical leave for treatment of bipolar disorder and other issues, then pleaded guilty this month to spending $750,000 in campaign money on lavish personal items.

Even with his legal saga playing out in the courts, the gun debate dominated the primary, which featured 14 Democrats. The election came after Chicago saw its deadliest January in more than a decade, including the fatal shooting of an honors student just days after she performed at President Barack Obama's second inauguration.

Political experts and fellow candidates said the super PAC money made all the difference, particularly in an election with a short primary and low voter turnout.
"The money bought Kelly a tremendous among of attention," said Laura Washington, a political analyst in Chicago. "She tapped into a real hard nerve out there in the community. People are really concerned about gun control and violence. She was smart to focus like a laser on that issue."
Bloomberg's entrance into the race became controversial, at least with the candidates and some voters.
The Democrat-turned-repugican-turned-independent has long taken a vocal stance against guns. He launched his super PAC weeks before the November election and spent more than $12 million to back seven candidates nationwide, including newly elected Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod, a California Democrat who ousted an incumbent during a race where guns were an issue.
On Tuesday, Kelly told supporters that she would work with Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to get gun control legislation through Congress.
However, gun-rights advocates dismissed the notion that Kelly's election and Bloomberg's attention would fuel the debate on gun control.
"This is an aberration," said Illinois State Rifle Association spokesman Richard Pearson. "This shows what you can do with $2 million in an offseason race. He bought the election."
Another Democratic front-runner, Chicago Alderman Anthony Beale, also took issue with the ads, saying people were "extremely upset" that someone from New York was trying to tell people in Illinois how to vote.
"That's what money gets you," he said after conceding the race. "We earned every vote."
Roughly 14 percent of registered voters came to the polls, an estimate Chicago officials called the lowest turnout in decades. Adding to the problem was a blast of wintry weather that snarled traffic and could have kept some voters home.
But those who did cast ballots indicated that guns, ethics and economic woes were on their minds.
Mary Jo Higgins of Steger, a south Chicago suburb, said she voted for Halvorson because the former congresswoman was "the only Democrat who believes in the Second Amendment."
But Country Club Hills minister Rosemary Gage said she voted for Kelly because she was "standing with (Obama) and trying to get rid of guns."
"It's really bad in Chicago and across the country," Gage said. "Too many children have died."

Rep. Keith Ellison Goes on Faux News and Absolutely Destroys Sean Hannity

Rep. Keith Ellison completely turned the tables on Sean Hannity. Instead of letting Hannity talk through and roll over him, Ellison destroyed Hannity with his own tactics.

Rep. Ellison has been on Hannity’s show before. He knew what was coming, and he didn’t let Hannity follow the standard Faux News script. Hannity set up the interview with all of standard edited video clips of Obama and repugican talking points, but things didn’t go as expected from the moment Rep. Ellison started to speak. Within the first 12 seconds of the interview Ellison calls Hannity the worst excuse for a journalist he’s ever seen. Hannity replied, “What? I didn’t hear you.” Ellison shot back, “You heard me.” Ellison continued, “What you just displayed wasn’t anything close to journalism. It was yellow journalism. It wasn’t anything close to try to tell the American people what is really going on, and it’s just shocking.”
Hannity tried to defend his edited video/repugican talking points attack on the president by claiming he was, “playing Obama in his own words.” Ellison called Hannity’s hackery deceptive, and told the Faux News host that he had just violated every journalistic ethic that he had ever heard of. Hannity tried to hide behind the I am not a repugican, I am an Independent excuse. Ellison smacked that down by saying, “You are nothing, but a repugican.” Ellison called Hannity a “shill for the repugican cabal.” Hannity told Rep. Ellison to keep ranting, so he did. He told the viewers to ignore all of Sean Hannity’s commentary because Obama is telling the truth.
The Minnesota Democrat literally destroyed Hannity’s entire format. Hannity got so desperate that he pulled a Romney and offered to bet Ellison $10,000 that he is a registered wingnut. Hannity ended up begging for a chance to speak on his own show.
Rep. Ellison did everything that frustrated viewers having been wishing someone would come on Sean Hannity’s show and do. Things got so bad for Hannity that he employed the Faux News cut and run, and ended the interview early.
Keith Ellison’s performance on Hannity was a textbook example of how a Democrat should handle appearing on Faux News. The Faux News formula is to use segment introductions and questions that box the Democrat into the repugican narrative. Ellison understood this, took control of the interview from the moment it began, and never gave it back to Hannity.
Rep. Ellison rolled Sean Hannity on his own show.
In the broader context, Ellison’s performance is a reflection of the confidence that Democrats are feeling right now. They are at the height of their powers, and Faux News is just a speed bump.
Sean Hannity finally got called out, and it couldn’t have happened to more deserving poor excuse for a journalist.

Why do repugicans so hate Michelle Obama?

Ari Rabin-Havt wrote an interesting piece the other day about the repugican cabal’s obsession with hating-on First Lady Michelle Obama. Ari calls it “Michelle Derangement Syndrome.”The repugican cabal has a long proud history of hating Democratic wives, with the most famous being Hillary Clinton, of course.  But they still did a bang up job on Teresa Heinz Kerry during the 2004 presidential election as well. It’s part of the larger repugican cabal problem with women, particularly women who don’t speak and act like Betty Boop.

I’ve met Mrs. Obama twice, albeit briefly, and I can safely attest to the fact that Betty Boop, she ain’t. Which only makes her demonization by the repugicans all the more dreadful. Not that one’s spouse should be “fair game” in politics for any reason (though the repugican cabal has raised abusing Democratic spouses to an art-form), but the fact that the repugican cabal is trying to demonize someone who most assuredly is not a demon goes to the utter dishonesty of the wingnut lunatic fringe controlling the repugican cabal.
The repugicans are not in it to stop people they think are legitimately evil.  They do what they do because it’s a tactic that they think works. It doesn’t matter to them whether they’re telling the truth. Bashing Democratic First Ladies is a growth business in the Grepugican cabal, so a-bashing they will go.
The repugican cabal’s Michelle Obama Derangement Syndrome is only a part of the cabal’s larger problem with women, which is only a part of the repugican cabal’s larger problem with pretty much everyone who isn’t white, male and protestant.  Whether the victim is female, Latino, or gay, the repugican cabal always manages to find enough red meat to throw to the fringe masses that now run the party.  The problem, for the repugicans, is that while the fringe is representative of elected repugicans in Washington, it’s not representative of most repugicans generally, or most Americans.
While putting down women, and bashing Latinos and gays, may win you friends at the rnc, it doesn’t do a lot to convince independents that the repugicans are serious about governing, and it doesn’t even win over a majority of repugicans themselves.  The cabal is far more hateful than its own voters, and worse yet, it doesn’t seem to realize that fact.  Thus, when the rwingnut noise machine explodes at Michelle Obama for attending the Oscars, they actually think they’re scoring points that are going to help them nationally.  And they’re not.
Ari walks through some of the repugican hate directed at Mrs. Obama for her Oscar appearance:

Never mind the First Lady was invited to attend the event, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post groused: “It is not enough that President Obama pops up at every sporting event in the nation. Now the first lady feels entitled, with military personnel as props, to intrude on other forms of entertaining (this time for the benefit of the Hollywood glitterati who so lavishly paid for her husband’s election).”
Faux News’ Todd Starnes took to Twitter to assert Michelle Obama “made [the Oscars] about herself.”
Christian Toto of Breitbart.com claimed her appearance was an “unprecedented cultural power grab.” He continued, “Michelle Obama hijacked the Oscars tonight, and we’re all supposed to be giddy at the chance to see her shine anew.”
And Lush Dimbulb bloviated “I thought of the Macintosh ad from the Super Bowl in 1984. Exact type of scenario except Michelle Obama was actually the dear leader of this — obviously a totalitarian state.”

The joke is that Michelle Obama is a relatively popular woman – the public at large hardly has the negative view of her that the repugican intelligentsia does.  But the repugicans have so convinced themselves that they’re not just right, but that most of America agrees with them, that they plod ahead with these bizarrely unpopular positions.
Whether it’s hating on Michelle Obama, or insisting that the budget deal not include any tax increases (something that only 19% of the American people agree with, and even repugicans disagree with their own cabal on this one), the repugican cabal continues to woo a diminishing pool of extremists that might make up a majority of its members in Washington, but continues to scare the hell out of voters of all parties nationwide.

The truth be told

It was repugican Rep. Jack Kingston Who Introduced Sequestration as a repugican cabal Reform in 2010

This is getting old, but repugicans are busy denying their relationship with sequestration, and so once again, we must delve into history for a reality check. While both sides signed the Budget Control Act, in which the sequester was housed, only one side has been pushing sequester as the Holy Grail of their ideology. Sequester, as a concept, is a repugican dream.
Yes, yet another repugican pushed the idea of the sequester and it’s on the record. Jack Kingston (r-GA) proposed sequestration in December of 2010. In his plan, meant to “destroy the infrastructure of spending”, Kingston wrote, “If Appropriators exceed the spending targets set early in the fiscal year under the Budget Act, automatic ‘sequesters,’ or across the board program cuts, would be imposed.”
The sequester is a largely repugican idea and has certainly been championed repeatedly by repugicans. The concept has its merits — that is, if the people elected are actually willing to compromise. But when a government is being strangled from within by rigid demagogues who refuse to bend, the repugican idea of sequester is sure doom. And that’s why repugicans are running away from their love affair with the sequester and pretending they never met her.
But history tells another story. There was Boehner’s (r-OH) proposal of the sequester, there was Paul Ryan (r-WI) hawking sequester as the holy grail of budgetary discipline, and there was Jack Kingston (r-GA) wildly touting sequester to the Wall Street Journal on November 29, 2010 :

… this week Mr. Kingston (r-GA) will present to Mr. Boehner’s Steering Committee a blueprint for action that shows he’s given considerable thought to changing the spending culture in Congress. (We’re posting his 18-page power point at OpinionJournal.com.) As a spending cut down payment, he has endorsed about $110 billion in rescissions from the fiscal 2011 budget, including billions in agriculture cuts, which is admirable given that Georgia is a farm state. (Better not tell subsidy potentate and Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss.)
At the heart of his reform plan is restoring the process of automatic spending cuts that prevailed in the late 1980s under the name Gramm-Rudman. In the 1980s deficits were the budget cut trigger, but Mr. Kingston would apply it to spending levels. If Appropriators exceed the spending targets set early in the fiscal year under the Budget Act, automatic “sequesters,” or across the board program cuts, would be imposed. When this process was in place in the 1980s, the deficit as a share of GDP fell to below 3% from 6%. Mr. Kingston says his goal is to reduce spending over time to 18% of GDP, down from 24% to 25% today.
Mr. Kingston says one of his main goals is to “destroy the infrastructure of spending.”

In theory, sequestration seems like a good idea, especially as proposed by Kingston who also sought to keep state representatives off of committees making cuts to their pork laden areas. Very clever.
In reality, the first problem is that no one wants to do that for obvious reasons and the second problem is that sequestration relies upon the idea that the threat of sequesters will force representatives to the table. As we can see from House repugicans (specifically the tea party caucus), they feel no inclination whatsoever to come to the table. Yet, Speaker John Boehner (r-OH) promised in his power point presentation that the “sequestration process is designed to guarantee that Congress acts on the Joint Committee’s legislation”; aka, that they avoid the trigger of sequestration by coming up with a replacement bill. Boehner can’t get his tea caucus to make any concessions, and that’s why Boehner is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to blame Obama for the sequester.
The repugicans do not want the defense cuts and Democrats worry that the cuts will threaten hundreds of thousands of jobs (in addition to harmful cuts to the vulnerable and our armed services), especially in a recession. The CBO doesn’t want the sequester because they fear it may not only hinder our recovery but also make thing worse.
And yet, repugicans are unwilling to negotiate. They want their spending cuts with no revenue. They say it’s their turn, but months ago they admitted that they got over 2 trillion in spending cuts from Obama. Then Obama got some revenue. Now it’s time for both. It is irrelevant if Obama proposed the sequester in order to appease repugicans, who were holding the economy hostage at that time (had they not done that, we would not be here arguing over whose idea this was), or if repugicans proposed it. What matters is that it is a repugican idea, it’s here, and now no one thinks it’s a good idea and yet repugicans refuse, once again, to compromise.
Compromise is not a part of the modern day repugican cabal, and so we’re headed to the disaster that the sequester holds for us. No matter what repugicans say, one thing is a fact: The people championing sequestration have been repugicans. That is, until they got it.
This would lead logical people to question if all of their ideas are only good on paper, and also to wonder if their party can’t handle getting what it says it stands for, what now. Meanwhile, Rome will burn.

John Boehner Refuses to Allow the House to Vote on Sequester Replacement Bill

On the same day that John Boehner told the Senate to get off its ass, he refused to allow the House to vote on a sequester replacement bill.
According to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), “Tonight marks the third time this year that House repugicans have refused to take up a Democratic substitute to the sequester while failing to put forth their own sequester alternative. With 750,000 jobs at stake – not to mention the furlough of hundreds of thousands of federal employees – this is a total abdication of leadership from Speaker Boehner and his caucus.”
Speaker Boehner’s stock line is that the House has already acted, but this is a lie. The House acted in the last Congress. The two bills that were passed in the 112 Congress died as soon as the 113th Congress was sworn in. The House has to pass a sequester replacement bill, but repugicans are refusing to allow Van Hollen’s bill to come to the floor for a vote.
His bill has adopted Obama’s balanced approach. It contains the Buffett Rule, and it cuts subsidies for agribusiness and Big Oil. The bill also contains a 2/3 cuts to 1/3 revenue ratio. The repugicans refuse to allow the bill to come to the floor for a vote for one simple reason. They are afraid that it will pass. There are likely enough repugicans that will cross party lines and join with universal Democratic support to pass the bill. The Senate version of Van Hollen’s bill will be passed easily, and Obama would sign it in about a half a second.
If Boehner is serious about avoiding the sequester, why isn’t the House voting on anything? The answer is because Boehner doesn’t have the votes to pass anything. In May, 16 repugicans voted against their own cabal’s sequester replacement bill. The number of repugican defections jumped to 21 when the repugican sequester replacement option was passed again in December. The repugicans currently have a 17 vote majority in the House, so the odds are that Van Hollen’s bill would pass if it came to the floor for a vote.
By refusing to act Boehner is revealing the hypocrisy behind his tough, but empty words. House repugicans have not only embraced the sequester, they are actively working to make sure that it isn’t avoided.
It’s clear that the person who needs to get off his ass in Washington is John Boehner.

 

Ayn Rand

I speak often about the christians who love to pick and choose the parts of the bible they want to believe in. Some believe in christ, but not the virgin birth, others believe only the New Testament and not the Old.

But it seems that this tendency on the part of wingnuts reaches out to their political heroes as well. How many of the Ayn Rand lovers, she of the "every man for himself" political philosophy, reject some important parts of her philosophy, yet worship other parts? Seems to me you either buy the package, or move on to some other hero.

Sick House tea partiers Celebrate the Sequester’s Human Carnage

Morality is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between what is considered good (right) and what is bad (wrong), and most human beings would consider intentionally causing harm to others is inherently immoral, and wrong. There is a segment of the population that lacks the basic human emotion of empathy and feels that knowingly harming other Americans is an ideologically moral imperative, and they are preparing to celebrate damage to the people and economy sequestration cuts will cause when they begin in two days.
According to Tim Huelskamp, a teabagger from Kansas, the sequester is “the first significant tea party victory in that we got what we set out to do in Washington,” and in Washington, teabaggers celebrate the start of eliminating government to advance privatization regardless the harm inflicted on the people. Huelskamp represents one side of what George Lakoff calls the “real moral divide in America” where extreme conservatives see government providing for the common good as an “immoral imposition on their liberty,” and it is Paul Ryan’s philosophy founded on Ayn Rand’s fictional work that Libertarian Koch Brothers support. That teabaggers are celebrating the sequesters’ damage demonstrates their lack of empathy for other Americans as well as sheer idiocy in that their ideological bent for killing government, and other Americans, will eventually contribute to their own demise. However, where Lakoff has it wrong is attributing the lack of empathy to “extreme wingnuts” when in reality, it is all wingnuts who believe government is inherently bad and worth eliminating so for-profit private enterprise can take over.
Lakoff continues that “wingnut’s immoral sense requires them to make the government fail in providing for the common good” and that it is a matter of justice to reward those who “selfishly pursued their self-interests, got rich, and avoided taxes that pay for provisions” they, and all Americans, use. The fact that the wingnut intent of making government fail is to negatively impact most Americans represents a fundamentally flawed human being that believes those in need must be punished to reward the rich. The repugican anti-government agenda represents the ideological war conservatives have fought for over 80 years to undo the New Deal that helped all Americans, and is predicated on rewarding makers and eradicating takers. However, this new morality fails to acknowledge that makers are beneficiaries of the sweat, blood, and assets of the very people they are attempting to destroy, and make no mistake, their goal is destroying those who are not successful and the sequester is a major victory in the repugican cabal’s two-year war on the economy, people, and government.
The repugicans admit the sequester will wreak havoc on the economy, jobs, and the people, and although they feign concern, killing jobs while hurting Americans began at the start of the 112^th Congress when teabaggers swept into power promising to “shrink government.” In early 2011 when John Boehner was informed repugican spending cuts would adversely impact children, the working poor, and seniors besides killing 1.1 million jobs, he said “so be it.” If any American thinks repugicans, or their teabagger cohort, are concerned sequestration will inflict damage on Americans, jobs, or the economy, they are tragically deluded. There is a contingent of repugicans who are unhappy the sequester is not  four times larger and believe if the repugican cabal had made more Draconian cuts and slashed government more, they would have won big in the last election, and it informs the danger of ideologically pure conservatives gaining power because they see the sequester damage as a major victory in a war to end government.
These wingnut ideologues are no different than extremist Islamist suicide bombers. They could not care less how much damage they inflict on the people because as long as they make government fail to reward the makers, they will have achieved a moral victory. Remember, teabaggers and their repugican facilitators were willing to allow a credit default that would have destroyed the full faith and credit of the United States in 2011 that led to the sequester to begin with, and fueled by their sequester victory are emboldened to expand the war on government as a moral imperative.
There are Americans who are lulled into complacency that the tea party is declining in popularity and losing public support, and although they appear to be a small faction within the larger conservative movement, their ideology mirrors repugican philosophy that government must be destroyed to make way for privatization. It is, and has been, repugicans’ moral sense that requires them to make government fail to make room for privatization and it starts with defunding, then destroying programs like Medicare and Social Security because government providing for the common good is an immoral imposition on the wealthy’s liberty. It explains why repugicans cut safety nets that feed children, seniors, and Veterans to make room for more tax breaks for the very wealthiest Americans, and why there is never a shortage of government funds for corporations, big oil subsidies, and the military industrial complex.
America is in a war for survival and despite President Obama’s re-election and overwhelming public support for his agenda, conservatives are on the verge of scoring a major victory in making government fail. With  intransigent House repugicans in control of the nation’s purse-strings, there is little the President, or Senate Democrats can do to stop their continued assault besides reject their government-destroying cuts that will result in a stalemate, and more government failure. Subsequently, for the next two years House repugicans have little incentive to stop their assault on government, and the people, and believing it is their immoral imperative, they have every reason to finish the job.

FAA says it can't avoid air traffic controller furloughs

 

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has "very limited" flexibility to avoid furloughing air traffic controllers if automatic budget cuts go into effect beginning on Friday, agency head Michael Huerta told Congress on Wednesday.

"We've identified a wide variety of savings but I don't think I can absolutely eliminate furloughs," Huerta told the House of Representatives Transportation Committee in response to repugican suggestions that he could avoid furloughs by shifting agency funding around.

Huerta's testimony echoed a warning last week by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who told White House reporters the proposed cuts would lead to delayed flights, shuttered control towers and irate passengers from coast to coast.
Republicans took issue at the hearing with that grim scenario, telling Huerta it should be possible to find some $627 million in savings from the agency's $16 billion budget without having to furlough most of the FAA's 47,000 employees for one or more days per pay period.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Bill Shuster, a Pennsylvania repugican, narrowed the scope further, noting that the operating budget for the Air Traffic Organization of the FAA is $7.4 billion and a 5 percent cut affecting that division would amount to about $370 million.

"This is a time we really need to sharpen the pencil of the FAA ... and I've got to believe you're able to find $30 million a month in a $7.4 billion budget ... without the threat of endangering safety," Shuster said.
Huerta said the agency was focusing first on a hiring freeze to come up with the savings, then looking at its various contracts, the largest of which covers the FAA's telecommunications infrastructure and is important to maintaining the operation of the system.
Speaking of savings that have to come through furloughs, he said: "We're making every effort to reduce that number as much as we can but I don't think we can avoid it."

The truth hurts

"Most Wanted" Suspect Told Police Station is Closed

Man wanted for murder in Sweden travels to another station 20 minutes away to turn himself in.

By Elizabeth Smith

A murder suspect had been on the lam for almost 15 months.

Swedish police turned away a murder suspect on the country's most wanted list, reportedly telling him their police station was closed.

Saleh Hadri, 45, had been on the lam for almost 15 months after being named the prime suspect for the murder of a local gang chief, according to English-language Swedish news site The Local. Upon returning to Malmo, Sweden, from his hideout in Egypt, he traveled to a local police station last week with a reporter from the Swedish Sydsvenskan newspaper.

After ringing the doorbell of the station at about 6 p.m., police informed Hadri on voice intercom that the station was closed. "Closed? I'm suspected of murder and a wanted man -- you guys really want to get a hold of me," the suspect responded incredulously. The officials responded by directing Hadri to another station, according to The Local. After traveling 20 minutes away to the other station, he was apprehended and taken into custody.

Still claiming his innocence in the November 2011 murder of Wolfpack Brotherhood's leader, Alex Ghara Mohammadi, Hadri had returned to Sweden to testify and clear his name. The taxi depot where Mohammadi was shot used to be Hadri's property, police authorities told the Sydsvenskan. Saleh Hadri's hearing is scheduled for Thursday, The New York Daily News reported.

Police commander Anders Oxelbrand credited Hadri's dismissal to continual site renovations at the station. "Things are a bit messy right now," he said.

Help catch one of California's most violent killers

 

At L.A. Magazine, Michelle McNamara reports that one of the most violent serial rapists and killers in history may still be out there.

In the March issue of Los Angeles magazine, true crime writer Michelle McNamara tracks the unsettling and largely unknown backstory of the Golden State Killer and what has prompted authorities to reheat a cold case. He’s a criminal whose identity has stumped authorities for decades ... Now, thanks to a few key pieces of evidence published for the first time in Los Angeles magazine, authorities believe they might be a clue or two away from cracking the case—and they need your help.

Phone calls to his victims were a big part of the Golden State Killer's M.O., McNamara reports: "Sacramento detectives put a tap on one rape victim’s phone. In January 1978, the tap recorded a terrifying, obscene phone call. As the young woman waited silently on the phone, knowing the police tap was recording, the caller breathed heavily, then whispered menacingly. “Gonna kill you,” he repeated. “Bitch,” he hissed. “Whore.” Both the victim and the police believe the caller was the Golden State Killer."

NJ's 'tanning mom': Life 'living hell,' I'm moving

 

A New Jersey woman widely known as "the tanning mom" is celebrating a grand jury's refusal to indict her on a charge she unlawfully let her 5-year-old daughter into a tanning booth.

Patricia Krentcil addressed reporters outside her Nutley home Tuesday night by yelling: "cha-ching!" Prosecutors announced earlier in the day she no longer faced a child endangerment charge.

She says her life has been "a living hell" and she plans to move to London for a year to decompress while her husband and kids stay in New Jersey.
Krentcil became a tabloid sensation because of her own deep tan and professed love of tanning. She says "tanning is not a crime" and she'll keep at it.
Asked what she learned from the whole episode, she replied, "People suck."

Dutch Prison Transformed Into Luxury Hotel

It was previously a place from which people desperately wanted to leave. As one of the Netherlands' most feared prisons for almost 150 years, Het Arresthuis in the city of Roermond was not a place you would want to stay. But following its closure and something of a makeover, people are now paying good money to spend a night at the former jail.

The 105 prisoner's quarters have been converted into 40 spacious rooms, including 24 standard rooms, 12 deluxe rooms, and four suites, all of which feature modern furnishings and chic interior design. All of the rooms are equipped with air conditioning, a flat screen TV, free WiFi, and even a personal coffee and tea machine.

Priorities

Pessimism about the future may lead to longer, healthier life

Pessimism about the future may lead to longer, healthier life

Older people who have low expectations for a satisfying future may be more likely to live longer, healthier lives than those who see brighter days ahead, according to new research published by the American Psychological ...

Lack of Sleep Messes With Your Genes

Lack of Sleep Messes With Your Genes

When sleep was restricted to under six hours a night for test subjects, researchers noted that 444 genes showed suppressed activity.

Eight Facts About Vitamin D and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Vitamin D deficiency can be a problem for people with chronic illness such as Rheumatoid Arthritis.

Five things you may not know about olive oil

Consuming olive oil in moderation has health benefits, study says
Nutritionists have long touted the heart-healthy benefits of extra-virgin olive oil. 

Recently, researchers found that consuming a Mediterranean diet heavy in olive oil can help lower some heart risks. Consuming more than four tablespoons a day can significantly lower your risk of having a heart attack, suffering from a stroke or dying of heart disease, according to the recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Olive oil is high in a type of fat known as monounsaturated fat, according to the Mayo Clinic. MUFAs, as they're commonly called, can help lower your cholesterol and control insulin levels in the body. In addition to olive oil, they can be found in avocados, nuts and fatty fish.
Of course, that doesn't mean you can go overboard. Even though it's made of "healthy fats," olive oil is still high in calories and should be used in moderation. Here are five things you might not know about this Mediterranean staple:
It helps more than your heart. Olive oil is full of polyphenols, a type of antioxidant that helps protect your cells from damage. Certain polyphenols also have anti-inflammatory properties.
Scientists have been exploring the effects these polyphenols may have on bone and digestive health as well as looking into how they could help prevent cancer. Other researchers are looking into olive oil's potential for improving cognitive function and memory.
Your oil may not be extra-virgin. In 2011, reporter Tom Mueller released his book "Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil." In it, he revealed a world of deception where low quality oils and artificial coloring were being passed off as extra-virgin olive oils to the American public.
"Virgin means made with physical processes, not with chemistry," Mueller told NPR. "Essentially, you crush an olive and out drops the oil in extreme synthesis."
There are laws in Europe monitoring the use of an "extra-virgin" label, but the United States does not have strict regulations, according to Mueller.
And when companies taint the oil, Mueller said consumers lose "that wonderful cocktail of anti-inflammatories and antioxidants." How you store it matters. When you're at the grocery store, look for olive oil that comes in a bottle made from dark green glass or another material that protects it from light, says Dr. John La Puma, founder of ChefMD.com.
Heat and light can damage the oil by creating oxidation, which changes the beneficial chemical compounds. Store your olive oil in a room-temperature cupboard or in the refrigerator to keep it cool.
A bottle of oil will last about a year on your shelf, according to the Stillwater Olive Oil Co. "After this time, the taste and health benefits, such as Vitamin E, beta-carotene, and other phenol levels decrease dramatically," the company's website states.
Americans buy a lot of it. Olive oil is one of the fastest-growing global industries, according to a report from Research and Markets, an international market research and data site. While Spain and Italy top the list of both producers and consumers, Americans seem to have jumped on the Mediterranean diet bandwagon in full force.
The United States ranks third on the list of the world's largest olive oil consumers. But the U.S. may not be there for long, according to the report.
"It is expected that in the near future, India and China will be on the list of largest consumers of olive oil, as people have started recognizing the health benefits of olive oil and have accepted it as cooking oil," a release from the site says.
You don't have to eat it. Olive oil beauty products are a multibillion dollar business, according to the industry website Olive Oil Source.
"What many consumers don't realize is something that people living millennia ago in ancient Greece took for granted; that extra virgin olive oil, all by itself, is one of the best beauty secrets," the site says.
The same antioxidants that heal your internal cells may help protect your outer layer from damage. Olive oil can now be found in everything from skin moisturizers to nail care kits.
If you're not ready to spring for the professional products, you can use olive oil at home to create a hair mask or as a cheap eye makeup remover.

The 1950s’ Most Nauseating Jell-O Soaked Recipes

Postwar America in the late 1940s was ripe for "better living through chemistry" and new processed foods. The Jell-O company took advantage of this and developed recipes for the suburban housewife to show off her culinary skills and stretch the family food budget. How else could you explain the abominations known as the Jell-O salad and Jell-O entrees? But Ruth Clark of the site The Mid-Century Menu is willing to try those recipes out, for the sake of understanding history. Collectors Weekly spoke to her about the food, and especially the Jell-O recipes, of the 1950s.

I haven’t really heard a lot of food historians talk about this, but I’ve found that food mixed into Jell-O stays fresher much longer than if you have it by itself.

Collectors Weekly: Whoa, how long are you talking about, like weeks?

Clark: Like days. For example, Perfection Salad is basically coleslaw inside of lemon or lime Jell-O, so it’s got cabbage and carrots and all kinds of stuff. But the cabbage will stay fresh for over a week. If you take a bite of it, it’s still crunchy. My husband, Tom, tries all this. He’s a chemist, so he’ll keep tasting it long, long after I’m done with it. But if you make regular coleslaw and put dressing on it, the cabbage becomes soggy after three days. And after five days, you’re not going to eat it.

We’ve done a lot of different Jell-O stuff and noticed that freshness is basically extended when you encase things in Jell-O. We’ve done cakes covered with gelatin, and the cake would still be moist after a week and a half. We made sandwiches with gelatin, open-faced sandwiches with flavored gelatin poured over the top, which was supposed to be like mayo. I thought it was going to be disastrous. Tom wolfed them down. He’s like, “These are really good and the bread isn’t soggy.” I’m like, “Are you kidding me?” Two days later, they were still edible.

But she talks about a lot more than just Jell-O. Read about pork fat cake, chocolate tomato soup cake, liver and green bean paté, chicken mousse, and more. More

Random Celebrity Photo

Archeaology News

Have Bones of Cleopatra's Murdered Sister Been Found?

An archaeologist lecturing in North Carolina this week claims to have identified the bones of Cleopatra's murdered sister or half-sister. But not everyone is convinced.

Richard III Burial Up to University, Says Minister

The burial site for the remains of Richard III will not be decided by Parliament.

The Ancient Lohar Blacksmiths of Rajasthan

Forging Ahead in Modern Times

The Lohar of north and central India are a caste of blacksmiths with a long history and an ancient way of life that may not last much longer... More

Eight Unforgettable Examples Of Land Art

Land art or Earth art is an art movement in which the landscape and the work of art are inextricably linked. It's also an art form that is created in nature, using natural materials such as soil, rock (bed rock, boulders, stones), organic media (trees, grass) and water. The works frequently exist in the open, located well away from civilization, left to change and erode under natural conditions.

Random Photo

Fifteen Scary And Ominous Photos of Dust Storms

A dust storm is a meteorological phenomenon common in arid and semi-arid regions. Dust storms arise when a gust front or other strong wind blows loose sand and dirt from a dry surface. Particles are transported by saltation and suspension, a process that moves soil from one place and deposits it in another.

Earth News

Entire Maldives Nation Becoming Biosphere Reserve

The entire Maldives, a nation of low-lying islands, pledges to become a sustainable reserve.

800-Foot-Deep Canyon Found Under Red Sea

Watch your step, Moses -- the 820-foot-deep canyon was was found by technology on a British ship that works like sonar.

Meteorite Crash Landings Mapped

A meteorite map pinpoints the locations of 34,513 strikes, dating back to 2,300BC.

Lost Continent Discovered Beneath Indian Ocean

A small, sunken continent was recently discovered beneath the Indian Ocean. The ancient mini-continent, called Mauritia, lies beneath the lava flows that created the islands of Reunion and Mauritius.

Astronomical News

'Dead' Stars May Host Living Worlds

Earth-sized planets that host life should be far easier to find around parent stars that are white dwarfs, the ultimate incarnations of stars like the sun.

Russian Meteor Likely An Apollo Asteroid Chunk

Before it collided with Earth, the Chelyabinsk space rock was a 10,000 ton meteoroid -- now astronomers think they know where it came from.

Are Star 'Crumbs' Evidence of Galactic Cannibalism?

Stars discovered in the Milky Way's halo could be what remains of smaller galaxies that were eaten to form the our galaxy.

Could a Comet Hit Mars in 2014?

A recently discovered comet will make an uncomfortably-close planetary flyby next year -- but this time it's not Earth that's in the cosmic crosshairs.

Upping the Cute Factor

Cow thinks she's a horse

A cow which thinks its a horse has become the unlikely star of a pony display team. The three-year-old, named Hettie Moo, was orphaned after her mother died giving birth. Hettie, a Belted Galloway cow, was spared the chop and brought up surrounded by horses at the Cairngorms Reindeer Centre in Aviemore, Scotland. She grew up thinking she’s a cow and feels “right at home” being ridden and attached to a carriage.

Hettie now struts her stuff for Chariots of Fire, a pony display team based in Lockerbie – leaping over 2ft jumps. Amanda Saville, who runs Sports Driving Unlimited, the equine charity which trains the Chariots of Fire team, said Hettie believes she is just another one of the ponies. She said: “There’s no doubt she thinks she’s a horse. She’s been reared with the ponies for years now, so there’s no reason for her to think she’s a cow.

“Of course it all seems a bit random as there’s no other cow in the world that does what she does right now, but it’s normal to her. She lives in the same stables as the ponies and is very happy to have such close company with them. It’s deserved as she had a tough start to life because her mother unfortunately died at birth. She was hand-reared by the people from the reindeer centre but she was so tame they couldn’t put her back in the herd and they certainly weren’t going to eat her.

YouTube link.

“So they simply turned up here one day with a big red ribbon round her neck and said ‘we thought you’d like her’.” Hettie sailed through an intensive training course and quickly began to conquer the large jumps that the Chariots of Fire team leap. Now taking parts in galas and agricultural shows, Hettie has become a hit with fans all around Scotland. Amanda said: “She’s been absolutely amazing as she took to it like a duck to water but I have to admit, it’s hysterical watching her.”

New Research Sheds Light On How Dogs Became Dogs

At first blush, the emergence of man's best friend is pretty straightforward. The first dogs descended from wolves in Europe about 14,000 years ago. Then humans domesticated those proto-dogs until the eventual animal known as a 'dog' had many of the traits we associated with the animal today.

That much of the evolutionary history of the modern dog has been clearly understood. But further research suggests that that European dog is not the ancestor of all our dogs; instead, every modern Western dog hails from a Southeast Asian progenitor lineage. Why did some upstart Southeast Asian lineage triumph, even in Europe, instead of the endemic European one? Turns out, it might have to do
with your pet dog's affinity for Cheetos.

Animal News

Shark Relative Had Buzz Saw Mouth

The prehistoric Helicoprion was the only animal with teeth arranged in a spiral to cut into its prey.

Food Stamps, Now for Pets

Free pet food, home delivered, is the goal of a new program aimed at those below the poverty line.

Big Birds Sing Like Barry White

Some bigger-bodied birds aim to attract females by breaking out the bass.

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