The Washington Post offers tips on how to keep your EV battery running in frigid temperatures. The link at the end of this graf is supposed to be a "gift link" (from me, Marie Burns, the giftor!), meaning that non-subscribers can read the article. Hope it works: https://wapo.st/3u8Z705
Saturday
Dec132014
The Commentariat -- Dec. 14, 2014
Internal links, photo removed.
Ed O'Keefe & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "The Senate approved a sweeping $1.1 trillion spending bill Saturday night to fund most of the federal government through the next fiscal year." CW: You might want to read the whole report, as it's mostly about how pissed senators are at Ted Cruz (and Mike Lee). It's a straight report, but amusing nonetheless, especially as it reiterates how the Cruz move played into Democrats' hands & embarrassed Mitch McConnell. ...
... Democratic Senators voting against the CR: Blumenthal, Booker, Boxer, Brown, Cantwell, Franken, Gillibrand, Harkin, Hirono, Klobuchar, Levin, Manchin, Markey, McCaskill, Menendez, Merkley, Reed, Sanders (I), Tester, Warren, Whitehouse & Wyden. ...
... Ramsey Cox of the Hill: "A vast majority of the Senate disagreed with Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-Texas) assertion that President Obama's executive order on immigration is unconstitutional.... Only 22 senators voted with Cruz and 74 voted against his point of order." ...
... "Does Not Play Well with Others." Manu Raju, et al., of Politico: "The fiasco has turned many of Cruz's colleagues openly against him, a dynamic that might bolster his cred with the tea party wing of the party if he makes a run for the GOP's presidential nomination in 2016, but could also leave him vulnerable to attacks that he's more troublemaker than leader -- able to shut down the government or stall votes but unable to advance a proactive agenda." ...
... Ramsey Cox: "The Senate spent nine hours on procedural votes that will allow Senate Democrats to confirm 24 more of President Obama's nominations before adjourning for the year. The rare Saturday session was prompted by objections from Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) over the government funding bill. 'Because of Sen. Cruz's actions and Republicans' inability to stop him, Democrats will end up confirming more nominees by the end of this Congress than we would have been able to otherwise -- including several key executive branch nominees and up to 12 of President Obama's judicial nominees," said Adam Jentleson, [Harry ]Reid's spokesperson." ...
... Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "The Senate convened for a rare Saturday session after a bloc of conservative senators upended plans to quickly pass a $1.1 trillion spending bill. But a backstop measure to extend current government funding until Wednesday was approved Saturday afternoon, averting a potential government shutdown that would have started at midnight.... 'I think it is critical for the Senate to have an opportunity to have a clear up or down vote on funding President Obama’s illegal executive amnesty. I am using every tool available to help bring about that vote,' said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.)." ...
... David Espo & Donna Cassata of the AP: "Their power ebbing, Senate Democrats launched a last-minute drive Saturday to confirm roughly 20 of President Barack Obama's nominees, and several Republicans blamed tea party-backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for creating an opening for the outgoing majority party to exploit." ...
... Nicholas Confessore of the New York Times: "The secret negotiations that led to one of the most significant expansions of campaign contributions in recent years began with what Republican leaders regarded as an urgent problem: How would they pay for their presidential nominating convention in Cleveland in two years? The talks ended with a bipartisan agreement between Senate Democrats, led by the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and House Republicans, led by Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio, that would allow wealthy donors to begin giving more than $1 million every election cycle to each party's national committees. The agreement drew intense criticism from both liberal Democrats and Tea Party-aligned Republicans.... It is now headed for likely passage as a rider in a $1.1 trillion spending bill loaded with provisions sought by banks, food industry lobbyists and other special interests. It continued to draw fierce attacks as lawmakers prepared to vote on a final spending bill, even as Democratic leaders privately defended the addition as a necessary compromise to forestall more aggressive efforts by Republicans next year to whittle away at other campaign funding restrictions."
Darryl Fears of the Washington Post: "Thousands of demonstrators streamed down Pennsylvania Avenue on Saturday, shouting 'Black lives matter,' 'Hands up, don't shoot' and 'I can&'t breathe' to call attention to the recent deaths of unarmed African American men at the hands of police. The peaceful civil rights march led by families of the slain and organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton's National Action Network drew a wide range of Americans -- black, white, Latino, Asian, young and elderly." ...
... Jennifer Steinhauer & Elena Schneider of the New York Times: "Thousands of people marched along the National Mall on Saturday to protest the deaths [of black men & youths by white policemen], mirroring protests planned around the nation Saturday, ranging from hikes in canyons in the West to marches down the streets of the nation's urban centers.... Around the nation, from California to Kentucky to Manhattan, activists came together on Saturday for a National Day of Resistance. In New York, protesters gathered at Washington Square Park and walked north on Fifth Avenue while chanting, 'Hands up, don't shoot,' and 'Justice now.'" ...
... AP: "Three cardboard cutouts of black men were found hanging by nooses on Saturday on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. A school spokeswoman, Amy Hamaoui, said ... the effigies appeared to be connected to a noontime demonstration nearby planned to coincide with a national protest against police brutality dubbed '#blacklivesmatters'. The effigies appeared to be life-size photos of lynching victims. The effigies had names of lynching victims and the dates of their death." ...
... CW: Can't imagine how protesters guessed the guy with a gun was a cop. ...
... Nikki Woolf & Jessica Glenza of the Guardian: "An undercover California highway patrol officer who infiltrated protests against police violence in Oakland pulled a gun on demonstrators after his and his partner's cover was blown." ...
... Us v. Them. Brendan O'Connor of Gawker: "New York City's largest police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association (PBA) is encouraging its members to sign a form letter asking Mayor Bill De Blasio and City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito not to attend their funerals if they are killed while on active duty."
Scott Shane of the New York Times: "... the Senate report ... represents the fullest public account by any branch of government of the C.I.A.'s secret prison program. It exposes some of the mistakes made in the agency's rush to grab people with possible links to Al Qaeda.... Until 9/11, the United States had officially condemned secret imprisonment as a violation of the basic international standards of human rights. But like the prohibition on torture, it was set aside in the frantic effort to stop another attack. The Senate Democratic staff members ... counted 119 prisoners who had been in C.I.A. custody. Of those, the report found that 26 were either described in the agency's own documents as mistakenly detained, or released and given money, evidence of the same thing. The C.I.A. told the Senate in its formal response that the real number of wrongful detentions was 'far fewer' than 26 but did not offer a number." ...
... Jane Mayer of the New Yorker: "It didn't have to be this way. There have been a number of true 'torture patriots,' many of them at the C.I.A., who Obama and Brennan could have praised while sending a very clear message to the Agency and to the public. They are the officers who blew the whistle on the program internally and externally, some of whom have paid a very high price for their actions.... As David Luban, a professor of law at Georgetown University and the author of 'Torture, Power, and Law,' suggested in the Times, there are many forms of accountability for torture, and one of the most meaningful would be to honor the real torture patriots -- those who tried to stop it. What a better week it would have been if Obama had." ...
... Charles Pierce: "I think it's possible that the barbarians in the White House tortured people in order to produce statements they could use to validate further their bullshit case for their bullshit war. Even I don't want to believe that we were ruled for eight years by that species of monster. If that is the case, however, somewhere at the CIA there's a memo, and somewhere there's somebody in a cubicle that knows where the memo is, and who knows the phone number of a reporter." ...
... Steve M.: "What's revealing about [an exchange between Dick Cheney & Bret Baier of Fox "News"] is that Cheney is asked about brutality and asserts that the only alternative is indulgence. Right-wingers can't imagine any possible middle ground.... In the same way that they believe every liberal or moderate alternative to their economic ideas constitutes hardcore socialism, right-wingers think you can either treat prisoners their way or turn their prisons into spas. If you disagree with them, pampering is what you're advocating, according to the right."
Steve also has a very good post on why Democrats have lost white men. It's about the economy, stupid.
Richard Perez-Pena of the New York Times: "For decades, officials at Bob Jones University told sexual assault victims that they were to blame for their abuse, and to not report it to the police because doing so would damage their families, churches and the university, according to a long-awaited independent report released Thursday. Bob Jones, an evangelical Christian institution in Greenville, S.C., displayed a 'blaming and disparaging' attitude toward abuse victims, according to 56 percent of the 381 current and former students and employees who replied to a confidential survey and said they had knowledge of how the university handled abuse cases."
God News
Kimberly Winston of Relgion News Service finds some swell Christmas cards for the cynical.
"The Christmas Resolution." Scott Kaufman of the Raw Story: "For the third time in four years, Colorado Representative Doug Lamborn (R) introduced a resolution intended to defend Christians against the so-called 'War on Christmas.'" Via Steve Benen.
Tony Perry of the Los Angeles Times: "The U.S. Senate passed a defense policy bill Friday that would allow a 43-foot cross to remain atop Mt. Soledad in San Diego, possibly ending a 25-year legal battle. A provision in the $577-billion measure calls for the federal government to sell the land beneath the cross to the Mt. Soledad Memorial Assn., which has pledged to retain the cross as part of a war memorial." Also via Benen.
Josephine McKenna of Religion News Service: "The Roman Catholic Church in Australia acknowledged that 'obligatory celibacy' may have contributed to decades of clerical sexual abuse of children in what may be the first such admission by church officials around the world. A church advisory group called the Truth, Justice and Healing Council made the startling admission Friday (Dec. 12) in a report to the government's Royal Commission, which is examining thousands of cases of abuse in Australia. The 44-page report by the council attacked church culture and the impact of what it called 'obedience and closed environments' in some religious orders and institutions."
Jon Shirek of WXIA-TV Atlanta: "Wednesday night, in a stunning reversal, the Kennesaw[, Georgia,] City Council said they plan to approve the new mosque that they rejected last week.... Council members did not say why they were changing their votes to Yes. But they knew that the city was facing a certain, and expensive, lawsuit by the Muslims claiming that the city was violating their Constitutional rights." Via Benen. ...
... MEANWHILE, in a nearby community, Gideons is intent upon distributing Christian Bibles to children at public schools even though it is aware the practice is illegal. In fact, as Hemant Mehta reports, according to an attorney for the Freedom from Religion Foundation, "The Gideons operate by deliberately avoiding superintendents and school boards. They advise their members to seek permission at the lowest level of authority. Usually, they target teachers and principals."
"Sorry, Fido." No, Pope Francis didn't say dogs would go to heaven. ...
... David Gibson of Religion News Service: "When The New York Times went with the story [that Pope Francis told a little boy he would see his dog in heaven], along with input from ethicists and theologians, it became gospel truth.... There's only one problem: none of it ever happened." The Times story is here, now with a lo-o-ong correction.
But Maybe Horses. Danielle Avitable of WJTV, Jackson, Mississippi: "Reverend Edward James of Bertha Chapel Missionary Baptist Church dressed his horse, Charlotte, in a makeshift wedding dress to protest same-sex marriage. 'The horse is to show the ridiculous idea of two men getting married,' says James." CW: If this guy has enough imagination to dress up a horse, why can't he imagine that "two men" would want to marry for the same reasons a man & a woman do?
News Lede
Guardian: "International negotiators at the Lima climate change talks have agreed on a plan to fight global warming that would for the first time commit all countries to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. The plan, agreed at United Nations talks on Sunday, was hailed as an important first step towards a climate change deal due to be finalised in Paris next year."
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Reader Comments (7)
Two science news headlines caught my attention this morning:
“Political leanings and time spent sitting around: Left wing 'armchair socialists' more physically active than political centrists” (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141211210040.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News)
“Study supports the theory that men are idiots” (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141211210038.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28Latest+Science+News)
The lovely Lab next door, the one we take care of when his mistress goes elsewhere, was almost beside himself this morning when I told him the Pope didn't really mean what we thought he meant about dogs going to heaven. Toby is distraught––had his heart set on romping away up in heaven feasting on real meat instead of those little dry nuggets of not much flavor every day. "Guess I'll just have to amuse myself by catching mice down here on earth," he told me this morning as he sniffed and sniffed under the shed for that prize munchie–-"Love to eat them mousies, mousies what I love to eat,bite they little heads off, nimble on they tiny toes" he mumbled as his tail was wagging and his nose was in the dirt. Like dogs, I guess we all have to settle for less nowadays. Praise Jesus!
PD, thanks for the laugh. I guess Pope Frank has just told dog lovers that for them there is no such thing as heaven. He's on a course to piss everyone off. Next he'll be telling us that he's been mixing his meds and according to the First Vatican Council of 1870, a stoned Pope is only kinda infallible.
However, I find it sad that a place that only exists in fantasy should be so closely described by a recipient of the largess proffered by those who live not in the present but in the eternal future. In contrast, all of my imaginary friends have parrots on their shoulders.
My wonderful old 3-legged Gentleman Cat, Tripod, died last week. He had "death with dignity" because, of course, we live in Oregon. I told him before he drifted into eternal sleep that Pope Frank said he would go to heaven. He blinked at me--which clued me in that he would much rather follow that old Indian Legend, "The Rainbow Bridge." So, I am sure he has crossed the Rainbow Bridge and, with all the rest of our many beloved pets, is waiting on the other side to reunite with me at the end of my journey. Works for me. Too bad, Pope Frankie! Some of us are not all that enthralled with the idea of heaven. Too many accountants--starting with St. Peter.
P.S. Our wonderful vet (who now reads Reality Chex) gave a donation to the local NPR in Tripod's name. And the station mentioned Tripod on air as having been an avid listener. The vet tried to make a donation to the DCCC, but their website was all screwed up, so he figured Tripod wouldn't consider that a tribute. Plus neither he nor Tripod much like(d) Hillary.
Kate, thanks for enlightening a pending NorCal coast immigrant on the Chumash rainbow bridge, and your homage to Tripod. Will never see dolphins the same way again. But is the bridge still up, or has it fallen into disrepair along with all the other infrastructure? If so, I'll write our Gov. Moonbeam.
Sorry, Whyte. “Gov. Moonbeam” sets my teeth on edge. The first thing you should learn as a NorCal immigrant is that Brown 2 is the best governor the state has had since his father’s tenure, and maybe for a long time before. The second thing is that Royko apologized for his stupid epithet.
James, mostly correct. I had thought Moonbeam had become a term of endearment in some circles. That said, I have been disappointed with the structure of the biggest issue of his term, the water bond, which gave way too much to industrial ag and if the storage plans are realized, will wreak yet more environmental distruction. Granted it was a price he felt he had to pay, but it is the same disappointment with POTUS on a few issues as well.