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
Tuesday
Sep082015
The Commentariat -- Sept. 8, 2015
** The GOP Against the World. Jonathan Chait: "Those who have consigned the world to its doom should reconsider. The technological and political underpinnings are at last in place to actually consummate the first global pact to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. The world is suddenly responding to the climate emergency with -- by the standards of its previous behavior -- astonishing speed. The game is not over. And the good guys are starting to win.... If this sounds surprisingly optimistic, that may be because you reside in a highly peculiar place: the United States of America.... Of course, it is unfortunate for the future of mankind that climate-change denialism has surfaced as a regional quirk in the most powerful country on Earth.... The world is racing to decarbonize before the Republican Party -- as constituted in its current, delirious form -- can regain power over the U.S.... Eventually the world will wean itself almost completely off carbon-based energy. There is, suddenly, hope." ...
... Andrew Restuccia of Politico: "Top Republican lawmakers are planning a wide-ranging offensive -- including outreach to foreign officials by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's office -- to undermine President Barack Obama's hopes of reaching an international climate change agreement that would cement his environmental legacy. The GOP strategy, emerging after months of quiet discussions, includes sowing doubts about Obama's climate policies at home and abroad, trying to block key environmental regulations in Congress, and challenging the legitimacy of the president's attempts to craft a global agreement without submitting a treaty to the Senate.... By design, the State Department is pushing for a broad political agreement that has buy-in from each country but won't carry the legal authority of a treaty -- getting around the Constitution's requirement that treaties be ratified through a two-thirds vote in the Senate." CW: Love the way Politico treats the GOP as normal.
Charles Pierce: "The Keystone pipeline would probably leak, just like TransCanada's other projects.... Pretty plainly, TransCanada puts its pipelines in the ground and then you're on your own, rube." ...
... CW: Leak? How about go ka-boom? Let's run an XL-Xtension under Mitch McConnell's house.
Welcome Back, Congress. Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Congress returns from its long summer vacation Tuesday to an all-out, three-week sprint to avert a government shutdown -- and no apparent plan yet to quell the conservative rebellion over Planned Parenthood that has dramatically increased the odds of a closure. The mad dash -- just 10 legislative work days to solve the shutdown crisis, in between major votes on the Iran nuclear deal and the first-ever papal address to a joint session of Congress -- presents a major test for Republican leaders in both chambers who vowed to end crisis-driven legislating."
Jake Sherman & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Figures in his close-knit circle of allies are starting to privately wonder whether [John Boehner] can survive an all-but-certain floor vote this fall to remain speaker of the House. And, for the first time, many top aides and lawmakers in the House do not believe he will run for another term as House leader in 2017."
Matt Apuzzo, et al., of the New York Times: Justice Department "conflicts with Apple and Microsoft reflect heightened corporate resistance, in the post-Edward J. Snowden era, by American technology companies intent on demonstrating that they are trying to protect customer information."
Gene Robinson: President Obama is on a roll. "Obama gives the impression of having rediscovered the joy of being president." CW: Actually, I think President Obama has been on a roll since late 2014, when it finally dawned on him he didn't have to be nice to Republicans who treat him like dirt & accuse him of everything from fascism to terrorism to communism to tyranny. So thanks to whoever convinced him (Michelle) to lay off the polite."
Juan Williams of the Hill: "#BlackLivesMatter is fast becoming its own worst enemy. It lacks an agenda, it is antagonizing the black community's top white political allies, including Democrats running for the party's 2016 presidential nomination, and it is not finding common ground with any of the Republican majority in Congress.... The movement's failure to get its collective act together carries real danger for the political clout of the African-American community in the 2016 elections and beyond. With the movement potentially discouraging black American trust in Democrats, #BlackLivesMatter is increasing the odds of a sharp drop in black voter turnout in 2016."
Nahal Toosi of Politico: "The Obama administration is 'actively considering' ways to help ease the growing refugee crisis in the Middle East and Europe, an official confirmed Monday as pressure increased on the United States to take in more of the desperate migrants. The White House gave no details as to what it may do, but the administration official suggested that the contours of the United States' refugee resettlement program, which as of now accepts up to 70,000 people a year, were being examined. If the administration decides to let in more refugees, it could prompt a backlash among Republicans who fear terrorists lurk among those seeking aid." ...
... Juan Cole: The "grim [U.S.] landscape of racism, religious prejudice, blaming the victim and racial exclusion from immigration is deja vu all over again. In the 30s, it was the Jews that the troglodytes didn't want. Steve Jobs's father was an immigrant from Syria. We need more like him, and we need fewer children washing up dead on beaches. If we're going to bomb Syria, we need to take care of the displaced." CW: Well, in fairness, Steve Jobs was a dick. Thanks to P. D. Pepe for the lead. ...
... Anthony Faiola, et al., of the Washington Post: German "Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabrie' ... said his country could take half a million refugees a year 'for several years,' even as some critics questioned Tuesday whether generous asylum policies serve to entice more migrants to make the dangerous trek for Western Europe." ...
... Elliot Hannon of Slate: "As the Syrian refugee crisis continues to land on Europe's shores, the continent's leading governments at last began to step up their effort to cope with the influx of Syrians and provide aid. Germany, the U.K., and France all offered to accept tens of thousands of people fleeing the war-torn country (and beyond) as pressure continued to build at access points to Europe."
Greg Sargent: "With Dick Cheney set to deliver a speech today attacking the Iran deal, the Dem-allied Americans United for Change is releasing a new video that recaps all of his claims that he was actually right about Iraq, and contrasts them with headlines illustrating the contrary rather vividly.... If there is anything that can get the last remaining undecided Senate Dems to back the deal, averting a veto-override fight, a high profile speech from Cheney is it." ...
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Chuck Todd V. Norma Rae. Jack Mirkinson in Slate: "Our media is [sic!] filled to the brim with stories of, by and for the wealthy.... A 2014 study by the stalwart media watchdog FAIR found that, over an eight-month period, exactly zero representatives of labor unions appeared on any of the five main Sunday talk shows. Billionaire CEOs, meanwhile, got lots of chances to put forward their vision of the American economy.... Every major news network in this country -- not to mention a good fraction of our top newspapers -- is owned by a multi-bajillion-dollar global conglomerate."
Presidential Race
Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "... Hillary Rodham Clinton is proposing a federal program to match small political campaign donations as a way to dilute the influence of megadonors and unregulated outside money. Clinton plans to release details of the plan Tuesday. Her campaign provided a preview Monday, as she campaigned in Iowa." ...
... Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "A special intelligence review of two emails that received as secretary of state on her personal account -- including one about North Korea's nuclear weapons program -- has endorsed a finding by the inspector general for the intelligence agencies that the emails contained highly classified information when Mrs. Clinton received them, senior intelligence officials said.... The special review -- by the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency -- concluded that the emails were 'Top Secret,' the highest classification of government intelligence, when they were sent to Mrs. Clinton in 2009 and 2011." ...
... Catherine Lucey of the AP: "Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she does not need to apologize for using a private email account and server while at the State Department because 'what I did was allowed.' In an interview with The Associated Press during a Labor Day campaign swing through Iowa, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination also said the lingering questions about her email practices while serving as President Barack Obama's first secretary of state have not damaged her campaign."
That's Napolean Trump in the center there. Via the New York Daily News.
Obnoxious from Day One. Michael Barbaro of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump, who received draft deferments through much of the Vietnam War, told [Michael D'Antonio,] the author of a forthcoming biography, that he nevertheless 'always felt that I was in the military' because of his education at a military-themed boarding school.... Mr. Trump memorably told Mr. D'Antonio that 'when I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I'm basically the same. The temperament is not that different.' Mr. Trump's preoccupation with winning -- at anything and everything, big or small -- dominated his youth. His mentor at the New York Military Academy, Theodore Dobias, called Mr. Trump 'a conniver, even then.'"
Beyond the Beltway
Not So Much Liking the Martyr Part of Martyrdom. Ralph Ellis & Ed Payne of CNN: "Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who's refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses, on Monday asked the Kentucky governor to immediately free her from jail, according to court documents obtained by CNN.... Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear's office said Monday he won't respond, noting that the conflict was a 'matter between her and the courts.'" ...
... Via the Raw Story.
Charles Pierce on the Washington State Supreme Court's decision disallowing public funding of charter schools. "There is now great scrambling among the masters of the universe because public accountability and democratic institutions can be so damned ... inconvenient. (Not that they're done. There are higher courts.) Public education should be conducted in public schools. Period. Good on the Washington Supremes for reinforcing this simple truth."
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Reader Comments (16)
A good piece by Juan Cole on the refugee problem. He brings us back to the crux of the matter by our invasion and destruction of Iraq which by the likes of the video linked above Cheney's head is still in the sand refusing to acknowledge even a teeny-tiny bit of responsibility for this awful mess.
Hate is a strong word but I feel intense hatred toward this man.
href="http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/whether_jewish_refugees_in_the_30s_syrians_today_us_falls_short_20150908">http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/whether_jewish_refugees_in_the_30s_syrians_today_us_falls_short_20150908
PD,
There is no question that the current refugee crisis in Europe is directly attributable to the puerile monkey machinations of Cheney and The Decider. And this is far more than unintended consequences, although their perfidy and arrogance certainly check that box twice over.
This is the result of the smothering miasma of ideology mixed with hubris and ignorance (all of which, by the way, describes the Bush administration to a T; the fact that Right Wing World has gotten worse since then speaks of the abomination of the Confederate world view), the admixture of which has scarred the world in so many ways, from the world-wide recession, a middle east in tatters with groups like ISIS causing mass emigration through murder and torture, the crisis in this country of thousands of returned vets in desperate condition, an economy that thrust millions into dire straits for years, not to mention the appalling erosion of civil liberties in this country.
And hard as I try, I cannot erase the twinned images of a dead baby washed up on a strand, human refuse tossed overboard by Bush/Cheney arrogance and incompetence while the Decider himself lolls in a bathtub painting his toes.
Meanwhile, Bush, the swaggering fraud, grins his stupid grin and Cheney snarls and bellows his brassy fabrications, maintaining that they were right all along, and they'd do it all again.
Even making sure that dead babies could wash up on lonely beaches. All for their personal glory.
One would hope that at the end of one's life, it could be said that they made a difference; that they left the world a better place.
The Bush criminals will die without ever acknowledging that they made the world infinitely worse. That they debased everything they touched and made life harder or impossible for millions of innocent people around the world. That is a horrific legacy. These people should be hiding in dark caves, not strutting about waving their tiny penises around.
Unforgiveable.
Trumpy declares that because he was in some military themed high school, he can say that he had actually served in the armed forces.
Really? Okay. I played baseball in high school and that home run I hit against St. Mary's in the playoffs? Just the same as me hitting a home run in the World Series off Sandy Koufax.
Only a megalomaniac could think that hippity-hopping around in some Napoleonic uniform with gold braids and shiny boots was the same as being shot at in the jungles of Southeast Asia. I wonder what Patrick and Barbarossa and other RC readers who have served in a war think about that.
Just imagine if a Democrat had said such a thing. Fox would be doing live stand-ups for 48 hours outside every military base in the country grabbing guys with no arms and legs, encouraging them to scale the heights of outrage at such temerity.
And the news that Trumpy is not prone to self-examination is about as surprising as The Decider's deer in the headlights look when told the country was under attack. The unexamined life. Perfect for someone who believes so fervently in his own superiority that he can say something like “For the most part, you can’t respect people because most people aren’t worthy of respect.”
I think you're all pieces of shit. But vote for me anyway. I know best.
@Akhilleus: Thanks for that. Photos added. Here's the related New York Daily News story (July 2015).
Marie
Those Sesame Street writers were painfully on point in the 2005 Donald Grump sketch: Bickering, pettiness, the real worker gets fired for doing honest work. Ouch!
Re: Steve Jobs. He may have been a dick, but he wasn't a jahadist. He was a Buddhist. He also built one of the most iconic companies in history.
Ak: Re: Trump and military school. As you frequently ask, where do these people come from?
Re: The Donald. My troops in Vietnam didn't get deferments, although many of them would like to have had them. To this day, I have nothing but admiration for my troops. For The Donald, contempt.
PD: I also have a visceral hatred for Cheney.
Although it was nice to see that even Foxbots are able to appreciate the essential stupidity and hypocrisy in the ongoing Rowan County Revue, they are not blameless in the hysteria surrounding the martyrdom of Saint Kim of Redneckia.
And as it usually happens with such circus acts, as the big top expands so too the number of Pecksniffian shysters and ersatz legal hangers-on eager to burnish their credentials with the knuckle dragging zealots. So now tales of the Trials of Saint Kim of Redneckia are accompanied by references to "her lawyers", plural. But the first guy is still as stupid as ever (comparing her being jailed for breaking the law with the Holocaust, e.g.) and even Fox(!) sees this.
BUT...
The malevolent love child of Murdoch and Ailes bears an enormous responsibility for this Pharisaical Punch and Judy show. First, for about the last 350 years, they've been plying the knuckle draggers with reminders of their status as victims, heroes, real 'mericans (who are thereby rendered superior both morally and patriotically), and....ta-da!...Martyrs. They've been telling these people that laws they don't like shouldn't apply to them, that their religious rights are not only paramount, but that they supersede everyone else's rights, because Jesus; and that Supreme Court justices who don't rule their way are traitors who make Jesus and George Washington cry themselves to sleep.
So imagine my surprise to hear them now complaining of the downright imbecility of people who hold to such claptrap.
Whoever could have gotten them to believe such ludicrous poppycock?
Musta been the Lib'rul Press. Rat bastards.
P.S. Love the bit about Saint Kim and "her lawyers" stamping their little feet and demanding that the governor let her out "immediately" if not sooner because she's already read her Bible three times over and Christ a'mighty, it's terrible hard kneeling on the floor clasping your hands together looking all saintly and shit for hours on end. Time for a butt, something really fattening, and some good ol' redneck TV shows starring the Duggars. Oh, and while you're at it, guv, pass a few laws telling everyone she can do whatever she likes and still get paid.
P.P.S. Many people have unrealistic images of themselves. Some just a tad more unrealistic than others. F'rinstance, here's Trumpy the Trumpet's view of himself. And this is Kim Davis'.
Reality, get thee gone.
@ Akhilleus
Your comment to the effect that President Bush and Vice President Cheney "...debased everything they touched..." reminded me of this portion of a perceptive January 18, 2006 op-ed in the New York Times by the then newly elected junior senator from Virginia, Jim Webb.
"Purple Heartbreakers....Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve, and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves."
To be reminded of what has become standard operating procedure
by far too many political operatives, read the whole piece which ends with a telling quote from Rudyard Kipling.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/18/opinion/18webb.html?_r=0
Didn't go to prep school, daddy wasn't a millionaire, no deferment, draft lottery number 36.
"And it's 1, 2, 3, what're we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
Next stop is Vietnam..."
BTW, if Le Donald's feet were healthy enough for him to do all that marching around at his posh military high school, was he too disabled even to be a clerk in the Quartermaster Corps?
As I think I've suggested here before: reinstitute the draft, call up in order of parent's net worth, preceded only by children and grandchildren of members of Congress.
Wow, more photos of Trumpy and his hats. Last week it was Ak's riff on the baseball cap with the gold braid. Today it's DT in his fake military parade dress uniform with a plume on his head, what deja vu.
In light of these images I might have stumbled upon an idea for a new adult toy (no, not that kind.)
I remember that as a kid my sister had a kit containing a laminated piece of pasteboard with some girly-type artwork on it. Included with this were some die-cut vinyl self-adhering pieces - dresses, hats, shoes, etc. - that you could mix and match to come up with various outfits. Something like this but I don't recall now exactly.
Imagine being able to do the same for "The Donald." His kit would contain an picture of his puss. You could dress him up with all kinds of different hats.
Here's just a few of the endless possibilities:
•Mexican sombrero
•Arabic keffiyeh
•Morrocan fez
•Chinese cone
•Viking helmet (with horns!)
•British deerhunter (ala Sherlock Holmes)
•
•
•
Knowning him, DT would prefer a Stetson with a gold badge on the front, maybe even a yoooge tiara.
What do you think, should I set up a GoFundMe page to see if there'd be any interest?
While we're remembering Confederate War Heroes, let us not neglect to pause and reflect upon the thrilling exploits of that intrepid Combat Corespondent Bill O'Reilly!
Well, it looks like smug triumphalist smirks all around for Christianist law-breaker and erstwhile martyr Kim Davis and her screeching supporters.
She has been let out of jail with the proviso that she not be a bad girl.
Do you really think anyone else who so defied a court order would be let go so quickly without even agreeing to that order? The judge has told her not to interfere with her clerks issuing same sex marriage licenses, but from her holy den of martyrdom, she issued a ruling that any such licenses did not have her imprimatur, and therefore were null and void. She's been released even though she has not told the judge she would abide by this condition.
Victims? Fuck that. These bastards are treated with kid gloves. This is just one more step on the road to theocracy.
Oh, and don't miss that greasy, opportunistic Christianist douchebag Mike Huckabee "leading" St. Kim of Redneckia out of the Roman Colosseum where she was awaiting the bite of liberal lions. He declared that he was ready to take St. Kim's place in "prison".
Such a pandering asshole.
Honestly, I am so fucking dismayed by this outcome. I knew it would happen. No court in the south would hold such a martyr to obeying the law while she was moaning about praying and reading the Bible and traitors and god.
Confederates will rejoice tonight. They've proven that they don't have to do anything they don't want. Just play the Jesus Card and they're ushered into the nearest waiting limo for their appearance on Fox for the evening "news".
Five days in jail for breaking the law and telling a federal judge to fuck himself? That will be good for five years on the deranged wingnut circuit. Let the money roll in.
Disgusting. Just disgusting.
Just wondering if holy man Huckabee would be willing to trade places with a young unemployed pregnant girl in Texas who has no access to healthcare or the possibility of a choice in her life due to policies he insists on imposing on all Americans regardless of their beliefs or needs.
Don't bother. You know the answer.
Akhilleus,
"...policies he insists on imposing on all Americans regardless of their beliefs..."
To which the Huckster will of course respond: "I'm not imposing anything, GOD is."
One more bit of bullshit then I'm done. The events of this day disgust me.
So the organ of Supporters of and Former Speechwriters for War Criminals Bush and Cheney, aka the Washington Post, just can't resist a good winger headline even if the headline itself is completely reversed in the story.
The breathless headline is "Clinton Apologizes!!" but this is in the body of the story:
"She would not apologize, she told the AP, because 'what I did was allowed.'"
She did say that she was sorry for the [e-mail] arrangement which I suppose could be construed that way. In that case, your headline needs to reflect that.
This is just more pandering to suckass wingers. Anyone just reading the headline gets a Confederate rush of "A-Ha!! See?!!"
Another bunch of sleazy whoremongers.
It cracks me up that the Washington Post is lumped in with the "Liberal Press". The Washington Post hasn't been anything close to liberal for years. They might as well just put out a press release saying, "You know what? We are against Democrats no matter what. Fuck them. And we are for Republicans no matter how stupid, criminal, irrational, or ideologically insane they are. We love 'em."
D.C.,
Quite. And that is exactly the problem. "It's not us saying you all have to eat shit and die. It's god!"
Another way to avoid responsibility for their policies and actions. Calling them cowards would be an insult to the professionally craven.