Koch Brothers Lose Their Investment

Not much of a ROI for the Koch Brothers from this guy.

I never understood how anyone could see Walker as the POTUS/CiC.  Apparently a lot of people couldn't either. 

Walker bragged that because he faced down unions in his state, he'd be able to easily handle ISIS. That inane comparison was an insight into his overblown assessment of his abilities. Wisconsin teachers are not the same as ISIS -- Duh! Then there was his absurd statement about building a wall between the U.S. and Canada -- he said that was a reasonable idea. Right. But he never explained how he would, as POTUS, get the wall built in the Great Lakes that share a border with the U.S. and Canada. Details, details! 

You've been beamed OUT of the race, Scottie.  Buh-bye!

The TGOP's Allergy to Facts

The extremist right wingers' preposterous insistence that President Obama is a Muslim (as if there were something unAmerican about that) is only one symptom of their allergy to facts. Some right wing pundit once stated that the TGOP creates its own reality, and we can observe that every day some wacko insists the POTUS is not a Christian but a Muslim, despite the truth that stares them in their allergy-to-facts faces:

Speaking of anti-Muslim baiters, Dr. Carson stepped in it again with his ignorance of the United States Constitution on full display.  The right wingers think this man, who knows practically nothing about our country's founding document, would make a nifty preznit! Because, you know, if you wanted someone to perform complicated brain surgery on your child, you'd go for the guy who knows how to install a garbage disposal in your kitchen sink!






By Michael Cohen:

"...Jake Tapper directed a question to Carson about the connection between vaccines and autism..."

This isn’t a complicated issue. There is no link between vaccines and autism. None. That should have been the answer when the question was posed to an actual medical doctor such as Carson. But Carson demurred. Instead of answering, he pivoted to a bizarre complaint about big government and the size of the federal workforce."

[skip]

"And when Trump, who has for years trumpeted the autism/vaccine link, claimed that he wasn’t opposed to vaccines but that they should be spread out (which actually increases the risks of spreading deadly diseases), Carson went along with him. While he noted that there is no known connection between vaccines and autism, Carson also said, “We’re probably giving way too many.”

[skip]

"[Rand]Paul thinks “freedom” is more important than public health. It’s one thing to marvel at the unprecedented and stupefying levels of GOP know-nothingness on display this election season — the misstatements, the untruths, the exaggerations, the falsehoods, and the straight-up lies. But these vaccine comments represent a legitimate public health menace. And it’s indicative of the allergy to facts, data, and evidence that is the real story of the GOP debate, and indeed of the Republican nominating contest — and we need to be talking more about it."

[skip]


"Carly Fiorina went further into crazy land than Rubio by calling for “aggressive military exercises in the Baltic states” and no dialogue at all with Russia. She also said that Iran has “talked Vladimir Putin into aligning themselves with Iran and Syria to prop up Bashar al-Assad” — as if Russian support for Assad doesn’t go back decades. These are minor points that few nonwonks noticed, but it’s indicative of how ill-informed so many of the comments were during the debate; and how reluctant (or too ill-informed) debate moderators are to point out these statements are wrong. 

 We joke about this stuff, but after a while it’s no longer funny. The Republican Party is dominated by candidates who are proudly, even boastfully ignorant. Rejecting the clear science on vaccines or climate change is practically the price of admission even to be considered a legitimate presidential candidate. 

Playing on xenophobic fears of immigrants by lying about the economic costs and threats to American workers — pro forma. It reached a point Wednesday night when a candidate actually saying something true was an event worthy of note. But make no mistake, the descent of the Republican Party into dishonesty, lies, and cravenness is no joke. It’s a national crisis."

Sunday Night Poetry

Nano-Knowledge
by Heather McHugh

There, a little right
of Ursus Major, is
the Milky Way:
a man can point it out,
the biggest billionfold of all
predicaments he's in:
his planet's street address.

What gives? What looks
a stripe a hundred million
miles away from here

is where we live.

*

Let's keep it clear. The Northern Lights
are not the North Star. Being but
a blur, they cannot reassure us.
They keep moving - I think far
too easily. September spills

some glimmers of
the boreals to come:
they're modest pools
of horizontal haze, where later

they'll appear as foldings in the vertical,
a work of curtains, throbbing dim
or bright. (One wonders at
one's eyes.) The very sight
will angle off in glances or in shoots
of something brilliant, something

bigger than we know, its hints uncatchable
in shifts of mind ... So there

it is again, the mind, with its
old bluster, its self-centered
question: what

is dimming, what is bright?
The spirit sinks and swells, which cannot tell
itself from any little luster. 

Heather McHugh

Sunday Science Blog

When the going gets tough, Trump the Wimp gets going.

Criticism against the Trumpster by Republicans and Democrats has resulted in Donald Trump, at the last minute, pulling out of a Republican forum he was going to attend in South Carolina on Friday. Using "he's gotta close a deal" as an excuse, the little coward backed out as more people call him out for not condemning the crazy guy in New Hampshire who claimed President Obama was not an American citizen, but a Muslim, and that President Obama wants to kill him.



"We have a problem in this country. It's called Muslims," an unidentified man who spoke at a question-and-answer town hall event in Rochester, New Hampshire asked the mogul at a rally Thursday night. 

"You know our current president is one. You know he's not even an American." 

 A seemingly bewildered Trump interrupted the man, chuckling, "We need this question. This is the first question." 

 "Anyway, we have training camps growing where they want to kill us," the man, wearing a "Trump" T-shirt, continued. "That's my question: When can we get rid of them?" 

 "We're going to be looking at a lot of different things," Trump replied. "You know, a lot of people are saying that and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening. We're going to be looking at that and many other things." 

 The real estate mogul did not correct the questioner about his claims about Obama before moving on to another audience member.

From Politicususa:


Donald Trump is proving that there is no spine behind his bluster. Instead of facing the music for his birtherism, Trump has gone into hiding. The excuse that Trump had to back out of a big public event at the last minute because of a business deal closing doesn’t wash, because Donald Trump has business deals closing all of the time.

[skip]

Anyone who isn’t a Republican doesn’t believe in the birther conspiracy. By not correcting his supporters who claimed during a rally yesterday that the President is a foreign born Muslim, Trump has doomed himself to fringes of the Republican Party. The campaign has gotten hard for Trump, and his first reaction was to run away and hide. How is Trump supposed to make America great again when he can’t handle negative media coverage?





So the wind bag is starting to collapse, and his wimpiness, his cowardice in not standing up to the obviously crazy idiot who slandered the US president is there for all to see.

If you can't stand up to a feeble-minded dolt, Donnie, you're not fit to be president of a sewing circle, never mind the most powerful country on the planet.

The Kids Are Alright, Part V

Adults could learn a lesson or two from these supportive teens.

Good for them, and good for Ahmed Mohamed.


Kids Fight Back Against Racist School and Police By Bringing Clocks To School

We're proud of you, America.

And for all you haters who slander and demonize all Muslims...

Irving, Texas, Teen Arrested for Doing Science

By now you've read the depressing story about Ahmed Mohamed:



Northwest Dallas CountyAhmed Mohamed swept up, 'hoax bomb' charges swept away as Irving teen's story floods social media


 All one has to do to understand the over-reaction to this teenager's self-conducted science project--a homemade digital clock--is read what the far right wingers say daily on their blogs about people like Ahmed and his family. Go read those blogs and you'll find far right TGOPers saying what is quoted below. No, I will not link to any of them. (Please remember that the people who write this also become very pius every Sunday by blogging about a loving, all-accepting Jesus Christ):




"So a mistake was made, ok it's over, do we have to invite the kid to the White House and kiss his ass to apologize ? Or maybe we should hold a Beer or a Coke summit in the Rose Garden! Muslim problems pop up all the time. We can't always be right. 

The president is too obvious where his allegiance lies. TRAITOR to the American People. 

Our congresscritters should have stopped this asshole years ago. Weapons (small arms and manpads) are probably scattered all over the country and they won’t dare inspect a mosque for fear of offending these sand rats. I thought we would have a bad summer but we better be prepared for one helluva winter. If anything happens along the lines of 9/11, I hope that it starts where all these progressives live. Maybe then the elites will realize that they are on the jihadis’ list too."



"Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, says his country will accept only Christian refugees as it would be “false solidarity” to force Muslims to settle in a country without a single mosque." It sounds like Slovakia is way ahead of the curve! As for those ports-of-entry into Europe, the only food that should be served is pork: sausages, ham, bacon, pig's feet, etc. Anyone refusing to eat it or getting sick from eating it should be sent back to the Moslem Hell Hole from whence they came!"


"I also posted this on another popular blog site in light of PS tolerance for filthy Moslem vermin and here as a testament to plummeting SAT scores!"


"...yea, a disarmed society requires the vast majority to be willing participants in non-violence. That's not so in Europe anymore with the moslem invasion and economic strife. Honestly folks, with all the vermin you iknow are running around in the USA do you really want to disarm? Wow."


"Conservatives need to stop laying[sic] down. People who are not interested in this lifestyle need to stop laying[sic] down. And here's a tip for any lib progressives. No one has to like you. No one has to like LGBT people. No one has to like or even accept moslem vermin. Got a problem with that?"




"We certainly can't round 'em all up and put em in concentration camps, and even if we could, it would NOT solve the problem. The Nazis tried it with people THEY didn't like, and didn't THAT backfire BIG TIME over the long haul? The very people the Nazis tried to exterminate systematically once freed by the Allies soon recovered, then returned with a vengeance to became more powerful and influential than they ever had been at any time in their prior history."


"I agree about Obummer being Muslim as many intelligent and prominent figures have said (Of course, the intelligence requirement would exclude the Dems.). But the Muslims by sheer multiplication have become the proverbial octopus, encircling the prey..."

*********************

I invoke Godwin's law here because the people who write what is quoted above have much in common with the people who slandered the Jews.


Early in his membership in the Nazi Party, Hitler presented the Jews as behind all of Germany's moral and economic problems, as featuring in both Bolshevism and international capitalism. He blamed "money-grubbing Jews" for all of Weimar Germany's economic problems. He also drew upon the antisemitic elements of the stab-in-the-back legend to explain the defeat in World War I and to justify their views as self-defense. In one speech, when Hitler asked who was behind Germany's failed war efforts, the audience erupted with "The Jews."

After the failure of the Beer Hall Putsch in November 1923, he moderated his tone for the trial, centering his defense on his selfless devotion to the good of the Volk and the need for bold action to save them; though his references to the Jews were not eliminated (speaking, for instance, of "racial tuberculosis" in "German lungs"), they were decreased to win support. Some Nazis feared their movement lost its antisemitic edge, and Hitler privately assured them that he regarded his previous views as mild.

Mein Kampf raged against Jews as a dangerous bacillus.


In 1933, Hitler's speeches spoke of serving Germany and defending it from its foes: hostile countries, Communism, liberals, and culture decay.


Read any of the far right wing blogs and you'll find these exact same themes applied to Liberals/Progressive, the LGBT communities, African-Americans, Hispanics, and Muslims.

Is anyone surprised that Ahmed Mohamed was treated as a terrorist instead of as a young man who aspires to be a scientist?


MORE HERE.

Wednesday is Trump Hump Day

Here's another look at the type of person who supports the Trumpster:


‘Clean my hotel room, b*tch': More Trump fans caught making racist remarks at Latinos


“The Mexicans are the hairs of a*sholes. Viva Donald Trump,” one 30-year-old woman reportedly said in both English and Spanish. The woman, who identified herself only as “Jackie,” also told one demonstrator, “Clean my hotel room, b*tch.”



This is the sort of gutter-brained hater who supports a demagogue like Donald Trump. 

Is this how he wants to make America great again? 

He's an inspiration to the worst of the worst impulses in America.



From the Dallas Morning News:

Editorial: All Donald the Vulgarian can do is drag the GOP down with him


"...this phenomenon, for lack of a better term, has ceased to be about Donald Trump. As in years past, it’s now more about the people who say they support him, hell (quite possibly) or high water (undoubtedly). 

What Trump drives home through ill-considered remarks about Mexican immigrants, former Vietnam POW John McCain and now Fox News host Megyn Kelly is that he’s no plain-spoken candidate of character. He doesn’t even pretend to play one on TV. What his remaining fans support is someone willing to mouth in public the words of the proudly xenophobic, ignorant and misogynistic. That he believes there’s a market for that among actual Republicans is unfortunate — for Republicans. 

Look, we understand his mile-wide, inch-deep surface appeal. He insists he’s the one anti-political-correctness candidate. “He tells it like it is,” instead of offering stereotypically squishy, over-focus-grouped talking points. He sounds so fearless because he’ll say anything to anybody. Except he’s not. 

He whines and complains when a debate moderator asks him pointed and perfectly within-bounds questions about things he has done or said. When that questioner is a woman, he steps down from the gutter — or wherever — and tries to bully her into silence, then denies what the world understood him to say. Disagree? Well, “stupid,” that puts you among the “slobs,” “fat pigs,” “idiots,” “dogs” or “disgusting animals.” You don’t have to like Rosie O’Donnell or Megyn Kelly to be repelled by such crassness. All you have to be is a human being with a brain and common sense. 

We’re confident such Republican voters still exist. Telling it like it is doesn’t have to mean stooping to the vulgar extremes. Someone actually running for president would know that; someone play-acting as a candidate caricature might not. Or, in Donald Trump’s case, clearly doesn’t. 

 His chance of winning the GOP nomination is nil, and he won’t even promise to support the nominee. All he can do is drag a party down with him."




And no, the fact that we and others see the Trumpster for what he is -- vulgar, crass, thin-skinned, whining demagogue with nothing of substance to offer -- doesn't mean we're "scared" of him.  That's what the Tea Party fans of Sarah Palin said when we criticized her.  Where is she now?  

No, we're not afraid of the Trumpster, we're appalled that so many people are supporting this short-fingered vulgarian who promises them everything by saying nothing.  

He's just gonna be great and he'll be winning so much that we Americans will be sick of winning. That's his promise.  A ten-year old playing "King of the Hill" would promise the same.  The only difference is that the ten-year old's playmates would have the brains to laugh at him instead of believing his empty boasting.

Liberals vs. Conservatives on Quality of Life Issues

From the blog "Why Evolution is True," a number of charts that show differences between liberal/conservative areas of the U.S.A.

Think of these charts and remember them when conservatives tell everyone how superior their political ideology is.

Look at how well, for example, the liberal northeast does compared with the very conservative southeast, deep south, and southwest on quality of life issues.

If conservatism is a superior ideology, why do conservative run states do so poorly in quality of life issues?  


The comparisons begin with religiosity:

Teen birth rate:

Overall accessibility and quality of health care:








Life expectancy: Healthy years of life beyond age 65:

Levels of poverty by state:

















 Human development (well being) by state:


Levels of

Sunday Night Poetry

The End
by Mark Strand

Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,

Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like

When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,

Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.

When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,

When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down

No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.

When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky

Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus

And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,

Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing

When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.

Sunday Science Blog

Found via Three Quarks Daily

It’s Been 6 1/2 Years Obama – Where’s The FEMA Camps, Sharia Law, Suspension of the Constitution?

It’s Been 6 1/2 Years Obama – Where’s The FEMA Camps, Sharia Law, Suspension of the Constitution?


"...here are three,,,allegations, myths, lies regarding the Obama agenda that have failed to come true in spite of the 6+ years Obama has been in office.

 FEMA Camps

The rumor of the wide-spread detention of gun-toting, God-loving Americans being placed, by the millions, into FEMA camps has been around for years now. Late last year, Morgan Brittany, actress and host of conservative online show PolitiChicks, won a gold star for her assertion that “the Obama administration has ‘orchestrated’ Ebola and other crises in order to declare ‘martial law’ and seize everyone’s guns,”



Islamic/Sharia Law

Our favorite rumor regarding Obama’s plans to impose Islamic/Sharia law on the United States comes from an interview last year with Jim Garrow. As Right-Wing Watch reported last February, in an interview with “The Rundown," right-wing huckster Jim Garrow cited the completely bogus conspiracy theory that Obamacare is paving the way for legal decapitation by guillotine, which he claims is part of President Obama’s plan to impose Islamic law on America.”




Martial Law 

We have heard for years about the imminent suspension of the Constitution and the imposition of martial law. In spite of the obvious absurdity of such claims, there are those who go much further than that. One such example can be found, yet again, with insane Jim Garrow. The story begins with a Facebook post from January 2013 in which he claimed that Obama is purging military leadership of anyone unwilling to fire on U.S. citizens. 

 I have just been informed by a former senior military leader that Obama is using a new “litmus test” in determining who will stay and who must go in his military leaders. Get ready to explode folks. “The new litmus test of leadership in the military is if they will fire on US citizens or not”. Those who will not are being removed. – Dr. Jim Garrow – January 21, 2013

Needless to remind everyone, but I will, that the people who eat up these conspiracy theories are the same people who support Donald Trump.  

Also the woman, Kim Davis, who tried to impose her brand of Christianity on gay couples seeking marriage licenses in Kentucky apparently doesn't understand that disobeying the law carries consequences. If her deeply held religious beliefs prevent her from carrying out the duties under the law that she swore to uphold, then she should resign and find other work. 

We are a secular nation under secular laws. Those who support Davis would never accept, say, a devout Muslim woman in the same position who refused to issue a marriage license to a couple if the woman was not wearing a hijab, would they? They would never accept a devout, anti-gun religionist refusing to sell a firearm to someone. Would they not tell that person to find other work because Second Amendment! 

Marriage equality is the law of the land, Davis and her fellow religionists don't understand that the United States is a secular nation that protects all religions, and not just her brand of Christianity.  Her, and especially Mike Huckabee's, argument is invalid.


The Bible Doesn’t Have Authority Over The Constitution And Here’s Why That’s Good News

September 11, 2001 -- Kevin McCarthy

Remembering him and all who lost their lives.

Kevin McCarthy

I measure every Grief I meet
by Emily Dickinson
I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing, eyes – I wonder if It weighs like Mine – Or has an Easier size. I wonder if They bore it long – Or did it just begin – I could not tell the Date of Mine – It feels so old a pain – I wonder if it hurts to live – And if They have to try – And whether – could They choose between – It would not be – to die – I note that Some – gone patient long – At length, renew their smile – An imitation of a Light That has so little Oil – I wonder if when Years have piled – Some Thousands – on the Harm – That hurt them early – such a lapse Could give them any Balm – Or would they go on aching still Through Centuries of Nerve – Enlightened to a larger Pain – In Contrast with the Love – The Grieved – are many – I am told – There is the various Cause – Death – is but one – and comes but once – And only nails the eyes – There's Grief of Want – and grief of Cold – A sort they call "Despair" – There's Banishment from native Eyes – In sight of Native Air – And though I may not guess the kind – Correctly – yet to me A piercing Comfort it affords In passing Calvary – To note the fashions – of the Cross – And how they're mostly worn – Still fascinated to presume That Some – are like my own –

The Iran Deal: Clinton vs. Trump

Serious vs. Clown:



From Politico:



The contrasts were stark. She [Hillary Clinton] spoke inside a windowless think tank auditorium, from a podium and with a teleprompter. Chilled water and a conversation in upholstered chairs awaited nearby. Her address was substantive, serious and staid. “Is it perfect? Well, of course not. No agreement like this ever is,” she said of the Iran deal. “But is it a strong agreement? Yes it is.”

 He [Donald Trump] spoke in the beating midday heat before a raucous, tea party-organized rally of more than 1,000 at the foot of the Capitol. He flashed a thumbs up as supporters screamed “Donald!” and waved pro-Trump signs. “Never ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran,” he said. “And I mean never.”

This was Clinton in her element, and Trump in his. She offered a detailed policy defense of the Iran deal. He inveighed against it with insults. She lectured. He hectored. “Diplomacy is not the pursuit of perfection. It is the balancing of risk.” Clinton explained.

“We are led by very, very stupid people,” said Trump. “Very, very stupid people. We cannot let it continue.”



 [skip]



Trump continued to say absolutely NOTHING and continued to impress the people who love candidates who insult, hector, taunt, and say ABSOLUTELY NOTHING:



Trump, unsurprisingly, stole the show. “We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with winning. Believe me,” Trump said to loud cheers. “I agree: You’ll never get bored with winning!”




Trump is the personification of a demagogue:


dem·a·gogue ˈdeməˌɡäɡ/ 

noun a political leader who seeks support by appealing to popular desires and prejudices rather than by using rational argument. 

synonyms: rabble-rouser, agitator, political agitator, soapbox orator, firebrand, fomenter, provocateur


There it is nation.  The TGOP want a thrice-married, rabble-rousing clown, who made fun of a POW, who insulted an entire country and its culture, who denigrated not just Megyn Kelly with his menstruation taunts, but Carly Fiorini's looks, to represent them.  


Trump insults Carly Fiorini's looks:


"Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our nextpresident?!" the magazine quotes Trump as saying while he and his staff watch a television appearance by Fiorina. "I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not s'posedta say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?" 



Jeebus, Mary and Joe Pepitone!  Can you imagine what this blatherskite would say about Germany's Angela Merkel? Imagine Trump making insulting remarks about female heads of state?!  But more to the point:  Who are the minnow-brained clotpoles who support this national embarrassment?

Wait. I know.  They're the people who have feasted on hatred and bigotry ever since November of 2008, and they now have a perfect candidate to represent all they stand for.

Trump isn't anything new on the world's political stage.  Just ask the Italians.

Donald Trump:  The Don Rickles of politicians.

Wednesday is Trump Hump Day

The Sanctity of Marriage, Tea Party Style

Remember how people claimed marriage equality would destroy  the sanctity of marriage?

Well, here are some of the leading lights of the Tea Party who believe in the sanctity of marriage so much that between the 4 of them, they've serial-married for a total of 14 times. And the people who howled the most about those icky gays "shoving their icky marriages down our throats" have zero to say about serial marriages and divorces.  

They're even dreaming of having one of them in the White House with his third and current centerfold wife.

Progressive Eruptions Will Be Away For A While

My older sister passed away early this morning.

GOP's continuing outreach to Hispanics: FAIL

Busy week ahead.  Light posting.  But here's one we're not surprised to read:



GOP Director of Hispanic Outreach Quits and Becomes Democrat 


When Republicans appointed Pablo Pantoja to State Director of Florida Hispanic Outreach for the Republican National Committee, they hoped he would be able to bridge the sizable gap that only expanded during the 2012 elections, when the state’s 4.7 million Hispanic voters supported Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a 20 percent margin. 

But after months of inaction by Congressional Republicans on comprehensive immigration reform and stiff resistance by Republican-leaning groups like the Heritage Foundation, Pantoja has had enough; on Monday, he announced via email that he was leaving the party and registering as a Democrat: 

Friend,

Yes, I have changed my political affiliation to the Democratic Party. It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them. 

Pantoja goes on to specifically cite last week’s revelation — that an author of Heritage’s false report on the cost of the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill wrote a dissertation in which he suggested that Hispanics are at a permanent disadvantage because they have lower IQs — as the final straw in his political evolution.

Sunday Night Poetry

The Peace of Wild Things

BY WENDELL BERRY

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Hold Your Horses!

Video of the week. 

(How many works of art/artists can you identify?)

Enjoy!