Politics

Department of Can't Make This Stuff Up... Dog Poop, Hipsters More Popular Than Congress In Latest Public Policy Polling Survey The Huffington Post | By Ryan Grenoble Posted: 10/08/2013 4:55 pm EDT | Updated: 10/08/2013 5:00 pm EDT Congressional approval currently languishes at historic lows, but what does that really mean? According to the latest figures from Public Policy Polling, Congress has an 8 percent approval rating. The survey, conducted by the agency from Oct. 4 - 6, found that a nationally representative group of 502 voters had a higher opinion of dog poop than Congress, by an (ahem) "potent" 7 percent margin. In an interesting twist, hipsters --…

The only mention of choosing the Speaker of the House in the Constitution resides in the statement: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment. Thus there is no requirement that he be a member of Congress or anything else other than the choice of the House. So why haven't these ideological House stalwarts of the new GOP not pressed to install as Speaker a national Conservative voice imbued with the real truths of ideological conservatism? It would not lessen the number of votes in the House, just that the new Speaker would not be able to vote. (The Speaker often doesn't vote now as a matter o…

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/02/turing-snowden-transatlantic-pact-modern-surveillance

Kindly cut out the crap, chaps People have been talking "crap" in parliament. Literally. The Speaker, John Bercow, has spoken about the usage of the word in the House of Commons. Labour MP Bill Esterson used the word in reference to what David Cameron said about dropping environmental policies or, as Cameron is said to have put it, "green crap". Esterson wanted the prime minister to explain what he meant by "green crap". Then Tory MP Alok Sharma tweeted about "EUredtapecrap". Suddenly, crap was getting out of hand. Crap was flying everywhere. What could be done about all this crap? Enter Bercow, who said that "crap" was not a parliamentary word and it would not be tole…

Newsweek.com takes a look at CGI, a company that is more a part of the US Government than you might think. In an amazing story, we see that Obama farmed out- outsourced- the creation of the health care website, then sat back and let them bungle it. But, how can we blame the president when so much of the government is outsourced these days? http://www.newsweek.com/too-big-succeed-207325 will give you a good example of how our government has changed, and who really runs it these days. This outsourcing is highly popular throughout the government and the military, something I doubt the Founding fathers envisioned, and something most Americans might not even be aware of. I kn…

A bit of good news from the U.K., advancing same-sex rights over the claim that religious freedom should trump civil rights. Hazelmary And Peter Bull, Christian Hotel Owners Who Turned Away Gay Couple, Lose AppealReuters | Posted: 11/27/2013 7:17 am EST * Case highlights shift in British views on homosexuality * Christians said wanted only married couples at hotel By Estelle Shirbon LONDON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Britain's Supreme Court rejected on Wednesday an appeal from a devoutly Christian couple who denied two gay men a room at their hotel, saying this constituted discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. In its judgment, the court said the high…

Nuclear weapons: Who has what? More than two dozen countries have nuclear power, but only a few have nuclear weapons or are suspected of pursuing nuclear weapons. Click on a country below to learn more about their nuclear programs. [sorry graphics don't copy well. Original article at http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2013/03/world/nuclear-weapon-states/?iid=article_sidebar -- AS] Known to have nuclear weapons Suspected to have nuclear weapons Pursuing nuclear weapons Suspected to be pursuing nuclear weapons* * Iran maintains that it is enriching uranium for civilian energy purposes only, but the International Atomic Energy Agency says Iran has not be…

Any thoughts that the so called first steps to "solving" the Iran nuclear threat are fraught with at least as much danger as we had before? Sure, I would like to believe that "something" is better than nothing but there are so many "bad" possibilities that I am not sure in this case that we have indeed achieved "something". Also, I cannot deny the thought that this is one more example of BO trying to deflect the abysmal performance of Obamacare with "another triumph". He seems to have a by now long history of same. However, I fully agree that any pol is likely to do whatever he can to "get the heat off". That does not make it right. Best regards, RA1

November 16, 2013 Obama Says Americans Can Keep Their Damn InsurancePosted by Andy Borowitz WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Faced with a barrage of new questions about the Affordable Care Act, President Obama cut short a White House press conference today, telling the stunned press corps, “You know what? Everybody can keep their damn insurance.” Glaring at the reporters, the President continued, “You heard me. If your insurance is crappy, then you just go ahead and keep it—the crappier, the better. Let’s pretend this whole thing never happened.” A vein in his forehead visibly throbbing, the President added, “You know, I really wish I hadn’t spent the last three ye…

November 26, 2013 Why the Iran Deal Scares Saudi Arabia Posted by F. Gregory Gause The New Yorker After the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany concluded a preliminary agreement with Iran on Sunday, it did not take long for regional critics of the deal to react. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, blasted the agreement as “a historic mistake.” Saudi Arabia, the other American ally in the Middle East worried about an opening to Iran, took a different approach, issuing a carefully worded statement that cautiously welcomed the deal. The Saudis have no allies in American politics to rally against the Obama Administration, and no …

There are, it seems, tumblrs about everything. http://fuckyeahalbertspeer.tumblr.com

Sex in the Senate Bobby Baker's salacious secret history of Capitol Hill. By TODD S. PURDUM Politico Magazine November 19, 2013 On Jan. 1, 1943, Robert Gene Baker arrived in Washington at the height of World War II to become a Senate page. Two decades later, this son of a mailman from Pickens, S.C., had become the reigning Washington wheeler-dealer and fixer of his day as secretary to the Senate’s Democratic majority. In the era of President John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier, Baker was indispensable on Capitol Hill: The Man Who Knew Too Much. Exactly 50 years ago this fall, in the face of a widening official investigation into his private business dealings and vivid soc…

John Edwards is starting a new Raleigh law firm By David Ranii dranii@newsobserver.com November 18, 2013 Updated 7 hours ago Law firm partners Cate Edwards, former US Senator John Edwards and David Kirby at the Edwards Kirby law firm on Monday November 18, 2013 in Raleigh, N.C. JILL KNIGHT — jhknight@newsobserver.com RALEIGH — John Edwards, the former U.S. senator and presidential candidate whose political career was derailed by a sex scandal that transfixed the nation, is returning to what initially thrust him into the public spotlight: practicing law. In a Monday afternoon interview with The News & Observer, Edwards said he is reuniting with his form…

...by A. Scott Berg. Looks good. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/10/woodrow-wilson-scott-berg-conspiracy

David Miranda Is Nobody’s Errand Boy When Glenn Greenwald’s 28-year-old Brazilian partner was detained in London this summer while transporting documents related to the bombshell Edward Snowden story, many assumed he was unfairly roped into a situation he didn’t understand. That couldn’t be further from the truth. posted on November 14, 2013 at 10:40pm EST Natasha Vargas-Cooper BuzzFeed Contributor Photograph by Jimmy Chalk for BuzzFeed David Miranda and I are debating whether or not to take off our shirts in the middle of a throbbing dance floor inside the heart of gay Rio de Janeiro. Silvery blue lights and men the size of sparrows swirl around us as we gauge…

"A minister in Netanyahu's inner security cabinet, Naftali Bennett, flew to Washington this week to urge members of Congress, many of whom are very close to Israel, to reject the proposed Iran deal. "I think more and more members of the House and Senate understand now ... that the deal being formed is a deal that removes the sanctions without dismantling the Iranian nuclear machine," Bennett told Israel Radio on Friday." http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.558257 Can you imagine the hoorah that would be raised if a senior US cabinet secretary flew to Israel unbidden and openly lobbied individual Knesset members to sabotage the most delicate and critical Is…

It is just starting to hit me that Dems are undercutting the president on Obamacare. After the GOP tried so hard to undo it after it became law, will the Dems actually help them out? http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/11/12/dianne-feinstein-joins-bill-to-change-affordable-care-act/ http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Clinton-Obama-should-honor-health-care-pledge-4977273.php

An appreciation of him, for a change. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/prince-charles/10436121/Prince-Charles-at-65-A-modern-man-of-undimmed-energy-ready-to-be-king.html

Larry Flynt urges clemency for Joseph Paul Franklin, the killer who shot himPornographer and civil liberties advocate calls for neo-Nazi to be spared, saying death penalty is 'not justice but vengeance' Edward Helmore in New York The Observer, Saturday 19 October 2013 08.43 EDT Larry Flynt: 'This nation is bent on executing people and it’s hard to get people who feel that way to be rational.' Photograph: Dan Tuffs/Getty Images By the brutal norms of American capital punishment, few recipients of a lethal injection will trouble consciences less deeply than Joseph Paul Franklin. In a spree of racially motivated violence across the US in the late 1970s, the Ku Kl…

Why Terry McAuliffe barely won By JAMES HOHMANN | 11/6/13 1:06 AM EST politico.com How the heck did that happen? Most public polls leading up to Election Day had Democrat Terry McAuliffe coasting to victory, some by double digits, in the Virginia governor’s race. Instead he squeaked by, beating Republican Ken Cuccinelli by less than 3 percentage points. The much-closer-than-expected outcome blunts the narrative that this was a clean win for Democrats going into 2014 and guarantees an intense blame game among Republicans about what might have put Cuccinelli over the top. Based on a review of returns, exit polls and conversations with operatives, here are six takeawa…

It would be funny...

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/rand-paul-plagiarism-accusations-99362.html?hp=r1

John Boehner will not support ENDA vote. He believes it will hurt small businesses and create all these new lawsuits. He is a total moron. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/04/john-boehner-enda_n_4212250.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/04/cia-doctors-torture-suspected-terrorists-9-11