I’m swamped! That’s always the case at the first of the month. Between today’s normal research and collecting the data for tomorrow’s Monthly Report, I have already put in over eight hours on the4 blog today. in addition, I’m waiting for Store to Door to call for my grocery order. Tomorrow is a grocery delivery day. I have bills to pay, and a guy has been using a jackhammer in the street below me for the last three hours. Other than that, not much is going on.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:37 (average 5:16). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From: I Side With (Hat-Tip Mamabear): Answer the following questions to see how your beliefs match each political party
Click through to take the quiz to see which candidate is most like you. Mt Results: Bernie Sanders 98%, Hillary Clinton 85%, Martin O’Malley 80%.
From The New Yorker: As America’s bridges, roads, and other infrastructure dangerously deteriorate from decades of neglect, there is a mounting sense of urgency that it is time to build a giant wall.
Across the U.S., whose rail system is a rickety antique plagued by deadly accidents, Americans are increasingly recognizing that building a wall with Mexico, and possibly another one with Canada, should be the country’s top priority.
Harland Dorrinson, the executive director of a Washington-based think tank called the Center for Responsible Immigration, believes that most Americans favor the building of border walls over extravagant pet projects like structurally sound freeway overpasses.
“The estimated cost of a border wall with Mexico is five billion dollars,” he said. “We could easily blow the same amount of money on infrastructure repairs and have nothing to show for it but functioning highways.”
Andy is clearly doing straight news again.
From NY Times: President Obama on Monday issued a global call for urgent action to address climate change, declaring that the United States was partly to blame for what he called the defining challenge of the century and would rally the world to counter it.
“Climate change is no longer some far-off problem; it is happening here, it is happening now,” Mr. Obama said here at an international conference on the Arctic. “We’re not acting fast enough. I have come here today, as the leader of the world’s largest economy and its second-largest emitter, to say that the United States recognizes our role in creating the problem, and we embrace our responsibility to help solve it.”
Clearly Obama has dome more to combat climate change than any other president in history. Now he needs to shut down drilling in the arctic.
Cartoon:
37 Responses to “Open Thread 9/1/2015”
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Bernie 95%, Clinton 84%, O'Malley 75% and…ugh..Rand 28%…I answered a lot of question Bernie had no position on (did all the extra questions)
Good news–CA just ended solitary confinement per email:
"Dear CCR supporter,
We are thrilled to let you know about a landmark settlement reached today that effectively ends long-term solitary confinement in California prisons – a victory made possible because of your steadfast support."
I did see that – in a news alert from the LA Times – which is chock full of interesting news today – they told me I reached my 10 article limit today, and it is the first of the month. Thank heaven for Nameless's workarounds.
A worthy read albeit not good news:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/08/31/1417115/-Rep-Pete-Sessions-America-s-rampant-gun-violence-due-to-American-promotion-of-diversity?detail=email
OMG!!! Is this idiot for real? We just looked at an article last week where gun deaths per 1 million people in the US was 29.7 compared to 5.1 in Canada. https://www.7thstep.org/blog/page/2/
We are both countries of diverse peoples, many minorities and cultural inclinations. We are both countries with LGBT and marriage equality, although Canada has been celebrating that equality longer.
So if this is the case, which it is, why does the US have a gun death rate 6 times higher than Canada? I wonder how Sessions would answer that question!
Couldn't agree more with Lynn: Pete Sessions, obviously paid for by the NRA to make these statements, is an absolute idiot. Next door neighbor Canada should have come to mind to this numbskull when thinking this up, but also Australia is a perfect example of why he is completely off the mark. This is an older article, but just as relevant and to the point now as in December 2013: When will the US learn from Australia? Stricter gun control laws save lives Australia had the lowest rate of gun deaths (1.4 per million) of all reported countries, by the way.
Not excellent!
That is great news, thanks for sharing it.
You are welcome Edie!
Excellent!
4:31 (5:16) But if it were real it would probably be too small to fill a Puddy Tat's stomach.
I Side With – I did this a while ago and if I remember correctly I was Bernie 96, Hillary 85, O'Malley 60-something. I could be wrong, but it may have been the end of May – that's when the information came out on comparing the voting records of Bernie and Hillary during the short period they were in the Senate together (2007-2009) that they voted the same 93% of the time (The NY Times has a 10-article-a-month policy and I didn't then have Nameless's great workarounds, so I printed it, and thus have only a partial URL, but probably more than enough for Google: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/upshot/the-senate-votes-that… It goes into where the disagreements were, not in gory detail, but in enough to give an idea, so it might be worth pursuing.) That TC and I are so far apart on O'Malley suggests to me that his positions have changed in three months, at least on the record. I really don't trust him any more than, and probably less than, I trust Hillary.
New Yorker – After you say straight news, what else is there to say?
NY Times – Why wouldn't Obama have done more to combat climate change than any president in history? He is the ONLY president in history to admit that it exists at all. (Unless you want to count Al Gore for the – what was it, twenty minutes – before the Supreme Court sold us out? Can't do much in twenty minutes.)
Cartoon – I'm surprised it's that sophisticated. However, it really doesn't matter how good or bad it is since they won't use it.
O'Malley had a lot of tough on crime policies he took credit for with entering politics via being a DA–main area of concern for me in his history. I did like his data-based decision-making approach with making the data transparent. Not sure whether he showed positions on many of our most important issues when serving at the state level…Wiki doesn't say.
the full is:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/28/upshot/the-senate-votes-that-divided-hillary-clinton-and-bernie-sanders.html
No wonder I prefer Bernie.
Pretty good memory WRT your "Side With Poll" results (but a tad off on O'Malley).
If the Poll looks familiar, it's because it was posted back on July 4th. Might be fun for those that took it back on Independence Day to see how their percentages have changed:
https://www.7thstep.org/blog/2015/07/04/open-thread742015/#comments
I clicked "Other Stances" on each one for a more nuanced answer – but takes quite a bit longer to complete. I wonder how that effects a score.
3:38 TomCat beat me by a nose.
3:17 "…not much is going on." including drooling over seahorse fricassée!
4::00 I didn't stand a chance.
I didn't want to eat paint!
Huckabee is stepping in it with both feet!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/09/01/1417465/-Mike-Huckabee-Planned-Parenthood-ISIS-because-both-take-people-s-heads-off?showAll=yes
Also, this petition which I also posted on Care2. The Iran Deal is apparently missing 1 Democrat Senator's commitment to make the deal bullet proof.
http://campaigns.dailykos.com/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=1515
Thanks for posting the petition and the Huckster needs to grow some better corn for anyone to find it palatable
Lynn, I shared the Daily Kos on FAcebook, sure I will get flack tomorrow. Sadly, I don't have a Democratic senator.
I pity you your choice of senators Edie . . . McTurtle and Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot. Both useless pieces of 'coon shit on a shingle!
Email from NIAC this morning Lynn: "Senator Mikulski (D-MD) will announce her support for the deal this morning, giving us the 34 Senate votes needed to protect the President's veto of a resolution of disapproval of the Iran deal!"
Now the goal becomes 7 more to not let it require a veto
Rrojection!! The only difference between Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christianity and ISIS is the religion being abused.
To my surprise I side with Sanders 95% and Clinton 80%
LMAO!!
Andy is SPOT ON! With all the people that get hit with chunks of overpasses falling on them, (one is too much), your think that Repukkklicans would see their way clear to fix some of the broken down highways and byways! And to blow $5b on friggen walls that won't do any more than what is already being done is just p!§§!ng in the wind!
When what looked like thousands of seals came up on the beach because they didn't have any ice to rest on, there IS a problem! Climate change is here and if not addressed immediately, we will be "living" on a dry, hot and stinky rock that will not grow ANYTHING to eat!
Cartoon was spot on!
Oh yeah! Bernie, 93%. Hillary, 82%. O'Malley, 73%.
Bernie voter before, and after!
Do they intend to give Halliburton the contract for the wall? Qui bono must apply…
I Side With: Bernie, 96%, Clinton 90%, Omalley 74%. Yep, I am a "librul".
The New Yorker: Undoubtably, our present Congress is more apt to spend the money on border walls than our infrastructure.
NY Times: Yes Pres. Obama has done more than any other President to support work on climate change, but I am still not happy about his allowing drilling in the Arctic,
Cartoon: If only my friends who have been gulled by the Repuglicans and Fox news would believe this.
Get some rest, TC.
Puzzle — 3:17 "…not much is going on." including drooling over seahorse fricassée!
I Side With — Probably no surprise here: Bernie 99%, Hillary 89%, Martin O'Malley 85%. Of the Republicanus/Teabaggerum: Paul 51%, Huckabee (gag me with a spoon will you!) 44%, Christie 36%, Trump 25%, Bush 24%, and Jindal 23%. All the other Klown Kar Kiddies are less than 20%. When it came to parties, it was Green Party, Democrat, and Socialist in that order. In terms of where I stood on their graph, I am listed as an extreme left wing and slightly into "authoritarian" on the authoritarian/libertarian axis.
Interesting that 2 days ago, I took a similar 'I side with' survey on Canadian questions. I expected to show as a NDP leaning leftie but in fact my results were: Liberal 81%, Green 80%, NDP 72%, Conservative (choke!) 44%.
Although the format is very similar between the 2 surveys, the survey assumptions and terms of reference would likely mean that I appear more left wing in the US than Canada. Let's face it, we are more socialist minded and have been for many years (thank you Tommy Douglas!).
How is that, eh!?
The New Yorker — Xenophobic much?! Yeah, I agree, Andy is straight reporting again!
NY Times — It is time to walk the talk!
OK, this is a good admission. Let's start now by cancelling the Arctic drilling permits handed to Shell Oil and any others. Then, get the energy companies on board to produce and further innovate clean renewable energy. No tax breaks on fossil fuels, only on clean renewable energy. Build from there.
Cartoon — I am surprised that the Republicanus/Teabaggerum weather vane is not in perpetual motion, going around and around, stopping where nobody knows!
Sounds like one of your regular firsts of the month, TomCat. Though swamped, I hope you got yourself through it in one piece and are able to sleep, despite it being a hecktic day.
I Side With: I answered every question there was and as a Social Democrat myself it wasn't that much of a surprise that I sided with Bernie 96% and (only) 86% with Hillary. To my horror I stil sided 24% with Donald Trump, but thank goodnes on no major issues, but also 33% with Chris Christie, apparently on environmental issues. All was well when it turned out that I only sided 4% with Ted Cruz (the lowest of them all)
The New Yorker: Andy was in a very sarcastic mood today, wasn't he, putting his finger with precision on a very sore spot and showing no mercy. He's so right, America needs to get its priorities straight.
NY Times: I'll credit Obama for what he says about Climate Change at this summit as soon as he recalls the permission to drill in the Arctic he gace to Shell, finally says no to the XL tar sand pipeline and stands for the lower CO2 emmision norms and shows America is truly embracing its responsibilities.
TY TC
As the saying in civilized countries, (Western European.) No one builds roads like the Americans. ! THANK GOD!
Americans are the world's best road builders, if wqe can remember how. Considering that anyone can drove anywhere at all, given all the years Republican have prebvented infrasyructure spending, the original quality of thise roads must have been supurb.
And to Europeans with a superiority complex, be carefulk not to slip on Greece.
Thanks all. Hugs!