It has been a relatively busy day with 2 meetings at the church and set up for tomorrow's worship. Tomorrow afternoon late, I will be heading up to visit my mother, which means I'll undoubtedly be very tired. This coming week is already full of appointments as is the following week. Sigh . . .
Puzzle — Today’s took me 2:38 (average 4:59). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes
The Nation — With Utah’s ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on this day in 1933, the prohibition on the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States ended. Long after most on the left had given up on the idea of Prohibition as a remotely liberatory policy, The Nation, under the ownership and editorship of lifelong teetotaler Oswald Garrison Villard (whose mother had warned him in his childhood never to touch strong drink) stuck by the idea, …
Orange County, California, sheriffs dumping out illegally made alcohol during a 1932 bust.(Orange County Archive)
Well the temperance movement failed to get the country on its side. But think of all the tax revenues that would have been foregone. Dump prohibition and get tax revenues from sales, or keep prohibition, have bootleggers selling liquor, the government spending money to enforce prohibition, and receiving no tax revenue. Nothing is ever quite that simple but . . . I wonder if a similar system could work with marijuana, medicinal or recreational?
Mother Jones — HOW MUCH DOES gun violence cost our country? It's a question we've been looking into at Mother Jones ever since the 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, left 58 wounded and 12 dead. How much care would the survivors and the victims' families need? What would be the effects on the broader community, and how far out would those costs ripple? As we've continued to investigate gun violence, one of our more startling discoveries is that nobody really knows.
Each year more than 11,000 people are murdered with a firearm, and more than 20,000 others commit suicide using one. Hundreds of children die annually in gun homicides, and each week seems to bring news of another toddler accidentally shooting himself or a sibling with an unsecured gun. And perhaps most disturbingly, even as violent crime overall has declined steadily in recent years, rates of gun injury and death are climbing (up 11 and 4 percent since 2011) and mass shootings have been on the rise.
Click through for the rest of the story. Attempts to study gun related violence have been blocked by the NRA and gun activists through lobbying lawmakers. It is time for that to end, but how? It certainly won't happen with Republicans dominating the Congress. And Democrats are not immune to NRA lobbying either.
The Hill — While the measure is complicated and largely unknown to the American public; if it passes into law it will significantly increase the influence of wealthy donors on elected officials.
Under the current law, political parties are limited to spending $48,000 in coordination with candidates running for House seats, and varying amounts based on population for Senate candidates.
But if McConnell gets his way, the parties would be allowed to spend as much as they please in coordination with the candidates.
The upshot, says the non-partisan Campaign Legal Center’s policy director Meredith McGehee, is that donors would have “much closer proximity” to the lawmakers they want to influence.
McConnell is at it again! He's trying to make it even more unbalanced. This time, he has a fight on his hands, but not just from the left.
Trendingninjas.com — Famous NRA member and rocker Ted Nugent has said that Donald Trump deserves a Medal of Freedom. He writes for the conservative site World News Daily and frequently expresses his extreme views. In one column he wrote:
"Donald Trump is running strong in the early polls because Americans are fed up with the political status quo, especially from left-leaning GOP Fedzillacrats who want to feed us cow dung while telling us it's a cheeseburger."
In another Nugent said, "[Trump] should be given the Medal of Freedom for speaking his mind in such a bold, honest, and straightforward manner."
OK, you're thinking "Has she lost her marbles posting this?". But I saw the headline "Celebrities Who Support Donald Trump" and I just had to look. When I saw the first one of 13, Ted Nugent, I started laughing. The laughter continued even through the lies. But one thing to note, there were no women amongst the so called celebrity personages. Any wonder?
My Universe — Who hasn't experienced this type of situation before? I think dad handled it well.
13 Responses to “Squatch’s Open Thread 06/12/2015”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
The climcher of Donald Trump "celebrity" supporters was David Duke – with the Confederate flag in the background of his photo.
There wasn't a single one out of that motley crew I'd want to have a beer with … even if they were buying!
Me neither . . . even if I drank beer, which I do not.
MJ: Absolutely horribly sad!
TrendingNinjas: Wha…?? Nugent is gone, completely gone. Thump doesn't deserve…anything.
My Universe: I almost cried when I first saw this video yesterday…..poor sweet little girl. "Thanks, Dad". Priceless!!
**Thanks, AniMae Signed petition.
I know your Mom appreciates you visiting. Busy day for me, and this week more volunteering, which I love, but like you, leaves me tired. Take care, enjoy your day, and Thank you, Lynn.
WRT My Universe …
Cute kid, but I have NO idea what was said. The CC (again) is absolutely horrid – pretty much standard for YouTube vids. They either have to be foreign, w/ subtitles then provided (like the Dutch Bible/Quran one), or no or very limitied speech at all.
It is very difficult to understand, but dad's help at interpretation helps.
4:52 (4:59) Flashy indeed.
Nation – H. L. Mencken, I think it was, commented that Puritans are obsessed with the dreadful fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun. But really, for alcoholics, and increasingly as the disease progresses, it's no more fun than it is for the people who live with them. And for a lot of us who are not alcoholic, it's not fun either – the "high" feels more like a coma. My state has legalized marijuana, first medical, and recently recreational, and I welcome that. I consider it safer, both for the person using it, and for the bystanders. You may have seen that recently in a marijuana DUI trial here the jurors refused to convict – the prosecution was based on an arbitrary legal blood concentration limit based on the legal blood alcohol limit, not realizing or not caring that marijuana doesn't act the same way. The jurors were looking at actual impairment.
MoJo – When I took my MBA in the early seventies, everyone in businees ed and many in business were all excited about cost-benefit analysis. I felt then, and I feel now, it not only doesn't work, but is immoral and unethical, when the cost of one or more human lives has to be factored in. Sure, you can do calculations based on potential earnings lost, etc., but that doesn't come close to the value of an actual life. And even thinking in those terms makes life look cheap. I hope future humans (if there are any) will be horrified at the way our corporations ignored the human cost of their money making policies, and destroyed so many people.
The Hill – It doesn't appear to any actual human being that the influence of wealthy donors needs any increasing whatsoever. So I guess that means Mitch McConnell is not a human being. Well, I always thought he was a turtle.
Trendingninjas – Ted Nugent can write? That's a news flash! But, Lynn, where was the barf bag alert for this?
Universe – Don't feel bad, Nameless, the kid was almost impossible to understand (holding back tears? anyway, no articulation to speak of) and the Dad, whi could articulate, was far enough away from the mic that the volume wasn't great. I think I got the reasoning, but never did figure out what "Miss Jessica" had to do with it – or even who she was.
I thought the picture of the psycho Ted Nugent would be warning enough!
Nation: Glad that the Prohibition era ended. Let's get to work on MaryJane. lol.
Mother: Well worth the read if a bit longish. We really need statistics on gun violence and its costs to society. There must be a way around the NRA dominance and the GOP congress to fund research for the CDC and other groups, organizations. We really need gun research.
Once again, the privately held insurance companies refused payments based on a preexisting condition to one of the victims in this article.
Hill: "If McConnell gets his way, the parties would be allowed to spend as much as they please in coordination with the candidates."
“This should open the door to much greater money laundering, plain and simple.”
Petition:
http://act.endcitizensunited.org/page/s/Stop-GOP-Rider?source=MS_EM_PET_2015.12.05_B3_stop-gop-rider_X__F1_S1_C1__ns
There must be a way to eliminate riders on important and all bills requiring passage.
Ninjas: Barf Bag Alert: The list of celebrities supporting Trump is, in a small way, surprising. Some of them should know better but, apparently, they don't. Who cares what some celebrities think or how they reason. I don't. lol.
Universe: Awwwww… Had a hard time understanding the little girl, poor articulation. Kids at that age do not have much articulation. They are in the midst of learning speech control.
Thanks for the petition Jim. Signed
4:12
Rushing
You're a very busy woman, Lynn, and you shouldn't let not being able to keep up the high frequency of posting bother you. You've done a marvelous job together with Judi, Nameless and Joanne of keeping TomCat's site up and running, but together you post far more than TomCat did on his own and so you should allow yourself a break now and again. We really won't mind and I'm sure TomCat will understand perfectly.
The Nation: LOL, our Dutch governments have always preferred taxes above virtue: special taxes on alcohol, legalization of marihuana use and sale with taxation, legalizing gambling in more than a dozen casinos throughout the country, all government owned, legalization of prostitution so the ladies now pay income tax, taxation of criminal income gotten through illegal means. No you can't say we're hypocrites, we tax everything 😉
Mother Jones: Even if all guns were eradicated we would have violence, a base rate violence so to speak. How much would this base rate cost? Part of the base rate is already out there, but if all guns were taken, the base rate would surely rise a bit to what…10% of the gun violence costs? Even if it was 20%, which I doubt, the remaining 80% could be spend so much more meaningful, the CO2 footprint from their manufacturing and use could be so much lower, but most important of all, people could be so much less afraid and so much happier. Just think about it…
The Hill: Sometimes it's a blessing in disguise that not all GOPers can see eye to eye on all issues and this time it certainly is. Time to reinstate TomÇat's old nickname for McConnel, bought bitch Mitch, if I remember correctly and find out which sponsor has paid him handsomely for this rider: The Kochs, Big Coal… and then fight it at the root.
Trendingninjas.com: ROTFLMAO So these are the celebrities who endorse Donald Trump. Some endorsement, if Donald had any sense – which he hasn't – he'd denounce them as fast as possible. But he won't, which is good because they all deserve each other.
My Universe: What a sweetheart. I hope Dad now takes his little girl to miss Jessica and have her cut the rest of her hear AND explain she has to wait until she's older, has learned how to do it and can reach all of those difficult places in the back 😉
Thanks Lona!
The Dutch have a good way of keeping tax revenues rolling!
Thanks all!