Good Government
1. The Supreme Court rendered a decision Monday affirming the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate coal plant emissions under the Clean Air Act. Tightened emissions rules will reduce carbon emissions 30% by 2030. Only Democrats support the idea that our air be cleaner and that we not rely so heavily on 19th century technology to generate electricity. Republicans are threatening – again – to shut down the government over this issue, mostly I guess because of how well that went for them in 2013 and the 1990s.
2. A Republican Congressional candidate in Georgia writes that Islam isn’t really a religion and doesn’t deserve “free exercise” protection under the Constitution.
3. The Amber Alert everyone got yesterday about a 16 year-old girl from Greece, NY was all bullshit. What a waste of police resources, but at least now you know you have an “alert” function on your phone.
4. Every politician grandstanding about lapses and misconduct at the VA should look in the goddamn mirror before they bleat on about veterans’ rights and patient care. “Support the Troops” involves more than a easy-peel magnetic yellow ribbon on the back of your Buick, and it means more than just agitating for war every time you see a headscarf. Funding for VA healthcare may have increased year over year, but the system is still woefully underfunded, and congressional Republicans have pledged an oath to not raise taxes, even if it has to do with veterans’ healthcare:
Today’s lesson is quite simple: after conflicts are over, we need to fully fund the healthcare and medical needs of our veterans. Forever. Even if that means making the political and economic elite pay more in taxes. Even if that means taking politics out of the VA and focusing instead on the welfare of our veterans. That we have politicians and members of the media who need to be reminded of this is a disgrace.
When you go to fight two ground wars in Asia simultaneously, you should plan for the resulting medical care for veterans – especially when you don’t give them body or vehicle armor.
Who’s more important? Grover Norquist or a sick or disabled vet?
Stop grandstanding and fund the VA. Take responsibility, as lawmakers and as keepers of the public purse, to make sure that the men and women who fought our wars get all the care they need.
5. Keep trotting out Dick Cheney, Paul Bremer, Paul Wolfowitz, and Bill Kristol to whine about Iraq. It helps to remind us how wrong they were 10 years ago, and to never listen to them again.
Entitled white girl from an affluent suburb steals daddy’s Saab and runs away, Amber Alert goes out to every phone in the region. Poor minority girl missing from the hood, yawn, crickets.
Shot’s fired in affluent Clarence (no one shot), four police agencies respond including Erie County Sheriffs, $1000 reward posted. Black guy shot and killed on Pershing street in the hood, couple of Buffalo cops respond, no reward, call the tip line.
You forgot the part about the lazy police in Greece who did not want to do their job and took the easy way out…….
and yet it worked perfectly. this little shit was found in less than an hour. Whether the alert was bullshit or not, it got the job done. Hopefully next time it happens, an innocent victim is just as lucky.
No doubt it worked but you are missing the point(s)….sad thing is rich daddy will provide high priced attorney and the “little shit” will walk with a slap on the wrist….
but you are armchair QB’ing after the fact. When you walk into your house to find your kid is missing and there is evidence (real or created by your spoiled rotten brat of a teenager) of foul play, your 1st instinct isn’t going to be, “she’s hiding under the bed and this is a prank” it’s total fucking panic! It is unfortunate that it was a spoiled rich girl bullshit, but what if it was real and the police took a cavalier approach to the matter? we’d have a different group of armchair QBs calling for heads because the police wasn’t doing what they are paid to do. protect and serve.
Sorry, but 16 is too old, IMHO, for an Amber alert. The cutoff should probably be around 12 or 13. In mid-teens, all kinda silly drama ensues.
I turned the alert function off on my phone.
1. So, how come most news media headlines started with “Supreme Court limits EPA …”?
4. The V.A. is funded well enough to pay out $5.5 million in bonuses in 2013 to claims processors who weren’t doing their job (14,000 appeals pending for longer than one year). It then proceeded to stonewall Congress when required to produce records which would reveal the extent of the failure. Throwing more money at this disgraceful, broken hackerama is like a dog believing he could catch his own tail if only he could run faster. But, it’s the typical Democrat solution to every problem – “increased investment in public services”.
1. Because our corporate press whored itself out years ago. That’s why.
I understood that when people used to call for Bush and Cheney to be tried as war criminals, it was mostly just hyperbole. But, after seeing him interviewed about Iraq this past week, I cannot help but want to see his smarmy, smug ass sitting in a jail cell for the rest of his fat-ass-penguin life.
The Iraq war is why, as a Republican, I will never vote for a Republican nationally for the rest of my life. First they lied, or at least skewed evidence that contradicted their magical thinking. Then they vilified anyone, weapons inspectors, CIA operatives and their families, who dared to ask questions. Then they send our kids over there with equipment far inferior to the goddamn private contractors. Somehow Halliburton and KBR get the armored humvees and our kids get their limbs blown off. Finally, these filthy bastards fail to fund adequately the care our kids need.