kpete
kpete's JournalNew Mexico GOP official calls woman a 'radical bitch' for supporting higher minimum wage
WED APR 24, 2013 AT 11:22 AM PDT
New Mexico GOP official calls woman a 'radical bitch' for supporting higher minimum wage
by Laura Clawson
Republicans spew a lot of ugliness on gay rights, guns, abortion, and other subjects too numerous to name. But they usually keep their arguments against raising the minimum wage semi-wonky. Wrong, but at least not personally nasty. Not Steve Kush, executive director of the Republican Party of Bernalillo County, New Mexico, though! At a county commission meeting on raising the minimum wage, Kush had this to say about a 19-year-old Working America member there to testify:
— @snkush via Facebook
Again, 19 years old, not an employee of an advocacy organization, there to tell her elected representatives on the county commission why she wants to see a higher minimum wage. But Kush didn't stop there. As Working America's state director stood to testify, Kush kept going:
As you might guess, "walking Central" is a reference to a street where prostitutes gather. And Bob Cornelius, the guy who said that? A former executive director of the county Republican party, and a former candidate for state land commissioner.
the rest:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/24/1204485/-New-Mexico-GOP-official-calls-woman-a-radical-bitch-for-supporting-higher-minimum-wage
http://progressnownewmexico.pnstate.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=85544.0
Wow, and Jon Stewart has tried so hard in the past to keep his heritage a secret....
http://wonkette.com/513630/donald-trump-thinks-up-totally-sick-burn-jon-stewart-is-a-jew
Courts Affirm EPA's Power to Stop Mountaintop Mining
WED APR 24, 2013 AT 10:44 AM PDT
Courts Affirm EPA's Power to Stop Mountaintop Mining
by FishOutofWater
............
A decision by the Sixth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals on Monday revoked the Army Corps of Engineers expedited permitting process, and the activities grandfathered by it, that enabled coal companies to level mountains across Appalachia. Coal companies will no longer be able to skirt environmental laws and regulations with a wink and a nod from the Army Corps of Engineers.
....
D. Conclusion
Though we generally give greatest deference to an agency’s “complex scientific
determination[s] within its area of special expertise,” Balt. Gas & Elec. Co., 462 U.S.
at 103, we may not excuse an agency’s failure to follow the procedures required by duly promulgated regulations, see, e.g., Motor Vehicles Mfrs. Ass’n, 463 U.S. at 43. During oral argument, the Corps repeatedly objected to the feasibility of Riverkeeper’s demands.
This policy argument misses the point. After opting for streamlined nationwide permitting, the Corps took the easier path of preparing an environmental assessment No. 11-6083 Ky. Riverkeeper Inc., et al. v. Rowlette, et al. Page 16 instead of an environmental impact statement. Having done so, it needed to follow the applicable CWA and NEPA regulations by documenting its assessment of environmental impacts and examining past impacts, respectively. Failing these regulatory prerequisites, the Corps leaves us with nothing more than its say-so that it meets CWA and NEPA standards. We may not supply a reasoned basis for the agency’s action that the agency itself has not given. See SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196 (1947).
We hereby invalidate permit 21 as arbitrary and capricious, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), but stay this ruling for 60 days to allow the parties and the district court an opportunity to assess the ramifications of this ruling on existing projects and potential remedies.
http://appvoices.org/2013/04/23/a-good-week-for-mountains/
more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/24/1204437/-Courts-Affirm-EPA-s-Power-to-Stop-Mountaintop-Mining
Budget Shocker: Los Angeles Shows $119 Million Surplus
Budget Shocker: Los Angeles Shows $119 Million Surplus
Wednesday, 24 April 2013 14:00
By Gary Cohn, Frying Pan News | Report
For five years a chorus of voices has been predicting bankruptcy for Los Angeles, while often calling for deeper cuts to city employee pensions. Today, however, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposed a budget for Fiscal Year 2013-2014 that includes a one-time surplus of $119 million. While some of that surplus would rely on additional pay and benefit reductions for city workers, even without such cuts the city would have a projected surplus of close to $100 million.
“It’s better than seeing the light at the end of the tunnel – we’re almost out of the tunnel!” Matt Szabo, Mayor Villaraigosa’s deputy chief of staff, told Frying Pan News in an interview last week. Szabo discussed the city’s financial picture and said that dire financial warnings have been largely overblown.
“One of the issues that’s highly irritating is the ease with which some people have thrown around the bankruptcy term,” Szabo said. “That’s not going to happen.”
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http://truth-out.org/news/item/15974-budget-shocker-los-angeles-shows-119-million-surplus
http://www.scribd.com/doc/137391045/Mayor-s-FY-2013-2014-Budget-Presentation
Make Wall Street Choose: Go Small or Go Home - By SHERROD BROWN and DAVID VITTER
OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS
Make Wall Street Choose: Go Small or Go Home
By SHERROD BROWN and DAVID VITTER
Published: April 24, 2013
PROGRESSIVES and conservatives can debate the proper role of government, but this is one principle on which we can all agree: The government shouldn’t pick economic winners or losers.
In 2008, at the height of the financial crisis, the government stepped in and decided which Wall Street banks were so large and interconnected that they would receive extraordinary help from the government to enable them to survive. They were deemed, to use a now ubiquitous phrase, too big to fail. Meanwhile, smaller banks in communities across the country, including Cleveland and Covington, La., in the states we represent, were allowed to fail. They were, evidently, too small to save.
Today, the nation’s four largest banks — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo — are nearly $2 trillion larger than they were before the crisis, with a greater market share than ever. And the federal help continues — not as direct bailouts, but in the form of an implicit government guarantee. The market knows that the government won’t allow these institutions to fail.
It’s the ultimate insurance policy — one with no coverage limits or premiums.
the rest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/opinion/make-wall-street-choose-go-small-or-go-home.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, are tattoo-free so far.
President Barack Obama revealed he and first lady Michelle Obama have a master plan to prevent their two daughters from getting tattoos.
“What we’ve said to the girls is that ‘If you guys ever decide to get a tattoo, then Mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo, in the same place, and we’ll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo,’” Obama said on NBC’s “Today” in an interview that aired Wednesday.
Malia, 14, and Sasha, 11, are tattoo-free so far.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/obama-discusses-the-family-tattoo-90556.html#ixzz2ROJZYy72
-- Sen. Max Baucus: "I just don't want to die with my boots on."
Quote of the Day
"I just don't want to die with my boots on."
-- Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), quoted by the Billings Gazette, explaining his decision to retire in 2014 and not run for re-election.
http://politicalwire.com/archives/2013/04/24/quote_of_the_day.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PoliticalWire+%28Political+Wire%29
http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/democratic-sen-baucus-rules-out-th-term/article_27a2801b-57bc-5a8a-a547-3da821c02e5b.html#ixzz2RNKLDcwx
Dear Mr. X-President BUSH - STOP SAYING YOU KEPT US SAFE, YOU DID NOT.
The Great Mulligan
By Charles P. Pierce
at 9:15am
...............What a complete and utter failure the Bush presidency really was.
Sorry we demolished American values, and just about every shred of American moral credibility in the world, but we kept you safe.
Sorry we let New Orleans drown, but we kept you safe.
Sorry we allowed the national economy to blow up, but we kept you safe.
In fact, if you sent C-Plus Augustus into his own museum, and had him take that interactive quiz, and provided he didn't break a thumb trying to get a Diet Coke out of the exhibit, his answer to everything would be I kept you safe.
No. In fact, you didn't. Stop saying that before 3000 ghosts come to your room some night and pummel you with ectoplasmic bags of sheep dung.
The historical record is quite clear. Upon taking office, the Bush administration de-emphasized the Clinton team's almost-obsessive search for Osama bin Laden. That's why Richard Clarke got shoved aside. That's why John Ashcroft changed the FBI's focus from the pursuit of international terrorists to the pursuit of Tommy Chong. That's why presidential daily press briefings didn't get read while the president was clearing brush the month before the attacks. It's also why his briefer on the topic got himself told, "You covered your ass now." But that was nothing compared to the ass-covering that went on in the aftermath of the attacks — Really, now, Condi. A "historical document"? That's still hilarious. — as the members of the administration tried to prevaricate their way out of their abject failure to keep anyone safe. It was nine months of misfeasance in office, and inexcusable neglect of duty, that ended in the deaths of more than 3000 Americans.
And I am sorry. But you don't get a free one on these. You cannot argue that you kept us safe after your obvious negligence played a role in getting 3000 of us killed. We should laugh at anyone who tries to make this argument, and we should be angered that a presidential library puts together an exhibit of the all the cock-ups that followed the biggest cock-up of them all, and asks, arrogantly, the same question posed to generations of sportswriters by half-bright outfielders after they let one get by them to cost their team a ballgame.
What would you have done, motherfker? You ever play the game?
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Read more: The Great Mulligan - Esquire http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/the-great-mulligan-042413#ixzz2RO92f4uC
An incalculably intelligent, stupendously magical Being?
John Dunn • 3 days ago
Some people think it is likely that there is an incalculably intelligent, stupendously magical Being, and that this Being:
- Existed for >9,999,999,999,999,999,999,999,999 x 10^infinity years before creating the angels, then X more years before creating the universe;
- Created >250,000,000,000 galaxies, each galaxy containing >150,000,000,000 suns, each sun having on average >1 planet;
- That this Being has seen, and remembers, each and every event on each and every one of these planets, suns, and galaxies for the last 13,700,000,000 years;
- That this Being waited 187,000 years after our species appeared on this planet before announcing Its existence 3,000 years ago to one of the minor civilizations of the time;
- That these appearances were only to a few members of this mostly illiterate nomadic bronze age tribe, that this Being imparted all of Its instructions to these few people, then never made a verifiable appearance on Earth again for the last 2,000 years.
Have I got that right?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/04/23/1204230/-Best-Creationism-come-back-ever
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