Republicans in the Senate are running for cover and playing a game of chicken on the gun bill. They don’t want you to know how they WOULD vote so they are making sure they don’t have to vote at ALL.
The Senate is set to vote on the proposed gun bill today. Harry Reid has said he intends to bring the bill to a vote despite the fact he does not have enough votes to pass it.
This is what is comes down to ladies and gentlemen: They don’t have enough votes to even VOTE on the bill. Republicans are running the show. They are filibustering, forcing Democrats to have 60 votes to even take a vote.
Keep these two thoughts in mind
1) A majority in the Senate, 51 or 52 votes, support this bill right now but it isn’t majority rule in America today, the minority party throws a tantrum and raises the bar to 60, and
2) they are counting on voters not paying attention so they can get away with this today.
A government of the gun manufacturers, by the gun manufacturers and for the gun manufacturers.
And should we bring up a different topic we’d easily find the BIG corporation running that one too. The Oligarchy is the method by which our country is governed and is working exactly as planned. I’m beyond tired and discouraged. I’m devoid of ideas and energy to make it less fouled up. I’m defeated. I just want to cry.
And as to today’s graphic, is it any wonder that, as you posted yesterday, both the left and the right are declaring Brownbackistan’s latest tax plan the worst in America?
I wish the Kochs would buy a kid’s chemistry set to experiment and leave our sate alone!
I suspect the Koch Boys are only doing what Daddy taught them…
But in todays’ political climate of Destroy instead of Build – hey that’s right up their alley.
But….I wonder if these two morons have figured out yet that when the middle class disappears like the dinosaurs – who is going to buy their effin shit they sell?
Reagan cut taxes for the rich, increased taxes on the middle class, he tripled the national debt, there’s Iran Contra, he sent billions of American dollars, weapons and training to The Taliban, Osama Bin Laden — actually created the terrorists groups that still threaten Americans today, sent jobs overseas, presided over unemployment rates above 11%, attacked unions, was responsible for the immigration challenges we still have today.
Need I go on?
Probably not. Each of you has an intact memory and it gets worse from where I left off.
I can explain why Republicans conveniently forget what Reagan did to our country –
Didn’t you get your pair of Reagan Rose-Colored Glasses when you registered as a Republican?
I swear – that must be the only way these people who claim to be so morally superior and God’s favorites can manage to sit here in 2013 and continue with this Myth of how great Ronald Reagan was….and not be struck down by the Lightning Bolt of Truth..
Remember that Steubenville Ohio rape/sexual assault case that got national attention?
This time – it’s in California…
I read of another case in Canada…..and the trend is eerily the same.
Young girl gets drunk, sexual assault happens, pictures get took and then our social media outlets are used to pass the picture around….
So….to break this down…….that old saying that Boys will Boys is further enhanced in our current society because now they have the ability to show their trophy pics of their conquest?
Not only is rape and sexual assault an epidemic – this idea that any picture can be sent out into cyberspace and then result in bullying is okay in our society needs to be addressed NOW.
But – hey – when I hear the Republicans actually try to distinguish what legitimate rape is – and that women should be put back into their place…..I only have to shake my head and cry – because obviously, that message is getting through loud and clear to our teens.
I am waiting to hear when Mike Huckabee and his God Groupies will be holding another – deep fried chicken sandwich day – to help these victims of sexual assault…
What …….nothing from the people who sit and applaud those Republicans when they demonize and denounce legitimate rape and women?
I hope there is a special Hell ….somewhere….. But that would be justice – wouldn’t it?
Feeding the crazies, not getting anything meaningful done in Washington.
It is as if they think only the crazies vote, so they will talk a great talk of the most crazy. With the present attack will it be long before there is a move to ban Pressure cookers? More people are eating out now then are cooking Chicken and noodles or cooked cabbage.
So is there any real need for pressure cookers these days. Only the most extreme would want to cook at home rather then go to a large corporate owner eatery. I am sure that Terry Fox would support such a ban. After all he does own several places to eat.
Which places does Fox own? After I learned Ryan’s Buffet on North Rock Road (no longer there now) was the hangout for Terry Fox’s preacher friend – Joe Wright – I vowed to never go back in that place. This was back when Fox and Wright joined their pointy-little heads in that Crusade against homosexuals – (their first public one, that is)
I did hear on the radio that Joe Wright came out of retirement to return to Wichita to help Terry Fox run his Summit Church on E. Kellogg..
The radio station I used to listen to in the office on the weekends always had Terry Fox’s church sermon come on towards the end of my shift. And that was always the time I turned off that damn radio.
Hmmm……Joe Wright and Terry Fox together again……..God help us all.
Fox owns the spangles in Andover, I actually saw him there one Saturday morning when my wife and I was eating there. He wondered back behind the counter and was talking with the manager on duty. I mentioned it to the person wiping down the tables and was told that Fox is the owner!
Thanks for the tip…..I have not been there but a few times – so that’s reassuring. That’s too bad – I like their breakfast bowls. But I can always get them at any Wichita location.
You know, one has to wonder how a preacher man has all this money to invest…..I am thinking back to when that Wild West Park thing up in Park City went belly up..
And how Terry Fox was crying about all that money he gave to that guy..
I also had to laugh at the public comments on the article over at the local newspaper online site when the news hit the fan all those people lost money.
I married a preacher man and let me tell you, we were lucky to have food on the table and a roof over our heads on that lousy little paycheck he got from that church.
If I did not work – we would have not had heat, water, electricity, and half of that food in the fridge.
When these Republicans yammer about how we need to go back to the good ol’ times – I wonder how these preachers and doctors would really feel about going back to those times?
Think back to the television series ‘ Little House on the Prairie’..
Was the doctor and the preacher man the wealthiest people in town?
Oh HELL NO…..
The doctor routinely was paid in bags of food or chickens – AND he had to do house calls!!!
The preacher man traveled around – and ate his meals at the different people’s homes.
My OH My……that would be comical to see today’s doctors and preacher men having to live like their counterparts did in those ‘good ol’ days’..
That’s what they call it you know, conspiracy, aiding and abetting, when you help the criminals but don’t commit the act yourself.
Because that’s what they want.
That’s the very goal of terrorism: the contagious and self-reinforcing spread of hate and fear and confusion, terror.
It’s human nature to gape at an accident, to wonder at its cause, but when you actively engage in rumor mongering, when you buy into conspiracy theories, when you create and spread unthinking small-minded irresponsible speculation, you are directly aiding and abetting the terrorists. No more, no less.
Like those first responders in Boston yesterday, the ones who turned their backs on safety and ran towards the danger, it’s time to find our courage and confront the threat head on.
No terrorist, alone or by the dozen, can destroy America. They can snap at our heels, but they can’t destroy us. They can’t even hurt us to any significant degree.
Not without help.
So stop helping them.
Stop conspiring with those who would tear this country apart rather than help hold it together.
Gossip travels half way around the world before the truth gets it’s shoes on.
Unfortunately – gossip also sells better than the truth. Isn’t this the formula Talk Radio and Fox News’ financial success?
I just chalk it up to one thing – people will pay to hear what they want to hear… and they get to feel like they are ‘one of the club’.
I suspect that is why so many of these Foxxies and Talk Radio shock jocks use the phrase – not one of us – so freely. Of course, Ms. Sarah made that one famous in 2008.
Of course, I am thinking of that infamous 47% videotape that sunk Mitt Romney..
There is this from the US National Weather Service Wichita Kansas. Stay safe!
Numerous thunderstorms are anticipated with hail stones as large as golf balls, damaging winds up to 70 mph, and very heavy rains. A few tornadoes are also possible, however, the best chances for those are to our south.
Areas at greatest risk for severe storms are generally along and southeast of the KS turnpike this afternoon and evening.
Isn’t it a shame that Johnnie B. declined President Obama’s offer to ride in Air Force One to attend that memorial service in Tucson for the shooting victims and while Gabby Giffords was fighting for her life at the hospital.
Johnnie B. explained that he had a previous engagement – yeah, a fundraiser.
So….let me get this straight….
Johnnie B. felt the urgent need to send Bachmann to represent Congress for Margaret Thatcher; but yet he did not feel the urgent need to attend the memorial service for one of his own fellow members of Congress who was shot down in a gruesome mass murder scene?
The true test of a person’s character is not in what he says he will do – but what he actually does.
I got to laugh! None of you will find this funny, but it was exactly what I needed — it was my own personal laugh. 🙂
I’m sorting laundry and it seems my granddaughter no longer has socks in the laundry — not just today but as I think back I remember socks missing from past laundries. Yet I remember seeing her in socks, so where are those rascals?
I go downstairs where she holds court. We have two spare bedrooms on the main floor but she has a suite of rooms down there and that’s where she lives. I don’t go down there very often. Her untidiness makes me grouchy. I notice her bed is a mess. Then I wonder just how long has it been since that bedding was washed. I decide to strip the bed and force her to make it with clean bedding when she arrives home after school.
Down at the bottom where the top sheet tucks in under the mattress I tug to get the sheet loose. It’s a pocket FULL OF SOCKS — more socks than most people own come tumbling out. It hit my funny bone!
Being wealthy in modern America means you don’t come across anyone who isn’t, and being poor and lower-middle class means you’re surrounded by others who are just as hard up.
Widening inequality is not inevitable. If we wanted to reverse it and restore middle-class prosperity, we could.
We could award tax cuts to companies that link the pay of their hourly workers to profits and productivity, and that keep the total pay of their top 5 executives within 20 times the pay of their median worker. And impose higher taxes on companies that don’t.
We could raise the minimum wage to half the average wage.
We could increase public investment in education, including early-childhood — especially in the poor and middle-class communities that now lack decent schools.
We could eliminate college loans and allow all students to repay the cost of their higher education with a 10 percent surcharge on the first 10 years of income from full-time employment.
We could expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.
And we could pay for all this by adding additional tax brackets at the top and increasing the top marginal tax rate to what it was before 1981 – at least 70 percent.
But none of this will happen until the public understands why widening inequality is so damaging. Even the rich would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly-growing economy than a large share of one that’s barely growing at all.
We could award tax cuts to companies that link the pay of their hourly workers to profits and productivity
——-
This one struck me but in a different way…
It has nothing to do with income inequality but the same logic should be applied to all those non-profit groups.
If we could award their tax-free status to those non-profit groups that link the pay of their top management to their actual spending on charity……I wonder how many of these so-called non-profit groups would be screaming and yelping all the way to the nearest Tea Party so they can blame the black man in the White House?
Seriously – how many non-profit groups do we know that are top-heavy?
Too damn many….
Which is why I only donate to those groups that I know for a fact are doing what they say they are doing.
For instance – St. Jude’s – I know families who have gone to St. Jude’s when their child was diagnosed with cancer……and it is exactly as the television ads state…..NO family pays for the care the child gets while at St. Jude’s.
If Danny Thomas can do it….so could the rest of these groups – IMHO
Hopefully with all the help from the public and the many pictures and videos taken that day – the FBI will be able to eventually capture the person(s) that did the Boston bombing attack.
As the news coverage continues and they keep talking about how this pressure cooker was filled with spike nails without heads, ball bearings, metal shards….I just totally blank out…
Who in the right mind would even WANT to do this? Who would even know how to make one of these pressure cooker bombs?
But then I heard today on NPR that there are many YouTube videos of people blowing these pressure cooker type bombs up just for the fun of it. The host of the NPR show I was listening to this morning said that some of those videos showed people who were shooting at the ones out in some field to see if they could get it to go off.
Excuse me, but is this considered a hobby or fun? Is this something that normal people do?
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
Republicans in the Senate are running for cover and playing a game of chicken on the gun bill. They don’t want you to know how they WOULD vote so they are making sure they don’t have to vote at ALL.
The Senate is set to vote on the proposed gun bill today. Harry Reid has said he intends to bring the bill to a vote despite the fact he does not have enough votes to pass it.
This is what is comes down to ladies and gentlemen: They don’t have enough votes to even VOTE on the bill. Republicans are running the show. They are filibustering, forcing Democrats to have 60 votes to even take a vote.
Keep these two thoughts in mind
1) A majority in the Senate, 51 or 52 votes, support this bill right now but it isn’t majority rule in America today, the minority party throws a tantrum and raises the bar to 60, and
2) they are counting on voters not paying attention so they can get away with this today.
A government of the gun manufacturers, by the gun manufacturers and for the gun manufacturers.
And should we bring up a different topic we’d easily find the BIG corporation running that one too. The Oligarchy is the method by which our country is governed and is working exactly as planned. I’m beyond tired and discouraged. I’m devoid of ideas and energy to make it less fouled up. I’m defeated. I just want to cry.
Agreed with all in your post, Fnord.
And as to today’s graphic, is it any wonder that, as you posted yesterday, both the left and the right are declaring Brownbackistan’s latest tax plan the worst in America?
I wish the Kochs would buy a kid’s chemistry set to experiment and leave our sate alone!
I suspect the Koch Boys are only doing what Daddy taught them…
But in todays’ political climate of Destroy instead of Build – hey that’s right up their alley.
But….I wonder if these two morons have figured out yet that when the middle class disappears like the dinosaurs – who is going to buy their effin shit they sell?
One comment about the picture above – what’s the next step – making children work?
Hey – Newt Gingrich brought up that very fact during the 2008 GOP presidential primary – didn’t he?
Child Labor……..Women forced back into the kitchens, barefoot and pregnant…Minorities are forced back into ‘their place’…
Isn’t that really what this current GOP is all about?
I hear mentions of how “good it was ____.” The time frame varies although the 80s are often what fills the blank. Ya know, Reagan years.
There’s nothing that illustrates the republican memory (or lack of!) better than their nostalgia for the years past.
Reagan cut taxes for the rich, increased taxes on the middle class, he tripled the national debt, there’s Iran Contra, he sent billions of American dollars, weapons and training to The Taliban, Osama Bin Laden — actually created the terrorists groups that still threaten Americans today, sent jobs overseas, presided over unemployment rates above 11%, attacked unions, was responsible for the immigration challenges we still have today.
Need I go on?
Probably not. Each of you has an intact memory and it gets worse from where I left off.
I can explain why Republicans conveniently forget what Reagan did to our country –
Didn’t you get your pair of Reagan Rose-Colored Glasses when you registered as a Republican?
I swear – that must be the only way these people who claim to be so morally superior and God’s favorites can manage to sit here in 2013 and continue with this Myth of how great Ronald Reagan was….and not be struck down by the Lightning Bolt of Truth..
Remember that Steubenville Ohio rape/sexual assault case that got national attention?
This time – it’s in California…
I read of another case in Canada…..and the trend is eerily the same.
Young girl gets drunk, sexual assault happens, pictures get took and then our social media outlets are used to pass the picture around….
So….to break this down…….that old saying that Boys will Boys is further enhanced in our current society because now they have the ability to show their trophy pics of their conquest?
Not only is rape and sexual assault an epidemic – this idea that any picture can be sent out into cyberspace and then result in bullying is okay in our society needs to be addressed NOW.
But – hey – when I hear the Republicans actually try to distinguish what legitimate rape is – and that women should be put back into their place…..I only have to shake my head and cry – because obviously, that message is getting through loud and clear to our teens.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57580004-504083/audrie-pott-case-teens-accused-of-sexual-assault-of-girl-who-killed-herself-appear-in-calif-court/
I am waiting to hear when Mike Huckabee and his God Groupies will be holding another – deep fried chicken sandwich day – to help these victims of sexual assault…
What …….nothing from the people who sit and applaud those Republicans when they demonize and denounce legitimate rape and women?
I hope there is a special Hell ….somewhere….. But that would be justice – wouldn’t it?
To totally change the subject, here’s something interesting.
Two Different People Described The Same Person To A Forensic Artist And This Is What Happened
Feeding the crazies, not getting anything meaningful done in Washington.
It is as if they think only the crazies vote, so they will talk a great talk of the most crazy. With the present attack will it be long before there is a move to ban Pressure cookers? More people are eating out now then are cooking Chicken and noodles or cooked cabbage.
So is there any real need for pressure cookers these days. Only the most extreme would want to cook at home rather then go to a large corporate owner eatery. I am sure that Terry Fox would support such a ban. After all he does own several places to eat.
Which places does Fox own? After I learned Ryan’s Buffet on North Rock Road (no longer there now) was the hangout for Terry Fox’s preacher friend – Joe Wright – I vowed to never go back in that place. This was back when Fox and Wright joined their pointy-little heads in that Crusade against homosexuals – (their first public one, that is)
I did hear on the radio that Joe Wright came out of retirement to return to Wichita to help Terry Fox run his Summit Church on E. Kellogg..
The radio station I used to listen to in the office on the weekends always had Terry Fox’s church sermon come on towards the end of my shift. And that was always the time I turned off that damn radio.
Hmmm……Joe Wright and Terry Fox together again……..God help us all.
I now listen to NPR on the weekends while I work…..it is so much more informative.
And without all that sanctimonius, pious, whiny-voiced poor persecuted me crappola…
For claiming to have the ONLY true God….those self-righteous type sure do whine a lot – don’t they?
Fox owns the spangles in Andover, I actually saw him there one Saturday morning when my wife and I was eating there. He wondered back behind the counter and was talking with the manager on duty. I mentioned it to the person wiping down the tables and was told that Fox is the owner!
Thanks for the tip…..I have not been there but a few times – so that’s reassuring. That’s too bad – I like their breakfast bowls. But I can always get them at any Wichita location.
You know, one has to wonder how a preacher man has all this money to invest…..I am thinking back to when that Wild West Park thing up in Park City went belly up..
And how Terry Fox was crying about all that money he gave to that guy..
I also had to laugh at the public comments on the article over at the local newspaper online site when the news hit the fan all those people lost money.
Nobody felt sorry for Terry Fox…. ….
I married a preacher man and let me tell you, we were lucky to have food on the table and a roof over our heads on that lousy little paycheck he got from that church.
If I did not work – we would have not had heat, water, electricity, and half of that food in the fridge.
When these Republicans yammer about how we need to go back to the good ol’ times – I wonder how these preachers and doctors would really feel about going back to those times?
Think back to the television series ‘ Little House on the Prairie’..
Was the doctor and the preacher man the wealthiest people in town?
Oh HELL NO…..
The doctor routinely was paid in bags of food or chickens – AND he had to do house calls!!!
The preacher man traveled around – and ate his meals at the different people’s homes.
My OH My……that would be comical to see today’s doctors and preacher men having to live like their counterparts did in those ‘good ol’ days’..
Stonekettle Station has a new blog post.
(from the link):
http://www.stonekettle.com/2013/04/unindicted-co-conspirators-of-boston.html
Gossip travels half way around the world before the truth gets it’s shoes on.
Unfortunately – gossip also sells better than the truth. Isn’t this the formula Talk Radio and Fox News’ financial success?
I just chalk it up to one thing – people will pay to hear what they want to hear… and they get to feel like they are ‘one of the club’.
I suspect that is why so many of these Foxxies and Talk Radio shock jocks use the phrase – not one of us – so freely. Of course, Ms. Sarah made that one famous in 2008.
Of course, I am thinking of that infamous 47% videotape that sunk Mitt Romney..
There is this from the US National Weather Service Wichita Kansas. Stay safe!
Numerous thunderstorms are anticipated with hail stones as large as golf balls, damaging winds up to 70 mph, and very heavy rains. A few tornadoes are also possible, however, the best chances for those are to our south.
Areas at greatest risk for severe storms are generally along and southeast of the KS turnpike this afternoon and evening.
Is that Joplin in the middle of that Severe Red circle?
Wasn’t that tornado that destroyed Joplin in late April or was it early May?
This is too close for comfort……IMHO
Did you hear that John Boehner is sending Michele Bachmann as a representative of Congress at the Thatcher funeral?
Why her?
Well – isn’t that nice of Johnnie B.
Isn’t it a shame that Johnnie B. declined President Obama’s offer to ride in Air Force One to attend that memorial service in Tucson for the shooting victims and while Gabby Giffords was fighting for her life at the hospital.
Johnnie B. explained that he had a previous engagement – yeah, a fundraiser.
So….let me get this straight….
Johnnie B. felt the urgent need to send Bachmann to represent Congress for Margaret Thatcher; but yet he did not feel the urgent need to attend the memorial service for one of his own fellow members of Congress who was shot down in a gruesome mass murder scene?
The true test of a person’s character is not in what he says he will do – but what he actually does.
I got to laugh! None of you will find this funny, but it was exactly what I needed — it was my own personal laugh. 🙂
I’m sorting laundry and it seems my granddaughter no longer has socks in the laundry — not just today but as I think back I remember socks missing from past laundries. Yet I remember seeing her in socks, so where are those rascals?
I go downstairs where she holds court. We have two spare bedrooms on the main floor but she has a suite of rooms down there and that’s where she lives. I don’t go down there very often. Her untidiness makes me grouchy. I notice her bed is a mess. Then I wonder just how long has it been since that bedding was washed. I decide to strip the bed and force her to make it with clean bedding when she arrives home after school.
Down at the bottom where the top sheet tucks in under the mattress I tug to get the sheet loose. It’s a pocket FULL OF SOCKS — more socks than most people own come tumbling out. It hit my funny bone!
She’s a teenager? What goes on in their minds at that age is still a mystery to me…
On the bright side of things – if this is the worse thing your teenager does – count your blessings!
But – you got a good laugh from this and that shows what type of grandmother you are……a very special one..!!
KUDOS to you…
More wisdom from Robert Reich:
Being wealthy in modern America means you don’t come across anyone who isn’t, and being poor and lower-middle class means you’re surrounded by others who are just as hard up.
Widening inequality is not inevitable. If we wanted to reverse it and restore middle-class prosperity, we could.
We could award tax cuts to companies that link the pay of their hourly workers to profits and productivity, and that keep the total pay of their top 5 executives within 20 times the pay of their median worker. And impose higher taxes on companies that don’t.
We could raise the minimum wage to half the average wage.
We could increase public investment in education, including early-childhood — especially in the poor and middle-class communities that now lack decent schools.
We could eliminate college loans and allow all students to repay the cost of their higher education with a 10 percent surcharge on the first 10 years of income from full-time employment.
We could expand the Earned Income Tax Credit.
And we could pay for all this by adding additional tax brackets at the top and increasing the top marginal tax rate to what it was before 1981 – at least 70 percent.
But none of this will happen until the public understands why widening inequality is so damaging. Even the rich would do better with a smaller share of a rapidly-growing economy than a large share of one that’s barely growing at all.
We could award tax cuts to companies that link the pay of their hourly workers to profits and productivity
——-
This one struck me but in a different way…
It has nothing to do with income inequality but the same logic should be applied to all those non-profit groups.
If we could award their tax-free status to those non-profit groups that link the pay of their top management to their actual spending on charity……I wonder how many of these so-called non-profit groups would be screaming and yelping all the way to the nearest Tea Party so they can blame the black man in the White House?
Seriously – how many non-profit groups do we know that are top-heavy?
Too damn many….
Which is why I only donate to those groups that I know for a fact are doing what they say they are doing.
For instance – St. Jude’s – I know families who have gone to St. Jude’s when their child was diagnosed with cancer……and it is exactly as the television ads state…..NO family pays for the care the child gets while at St. Jude’s.
If Danny Thomas can do it….so could the rest of these groups – IMHO
Yep. Roll over Von Mises, and tell Mitt Romney the news.
While the top marginal rate was 70%, there was a maximum 50% top rate imposed on “earned income”, which, IIRC, was imposed back in the late 60s. FYI.
Hopefully with all the help from the public and the many pictures and videos taken that day – the FBI will be able to eventually capture the person(s) that did the Boston bombing attack.
As the news coverage continues and they keep talking about how this pressure cooker was filled with spike nails without heads, ball bearings, metal shards….I just totally blank out…
Who in the right mind would even WANT to do this? Who would even know how to make one of these pressure cooker bombs?
But then I heard today on NPR that there are many YouTube videos of people blowing these pressure cooker type bombs up just for the fun of it. The host of the NPR show I was listening to this morning said that some of those videos showed people who were shooting at the ones out in some field to see if they could get it to go off.
Excuse me, but is this considered a hobby or fun? Is this something that normal people do?
I just don’t get this world we live in today……
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/16/17784776-authorities-seek-man-seen-leaving-bag-near-boston-blast-site?lite
Manchin-Toomey Background Checks — How the Senators Voted — map and complete roll call
http://politics.nytimes.com/congress/votes/113/senate/1/97?smid=tw-thecaucus