Author Archives: RafaelCatts

One Factor Blunting Impact of Green Spending on Election: Inertia

by RafaelCatts Posted on November 5, 2014

green4us

The Cannabis Grow Bible – Greg Green

The definitive guide to growing marijuana just got better! Greg Green’s original Cannabis Grow Bible set a new standard for handbooks on cannabis horticulture and established Green as the leading authority in the field. Green’s comprehensive and professionally presented work on how to cultivate superior cannabis struck a chord with beginner, amateur and professional growers […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo

This best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles? Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes […]

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White Dwarf Issue 40: 1 November 2014 – White Dwarf

Watch the skies! For from beyond the coldest depths of space come the Toxicrene and Maleceptor, two new Tyranid monstrosities hellbent on devouring the imperium of man. Issue 40 of White Dwarf has the full rules for both of these huge new kits. Also in this issue: building a Chaos Legion, a Tyranid Paint Splatter […]

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Marijuana Horticulture – Jorge Cervantes

Marijuana Horticulture: The Indoor/Outdoor Medical Grower’s Bible is the most complete, thorough, and comprehensive cultivation book available on the market today.  This book has been dubbed the “bible” by its readers because it explains every aspect of cultivating marijuana and yielding high quality and abundant crops.  It explains the science, the simple how-to, practical and […]

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Warhammer: Glottkin – Games Workshop

From out of the northern wastes march the Brothers Glott, Champions of Chaos bloated with Nurgle’s foul favour. At their heels comes a festering tide of horror, a sickening horde of the diseased and the deranged fit to sweep away the civilised world forever. Before them lie the war-torn lands of the Empire, the greatest […]

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America’s most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of […]

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No Better Friend – Elke Gazzara

No Better Friend offers a unique collection of intimate essays by celebrities about the dogs that have touched their lives, giving us the inside scoop on the bond between owner and dog, defined not by status or popularity but founded instead on what truly matters: loyalty and love. These sometimes poignant, often touching, always personal […]

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Cesar’s Way – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

“I rehabilitate dogs. I train people.” —Cesar Millan There are at least 68 million dogs in America, and their owners lavish billions of dollars on them every year. So why do so many pampered pets have problems? In this definitive and accessible guide, Cesar Millan—star of National Geographic Channel’s hit show Dog Whisperer with Cesar […]

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Trident K9 Warriors – Mike Ritland & Gary Brozek

As Seen on “60 Minutes”! As a Navy SEAL during a combat deployment in Iraq, Mike Ritland saw a military working dog in action and instantly knew he’d found his true calling. Ritland started his own company training and supplying dogs for the SEAL teams, U.S. Government, and Department of Defense. He knew that fewer than 1 percent […]

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The Other End of the Leash – Patricia McConnell, Ph.D.,

The Other End of the Leash shares a revolutionary, new perspective on our relationship with dogs, focusing on our behavior in comparison with that of dogs. An applied animal behaviorist and dog trainer with more than twenty years experience, Dr. Patricia McConnell looks at humans as just another interesting species, and muses about why we […]

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One Factor Blunting Impact of Green Spending on Election: Inertia

Posted in ALPHA, alternative energy, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, growing marijuana, horticulture, LAI, Monterey, ONA, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on One Factor Blunting Impact of Green Spending on Election: Inertia

Here’s the Pitiful Micro-Drama Behind Yesterday’s Debt Ceiling Vote

by RafaelCatts Posted on February 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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After the House finally decided to just pass a damn debt ceiling bill and head out of town, everyone figured the Senate vote wouldn’t produce any drama. But it did, though only in a sad, craven key. It all started when Ted Cruz insisted on filibustering the bill because it gave him a chance to pull off some cheap tea party theatrics, and that’s all Cruz cares about. (Apparently he’s under the sad delusion that this kind of thing might pave his way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.) Then the vote got up 58 ayes, and sort of stalled. Why? Dave Weigel points me to this report from Manu Raju and Burgess Everett:

Miffed that they have long been asked to take tough votes when the GOP leaders voted “no,” Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski, privately pressured McConnell and Cornyn to vote to break the filibuster, sources said. Murkowski resisted voting for the measure without the support of her leadership team.

As the drama grew in the chamber with the vote’s prospects in doubt, McConnell turned to his colleagues and said: “We’re not doing this again,” according to a source familiar with his remarks.

So McConnell and Cornyn — both facing reelection this year and battling tea party-inspired challengers in their states — took the plunge and risked the political backlash by voting to break a filibuster, the type of vote the two wily leaders have long sought to avoid in this election season.

It was a mini-revolt of the backbenchers. There’s a standard bunch of GOP moderates who keep getting asked to take one for the team, and they finally got tired of it. So they told Mitch McConnell they were through bailing out the party unless they got some help. McConnell and Cornyn caved, and that opened the floodgates for a bunch of other Republicans to follow suit. In the end, the debt ceiling increase passed 67-31.

But McConnell managed a small, almost touchingly meager victory. Apparently Harry Reid took pity on him and played along with a plan to keep the votes semi-private by not having the clerk call the roll. Everyone’s votes were still recorded, but at least they weren’t called out in stentorian tones on CSPAN-2. Weigel:

If this sounds pathetic, that’s because it is. Carl Hulse puts it very well here: Most Republicans want the country to keep running, but don’t want to provide tough votes if they can be used against them in primaries. But I’d go further than Hulse. More than ever, most members Congress are structurally protected from any consequences for any votes they take. Like I wrote yesterday, only four incumbent Republicans in the House and Senate, total, lost primaries in 2012. None of them lost only because they voted to raise the debt limit.

Individually, they’re totally safe. Collectively, they often can’t act. So the only real pressure exerted on a party is the external backlash that follows a big, collective failure — the definitive case this year being the government shutdown, the definitive case in 2011 being the collapse of a House Republican debt limit bill.

Four incumbents! But that’s all it takes to make all the rest of them petrified with fear of the Koch brothers and the Club for Growth. Senators these days are like our fabled youth who are supposedly so smothered with parenting that they’re afraid to face the real world on their own. Senators are so smothered with entitlement to their seats that they’re afraid of even the tiniest chance of a primary challenge. The result is a gutlessness in the face of mau-mauing from blowhards like Cruz that makes you want to avert your eyes. Even when it’s being done to a bunch of guys you can’t stand, it’s just too painful to watch.

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Here’s the Pitiful Micro-Drama Behind Yesterday’s Debt Ceiling Vote

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