Tag Archives: girls

Donald Trump Has Finally Catapulted Us Into an Alternate Universe

by FrederiVogler Posted on August 9, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The Donald Trump saga continues its trip into Bizarroland today with the exit of Roger Stone from the Trump campaign. Trump claims he fired Stone, while Stone says he resigned—and he has the resignation letter to prove it. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m guessing Stone is the more believable party here. So why did Stone leave?

In the letter, which was obtained by The Post, Stone expressed regret for the end of a “close relationship — both personal and political/professional — since the 1980s.” But, he added, since “current controversies involving personalities and provocative media fights have reached such a high volume that it has distracted attention from your platform and overwhelmed your core message … I can no longer remain involved in your campaign.”

Not all of you are familiar with the Stone oeuvre, so how can I put this? Roger Stone complaining that Trump has become too vitriolic and combative is like the Kardashian family getting on your case for being too much of a publicity hound. It’s like Dick Cheney advising you that you’re banging the war drums too loudly. It’s like Louis XIV telling you to cool it with the mansion building.

Roger Stone is famous for calling himself a “GOP hit man.” He admires Richard Nixon so much he has Nixon’s face tattooed on his back. During the 2008 presidential campaign, he founded an anti-Hillary group called Citizens United Not Timid. He played a bit part in the Watergate scandal at the age of 19. He is famous for his many rules, one of which is “Attack, attack, attack—never defend.”

This is the guy who left the Trump campaign because Trump was too preoccupied with “provocative media fights.” The same guy who has proudly called his brand of politics “performance art” can no longer stomach the performance art that is the Trump campaign.

So this is where we are. On Friday, Erick Erickson criticized Trump for being sexist. Today, Roger Stone quit Trump’s campaign because he was being too combative. We are now officially living in an alternate universe. Mr. Spock finally has his beard.

Original article:

Donald Trump Has Finally Catapulted Us Into an Alternate Universe

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Donald Trump Has Finally Catapulted Us Into an Alternate Universe

Will Wherevergate Finally Sink Donald Trump?

by JolieH83tru Posted on August 8, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Our story so far: In Thursday’s debate, Fox host Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump why he was so fond of insulting women. Trump answered that he had just been kidding around. “I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness,” he said. “And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either.”

That didn’t go over too well, but Trump seemed like he’d probably survive it. Unfortunately, Trump being Trump, he couldn’t leave bad enough alone. In the spin room after the debate he started attacking Kelly and boo-hooing about how she had treated him worse than the other candidates. Then, showing the restraint he’s famous for, he followed this up with a series of increasingly unhinged tweets about Kelly throughout the night and into the early morning. Finally, during a CNN interview on Friday night, he said this:

You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her….wherever.

Let’s call it Wherevergate. This was a pretty obvious allusion to Kelly being unable to control her anger because she was having her period. Then things got weird.

(That’s right. Things weren’t really weird yet. So far this is all pretty normal in Trumpland.)

Anyway, Erick Erickson—tea party activist extraordinaire and founder of the influential RedState blog—got wind of Trump’s “wherever” comment and decided he was unhappy about it. Now, this is weird, because Erickson is not exactly famous for either his restraint or his sympathy for women’s tender feelings. He once called retiring Supreme Court justice David Souter a “goat fucking child molester”; called Michelle Obama a “Marxist harpy wife”; and lashed out at feminists during the 2008 campaign by calling a statement from the New York chapter of NOW the “latest salvo fired from the thighs of ugly nags.”

In other words, Erickson is not the shy and retiring type. But he eventually apologized for those comments and apparently decided to turn over a new leaf. “I’ve definitely had to grow up over time,” he told Howard Kurtz in 2010. So when he heard Trump’s remark about Kelly, he decided enough was enough. If he was going to grow up, then by God, everyone had to grow up. Trump hadn’t, so Erickson called up Trump’s campaign manager late on Friday and disinvited Trump from this weekend’s big RedState shindig in Atlanta. “I think there is a line of decency that even a non-professional politician can cross,” he told the Washington Post. “Suggesting that a female journalist asking you a hostile question is hormone related, I think, is one of those lines.”

Needless to say, The Donald didn’t take this lying down. Erickson’s decision, he said, was “another example of weakness through being politically correct….Blame Erick Erickson, your weak and pathetic leader.” Was that enough? Of course not. “Not only is Erick a total loser,” he said in a statement released Saturday, “he has a history of supporting establishment losers in failed campaigns so it is an honor to be disinvited from his event.”

Oh, and his “wherever” comment? Trump said he was referring to Kelly’s nose. “Only a deviant would think anything else.”

Roger that. So far, Erickson’s acolytes are apparently divided about the whole thing. Some are glad to see Trump’s back, others think Erickson has fallen into the pit of lefty political correctness. Stay tuned for more.

In any case, after all the inflammatory stuff Trump has said over the past couple of months, this appears to be the comment that’s finally going to cause him some real trouble. Go figure. Carly Fiorina immediately tweeted, “Mr Trump: There. Is. No. Excuse.” Lindsey Graham criticized Trump too, while other Republican candidates were more circumspect. So far, anyway. But I suspect this will turn into a feeding frenzy before long. Republicans are still spooked about the whole War on Women thing, and they’re none too happy about Trump taking on a Fox News host either. I think we can expect the Sunday talk shows this week to be all Trump all the time.

So that’s that, though I’m sure this post will be out of date almost as soon as I publish it. I just thought you’d all like to know what had happened while you were snoozing away the weekend.

Follow this link – 

Will Wherevergate Finally Sink Donald Trump?

Posted in alo, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Will Wherevergate Finally Sink Donald Trump?

Will the Economy Help Democrats or Republicans More Next Year?

by LyleFawkner Posted on August 7, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Paul Krugman notes that there wasn’t much talk about the economy in last night’s debate. Why not?

The chart shows private-sector job gains after two recessions — the 2001 recession, and the 2007-2009 Great Recession — ended, in thousands. You can argue that the economy should have bounced back more strongly from the deeper slump; on the other hand, 2008 was a huge financial crisis, which tends to leave a bad hangover.

….Now, am I claiming that Obama caused all that job creation? No — policy was pretty much hamstrung from 2010 on….Recovery should have been much faster, and I believe that there is still more slack than the unemployment rate suggests. But if President Romney were presiding over this economy, Republicans would be hailing it as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. Instead, they’re trying to talk about something else.

How is the economy going to play in the 2016 campaign? It’s a bit of a mystery at two different levels:

There’s the poli-sci model level, where the state of the economy is a background factor that affects the vote. A good economy helps the party in power, a bad economy helps the party out of power. Right now, though, the economy is in the middle: not bad, but not great. Next year, when we start plugging numbers into the models, they’re probably going to show a tight race.
Then there’s the campaign level, where candidates actively offer economic proposals (and criticisms) that they think will resonate with voters. Hillary Clinton will have a hard time here, since “it could have been worse” is not a winning slogan. Nor is “Republicans would be crowing if they had done it.” But it’s going to be hard to brag on the economy when it’s only in modestly good shape.

If Jeb Bush is the nominee, he’ll be blathering about 4 percent growth and claiming that anyone who says that’s impossible is just a defeatist who’s given up on America. Unfortunately, a lot of voters will probably believe him, because voters generally believe anything a candidate says. And Hillary won’t be able to fight back much, since it really would make her look like a defeatist. Luckily, “4 percent growth” is a fairly abstract concept to most people, and probably isn’t a great campaign slogan in the first place.

In the end, I suspect the economy will be in one of those middle states where it’s just not that big a deal in the campaign and won’t help either candidate much. Instead, the big campaign issues are going to be more specific: stuff like Obamacare, Common Core, ISIS, Clinton/Bush Derangement Syndrome, etc. Unless something big happens over the next 12 months, it’s going to be one of those grind-it-out campaigns based on small-ball issues, foreign policy, and GOTV mechanics. Lotsa fun, no?

Read this article: 

Will the Economy Help Democrats or Republicans More Next Year?

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Will the Economy Help Democrats or Republicans More Next Year?

It’s Time for Another Obama Apology Tour

by DemetriCzc Posted on June 24, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Here’s our latest “crisis”:

French President Francois Hollande held a crisis meeting of the country’s Defense Council on Wednesday after newspapers published WikiLeaks documents showing that the United States eavesdropped on him and two predecessors.

After the meeting, the council issued a statement lambasting U.S. spying as “unacceptable” and declaring that France had demanded two years ago that the National Security Agency stop snooping on its leaders. The latest WikiLeaks revelations, published by the daily newspaper Liberation and the investigative news website Mediapart, claim the NSA eavesdropped on telephone conversations of former Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy as well as Hollande.

Look, can’t we just assume the NSA has been spying on every world leader around the globe? Clearly, the answer is for President Obama to put this finally to rest by embarking on an apology tour of the entire planet—except for leaders we don’t like and plan to keep spying on. This will accomplish two things: (a) it will take care of the whole spying thing all at once, instead of having it dribble out every month or two, and (b) Obama really would go on an apology tour, which would make Republicans deliriously happy. Finally they’d be able to accuse him of going on an apology tour and they wouldn’t even have to lie about it. How cool is that?

Then, when it’s all over, we can go back to spying on everyone, except more carefully. I mean, you didn’t really think we were going to stop spying on these guys, did you?

Original article: 

It’s Time for Another Obama Apology Tour

Posted in Everyone, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on It’s Time for Another Obama Apology Tour

The Rest of the World Is Pretty Happy With President Obama’s Handling of World Affairs

by VernellClouse Posted on June 24, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

President Obama has had his ups and downs on the world stage. Libya didn’t turn out so well. There’s been no progress between Israel and the Palestinians. Vladimir Putin continues to be annoying. Still, all things considered, he hasn’t done badly. He’s started some new wars, but none as horrifically bad for US interests as George Bush’s. He appears to have managed passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. He negotiated the NEW START treaty with Russia. He’s mostly stayed out of Syria, despite endless braying from Republicans. The pivot to Asia has been moderately successful. And he might yet sign a treaty that will halt Iran’s nuclear bomb program, though it still looks like no more than a 50-50 proposition to me.

But enough about me. What does the rest of the world think of Obama? According to a new Pew poll, they think surprisingly well of him. Obama’s foreign policy is astonishingly well regarded in France, Italy, and Germany—and surprisingly, although his numbers are down from last year, he still does reasonably well in Israel too. And here I thought Obama was universally hated in Israel because he had betrayed them to their enemies thanks to his preoccupation with sucking up to Muslims. I guess that’ll teach me to listen to Republicans.

Obama bombs in a few countries too, notably Russia, Jordan, and Pakistan. Russia and Pakistan are easy to understand, but what’s the deal with Jordan? I don’t quite remember what we’ve done to piss them off.

China is surprisingly positive: 44-41 percent approval. The rest of Asia is strongly positive, probably because they trust Obama to stand up to China.

Anyway, Obama’s median approval throughout the world is a surprisingly healthy 65-27 percent. He could only wish for such strong approval at home.

Link: 

The Rest of the World Is Pretty Happy With President Obama’s Handling of World Affairs

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Rest of the World Is Pretty Happy With President Obama’s Handling of World Affairs

Fast Track Passes. TPP Now Nearly Certain to Pass Too.

by BirgitMcKenzie Posted on June 23, 2015

Mother Jones

Well, it looks like the Trans-Pacific Partnership treaty is in business. The standalone fast-track bill just passed the Senate by a hair, 60-37. Several Republicans defected and voted no even though they had voted yes the first time around, but only one Democrat defected. So now it goes to President Obama’s desk, where he’ll sign it.

Next up is a standalone Trade Adjustment bill, which Democrats killed the first time around because it was linked to fast track, which meant that voting no killed fast track. This time around, however, Democrats will presumably go ahead and vote for it since voting no will no longer stop fast track. Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have both promised to bring it up for a vote and to do their best to whip enough Republican votes for it to pass. If it doesn’t, Democrats will be furious at having been conned, and might take this out by voting no on TPP itself when it comes to the floor. This gives Boehner and McConnell plenty of motivation to get it passed, and I think they will.

This still doesn’t guarantee that TPP itself will have smooth sailing. However, it takes only a simple majority to pass, so there would have to be quite a few defections to kill it. Still, there’s time. Once the full text finally becomes public, I expect a full-court press from anti-TPP forces in both parties. I’d give it a 90 percent chance of passage at this point, but there’s still a glimmer of hope for opponents.

Credit – 

Fast Track Passes. TPP Now Nearly Certain to Pass Too.

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Fast Track Passes. TPP Now Nearly Certain to Pass Too.

Money in Politics Is….Top Concern of Democrats. Republicans Continue Not to Care.

by Stanton2314 Posted on June 22, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

I went out for my morning walk today—two-thirds of a mile, woo hoo!—and needed to take a ten-minute break when I got home. So I’m listening to Andrea Mitchell tell me the stunning news that in the latest NBC/WSJ poll, a full 33% of Americans say that money in politics is their top concern about the upcoming presidential election. Specifically, 33% chose as their top concern, “Wealthy individuals and corporations will have too much influence over who wins.”

Is that higher than usual? I suppose, though it hardly seems like the makings of a revolution. That’s especially true when you see the partisan breakdown:

Democrats were most likely to cite the influence of corporations and wealthy individuals as the top concern, with roughly half of self-described liberals and Democratic primary voters ranking it as their primary anxiety as the 2016 White House race gears up. Only 21% of core Republican voters said it was their top concern.

So….Democrats are upset about money in politics as usual. Republicans don’t really care much, as usual. I hope nobody minds too much if I find this a bit of a yawn.

Continue reading – 

Money in Politics Is….Top Concern of Democrats. Republicans Continue Not to Care.

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Money in Politics Is….Top Concern of Democrats. Republicans Continue Not to Care.

The President of the Boy Scouts of America Just Endorsed Dropping the Ban on Gay Leaders

by FranceSchoenhei Posted on May 21, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

The president of Boy Scouts of America is calling for an end to the organization’s ban on gay leaders, saying the “status quo in our movement’s membership standards cannot be sustained.” Robert Gates, who was speaking at the group’s annual summit on Thursday, said the changes would not be made at the meeting, but indicated officials should look into revisions in the future.

In Gates’s remarks, the former defense secretary urged the organization to “deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it be.” His address, sure to ruffle a few feathers, stopped short of supporting gay rights outright. Instead, Gates said that the policy shift was necessary to keep the organization nationally relevant.

“While our work won’t be done until we see a full end to their ban on gay adults once and for all, today’s announcement is a significant step in that direction,” Zach Wahls, director for Equality, said in response to Thursday’s announcement. “I’m proud to see Dr. Gates charting a course towards full equality in the BSA.”

In 2013, the Boy Scouts of America voted to allow openly gay scouts—gay leaders however were not included in the changes. Just yesterday, the Girls Scouts of America double downed on the group’s welcoming of transgender girls.

Read this article: 

The President of the Boy Scouts of America Just Endorsed Dropping the Ban on Gay Leaders

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The President of the Boy Scouts of America Just Endorsed Dropping the Ban on Gay Leaders

China’s Future, Take 2

by LeonoreYXSX Posted on May 12, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

After writing my post this morning about China’s economic future, I got an email response from an American who lived there for nearly two decades and had a different perspective on what China’s biggest problem might be going forward. Obviously this is just one person’s opinion, and I can’t independently vouch for it, but I thought it was interesting enough to share. Here it is:

I read with interest your musings on the future of China. As it happens, I lived for 17 years in Beijing, married, and started a family there.

I believe the macro-level statistics and phenomena you discuss are all trailing indicators. I left China with my family almost five years ago as a large number of interrelated quality-of-life issues became increasingly unbearable. Those factors have continued to worsen since then at an accelerating rate, to the point where the economy is now largely driven by people trying to earn or steal enough money to leave.

The once-thriving expat community in Beijing has shriveled to nearly nothing. The cost of living is approaching world-capital (NY, London, Tokyo, etc.) levels for a miserable existence. The local culture has become increasingly desperate and cutthroat. And Beijing is one of the more attractive places in China to live, work, and raise a family.

People, generally, and Chinese especially, will tolerate all sorts of deprivation in service of a better future for their children. And that is largely what has driven the rapid pace of Chinese development since the end of the Cultural Revolution and the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s opening and reform policies. My feeling is that biggest challenge ahead for China is when the population at large concludes that a better future for their children is no longer in the cards.

When it happens, it will happen gradually, then suddenly. And what happens after that, no one can say, but a continuation of the policies driving hyper-accelerated GDP growth over all else probably isn’t it.

Read More:  

China’s Future, Take 2

Posted in ATTRA, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on China’s Future, Take 2

And One Chart to Rule Them All

by ReggieBisdee Posted on May 10, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

It feels like it’s been weeks since I last created a chart for this blog. I suppose this is because it has been weeks. Today that changes.

Over on the right is the chart that’s controlled my life for the past couple of weeks. That’s not to say there weren’t plenty of others. My potassium level seemed to be of particular concern, for example, but that would make an especially boring chart since it just bounced around between 3.3 and 3.9 the entire time. (They added a bag of IV potassium to my usual daily hydration whenever it fell below 3.6.) Now that I’m home and my IV line is gone, I’m eating more bananas than usual, just to be on the safe side, but that’s about it.

But that was nothing. What really mattered was my white blood count. You can see it on the right. For some reason, the two days of actual chemotherapy are called Day -2 and Day -1, and the day of the stem cell transplant is Day 0. On that day, as you can see, my count was around 6500, which is quite normal. Then, as the Melphalan steamrolled everything in its path, it plummeted to ~0 on days 7 and 8. Bye bye, immune system. Finally, on Day 9, as the transplanted stem cells started to morph into various blood products, my count skyrocketed. By the time I was discharged on Day 14, it was back to normal levels.

Fascinating, no? Especially when it’s in chart form!

Lessee. Any other news? My fatigue is still pretty heavy, and will stay that way for 2-3 weeks. I didn’t realize it would last so long, partly because my doctor waited literally until my discharge date to tell me. But it’s for real. It took me two tries to create this post: one session to create the chart, after which I crashed, and a second session to write the text. Not exactly speed demon blogging. What else? I have a nasty metallic taste in my mouth all this time. It sucks. And I think my hair is finally getting ready to fall out completely. This morning my pillow was covered with tiny little pieces of hair, and it’s pretty obvious where they came from. On the bright side, my appetite is improving. I’m not yet at the stage where I really want to eat, but I’m mostly willing to eat, which is good enough for now. This may be partly due to the fact that I’m wearing one of those seasickness patches behind my ear to fight nausea. It seems to be working.

Oh, and I can now take a nice, normal shower without first having to spend ten minutes trying to bundle up my catheter so it doesn’t get wet. Woohoo!

See more here: 

And One Chart to Rule Them All

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on And One Chart to Rule Them All