You Want Me To Do…………………………………WHAT?

• Write a Refuse The Test letter to your child’s school advising them your child will not take the Smarter Balanced Assessment during this school year and you expect your child to have an education while other students are testing and hand it to the administrator of the school first thing in the morning
• Attend a press conference outside Legislative Hall in Dover at 12:30 pm and go to the State Board of Education meeting at 1pm and give public comment about your opposition to Regulation 103
• Talk with other parents at your child’s school about opt-out if they are not aware of it
• Wear a red shirt as a symbol of protest for Parent Strike
• Drop off flyers everywhere you go with a print-out of these bullet points
• Paint REFUSE THE TEST on your car (with temporary paint)
• Paint REFUSE THE TEST on Gov. Markell’s car (with non-removable paint)
• Use stealth guerrilla tactics: Put sticky notes everywhere (bathroom stalls, school supplies, in cereal and toy aisles at stores, anywhere you can think of) with REFUSE THE TEST written on it
• Thank your child’s teacher for all they do and that you are willing to fight for them
• Help a parent write a REFUSE THE TEST letter
• On the night before, use sidewalk chalk on pathways parents use to walk their children to school
• Whatever you can think of to legally spread the message

Everywhere Across The World, Charter Schools Are Falling Apart

The Charter sham is up!… All know too much for it to continue… For those who don’t know, the sham worked this way….

• People pay for a study to create a report stating how bad public education is..  
• Then they say they have a better solution: charters.
• Then they say they will need these three things, if you want THEM to educate their kids….  Complete  control. no accountability, and immunity from all future indemnifications. 
• Then buy the necessary votes…. and presto…. charter schools……
  =====

But… one small problem… charters failed miserably and couldn’t educate….. Children were dumb-ass stupid who went to charter schools and performed worse than those remaining in cash strapped public schools.

So we took a closer look at these charters…. We found out why…..

They didn’t even care if children learned or not… All they wanted was money… They knew the schools would be closed down… They knew the achievement gaps would not narrow, because they were doing nothing to tighten them…  It was ONLY about making money… and boy… did they make money…..

To the tune of $40 million stolen from taxpayers since charters were first allowed…. and most of it stolen legally….  Off the top of my head, it appears that $10 million was pocketed just this past year, according to the revelations hitting us almost daily from various reported news sources….

So…. shouldn’t someone be looking into these thefts ($10 million) and investigating these thieves?   Well, apparently based on the opposition to Representatives Kim Williams HB 186, which requires auditing of charter schools (what could go wrong, right?) the powers that be…. think we should leave the thieves alone...

They are the thieves…

A former Republican who ran against Coons for New Castle County Executive, was chucking $2 million a year in his pocket for the now defunct Pencader Charter School building (according to the Delaware Checkbook).  Each charter school is in a similar position… One of our wealthy landlords owns the land those schools rent, and pockets enough cool change to pay lobbyists great amounts to wrest standard auditing away from normal policy…..

And if you didn’t care…. everyone in the General Assembly would vote the way the lobbyists wanted!… The only thing stopping them is the embarrassment they face at the polls next time for aiding and abetting these criminals in the taking of your school dollars… You know, those property taxes allegedly supposed to go to your feeder-patterned school?

It is outrageous…. $40 million dollars and no one, no one is allowed to look into it?… all because it is protected by those who throw their weight around in General Assembly….

All know by now, that charter schools are bad…. All know by now, that charter schools ruined Philadelphia… just as they did Washington DC, Cleveland, Milwaukee,  and Chicago…..  Charter schools are an abomination… They are puss aggregators surrounding rectal orifices…

The only reason charter schools exist… is to legally rob money from the poor, to give to the rich.  There is NO OTHER REASON… and if you need proof still, then look at the gigantic fight on going RIGHT NOW to keep our state auditor from being allowed to look into Charter School finances…. even though 7 charters are under investigation for blatant fraud….

But the powers that be…. don’t want their finances looked into and would rather have your money stolen flat out, than be caught with their pants down which these audits will do….

You hold the balance of power…..

Here is the bill: HB 186.

Currently, all school districts, including vocational schools, are subject to the Auditor of Accounts. Edits to the November 2010 Charter School Manual removed instructions for charter schools to go through Auditor of Accounts when contracting for audits. There is presently no legislative authority to require charter schools to submit to the Auditor of Accounts processes. This bill adds charter schools to the list of entities for audits through the Auditor of Accounts. The bill takes effect so that the Auditor of Accounts shall conduct postaudits for the time periods starting on or after July 1, 2015.

Here are the committee members who need to release it….

michael.barbieri@state.de.us
StephanieT.Bolden@state.de.us
Timothy.Dukes@state.de.us
debra.heffernan@state.de.us
Kevin.Hensley@state.de.us
Harvey.Kenton@state.de.us
Sean.Lynn@state.de.us
sean.matthews@state.de.us
joseph.miro@state.de.us
Edward.Osienski@state.de.us
Charles.Potter@state.de.us
Michael.Ramone@state.de.us

Here is what they need to hear:

I __________________ think it is outrageous that Charter Schools have special privileges that allow illegal activity… I have been shocked at recent findings showing 7 Charters defrauding our state so far this year. I was even more shocked to find that they were removed from all accountability by a previous legislature, and could now refuse with impunity to have their books looked at by the very state who is funding them!... This must be changed.  At the very least, I would demand my representative put up for a full vote, this very important bill: one removing the elite protectionism charter schools apparently have, allowing them to commit blatant fraud with zero consequence,  “No elected official should ever vote for the continuation of open fraud involving public money….. “

Then click and send…

For good measure, here is the all of the House’s email addresses…. alphabetized…

Michael A. Barbieri  michael.barbieri@state.de.us
Paul S. Baumbach   paul.baumbach@state.de.us
Andria L. Bennett andria.bennett@state.de.us
Donald A. Blakey donald.blakey@state.de.us
Stephanie T. Bolden StephanieT.Bolden@state.de.us
Gerald L. Brady gerald.brady@state.de.us
Ruth Briggs Kingl Ruth.BriggsKing@state.de.us
William J. Carson william.carson@state.de.us
Richard G. Collins richard.collins @state.de.us
Timothy D. Dukes Timothy.Dukes@state.de.us
Ronald E. Gray Ronald.Gray@state.de.us
Debra J. Heffernan debra.heffernan@state.de.us
Kevin Hensley Kevin.Hensley@state.de.us
Deborah Hudson House Deborah.Hudson@state.de.us
Earl G. Jaques Jr 😦
James Johnson jj.johnson@state.de.us
S. Quinton Johnson Quinton.Johnson@state.de.us
Helene M. Keeley helene.keeley@state.de.us
Harvey R. Kenton Harvey.Kenton@state.de.us
John A. Kowalko Jr. john.kowalko@state.de.us
Valerie Longhurst Valerie.Longhurst@state.de.us
Sean Lynn  Sean.Lynn@state.de.us
Sean Matthews Sean.Matthews@state.de.us
Joseph E. Miro joseph.miro@state.de.us
John L. Mitchell Jr. john.l.mitchell@state.de.us
Michael P. Mulrooney Michael.Mulrooney@state.de.us
Edward S. Osienski  Edward.Osienski@state.de.us
William R. “Bobby” Outten   bobby.outten@state.de.us
W. Charles Paradee trey.paradee@state.de.us
Harold J. Peterman jack.peterman@state.de.us
Charles Potter Jr. Charles.Potter@state.de.us
Michael Ramone Michael.Ramone@state.de.us
Peter C. Schwartzkopf Peter.Schwartzkopf@state.de.us
Darryl M. Scott Darryl.Scott@state.de.us
Bryon H. Short Bryon.Short@state.de.us
Daniel B. Short Daniel.Short@state.de.us
Melanie George Smith melanie.g.smith@state.de.us
Stephen T. Smyk Steve.Smyk@state.de.us
Jeffrey N. Spiegelman jeff.spiegelman@state.de.us
John J. Viola John.Viola@state.de.us
Rebecca Walker Rebecca.Walker@state.de.us
Kimberly Williams kimberly.williams@state.de.us
David L. Wilson David.L.Wilson@state.de.us
Lyndon Yearick  Lyndon.Yearick@state.de.us

And if you are really pissed tonight that you got kicked out of Firefly by Hurricane Bill…. focus your anger on these people… it is called:  anger displacement.  It would be a way of turning something very negative, into something very positive….

For across the world, charters like cancer are beginning to do their damage; they are changing from benign to malignant… We need chemotherapy; we need it now.

Ok, So We Can Now Opt Out. Now What? 2015’s Test Is Done.

The next step is to bar this year’s test scores from all student permanent records.  If you think of it, it is the best compromise possible.  What they answered can be gleaned for any helpful tendencies to provide feedback, but no child will have on their record how poorly they did on this poorly written and put-together test….

And while at it, bar all data gleaned from the social and psychological testing part, as well.  So it never hits their record… Nothing on this test, ever hits their record. so that 20 years hence, no one can go back and see these scores. and shuffle one of today’s students aside for an executive position because they took this test and failed, whereas their co-worker vying for the same vice-presidency, went to private school and avoided the Smarter Balanced all together…..

Simply insert into the Delaware Code that student scores on the Smarter Balanced will not be attached to their permanent record, and the data will never leave AIR which administered the test.

That would provide personal protection for those who should have opted out, but didn’t…..

The Vanishing Act Of Common Core

When a train’s brakes have been released and it is headed down the steep hill, for one man to get in front and think he can stop it is insane….

One has to wonder what little of Delaware is trying to prove by forcing the Smarter Balanced Assessment on little children, when almost everyone else is running away to get away from the upcoming explosion…..

How did we go from here…..

“The Original Common Core And It’s Detractors”

To 2014…

To today?

The numbers of defections are mind boggling and one must ask why Delaware is jumping headfirst into a program with no debate, when all states debating the issue are running the other way…

The sole answer has to be Pete Schwartzkopf… His firm control of the Delaware House of Delegates has quashed all debate on this matter… and rubber stamped all Common Core policies with barely a discussion… One representative was so disgusted at Pete’s silencing of him, he refused to vote …

Unfortunately, there IS a conspiracy against your child. It is big business to take money allegedly in place for your child and instead, put it in ones pockets… There are unfortunately too many in our House of Delegates who prefer to serve those with money, over those with real human-being children…

Common Core is evaporating… So why are you children still taking these damaging tests? You have the power to stop it… You as a parent need to opt out and if necessary,… keep your child at home when he is supposed to take the test…. A test that already has his score decided long before he takes the test…..

A Very Deep And Moral Obligation

I recognize that a stand to resist the tests has many consequences, some severe in the short run. But anyone who takes this stand now will be exonerated in the long run. It is the moral and practical thing to do. Next year a stand taken against the tests today will look prescient.

Obamacare In Mortal Danger

A panel of judges has ruled that subsidies are no longer legal. For millions of Americans, this means they will immediately be slapped with charges up to $800 a month for what many are paying under a hundred…

They will drop their insurance out of necessity, or will be dropped for non-payment.

Republicans are celebrating this…

When the law was written in 2010 it was assumed that all states would do their own exchanges. In states that are doing their own exchanges, there will be no change. That is what the law says and as Republicans say: the law is law….

But for states like Delaware which rightly decided that the Federal exchange would be cheaper for its citizens because of the larger pool, that line in the law was never changed…. It says “state exchanges”… (Remember the law is alleged to be some 15,000 pages long, and is still, believe it or not, something I have not yet read….)

But in one line the word “state” is indeed there and that, according to this particular court, means that it is illegal for the federal exchanges to be subsidized… I have looked, and at this early moment just hours after the decision, there is no confirmation (just estimates) on how many insured that will affect…..

But to all you who were insured in the Federal exchange? Guess what? You got no Obama care….

Map courtesy of Kaiser

To hear the far extremist right saying “ha, ha, ha, suffer bitches” you can go here or here…

Now…

On this same day, another Federal court in the same city, decided this was indeed legal. There were two cases before two different conservative courts, and we got two opposite decisions. It now goes up the next step and will probably hit the Supreme Court. Which should mean that IF insurance companies are willing, the Obamacare program can continue as is until struck down… But as we saw with Obamacare last November, when it comes to making money, private insurance companies are ruthless and lack heart…

Second… to fix this, all we need is a bill put forth, worded like this…. A bill: To amend the ACA Healthcare law by removing the word “state” and inserting “all or any”…..

That will happen in the Senate, but will never happen in the House…. Which is why, in whatever state you read this, you must get Democrats into your Congressional seat… IF you succeed, or if ENOUGH of you succeed, your insurance can and will continue… You will continue to be insured.

Remember it is just one stupid word so don’t be bulldozed by smart-assed Republicans gloating over the “rule of law” .,… (They don’t honor rule of law when it applies to one of their favored corporations….) It can easily be changed… but it must require people sympathetic to Obamacare for it to get passed….. Only Democrats can guarantee you your insurance will continue… Only Democrats.

You must, must make your vote count this November; you must make your friends, neighbors, church goers go to the polls in your behalf; unfriend them if necessary, bitches….. Your entire future depends on this one vote… Seriously, you could be dead next year thanks to your … Republican friends….

HB 167, HB 167, HB 167

Actual conversation:;;;;

 

So hey, did you hear that HB 167 passed?  How do you feel?

HB 167? What da f*** is that?

House Bill 167, it bans the box… Isn’t that great?

Well, then, what are the going to do with all the homeless then?

Taking US Senator Chris Coons Out With The Garbage?

I wasn’t going to say anything; obviously I’ve changed my mind as the controversy continues to swill around Chris Coon’s “no” vote against his putting a certain person who once represented a cop killer on the bench….

Chris has said this vote was difficult for him, and I think it would be for any of us finding ourselves in his position.  It is easy to have an opinion and act on it when sides are clearly divided.  As when it is you against them.

It is not so easy when your close friends are sharply divided, and half want you go go one way; the other half want you to go the next… When in that situation people develop formulas to guide them;  such as take a poll and alienate the lesser amount;  another is to check with those who are closest to you, and go the way they suggest.  A third is to flip a coin, since you lose either way and gain nothing.  A fourth is to skip the vote.  And a fifth, is to actually look inside yourself, weigh all the data you are privileged to see,  seek out the best and worst of both sides, then make a decision on what you think is best…

That last one is a doosey.

But that is what we elect our officials to do.  We can’t be there ourselves.  We have mouths to feed, bills to pay, bosses to satisfy, and spouses too mollify, and our duty is to pick who we think will do their best making these decisions in our absence…  Among leaders, we call it delegation. We delegate these decisions to someone else, and trust they make the correct and right ones.

If you read through Chris’s statement, the emotion jumps off the page that it wasn’t an easy decision for him.  None of us who throw invective bombs his way, ever sat down with the family of a fallen police officer and ask how they feel.   Therefore we only know half of the equation; and to be straight up, that half is the left-brained, logical side of the equation.  Respectfully, the lawyer who represents a client should not be pasted as being aligned to that client, because that, is what lawyers do…. Neither should a plumber be blamed because he once fixed Eric Bodenweiser’s faucet…  Same thing;  logically speaking;  it’s work, that’s all…

But tell me truthfully… did you just cringe when I mentioned fixing Eric Bodenweiser’s faucet?  If you were in a bar, and this great guy next to you suddenly spilled that story that he once went to that house, of that man, and took money from him,  speaking strictly for me, I would immediately begin looking for another conversationalist… I’m just being honest.  I don’t know why, it is completely illogical…. But there is just that stigma…. that kind that causes a shudder from the very inside of the heart, outward…

Again.  no offense to anyone in bringing up this description.  We all can agree it is just a example of human nature.  But it is a very “BIG” part of human nature….

Which means it plays into the equation because all of our transactions are human…   Those of us taking Coons to task probably did not look very deeply at the ramifications of having someone like that on the bench.  Would there be more jailhouse deaths of inmates, because cops felt the defendant would be let off and knew he was guilty?  Would there be less arrests because cops knew their charges would get pardoned anyway?  To be honest, probably not, but since those thoughts just ran through my mind I’m sure there are other out there affected similarly….

But what this huge controversy does manifest, no matter which side you happen to be on, is that this decision was tainted.  Either way, there is going to be this  stigma, one way or the other, to one party or the other, always attached to this appointment….

With every decision this judge would make, forever into the future, … that stigma would  get called into account.   Either one side or the other would be outraged with every decision being made, by a far greater degree than if those same exact decisions had been made by someone we’d never even heard of before….

And that is where leadership comes into play… Whereas weaker minds would pick and choose sides, debate back and forth whether the one side or the other should win out in the end,  the real leader looks at the big picture, charts the path forward over years and decades,  and says “what would make all this go away, and get ourselves returned back to business as  normal in the shortest possible time frame?”

When that becomes the parameter, the correct answer almost smacks you in the face; it is so clearly obvious what must be done….

Call it Chris’s Lawrence of Arabia moment;  when you see the big picture and know what it is you must do. There are bigger, more important battles that need fought.  Allowing a tempest in a teapot to derail the future of the entire nation is in no one’s best interest.  Someone else, who will do just as great of job sitting on that bench can be found….  By then, many new crises will be upon us, and we’ll all be fortunate we are not reliving this distraction, over, and over, and over….

We made it go away… Whether it was this guy, or another, or a woman who sat on that bench, would not make any probable difference to your life, or mine. There are a lot of people out there who think the way this ex-lawyer does, who have the same depth of feeling towards civil rights, and I’m sure another one can be found rather quickly..  To let that distract from imposing higher taxes on the wealthy, from standing up to brutality in sub-Saharan Africa, from protecting Social Security,  from fighting the corporate influence that is slowly choking off everything good we used to love about America, would be in error…  And we’d be willing to throw all that away for what?  Just for a puny public show to prove how tough we are that we can stand up to the Fraternal Order of Police and not back down?

There may be another time to do so.  For example to preserve our Miranda rights.  To protect habeas corpus would be another one.  To keep the 5th Amendment intact would be a third… Those are all worth losing political capital over.  Each of those make decisions that really matter, to not only ourselves, but future Americans down through the years as far as our eyes can see.

You aren’t standing in his shoes.  He is.  It is called “doing your job” and it is why we elected him; to sometimes even save us from ourselves when  necessary…

Oh, well, you can think what ever you want about him, do whatever you want;  it’s your right, I won’t say any more; there other far more pressing things needing my attention… But just remember this;  that if you were in his shoes, at that time, making that decision, would you simply fall back on your prejudices and pap philosophies, perhaps your political nature that automatically always chooses one side over the other?  Or… would you too, look at both sides, and figure out by yourself what America really needs at this point,  then do something constructive to move us in that direction?

.

What? Fed Now Says Gas Powered Electricity Is More Carcinogenic Than Coal Fired Power Plants? How?

I was done with my shopping at Acme, had picked up a bouquet of flowers, and saw the Blue Crab and ducked in to get some food to go…Heck, I didn’t feel like cooking…  I decided to pass upon driving through the new WSFS atm, and instead came straignt out of Suburban Shopping Center, got stuck at the light where the Soviet interference blocks out WDEL, and with the green, pulled straight ahead onto Rt.4 towards the Bob… I go up the rise that is the bridge, squeeze down to one lane, and look to my left at where the new power plant will be. thinking of course it would be way off in the corner by the railroad tracks… As I looked, it slowly dawned that it would be right at the corner, right next to the bridge i was on…  Holy Crap.

I would be directly under that smoke stack at least 4 times every day… Why would that concern me?  Because concentrations of the heaviest particles are thickest the closer one gets to the stack…  My open window or car vent would suck those in, and keep them in my car, for what? maybe a mile, or two?  I would be breathing lots of stuff that normally stays deep underground… Like lead.  Like cobalt, Like uranium, Like Radon. I know, as do you, that all it takes is one atom to get sucked into my lungs, bond with a cell tissue, and stay there, and I die of lung cancer.   Of course it could happen in Ohio, and since atoms never die, get blown from there over to Rehoboth Beach, and be hanging right above the ocean about an inch, right where I come up and gasp for air… and the same thing could happen… Therefore I have to look at probabilities.  My probability of dying from cancer is almost infinitely larger when I drive under the stack 4 times every day, or 28 times every week, or 1456 times at the minimum, every year I live in Newark…  Just imagine the probability from those living in Devon, less than 200 yards from the belching stack…

Belching, as in burping up lead, cobalt, antimony, uranium, cesium, strontium, radon,  Ever had to work with someone who had bad breath?  This would be infinitely worse….

Here is where you say… Wait!  But Jack Markell and Sam Latham all said that gas was cleaner than coal.  How does you headline fit in with your claims that gas is dirtier than coal….

Great question… Let us answer that with an entertaining example….  let us say there is a house up the street, shared by 4 young people, maybe they are in a band even…. But rumor is they smoke pot…   Now let us say, you rent one of your rooms out to Justin Beiber, and Lo, come to find out he smokes pot too…  but not that much…. Now, which of the two, is going to provide you the greatest opportunity to get high from second hand smoke:.  The reggae band 15 houses away, or Justin Beiber who crashes at your house when on breaks from his tour?

It’s the same way with carcinogens in pollution.  Coal plants are in Ohio.  This 248MW natural gas co-generation power plant, is 200 yard away….

The figures for mean damages per ton of emissions are higher for natural gas plants than for coal plants because of the locations of the plants. If you think about it, a power plant located near an urban area will do more human damage than one located in the country, all other things being equal….

There can be no question.  The rate of death will jump in areas surrounding Newark if this power plant goes in.  Explaining it is cleaner than coal is irrelevant for there is no coal plant going in… The comparative factor must be against the status quo.  Right now, there is nothing polluting the air breathed by the citizens of the town of Newark. Soon there will be… and obviously as a result, more people and animals will die horrible, painful deaths than do now.  That is inevitable, and must be recognized, while at the same time, not blown out of perspective.

There are times when the benefits might be worth the risk of dying prematurely. WWII for example.  And not everyone will die early. Just those unlucky to breathe in the unlucky molecule, which today, doesn’t exist in Newark but when finished, will soon be belched out 24/7 right there by Route 4’s bridge over Amtrack..  Those in receivership will die, while the rest of us live on… The question stands: is this power plant worth dying for? Is the money being made for its investors, worth the copays our estate will fork over on our own terminal medical bills…

You say yes?  or was that a no, I heard?

2013: America’s Wasted 365 Days

I am borrowing heavily from Hunter here, who through an amazing amount of work did what I would have liked to, but never would have found the time…  He slogged through each month in separate installments.  I wanted to have one single visual representation of the year as a whole.

America has cancer.  It is our conservatives.

January.

January 3, 2013: Election of Speaker. Incumbent Speaker John Boehner was re-elected with the largest number of defections in the vote for speaker since at least 1991…

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal tells GOP: ‘Stop being the stupid party’. “It’s time for a new Republican Party that talks like adults,”

Republican Stephan King introduces the Repeal of Birthright Citizenship.

Republicans closed party ranks against doing anything at all to prevent another Sandy Hook mass killing.

Republican state legislatures initiated laws to disregard any federal laws on gun legislation that do happen to pass.

The constitutional Sheriffs said putting armed civilian posse’s in schools would be the answer.  Some noted that Sheriff’s Arapao’s own posse was composed of criminal elements.

Republicans threatened to veto Obama’s appointment of conservative Republican Chuck Hagel because he was neither Republican or Conservative enough.

Sequester Legislation gets signed as part of budget deal, and Obama goes on a olive branch dining tour with Congressional Republicans.  He was received well ( they all brought their wives to meet him.)

The government did not shut down, Mitch and Joe made a deal that sailed passed the House, in which the leadership and moderate Republicans all thumbed their noses at the Tea Party contingent who voted it down.  The lesson was short lived.

GOP had a retreat to determine why nobody like them, and discovered it was because they were conservative.  While there they decided they could do nothing without their prime funders, who were all demented Conservatives, and so they chose to remain conservative anyway.

And Glenn Beck announced a Glenn Beck theme park was forthcoming.

February

John Boehner informs America that the Republican House is going to initiate a top secret Immigration Reform Club, that will blow both the Senate and America away with the scope and integrity of their quality legislation.

Disclosure is made that the NRA has a secret enemies list…  topped by Mary Lou Retton. (Not snark; seriously)

The NRA head Wayne “LaKook” LaPierre, felt compelled to give his own rebuttal to Obama’s State of the Union address.

Led by a former Vice President who shot his lawyer in the face, a group of likewise gifted riflemen led a movement stating that having any discussion about gun safety was bad for America.

Mississippi Republicans pondered to ban animal-human hybrids. Oklahoma Republicans debated whether students should get marked wrong for stating that climate change or evolution DID NOT EXIST. Missouri Republicans responded with a bill to make it a FELONY for anyone to propose gun legislation laws….

Senator Cruz questions whether Secretary Defense Chuck Hagel is secretly getting money from North Korea or other of America’s enemies.

The Republican’s gentleman’s agreement not to block nominees with a filibuster lasted 15 working days.  Chuck Hagel’s vote did not reach cloture.

March

The Daily Caller was punked by a hoax involving two Dominican Republican prostitutes who after being paid a year’s worth of tricks by a wealthy Republican benefactor, then went and made charges against Bob Menendez.  Although quick to be proven a hoax, the Daily Caller to this date, still insists it was a true story, and the entire world is lying and currently is out to get them…..

After cowing to public pressure to install Chuck Hagel afterall, Senate Republicans next vow to hold up confirmation on the CIA director until Lindsey Graham and John McCain get the answers they want on Benghazi.

Senator Paul Rand of Kentucky stages a filibuster against the CIA confirmation chief’s vote, to protest drone use by America.  After receiving much good press and lots of contributions, he quietly said he really didn’t have a problem with drones being used to kill people at all.

With the exception of Governor Christie who fortunately as a Republican, is completely removed from the antics inside the capitol dome, all the other 2016 Presidential contenders came out against any post-Sandy Hook common sense legislation…. Sens. Marco Rubio, Jim Inhofe, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee…..

The Republican Sequester begins to go into effect, causing Republicans to push legislation to fund all those parts of their sequester which make them look bad.  Long lines at the airports,  White House tours,  immigrants sneaking across the border were all erroneously blamed on Obama.  Like cutting $85 billion overnight wouldn’t affect anyone?…  Duh.

Remember the Acorn scandal of years ago?  It was settled and the full story came out after the trial.  The film was edited by Breitbart to make it look like a prostitution ring was being run out of ACORN, but in fact, the ACORN perpetrators had been suspicious and called the police on the film crew, thinking that they were the ones misusing women for financial gains.  Trusting anything said by a conservative is dangerous.  That organization which re-enfranchised many poor Americans was shut down over a lie.  Can we now have that class action lawsuit against Breitbart and the film’s producer?

Woot!  Woot!  Paul Ryan had a Medicare plan!  Awwww.  The Senate voted it down 96-3.

Sequester kicks cut deeply into Head Start, cancer research, and Meals on Wheels.  Republicans complain loudly about the quality of towels in the heated Congressional swimming pool.  Apparently they weren’t getting cleaned well or fast enough.

April

Republican nominee for Virginia’s governorship advocates for the re-installment of Virginia’s anti-sodomy laws.  (Yeah, seriously!  In 2013!)

Sen. James Inhofe, dismisses the Sandy Hook families who showed up in Congress to witness the vote, by saying the tragedy of Sandy Hook didn’t have anything to do about them. “I think it’s so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn’t.” –Inhofe

After gun control gets defeated, Inhofe in search of another publicity run, makes himself the head of investigating those rumors of whether the federal government is buying up all the ammo so gun owners can’t use any to shoot at rifle ranges.

The new conservative media darling Ben Carson disappears after stating that gay marriage leads to bestiality…

Multiple conservative groups took to the airwaves and blamed the Boston Marathon bombing on the Pill, sexual liberalism and abortion. Obviously they are ignorant of real world terms like backpacks and explosives.

Rep. Louie Gohmert made the claim that the Obama administration was “chock full of Muslim Brotherhood” members…  Because it is?  That was the full extent of evidence behind his outrageous claim.

House issues its report on Benghazi.  It apparently did not know, or listen to any of its witnesses subpoenaed to it’s hearings,  that [By tradition], every cable from an embassy bears the “signature” of the ambassador — and every cable from Washington bears the “signature” of the secretary of state.”   The entire premise of their report, was instantly and publicly deemed invalid.

May

House Republicans admit their own ineptitude at being able to pass any legislation.  Revealing Quote:  “we couldn’t even get agreement to call 911 if House Speaker John Boehner were on fire.” 

Heritage Foundation weighed in on Immigration stating that it would cost trillions of dollars.  When broken down that came to half a million per immigrant, something that laughed Heritage Foundation past the monsters and over the edge of even their square world of reality.  it didn’t help Heritage, that the author of that report, was a known white supremest in charge of his own collection of kooks.

The NRA elects a new president who in video, express his continued anger that the northern states ran off with all of his great-grandfather’s black help…. More alarming was his advocacy for ” “weapons to fight tyranny”  forever dooming the next poor government worker who chooses to knock on the wrong door….

Republicans foundering in a froth over that Obama had the Tea Party scrutinized by the IRS, had a hard time dealing with the fact that democratic leaning groups got the same treatment as well. Could it be policy, that political groups requesting tax exempt status actually get looked at to ensure they were deserving of such before granting it? Completely out-played, Rand Paul stands up to protest, well, that he should even be forced into the position of having to protest anything at all…..

Michelle Bachmann announced she would not run again  and that the cause for which she was bowing out, absolutely had nothing to do with the two separate probes over her criminal misdoings…

It’s now been three months since the Republican National Committee issued its 100-page autopsy report about what went wrong in 2012 and promised to reach out to more non-white voters.

June

Just hours after the Supreme Court nullified parts of the Voting Right’s Act,  Republican state legislatures rush through legislation to purge voter rolls of Blacks and Hispanics.

Remember the IRS scandal?  In June through testimony it was revealed that twice as many conservative groups were approved than were progressive groups…  Remember Darrell Issa’s  charges that Obama was using the IRS to stymie Conservative groups only?   I guess the Congressional Committee actually did what it was supposed to do and got down to the truth of the matter.  Way to go, Darrell….

Snowden erupts… The press goes through a public mitosis.   We get to watch which reporters and organizations are the “real” fourth estate, and which are the self-appointed protectors of the DC bureaucratic elite.

Ultra Conservative foundation Heritage, was originally “for” a bill that eliminated public financing of campaigns, until they discovered the money would go to fund research for sick children… Better to waste it on Republican candidates than sick children they said (in a roundabout way), and switched their support to one of not…

And we heard again that rape does not result in pregnancy, so keeping abortions facilities around to prevent raped impregnations is absolutely unnecessary, and… we need to ban abortion immediately because, heaven forbid, fetuses are masturbating in the uterus!  Apparently this trend seems to occur mostly with Republican ones.

Republican Senator Jeff Flake had to apologize for his 15-year-old son’s unsavory remarks on Twitter.

July

July 16, 2013: The Senate reached a deal to allow some presidential nominations to come to a vote, avoiding the “Nuclear option” for filibuster reform…

Republicans in Missouri wanted their state Supreme Court to hasten forward their convict’s execution days, since access to acquire the drug to be used, was running out.

Conservative plans to put guns in schools hit a major hurdle as private insurance companies say if so, they’ll pull their insurance coverage away.

Republican Governor Rick Scott wonders why his national guard is not prepared for a hurricane, and discovers the sequester was the culprit….  Their funds were cut by his own Tea Party in Congress.

People whom no one takes seriously, on a network no one takes seriously, wasted a lot of air time blaming Obama for making us into a bi-racial nation, after he gave a few remarks about Trayvon Martin.

Congress takes a recess having passed 15 bills by it’s half year mark. A record low.

August

Arizona Senators who had voted against giving FEMA aid to New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy, demand FEMA do more to help their state, beset by a few fires.

Liz Cheney gets busted for lying that she was a Wyoming resident.

The Republican National Committee demands that CNN and NBC not show their prime-time programs on Hillary Clinton, or else they will ban those networks from showing their convention in 2016….  Turns out it was only going to be those two network’s Spanish channels who would be banned….

Republicans who castigated Clinton and Obama for not having sufficiently protected embassies across the world, called the unprecedented closing of 22 embassies over a credible intelligence threat, an act of cowardice….  Darn. There went their plan for Congressional hearings all the way up to 2014 elections….

Republicans complained that the re-enactment of Martin Luther King’s Washington speech had no conservative speakers.  It was subsequently revealed that all those Conservatives who were invited, had declined.

September

Buildup to the Shutdown. Republicans do nothing to stop it.

Ted Cruz gives a pre-shutdown standing “non”–filibuster. Topic, Obamacare.  It was just (yawn) a speech, since it delays no vote…

The month of September was preluded by Republican entreaties that the government shutdown would NOT be the Republican’s fault, since neither Obama nor the Democratic Senate was not accepting their unreasonable demands to repeal Obamacare. The entreaties obviously didn’t work.

John McCain continues his push to arm Syrian’s rebels. Creates inter-party confusion, since, aren’t those rebels Al Qaeda? John says arm them nevertheless… (until Israel tells him otherwise).

Lindsey Graham says not bombing Syria immediately, will cause an all-out Israeli-Syrian War by March 2014….

Florida’s Governor Rick Scott, reschedules an execution since it fell on his Attorney General’s re-election campaign fundraiser date.

As more and more Republicans express hope that shutting down the government and defaulting on our debts are preferable to allowing poor people access to insurance coverage, a shut-down appears more and more likely.

October

The United States federal government was shut down as most routine operations were curtailed after Congress failed to enact legislation appropriating funds for fiscal year 2014, or a continuing resolution for the interim authorization of appropriations for fiscal year 2014…

When asked if Republicans gained anything by forcing the closure on many government functions, Republican Senator Ayotte replied “I think the answer is no.”

GOP Congressman Stutzman explains the very coherent clear objective for the stop-payment on 700,000 people’s paychecks by shutting down government.  “We have to get something out of this; and I don’t even know what that IS.”

Rep. Randy Neugebauer  berates a Park Ranger for closing a war monument that Rep. Randy Neugebauer himself voted to close. The best part of the exchange? Multiple bystanders coming to the ranger’s defense.

Republicans found they could get TV time on networks by falsely appearing  outraged over the closing of War Memorials for which they voted.  Unfortunately no TV time was allotted to children awaiting cancer treatments,  people eating unchecked contaminated food,  mothers whose work depended on Head Start classes teaching their children certain hours every day…. Even the Federal employees who had no income for 17 days, were barely mentioned.  Proving to all that there is nothing fair or balanced with any American news organization.

Republican Party head Reince Priebus states the RNC itself will provide funds to keep the war memorials open.  Two things not mentioned.  They would not be closed in the first place but only for Republican’s irrational enthusiasm for shutting down all government; and that more necessary programs  towards the well-being of this nation,  both economic and defense, would of course not be getting any assistance and would continue to do severe harm. Those two omissions making it clear to all observers  that Republicans are not only stupid, but dangerous to have anywhere near real power.

A rolling right wing extremist truckers brigade was planning on shutting down Washington for an entire weekend by choking the Capitol City’s roads and freeways.   5 trucks showed up.  But that didn’t stop Fox News from showing year’s old footage of trucks stranded on a Georgia Interstate due to a traffic mishap, in its selling of the live and current story…

In his ongoing  effort to prove who is the most irrational Republican Rep Gohmert tells an audience that John McCain, due to his criticism of the Republican shutdown, is secretly employed and on the payroll of Al Qaeda..  And to think, if not for Obama in 2008, he (Al Qaeda)  would have been president!  It has a nice ring to it though… John (Al Qaeda) McCain….

And in case you couldn’t tell… Michelle Bachmann held a press moment to declare, we are now in the ….. “End Times”…  (So that’s why the Eagles are champs of the NFC East.)

Even Norquist condemns the Republican Party…. “I think if you make a mistake as big as what they did, you owe your fellow senators and congressmen a big apology — and your constituents, as well, because nothing they did advanced the cause of repealing or dismantling Obamacare.”

Republican North Carolinian precinct captain,  essentially says the Republican’s party’s prime role, is to make non-whites second class citizens again…  He was pushed out after the interview aired, but not before criticizing his own party for not being KKK enough…

Republicans say defaulting on our debt, which means the government not paying at least some of our bills, is no big deal.   Meanwhile, the actual price the government paid to borrow money for a month rose to its highest level since 2008, more than doubling from just a day earlier.

The shutdown cost the Federal Government $4.8 billion. It lost the economy $24 billion. It shaved 0.6% growth off our GDP.

The Republicans caved just in time.  Newsweek revealed the S & P was minutes away from changing our already lowered AA+ to its lowest category, Selective Default.  the lowest of all 20 of S&P’s grades of non-trustworthiness.

‘Tea Party’ Republican Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, insisted “this was worth having the fight,” even as they were conceding absolute defeat.

To a Republican Party which pretends to be concerned about fiscal conservatism — even as these numbers and many others show they clearly are not — any “victory” found amidst this shutstorm will have to do.

Republicans sum up the month by declaring there is a war on Christmas and only they are the last lines of defense in keeping it from being overcome.  Really.  Would that “war on Christmas” spending have anything to do with a self imposed  $24 billion hit to the economy?

Oh, and on the very day the government shut down to deny all funding for Obamacare,  the website for Obamacare opened… and received considerable amounts of traffic.  Perhaps a little too much traffic. But when one is concerned with focusing all September’s efforts on keeping the entire government from shutting down, are the problems of a tiny single untested website going to get that much pre-scrutiny?

November

November 21, 2013: Nuclear option for filibuster reform was enacted.  The new rule will allow just a simple majority vote for all nominees except for the Supreme Court.  Tipping point was the Republicans filibustering of 3 DC Circuit appointments for spite,  finally pissing off 3 cool-to-the-idea Senators and giving him the majority he needed to make it happen.

Rand Paul plagiarizes on a scale that makes Biden’s remarks 25 years ago just a slip of the tongue.  Biden was kicked out for that?  And Paul is still in?  Oh… I see…  two different parties; two different morales…

Boehner comes clean:  “Frankly, I’ll make clear, we have no intention of ever going to conference on the Senate (Immigration) bill,”  Note: There are enough favorable bipartisan votes to pass the Senate Immigration Bill in the House of Representatives if it ever came up for a vote.

In Colorado, five hard-right counties voted in November to secede from the state…

Former Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Jim Wright, was almost denied his voting rights under Texas’ newly passed Voter ID law.  Being in a nursing home, he could not get his drivers license renewed in time to vote.  Not to mention, untold numbers of married women were turned away because their married names had not yet been updated on their ID’s.

December

Congress will close 2013 with 58 bills enacted into law. It’s the lowest one-year output since 1947. 6366 bills were introduced by lawmakers.

“You know, you look around the Congress and there are a lot more females in the Democratic caucus than in the Republican caucus, and some of our members just aren’t as sensitive as they ought to be.” John Boehner, Dec 5, 2013.

House Republicans decide we needed a budget after all…  The Paul Ryan deal with Patty Murray sails through with 60 Tea Partiers thinking it was too liberal, and 30 Progressives thinking it was too Conservative but still making it through with a 3-1 margin, showing the entire world, that the House of Representatives can function very well whenever the Republican Hastert rule is  ignored.

We find out from Fox News that Jesus is white, and so is Santa.   Both apparently look like this.

Realizing Obamacare will doom the Republican Party… California Republicans create a spoof site that mimics California’s healthcare website and mails every constituent a pamphlet directing them to that spoofed site, instead of to the actual one.  Much of California’s clamor over the website problems came from trusting people actually steered towards the wrong website by none other than their elected representatives.

Women must now get rape insurance in Michigan. Purchased separately in advanced.  Otherwise, they were asking for it when they got nailed.

Conservatives who praised Mandela were vilified.  How dare you praise anyone of color.  If you were already of color and shook hands with someone also of color, you were again vilified.  You can’t be “our” president they said, because you don’t hate people enough….

Duck Dynasty proved in Conservative America,  you do not have the right to fire someone for speaking hate and bile,  but you do have the right to fire someone who is in love with anyone you don’t approve.

Republicans piled on the US closing the Vatican’s embassy as a war on religion, even though it was reported it was being simply being upgraded to a new location because of logistics…   (They’ve since scrubbed their website.)  Apparently they’ve never heard of Google, which come to think of it, is probably why their embarrassingly overwhelming loss in 2012 was such a surprise….

Finally, now at the end of the year, the Wall Street journal reports that the  Chamber of Commerce is putting up $50 million in combination with Republican power brokers, to weed out the Tea Party crazies throughout the primaries…  Just as a reality check this is a lot of money;  an average Senator’s campaign war chest usually tops out at close to $1 million.

If you need them, all the sources are here…  You can look them up if you wish.  You should visit him and give him a rec for service well done.  Personally I just wanted a reminder for those times when I get tired, see how little has changed,  and wonder what’s the ‘effin’ point… why is it worth anything that I should keep pounding away at them anymore?….

At such points, I can then come back and  look at this post….