What does it say about D/R psyches that Hillary's smaller lead = Dem panic but Jeb Bush's journey to 4% doesn't = open R panic?
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 2, 2015
Seems like we need one. Some kind of sportsball thing going on?
Reid starts new gun-control push, calls Republicans 'puppets' of NRA http://t.co/63ULNVRtH4 | Getty pic.twitter.com/pZtgWaQUTt
— POLITICO (@politico) October 5, 2015
Except, puppets don't have free will. I think there's another word when you take money for it. https://t.co/d0FEAm8S34
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 5, 2015
Kudos to Senator Reid. From the Politico article:
Senate Democrats are gearing up for another gun-control push after the massacre at a community college in Roseburg, Ore., as the chamber’s top Democrat accused Republicans of being “puppets” of the influential National Rifle Association in obstructing action on guns. But as members of both parties pitch ideas for gun-control legislation, once again, there appear to be few areas of agreement between Democrats and Republicans.
Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Monday that he is reaching out to other Democratic senators on moving background checks legislation – a tall order in the Senate, where just two years ago Republicans and red-state Democrats blocked a bill when the chamber was under Democratic control. On Monday, Senate Republicans again shrugged off the push from Democrats as political and not addressing the root cause of the country’s mass shooting affliction…
If “we don’t take action, we are equally responsible for innocent deaths as the sick individuals who plot and carry out these horrific measures,” Reid said Monday on the Senate floor. “One thing is clear: To pass background checks, we need Republicans to stop acting as puppets of the NRA.”…
On Monday, Reid leveled sharp criticism at the NRA, saying it was once a “moderate sportsman’s organization” but that “times have changed.”
“Now the NRA and its leadership are committed to a radical agenda that allows criminals and mentally ill Americans to access guns to commit these terrible acts,” Reid said. “Is this what the American people elected us to do? I think not.”…
"Our inaction is a political decision we're making," Obama says on gun violence. "I will politicize it."
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) October 2, 2015
At what point do we start investigating the @NRA as an organization that supports providing guns to domestic terrorists? #UCCShooting
— Max Berger (@maxberger) October 1, 2015
I'll never forget when my then 3-y-o's teacher reassured us parents that her room "has a big closet, so they will all fit." Never.
— Katie Nelson (@katienelson) October 1, 2015
So when NRA types share this are they admitting that guns are a deadly addiction of very damaged people? pic.twitter.com/kClExU1Msk
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 5, 2015
Is there anyone out there with some artistic skills who would like to fix the current banner and rework the balloon man for the new website?
I don’t fly on USAir / American very often, but when I did last week, my flight included two full-size dogs. These dogs had none of the usual service dog signage, nor were they in any kind of container. They just boarded with everyone. The one nearest to me had been trained to stay under the seat and did so through the hour-long flight.
Both of these dogs were quite well-behaved, but the issues here are obvious: What happens when the inevitable asshole boards with an ill-behaved dog whose doggie downers wear off halfway through the flight? What if the plane needs to be evacuated?
Is this a American Airlines thing? Is it a new policy?
Some good news on this Monday afternoon- Roy Edroso is back at the Village Voice with Rightbloggers!
It’s getting harder and harder to tell who’s the smart Bush brother:
Jeb Bush’s campaign is considering giving former President George W. Bush a bigger role on the trail in South Carolina as the campaign looks to give the former Florida governor a boost in the key primary state of South Carolina, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
1. Have historically unpopular president campaign for you.
2. ??????
3. Profit
From Political Wire:
New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) announced she will challenge Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) for the U.S. Senate next year.
Democrats need to pick up a net of four seats and the White House to control the Senate next year or a net of five seats. The current Senate class is the class of 2010 which, as we all remember, was a massive wipe-out year for Democrats as the Democratic holds in vaguely contested seats were enabled by allegations of witchcraft, outright craziness, and Teabagging extremism. Otherwise, the Republican wave swept up seats in states that typically swing about five points more Democratic than the nation as a whole.
There are two seats that in my mind lean heabily Democratic take-over (Wisconsin and Illinois), and then a bevy of seats that, in a neutral political environment are winnable by good campaigns (Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania) and another couple of seats that need a little bit of luck or a favorable national environment (North Carolina, Arizona if McCain retires, Indiana if the candidate is a teabagger). Two Democratic seats are at risk (Nevada and Colorado), I would put Nevada at more risk than Colorado. So best case Democratic scenario is a net plus seven or eight, decent case is net plus 6, and an oh-shitter is net even to net plus two as the 2018 map is ugly for Democrats as it is a 2012 class in an off-year electorate.
Getting Hassan to run increases the probability of a net pick-up and building a cushion for 2018.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership is back in the news and back as a 2016 campaign issue for both parties as the final touches on the deal have been worked out.
The United States and 11 other Pacific Rim nations on Monday agreed to the largest regional trade accord in history, a potentially precedent-setting model for global commerce and worker standards that would tie together 40 percent of the world’s economy, from Canada and Chile to Japan and Australia.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership still faces months of debate in Congress and will inject a new flash point into both parties’ presidential contests.
But the accord — a product of nearly eight years of negotiations, including five days of round-the-clock sessions here — is a potentially legacy-making achievement for President Obama, and the capstone for his foreign policy “pivot” toward closer relations with fast-growing eastern Asia, after years of American preoccupation with the Middle East and North Africa.
Mr. Obama spent recent days contacting world leaders to seal the deal. Administration officials have repeatedly pressed their contention that the partnership would build a bulwark against China’s economic influence, and allow the United States and its allies — not Beijing — to set the standards for Pacific commerce.
The Pacific accord would phase out thousands of import tariffs as well as other barriers to international trade. It also would establish uniform rules on corporations’ intellectual property, open the Internet even in communist Vietnam and crack down on wildlife trafficking and environmental abuses.
Several potentially deal-breaking disputes kept the ministers talking through the weekend and forced them repeatedly to reschedule the promised Sunday announcement of the deal into the evening and beyond. Final compromises covered commercial protections for drug makers’ advanced medicines, more open markets for dairy products and sugar, and a slow phaseout — over two to three decades — of the tariffs on Japan’s autos sold in North America.
The question for the assembled is this: does this deal pass Congress?
Lot of factors in play here: Obama’s legacy, Republicans who want this deal passed despite giving Obama a win, Democrats who want this deal scrapped, the 2016 candidates all over the map on this, corporate interests, environmental interests, unions, you name it, everyone has a stake in this deal.
But having gotten this far and the final international deal now done, does this deal pass from sheer inertia of history or does the politics of 2016 mean it can’t?
Happy news from Philadephia cat rescuer Ann Marie:
Good news — Lucy and Luna have found a home. A woman at my office was going to go to the SPCA and get a kitten but decided to take these two mature ladies instead.
Anybody know how to convert video iMove (Apple) clips to a (pc) .flv file that WordPress will accept? Until that can be untangled, here’s the latest update from kitten wrangler Marc:
The kittens continue to develop by leaps and bounds (literally). Their territory now ranges from the master bedroom (where they were born and corralled) down to the computer room at the other end of the condo, with the kitchen and dining room on the route in between. They’ve all discovered The Mirror, and watching each interact with the kitten on the other side was something else. Their physical development and increased coordination has given them newfound wings as to where they can explore.
The two cat trees in the bedroom are now regular places to romp, which they rapidly climb up and down (and occasionally hide in when I’m doing a kitten count). The bed, which used to be a tough climb for them is similarly open territory to use equally as resting place, playground, or stalking position, depending on the mood of the kittens. They still sleep under the bed, but will kitten pile elsewhere (especially after feeding at Mom’s Diner), and I’ve woken up to a kitten or three snuggled next to me.
Coca-Cola and McDonalds call on Sepp Blatter to stand down immediately. They are two of FIFA's major sponsors. More on #bbcnews at Ten
— Reeta Chakrabarti (@rchak100) October 2, 2015
Not really a fair comparison, since the Lizard’s old man was responsible for so much actual death and misery, but… Per USA Today:
ZURICH (AP) — Envy and hatred, rather than any illegality, is to blame for Sepp Blatter’s reputation being ruined and it will take several people to do the FIFA president’s job in future, according to his daughter.
The 79-year-old Blatter rebuffed demands Friday from four FIFA sponsors to quit immediately rather than stay until February’s emergency election after being placed under criminal investigation. Blatter is waiting to hear whether he will be suspended before then by FIFA’s ethics committee.
Blatter’s interrogation by Swiss investigators on Sept. 25 lasted eight hours, daughter Corinne Blatter Andenmatten disclosed in Sunday’s edition of Swiss newspaper Blick.
“I was afraid that they would take him away in handcuffs,” she was quoted as saying…
Although Blatter was voted in for a fifth term in May, four days later he announced plans to quit amid the fallout from the arrest of seven FIFA officials in Zurich ahead of the electoral congress.
Blatter has a reputation for about-turns, but he has insisted he will not stand in the Feb. 26 presidential poll…
“His loved ones were FIFA. It was everything to him. As a family we often had to take a step back.”
The BBC says Visa and Budweiser are also calling for Blatter to step down. The remaining “major FIFA sponsors” are Adidas, Gazprom and Hyundai.
“Meanwhile, a separate Swiss investigation is looking into the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, which will be held in Russia and Qatar respectively.”
From an earlier BBC article:
… The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in Geneva says the timing of the announcement of the investigation into Sepp Blatter was no accident, coming as it did while the world’s media were gathered in Zurich for a Fifa news conference.
She says that ever since the first arrests in May, the Swiss attorney general’s office has told her it is serious about investigating Fifa, and proving to a sceptical world that Switzerland can get tough on financial corruption…
JeffreyW’s cat Bea wonders what y’all are up to.
Open thread.
(This kind of feels like when I worked as the weekend DJ at a little radio station)
Countdown to a flurry of posts…..
ETA: For rikyrah
Kid has good taste.
Well, I made it to the Great Smoky Mountains, driving from Florida to North Carolina during the flood of the half-millennium. Honest to dog, it rained every step of the way.
We passed through (valued commenter) Raven Country:
(Sorry about your Dawgs, dude. But how ’bout them Gators?!?!) We ate like two-headed hogs at the world-famous Dillard House:
We traversed terrifying mountain roads and amassed scores of hateful followers who were no-doubt cursing us as stupid fucking Floridian, leaf-peeping scumbags who have no business driving on so much as a bunny slope. But finally we arrived:
It’s lovely but COLD! My siblings laughed at me for bringing two large suitcases filled with every sweater and lined jacket I own, but they’ll soon be asking for loaners. I’m feeling magnanimous, so I will say yes.
Now we’re watching the Panthers whup the Bucs (I’ve got the Panthers minus 14, and those feckers better cover the spread!).
What are you up to today? Open thread!
I had Ben Carson figured for a Fred Thompson-type candidate — amiable and telegenic but lacking the energy and shamelessness to make it in a GOP primary.
Maybe I’ve underestimated him:
Dr. Ben Carson … has launched a social media response effort to the Oregon gunman’s reported targeting of Christians in his shooting spree on a community college campus on Thursday.
In one of several consecutive Facebook posts, Carson urges his millions of followers to change their Facebook photograph to an image of a hashtag: #IAmAChristian. The other Facebook photograph shows Carson holding up a piece of paper with the words “I am a Christian” written on it.
And Carson’s in front in a new poll!
I don’t think Jeb, Rubio, or Kasich has it in them to pull this kind of stunt. If they’re still in third-place or lower come December, I wonder what they’ll come up with.
From faithful garden correspondent Marvel:
Early Fall in the Wilammette Valley has been mild and wonderful. Clear, sunny skies, cool breezes, sparkling sun. We’ve eaten the last of our vine-ripened tomatoes, juiced & ‘sauced all our apples and dug up all the potatoes.
Most recently, we’ve been filling up on a robust bunch of veggies from the Fall garden, plucking side-shoots and mature leaves from the broccoli and the latest generation of lettuce.
