Sen. Marco Rubio fancies himself an expert on Iran and the Middle East and has used Democratic Rep. Patrick Murphy's support for the Iran nuclear deal as a cudgel. But somehow the guy who admitted he didn’t like being a senator and has amassed one of the worst records on skipped votes, also managed to skip a sizable number of Iran hearings too. Alex Leary writes:
During the 114th Congress, Rubio missed nearly half of the Foreign Relations Committee hearings that dealt specifically with Iran, records show.
He also skipped a number of other hearings in which issues pertaining to Iran came up, though were not the sole focus. [...]
In addition to missing many votes while he sought higher office, Rubio skipped out on dozens of committee hearings. Earlier this year, the Tampa Bay Times reported Rubio had missed 68 percent of all hearings since taking office.
Maybe we should just call him "Skippy." If Floridians think Rubio is suddenly going to start enjoying his job, they are flat out lying to themselves.
The face of Donald Trump's forced-birther campaign, Marjorie Dannenfelser
The face of Donald Trump's forced-birther campaign, Marjorie Dannenfelser
Social conservatives have from the outset of his campaign been suspicious of Donald Trump’s bona fides in matters of concern to them. But slowly, slowly, they’ve come to accept his candidacy, choosing to believe what he says now vs. what he said back a few months or years ago, although he can still make contradictory statements about his stance in the same paragraph, sometimes the same sentence.
He will surely help consolidate some of that growing support with the appointment announced today of Marjorie Dannenfelser to be national chairwoman of his campaign’s Pro-life Coalition. Dannenfelser is president of the Susan B. Anthony List, the forced-birther group that trickily named itself after a feminist icon by inventing views she never publicly expressed.
Dannenfelser might seem an especially unusual choice for the post since she aligned herself in January during the primaries with a group of right-to-lifers arguing for “anybody but Donald Trump” who they viewed as unacceptable as a candidate. In addition to concerns about how he might affect their efforts to squelch legal abortion with what they view as iffy Supreme Court appointments and the like, the letter they signed noted that they were “disgusted” with his treatment of individual women, including Fox’s Megyn Kelly and candidate Carly Fiorina as well as his “exploitation of women in his Atlantic City casino hotel which boasted of the first strip club casino in the country.”
But that was during the primaries. That was then and this is now, and Trump is the GOP nominee no matter how much they might have preferred Ted Cruz in that slot.
In fact, Dannenfelser’s conversion appears to have begun last May when she effusively praised Trump for choosing outspoken forced-birther John Mashburn as his policy director in an earlier move to bring anti-abortion advocates into the fold.
Donald Trump went on the Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show where he answered questions about Russian President Vladimir Putin, because what's the damn point of anything anymore.
At last week's vapid excuse for a foreign policy forum Trump told Matt Lauer that he praises the Russian leader because "if he says great things about me, I'm going to say great things about him." This indeed seems an accurate distillation of Donald Trump's worldview, in which the worth of every individual he meets is measured only in accordance with how flattering that person can be toward Donald J. Trump. Also an accurate distillation of Donald Trump's worldview: going on a different television program to say the opposite.
“Well, look, I don’t know him, and I know nothing about him, really. I just think if we got along with Russia, that’s not a bad thing,” Trump said. “The Democrats try to say I like him somehow. I don’t like him. I don’t dislike him. I don’t have any feelings one way or the other. And it’s not going to matter what he says about me. If he says good things or bad things about me, I’m going to make great deals for our country.” He added, “They make it like he’s my best friend, I don’t know him.”
There ya go then. Good to know. Whatever. It'll be something different tomorrow.
Watching the former Club for Growth President, now-Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) pretzel himself into being not-completely-a-Republican has been one of the more amusing aspects of this election. He's been in an extremely tight race—now trailing by a point in HuffPost's poll aggregate—against Democrat Kathy McGinty. In order to win, he has to convince Pennsylvania voters that he's not a "tea party favorite" anymore.
Toomey, for his part, is trying not to anger anyone in the state too much. He needs to retain Trump supporters while limiting his losses in the overwhelmingly Democratic parts of the state in and around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, where Trump is an albatross. Thus, he has half-embraced Trump, and is emphasizing his bipartisan work on guns. […]
Toomey […] got $1.4 million in ad support from the NRA in 2010 — the most of any candidate that year — when he first won election to the Senate. The NRA in 2016 has not endorsed Toomey, remaining silent so far on the race.
Toomey has, however, gotten the misguided endorsement of some anti-gun groups, including Gabby Giffords’ group, Americans for Responsible Solutions. Maybe they should ponder the fact that the NRA is just staying silent, and not actually out denouncing Toomey for his half-measures for gun-safety. Spoiler alert: it's because they don't see him as a threat to their supremacy in the GOP.
Toomey might have gotten the backing of some of the anti-gun groups who ultimately don't want to rock the boat too far, but that doesn't mean he's going to be on their side when the chips are down, or that he's not going to be voting for Mitch McConnell—who is securely in the NRA's pocket—as his leader in the Senate. That's what matters.
Following Donald Trump's one-sentence admission that he was wrong about a lie he's been perpetrating for at least five years, the Congressional Black Caucus held forth Friday afternoon to say: Enough is enough. Trump's flat-out lie that Hillary Clinton started the birther movement was a total capitulation, said members of the group.
"Make no mistake," warned California Rep. Barbara Lee. "He founded the birther moment and that catapulted into his campaign for the presidency. [...] Our work now should be about unifying the country and moving forward with a referendum on bigotry."
South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn said Trump had purposely heaped "indignities" on President Obama in order to "delegitimize" him, and he called on the media to stop simply regurgitating what Trump says. "Let's do what's necessary now to expose this man for the fraud that he really is," he added.
A longer excerpt and video of Rep. Clyburn’s remarks is below.
Donald Trump is the establishment, by David Akadjian
Women for Hillary: We get the job done, by Sher Watts Spooner
Hillary Clinton’s biggest problems isn’t lack of trust and transparency, it is misogyny, by Egberto Willies
What kind of future do we want to leave for our children, by Mark E Andersen
Remember how Republicans like Trump said minimum wage increases hurt the economy and cost jobs, by Ian Reifowitz
The 100 year journey: The National Museum of African American History and Culture, by Denise Oliver Velez
A closer look at those in Hillary Clinton’s other basket, by Susan Grigsby
Donald Trump, the subprime president, by Jon Perr
The deplorables: From the Trump campaign to the media that are normalizing him, by Laurence Lewis
• Auschwitz survivor will finally have his bar mitzvah—a century late: Israel Kristal was 13 in 1916. His mother was dead and his father, fighting in World War I, soon would be. So he missed his bar mitzvah. When the next war came, the Polish-born Kristal was held captive in the Lodz ghetto until he was shipped with his wife and children to the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz. His family didn’t survive but he did. In fact, he is now counted as the oldest man alive by the Guinness Book of World Records, having turned 113 Thursday. He lives in Haifa, Israel. He long ago remarried and is now a great-grandfather:
His daughter, Shulimath Kristal Kuperstoch, told the DTA news agency that his family was planning a bar mitzvah for him, and about 100 relatives would attend. "We will bless him, we will dance with him, we will be happy," she said.
•Report: Local police getting as much military gear as ever: When images of police armed with assault rifles and sitting atop armored vehicles in Ferguson, Mo., spread through the media, it prompted changes in the federal 1033 program. This Pentagon program transfers surplus military equipment to police departments nationwide. In May last year, President Obama announced he would freeze the giveaways of certain equipment, sparking an outraged response from law enforcement groups that said the matériel was needed to deal with terrorists and violent criminals. After uniformed officers were targeted and killed in Dallas and Baton Rouge in July, Obama said he would revisit the freeze. But an investigation by the democratic socialist publication In These Times shows that the administration’s reforms to the 1033 program have done little to stem the flow of battlefield gear to local cops.
•Michelle Obama should get her own television show on January 21, 2017: Watch her hilarious visit to CVS with Ellen DeGeneres (and the Secret Service). Together with the video of her karaoke drive around the White House grounds singing Stevie Wonder and Beyoncé songs with James Corden of “The Late Late Show,” she’s done all the auditioning she needs to land a prime spot.
Trump’s proposal may be surprising, but it is not especially new. Libertarian theorists have long claimed that the free market can take care of food safety. People want to be healthy. Food producers want to have customers. So food producers that make people unhealthy will develop a bad reputation and eventually lose their customers. And food producers that have good reputations will preserve it by choosing to sell safe food.
So, that’s the theory. But, as it turns out, this theory has already been tested in the real world. And it didn’t perform so well.
“Class of ’27” premiered Tuesday as part of public media’s “America Reframed” series. The hourlong documentary brings viewers to a remote county in Kentucky, an indigenous community in Minnesota and isolated farms of the Pacific Northwest.
Beneath these deeply personal explorations into small communities lies an underlying national narrative: that the various effects of poverty have the potential to disrupt future generations. In each of the three films, these challenges are met by passionate educators determined to make a difference and improve the possibilities for the current young generation.
• On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: Time elapsed to TX campus carry GunFAIL: 2 weeks. Trump clowns the media with his birther circus & Armando nails it. Daily Kos’ own criminal justice beat phenom Josie Duffy Rice discusses her top stories & the challenges of covering the system.
It was Aug. 29, 2013, an unremarkable day inside Florida’s whitewashed Capitol, and a typically sweltering one outside among the moss-bearded oaks and sabal palms. Around 3:45 p.m., Jennifer Meale, the communications director for Attorney General Pam Bondi, fielded a seemingly routine call from a financial reporter for The Orlando Sentinel. The attorney general of New York had recently filed a lawsuit against Donald J. Trump alleging fraud in the marketing of Trump University’s real estate and wealth-building seminars. Had Florida ever conducted its own investigation, the reporter asked.
What the Times claims to have discovered, many sentences later, is that the timing of the Trump-Bondi interaction deflates the connection.
The proximate timing of the Sentinel article and Mr. Trump’s donation, and suspicions of a quid pro quo, have driven a narrative that has dogged Mr. Trump and Ms. Bondi for three years. …
But documents obtained this week by The New York Times, including a copy of Mr. Trump’s check, at least partly undercut that timeline. Although the check was received by Ms. Bondi’s committee four days after the Sentinel report, and was recorded as such in her financial disclosure filings, it was actually dated and signed by Mr. Trump four days before the article appeared.
Well that certainly—doesn’t change a single thing.
Nancy Pelosi knows a thing or two about the halls of Congress and she also knows that Donald Trump's hostile rhetoric didn't just grow out of a black hole. And no, Trump's ascendance to head of the Republican Party isn't just a bizarre accident either. His crazy, hyperbolic rants simply reflect exactly what many Republican lawmakers—especially those in wildly gerrymandered districts—have been saying all along. No one knows that better than Pelosi, writes Nick Gass:
"None of the things that he has said that members of Congress haven't said over and over again on the Republican side," Pelosi said on CNN's "New Day," quickly adding, that it is "not all of them." [...]
I think that in Congress if you look at the record, the public record on, for example, immigration," the California Democrat continued. "There are worse statements made by members of Congress for a long period of time that they tried to implement into law in terms of Muslims into our country. Shocking language used by Republicans in Congress. So he’s a reflection of them, which is why I think that some of the establishment Republicans are unhappy with Trump for what he says, but also he's pulled back the veil."
Pelosi also asserted that Donald Trump would definitively “not” win the White House because the American people aren’t “bigots.”
"He's not going to be president. Let's be very clear," Pelosi declared, as co-host Chris Cuomo asked, "Where does the confidence come from?"
"My confidence comes from the trust and faith I have in the American people," Pelosi said. "The American people are not negative. They're not bigots."
It's good to be one of Republican Sen. Richard Burr's family members.
WASHINGTON North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr’s political committees have paid nearly $200,000 over the last 16 years to his in-laws and a firm employing his son for office rent and administrative services.
The previously undisclosed arrangements appear to be legal, but they could provide campaign fodder for Burr’s Democratic challenger, Deborah Ross.
A spokeswoman for Burr’s Senate office declined to comment on the payments.
From 2011 through 2014, Burr’s campaign reported renting office space for $600 to $625 per month—for a total of $29,550—from the Brand Intelligence Group, an internet marketing research startup. Burr’s son, Tyler, was listed as a vice president in corporate filings until last year.
Why yes, yes they could provide campaign fodder. He also has a PAC, the Next Century Fund, that employs his sister-in-law, Mary Fauth as treasurer. She's earned $88,724, at the rate of $464.10 per month since 2000. Her husband, Gerald W. Fauth III, is New Century Fund's landlord. He has been paid $400 a month in rent and utilities, totaling $75,600 since 2000. Oh, and he's a lobbyist, apparently founding G.W. Fauth & Associates, Inc., which is "a transportation consulting firm specializing in economic, regulatory, public policy and legislative issues." So that's particularly handy for all involved.
But hey, Burr got rich while in the Senate (and made sure his votes have kept him that way) so why not spread the wealth around to his nearest and dearest? Because, after all, why else would a Republican decide on a career in "public service"?
How's that detestable HB2 law working out for ya, North Carolina GOP? Not so well, apparently. In fact, bad enough that at least two of a previously unreachable cadre of Republicans who are running the state into the ground are having second thoughts. That's the power of basketball in the Tar Heel State after the NCAA (and ACC to boot!) ditched North Carolina for less discriminatory lands. Now two state senators are starting to see HB2 in a different light.
GOP Sen. Tamara Barringer of Cary on Tuesday called for a "full and complete" of the law, which among other things prohibits transgender individuals from using the bathroom consistent with their gender and also prohibits local jurisdictions from enacting pro-LGBTQ protections.
“I did not realize the consequences of this bill, that it would have worldwide consequences, and they just keep piling up,” the lawmaker said. “So, at this point, I’m willing to stand up and say, ‘Let’s put the brakes on it. Let’s get together and find a common solution that we call can live with and move forward.’”
That led to a more squishy backpedal on Wednesday from Sen. Rick Gunn of Burlington:
“I’m opposed to giving men access to women’s and girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms, but I am also concerned about the impact HB2 is having on our state and the Triad — especially NCAA and Atlantic Coast Conference athletic championship events — and I think it is time we give serious consideration to modifying or possibly repealing HB2. It is time for the federal courts to protect women’s and girls’ privacy and strike down President Obama’s bathroom sharing mandate.”
Thanks for that complete misrepresentation of transgender bathroom use, Sen. Gunn. Still, the rest of the statement is a total departure from the pig-headed ain't-no-way we’re gonna budge mentality of a previously unyielding GOP caucus. That's a start. Reality seems to finally be creeping into that dark, dark corner they've all been huddled in.
A dog snuggles up to a woman with a prosthetic leg while waiting to march in New York CIty's Veteran's Day Parade (Nov. 11, 2013).
A dog snuggles up to a woman with a prosthetic leg while waiting to march in New York CIty's Veteran's Day Parade (Nov. 11, 2013).
When our veterans return home from overseas conflicts, many bear wounds both physical and mental that can require a lifetime of care. For these injured servicemembers, service animals can provide a critical lifeline. Properly trained dogs can improve lives in many ways, by doing things such as:
Leading the blind or vision-impaired;
Picking things up for someone who is unable to;
Helping someone who falls to stand up again;
Moving dangerous objects out of the way when a person suffers a seizure; and
Reducing depression and warding off panic attacks.
That’s only a partial list, but more than any of these individual items, service dogs can help people regain their independence—something all too easy to take for granted if you’ve never lost it. And service dogs can also provide a big return on investment, by reducing the need for doctor’s visits and medication, and by allowing veterans to return to work.
Unfortunately, while the Veterans Administration recognizes the value of service dogs, it does not provide them to beneficiaries. And while these dogs can offer long-term savings, they cost thousands of dollars up front. That’s a steep price tag, but fortunately, there are charities working to give veterans the animals they need.
One of them is Friends of Veterans, a small operation based in Vermont that’s entirely volunteer-driven. They’ve made the news in recent days thanks to the tireless reporting of the Washington Post's David Fahrenthold, who recounted how Donald Trump’s stingy foundation held out the hope that it would make a donation to the group, only to later turn its back. While he was waiting to hear from the Trump Foundation, the charity’s president, Larry Daigle, told Fahrenthold, “Oh, my God, do you know how many homeless veterans I could help?”
We’re sure it’s a lot—far too many, because for even one vet to go without shelter is a shameful stain on our nation’s conscience. But the far darker stain belongs to Trump, who couldn’t even spare a dime for a group desperate for his aid.
That’s why Daily Kos has created a GoFundMe page for Friends of Veterans, because we want to help them help those in need. And in particular, we want to make sure that veterans whose lives would be bettered by service dogs can get them.
So far, as of mid-day Friday, we’ve already raised $5,465, but we can do much more, can’t we? I’ll bet we can double that—and show Donald Trump what generosity really looks like.
