Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski reminding everybody that she is still a Republican.

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) introduced legislation Wednesday night that would open a portion of a pristine wildlife refuge in her state to oil and gas development, a move expected to bring in slightly more than $1 billion in federal revenue over the next decade. 

The bill would open up part of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), described by some as “America’s Serengeti,” which covers more than 19 million acres in northeastern Alaska. The region is home to polar bears, caribou, moose and hundreds of species of migratory birds. It’s considered one of the state’s crown jewels. 

In a statement, Murkowski called it “a tremendous opportunity” for the country. 

“The legislation ... will put Alaska and the entire nation on a path toward greater prosperity by creating jobs, keeping energy affordable for families and businesses, generating new wealth, and strengthening our security — while reducing the federal deficit not just by $1 billion over ten years, but tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars over the decades to come,” she said.

This is usually the point where somebody not from Alaska will chime in that Murkowski needs to be voted out of office.

The problem with saying that over and over is that it will essentially have the same effect as spitting into the ocean over and over again. In a word...none.

The problem is that instead of making Murkowski toxic in Alaska this will only prove to endear her to Alaskans most of who overwhelmingly support the opening of ANWR.

The hard truth is that the money is drying up faster than our glaciers are melting up here, and people in the state are starting to feel a little desperate.

I actually have very little confidence that this bill will pass, but even if it does not it still reinforces Murkowski's conservative credentials and signals to the voters that she is somebody who is working to make the state more prosperous.

I really do not think opening ANWR would accomplish that, but I am definitely in the minority.

New bill would force Donald Trump to submit to a mental health evaluation.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

A new bill introduced in the House of Representatives would require President Donald Trump to undergo a physical and mental health exam to determine if he is stable enough to stay in office. 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) introduced the bill on Friday. Should the results of the said exam be unfavorable, the bill calls for Vice President Mike Pence and members of the Cabinet to remove Trump from office. 

The move would invoke the 25th Amendment, a rarely-used constitutional provision that allows the vice president and a majority of Cabinet members to jointly remove the president from office and replace him with the vice president. 

"Does the President suffer from early stage dementia," Lofgren asked in a statement announcing the bill. 

"Has emotional disorder so impaired the President that he is unable to discharge his duties," she continued. "Is the President mentally and emotionally stable?"

Let me take a moment to answer that last part. No, no he is not. 

As I have explained in the past, I am not psychiatrist, though I have worked in the mental health field for almost 25 years, but I know batshit crazy when I see it.

But hey if you need a professional opinion, don't forget that a leading psychiatry group broke protocol to give its members permission to publicly provide their opinion of Trump's mental health.,

And it was not good.

Let's face it you could smell crazy on this guy from a hundred yards away.

Personally I feel that ALL sitting presidents should undergo a psychiatric examination annually.

And Trump is way, WAY over due for his.

The next time somebody tells you that Obamacare is failing, read them this list of ten ways that Republicans worked to make it fail.

1. CO-OPs short-changed from the start 

Let’s start by considering the ACA’s Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans, or CO-OPs. Early drafts of the ACA called for $10 billion in federal grants for the CO-OP program. But insurance lobbyists and conservative lawmakers insisted on $6 billion in loans instead of $10 billion in grants, restrictions limiting CO-OPs to the individual and small-group market (and not the more stable and profitable large-group market), and limitations stating that the federal loan money could not be used for marketing. 

The ACA passed in 2010 and the CO-OPs were to be up and running in the fall of 2013, in time for the first open enrollment period. But during 2011 budget negotiations, $2.2 billion was cut from the CO-OP funding. And then during the “fiscal cliff” negotiations at the end of 2012, another $1.4 billion in CO-OP loan funding was eliminated. 

Those Republican led changes undermined and ultimately killed most of the original 23 co-ops.

Just as the GOP planned.  

2. Day One legal challenges 

On March 23, 2010, the same day the ACA was signed into law, attorneys general from 14 states began the process of challenging the ACA’s individual mandate via the court system. A total of 26 states eventually joined in the lawsuit, which went all the way to the Supreme Court. 

3. Refusal to take ACA’s Medicaid expansion 

New legislation in Alabama might allow a fundamentalist church to form its own police force. Wait, what?

Courtesy of Salon: 

Donald Trump’s election didn’t just empower the alt-right troops with their #MAGA hats and Pepe the Frog avatars. The religious right is also more quietly making moves to consolidate power on a state and local level, aided by Trump’s promises to appoint conservative-friendly judges and to strike down legal limits on church-based politicking. 

But even in the current environment, it’s startling to learn that the Alabama legislature is considering a bill to give a Birmingham-based church its own police force. The bill, Senate Bill 193, would specifically authorize the Briarwood Presbyterian Church, which has more than 4,000 members, to hire its own police force that would be “invested with all of the powers of law enforcement officers in this state.” 

“The sole purpose of this proposed legislation is to provide a safe environment for the church, its members, students and guests,” the church said in a memo sent to Salon after requests for comment. The memo also mentioned the Sandy Hook school shooting in Connecticut, claiming that the church needs “qualified first responders” in case such a thing would happen there.

As the article goes on to point out this church is not sitting in the middle of the wilderness. In fact it is within the jurisdiction of two different sheriff's departments.

Besides allowing this may be unconstitutional.

“This proposed legislation seems like a clear violation of church-state separation, and a clear violation of the Constitution,” Alex Luchenitser, the associate director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, said in a phone call. “Government bodies must not delegate official power to religious entities.” 

Luchenitser cited a 1982 Supreme Court case, Larkin v. Grendel’s Den, in which an 8-1 majority found that states could not give churches the official authority to grant and deny liquor licenses. 

The ACLU of Alabama cited the same decision in a memo sent, upon request, to Salon. 

“Indeed, allocating any quintessential governmental power to a religious institution plainly violates the Establishment Clause,” the memo said, warning the state of Alabama that giving a church its own police force “would not survive a legal challenge.”

You know it is bad enough that some churches and Christian schools still allow corporal punishment, but allowing them to have their own police force?

Oh hell no!

Congresswoman Maxine Waters introduces legislation to investigate Trump's ties with Russia and cyberattacks.

Man I was worried that people were forgetting about this.

Here is Congresswoman Water's statement on this legislation: 

Like so many of you, we have been shaken by events that have occurred over the last 11 days since Donald Trump was inaugurated. We have been shaken by the lies, the deception, and the stunning level of incompetence. 

In just under two weeks, Donald Trump has unnerved our allies, challenged our values, and brought so much instability and chaos to our country. This chaos is sure to please at least one person – Vladimir Putin. For everyone Trump is quick to bully, from world leaders to gold star families, to disabled Americans, there seems to be one person on the world’s stage who can do no wrong in Trump’s eyes. A dictator and former KGB agent who armed Assad in Syria as he attacked innocent civilians appears to be the only man that Donald Trump will not disparage. 

Given the extensive ties between Russia and individuals associated with Trump, we cannot ignore the possibility that there may have been collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. 

Both during his campaign and since his election, Donald Trump has surrounded himself with people who have extensive ties to Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. 

Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, was a paid lobbyist for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian politician in Ukraine who fled to Russia in 2014 and was subjected to U.S. sanctions related to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Manafort has also been involved in multimillion dollar business deals with Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs, which were reportedly the subject of an FBI inquiry. 

Roger Stone, Trump’s longtime friend, is reportedly under investigation for possible links with Russia. He has denied ever visiting Russia but admitted he had worked in Ukraine. Stone announced in a speech last summer that he had spoken to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and Stone predicted that there would be additional leaked documents, a prediction that came true within weeks. 

Michael Flynn, Trump’s National Security Advisor, did a paid series of events in Moscow, including a speech and appearance at a party for RT, a Kremlin-funded TV station, where he was photographed sitting right next to Vladimir Putin. 

Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, was a business partner of Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch and Putin ally, in a major financial project involving the Bank of Cyprus. 

Finally, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, signed a multibillion dollar agreement with Russia in 2011 on behalf of ExxonMobil for an oil drilling project in the Arctic. 

The project was brought to a halt in 2014 as a result of the sanctions that were imposed on Russia in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Putin personally awarded Tillerson the “Order of Friendship” in 2013. The financial dealings and alliances in this Trump-Putin circle present obvious conflicts of interest for the Trump Administration, and they are too significant to be ignored. 

Why did Paul Manafort and the Trump campaign push for softer language on the Ukraine in the Republican platform last summer? What did Paul Manafort and Roger Stone know about the cyberattacks on their political opponents? Why would Donald Trump deny knowledge of Russian responsibility for hacking even as he encouraged cyberattacks on his political opponent? 

We must find out just how involved the Trump campaign was in Russia’s interference in our election. That is why I am introducing a resolution to focus on what Congress must do to thoroughly investigate Trump’s connections with Russia and whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to influence the outcome of the election. 

We cannot allow any investigation led by the Republicans in Congress to whitewash Trump’s ties to Russia or avoid examining these critical questions. 

At this point I don't see the Republicans letting this go forward, but it is still important for the Democrats to bang this drum right up until 2018 and continually demand an investigation and accuse their conservative counterparts of collusion if they fail to properly investigate.

In the words of our former VP, "This is a big fucking deal!"

Before leaving office President Obama signs bill protecting Atheists and Freethinkers. I knew I loved this guy.

Courtesy of the Progressive Secular Humanist:  

For the first time, atheists and other nonreligious persons are explicitly named as a class protected by the law. 

President Barack Obama has signed into law the Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act. The new law protects atheists, humanists, and other freethinkers around the world from religious persecution. 

Congress passed the international religious freedom bill protecting atheists, humanists, and other non-theists last week with overwhelming bipartisan support, and Obama signed the legislation into law last Friday, Dec. 16. 

The new law explicitly protects atheists, humanists, and other non-theists, and upgrades the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. 

I have to admit that as impressed as I am that Obama signed this bill, I am even more impressed that it received bipartisan support.

That is good news for this country, and even better news for those of us shunned by society for our critical thinking skills.

Also keep in mind that it is HIGHLY doubtful that this bill would have been written, or signed during a Donald Trump presidency.

Even with one foot out the door President Obama has our backs.

New York introduces new legislation to ban conversion therapy, names it after Mike Pence. Seems appropriate.

Courtesy of the Daily Dot:  

Erie County in Western New York will start debating a new piece of legislation this December that aims to locally ban the harmful practices of "conversion therapy," which falsely claims to change a person's sexual orientation or gender identity with a series of mostly discredited treatments, including psychological abuse and psychotropic medication. 

The law's name also has a message. It's called PENCE: Prevention of Emotional Neglect and Childhood Endangerment. 

Vice President-elect Mike Pence is well-known for his anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and advocacy for conversion therapy. As governor of Indiana, he has supported government funding to institutions "which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior." He has also discouraged government support of the Ryan White Care Act, a federally funded program for people living with HIV/AIDS, saying that supporting it would mean funding organizations that "celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus." 

Of course conversion "therapy" is where a gay person is told they are a dirty sinner who will burn in a pool of fire if they don't start pretending to like the opposite sex.

Undoubtedly the same therapy that this guy went through so you can see it works like a charm.

This BS is already outlawed in Vermont, California, New Jersey, Illinois and Oregon, as well as the District of Columbia, and the is opposed by the American Psychiatric Association, but apparently there are still quite a number of states that have not yet received the memo.

I think naming it after Trump's VP choice Mike Pence is a brilliant move since it fairly clear this guy can barely tolerate people having regular sex much less gay sex.

New NRA ad claims that Hillary Clinton is going to allow home invaders to rape and murder you.

Courtesy of Politico: 

The National Rifle Association’s new spot is aimed at people who are already afraid, and hammers Hillary Clinton for wanting to leave them defenseless. 

The gun rights group said it’s spending $5 million to run the spot on national cable and on regional stations in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia. 

The ad does not mention Donald Trump, who the group endorsed in May. But it does dovetail with messages that both he and the NRA have delivered before, casting Clinton as an elitist who would take away individuals’ guns while benefiting from armed protection herself. 

The ad, called “Nightstand,” shows a woman, alone in bed, awakened in the night by an intruder. She dashes for a landline phone, and a gun stored in a safe. But it fades away before she can grab it. A narrator says the average 911 response time is 11 minutes. 

“Hillary Clinton would take away her right to self defense, and with Supreme Court justices, Hillary can,” the narrator says. “Don’t let Hillary leave you protected with nothing but a phone.” 

Yeah if this woman owned a good dog and even a mediocre security system the burglars would likely have either passed by her house completely, or run away at the sound of a barking dog or high pitched alarm. (My alarm is so goddamn loud I can't even think straight enough to call the company to turn it off much less burgle a house.)

As for those statistics here are some other statistics to chew on: 

This is also a nation in which, in 2012, there were 1.2 million violent crimes, defined as murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Or, put another way, 1.2 million scenarios in which there was potential for someone to kill in self-defense. 

Oh, and match those 259 justifiable homicides with the theft of about 232,000 guns each year, about 172,000 of them during burglaries. That’s a ratio of one justifiable homicide for every 896 guns put in the hands of criminals.

Those 259 justifiable homicides also pale compared with, in the same year, 8,342 criminal homicides using guns, 20,666 suicides with guns, and 548 fatal unintentional shootings, according to the FBI’s Supplemental Homicide Report. The ratio for 2012, per the Violence Policy Center, was one justifiable killing for every 32 murders, suicides or accidental deaths (the ratio increases to 38-1 over the five-year period ending in 2012). That’s a heavy price to pay.

If you have a gun in your house the odds are far better that it will be used during a domestic dispute to injure or kill a member of your own family, stolen by a thief, or used by a suicidal family member to take their own life, than to be used to protect the home.

But none of that really even matters because Hillary Clinton does NOT want to take guns away from law abiding citizens.

As I laid out on Monday, all Clinton wants to do is expand background checks, push for comprehensive background check legislation, which would include banning all domestic abusers or the severely mentally ill from buying or possessing gun, implement “no fly, no buy” policies, which would prohibit people on terror watch lists from gaining access to guns, close loopholes that allow people to purchase weapons at gun shows without going through a background check, and repeal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act so that negligent gun manufacturers could be sued for selling a faulty and dangerous product.

So which one of those policy ideas would keep that woman from having a gun in her safe?

That's right, none of them. 

A number of conservative Republicans in Kansas primaried out in response to Governor Brownback essentially destroying the state's economy.

Courtesy of ABC News:

A top Senate leader and at least 10 other conservative Kansas legislators have lost their seats as moderate Republicans made GOP primary races a referendum on education funding and the state's persistent budget woes. 

Senate Majority Leader Terry Bruce was among the lawmakers ousted amid a backlash against Republican Gov. Sam Brownback and his allies. 

The voting occurred against the backdrop not only of the state's fiscal woes but ongoing legal and political disputes over funding for public schools. The state Supreme Court could rule by the end of the year on whether the Legislature is shorting schools on their state aid by hundreds of millions of dollars a year. 

Kansas has struggled to balance its budget since the GOP-dominated Legislature slashed personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback's urging to stimulate the economy. That's created concerns among educators about future spending on schools, even as many Republicans see the $4 billion-plus a year the state now spends as generous.

Just another reminder that if you want to see your state's economy go into the shitter just keep electing Republicans.

Now all Kansas needs to do is find a Democrat to elect as governor, a Jerry Brown type would be best, and they will get the economy back on track.

Of course then in the next election the Republicans will use homophobia and anti-abortion rhetoric to turn voters out to replace them with yet another trickle down dumbass Republican and the whole cycle starts again.

Conan O'Brien breaks a longstanding rule to keep his opinions about guns in this country to himself, and he is not alone.

Now as gratifying as it is to see O'Brien breaking his silence and finally expressing the view shared by so many in this country, there is another who chimed in who came from a very surprising place.

Fox News.

Well she lost her job.

All kidding aside I think we are quite close to a breaking point where the NRA is going to lose their stranglehold on the Republican party and the conservative news outlets, and we will finally see common sense take hold which will hopefully translate into the passing of some very necessary gun laws.

I just cannot imagine how many more have to die before people say enough is enough, and finally force our politicians to do their damn jobs.

After all, they work for us not the fucking gun lobby.

So this what it looks like when Hell freezes over.

Courtesy of Alaska Dispatch:

The Alaska Senate late Monday passed legislation converting the Permanent Fund into an endowment and setting dividends at $1,000, a move designed to help reduce the state's $4 billion budget gap. 

The 14-5 vote, which supporters described as a necessary step to head off a financial collapse, came quickly after months of discussion and debate about Senate Bill 128. The vote came about 8:30 p.m. on the same day the bill emerged from the Senate Finance Committee. 

The legislation still must pass a more skeptical House before it could head to Gov. Bill Walker for his signature. And a House vote is unlikely to come before next week, with lawmakers taking a five-day break from Juneau starting Wednesday, with most of the city's hotel rooms booked for a festival of Alaska Native culture.

I think the word to describe me right now is flabbergasted.

I don't think there is any way that I can adequately explain to those in the Lower 48, how jealousy Alaskans guard the PFD.

We refer to it as the third rail of Alaska politics, and those who suggested capping it or taking money from it to fund the government did so while packing their bags fully aware that their polticla career had just come to an end.

So for this legislation to have made it this far is a testament to the courage of Governor Bill Walker and our state senators.

Personally I hope that the House demonstrates the same courage, because this needs to happen. And in fact it really needed to happen over twenty years ago.

NRA endorses Donald Trump. And now the battle lines are drawn.

Courtesy of CNN:  

Donald Trump on Friday told the National Rifle Association that Hillary Clinton would take away the right to bear arms, moments after the gun group endorsed the presumptive GOP nominee at its annual meeting here. 

Calling the endorsement a "fantastic honor," Trump dove right into attacking Clinton, saying the Democratic presidential front-runner "wants to abolish the Second Amendment." 

"We're not going to let that happen," Trump said. "We're going to preserve it, we're going to cherish it."

Of course much like President Obama Hillary has no intention of abolishing the 2nd Amendment or taking away anyone's guns.

However that is not to say that she is not prepared to go toe to toe with Trump over the issue of better gun control legislation.

FACT: Donald Trump would force schools to allow guns in classrooms on his first day in office. https://t.co/Y1YSjDDUXC

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 14, 2016

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Whereas President Obama soft-pedaled gun control in both his national runs, Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, is signaling a greater appetite to clash with Mr. Trump on the issue. 

In a Twitter message last week, Mrs. Clinton said that Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, would force schools “to allow guns in classrooms on his first day in office.” 

“This issue is at a tipping point,” said Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, citing Mrs. Clinton’s politically effective framing of gun issues that put Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont on the defensive in the Democratic primary campaign. “You’re going to hear about it as differentiator for the first time in decades” in the general election, Mr. Gross said.

Of  course Donald Trump's response to Clinton's stance on gun control is very....you know Donald Trump.

Crooked Hillary wants to get rid of all guns and yet she is surrounded by bodyguards who are fully armed. No more guns to protect Hillary!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 21, 2016

So there you have it kids, gun control is going to be a central issue of this campaign.

Of course I think we all knew that the NRA was going to gin up the same conspiracy theories against Hillary that they used against President Obama that so dramatically drove up gun sales during his two terms.

The difference this time is that Hillary knew what was coming and decided to draw first blood.

That takes political courage, and indicates that she is well aware that America is sick and tired of all of these unnecessary gun deaths, and is counting on the fact that they will have her back in the election.

Well I think this seems more than fair.

Courtesy of Time: 

A Kentucky lawmaker has introduced a bill that would require men who are seeking erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra to be married, to get a note of consent from their wives, and to swear on the Bible to remain faithful. 

The legislation, penned by Democratic Rep. Mary Lou Marzian, is a symbolic attempt to prove a point about the government’s role in private medical decisions, she told Reuters on Monday. It has little chance of becoming law. 

It comes after Republican Gov. Matt Bevin signed an informed consent law that requires women to consult with a doctor before having an abortion. 

“My point is to illustrate how intrusive and ridiculous it is for elected officials to be inserting themselves into private and personal medical decisions,” Marzian, 61, told the news agency. “We need to stop it, we need to allow women and men to make their own decisions with their doctor and their family.”

"Swear on the Bible to remain faithful." 

Well we know there is probably not a "family values" politician in the country willing to take that pledge, don't we.

Virginia lawmaker introduces legislation that would force public schools to check a students genitalia before allowing them to use the bathroom.

Courtesy of Raw Story:

A bill filed by a Virginia lawmaker this week would require schools to be certain that children are using the restroom corresponding to their “correct anatomical sex.” 

The legislation, which would prohibit transgender students from using the bathroom matching their gender, is being sponsored by Republican Del. Mark Cole. 

House Bill 663 defines “anatomical sex” as “the physical condition of being male or female, which is determined by a person’s anatomy.” 

“Local school boards shall develop and implement policies that require every school restroom, locker room, or shower room that is designated for use by a specific gender to solely be used by individuals whose anatomical sex matches such gender designation,” the measure states.


Civil rights advocate Tim Peacock noted that “adults would be required to inspect children’s genitals before they use the bathroom” for the legislation to be enforceable. 

“This is what the conservative movement has devolved into: forcing children to allow adults to examine their genitals out of misplaced fear that transgender kids and adults might commit a hypothetical never-before-seen act of violence or sexual aggression (that would still be against the law with or without transgender protections),” Peacock wrote.

I can tell you right now that if this bill were actually to pass, and let's just assume that even Virginia is not that homophobic, that public school parents would lose their shit at the idea of adults making their children drop trou and prove their gender before taking a piss.

Not only that but schools have a strict set of guidelines they must follow while interacting with children, and looking at their genitals is most certainly on the "do not EVER do" list.

President Obama says that new executive orders to tighten gun control legislation well within his legal authority.

Courtesy of Yahoo News: 

President Barack Obama said on Monday his new executive actions to tighten gun rules were "well within" his legal authority and consistent with the U.S. right to bear arms, a warning to opponents who are likely to challenge them in court. 

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Obama said his administration would unveil the new measures over the next several days. 

Obama is igniting a political firestorm by bypassing Congress with the measures, which are likely to redefine what it means to be a gun dealer and spark increased use of background checks. Republicans say Obama is misusing his powers. 

"The good news is .. these are not only recommendations that are well within my legal authority and the executive branch, but they're also ones that the overwhelming majority of the American people, including gun owners, support," Obama said during a meeting with Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other advisers.

As you might imagine this has caused a virtual meltdown among the Right Wing who now feel vindicated for accusing the President of coming after their guns for virtually the entire seven years he has been in office.

One headline over at Fox says simply "President Obama wants to disarm America," which of course is the overstatement of the decade.

GOP presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Marco Rubio are claiming that on day one they will reverse this order, while their supporters run to the local gun store to stock up on bullets and add to their arsenal weapons.

Just another reason why we so desperately need to make sure that Hillary Clinton is the next President of the United States:  

When I came out with my proposals for common sense gun safety measures, I did say that in the absence of Congressional action, I would use executive authority to go as far as would be possible under the law and I applaud the President for taking a hard look at that and I believe he will take some actions to require more gun sellers to do background checks,” Clinton said of the anticipated proposal. 

Clinton warned: “I know that a Republican president would delight in the very first day, reversing executive orders that President Obama has made, including this one that we expect him to make.”

If part of this 2016 campaign season centers around gun control, and I think we already know that it will, then you can bet the farm that we are going to see entirely new levels of ugly. 

Republicans have introduced nearly 400 anti-choice bills in 2015. But remember, there is no war on women.

Courtesy of The Nation:  

State lawmakers introduced nearly 400 such bills in 2015, 47 of which passed, according to a report released this week by the Center for Reproductive Rights. 

The new laws are concentrated in Southern states, where many abortion providers have already been forced to close. At least 20 bills were introduced in response to undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress, which purport to show Planned Parenthood engaging in illegal sales of fetal tissue—claims that have not be verified by any of the numerous investigations launched since. At least a dozen states tried to defund Planned Parenthood. Others tried to ban fetal tissue research completely, or to impose costly new regulations about medical waste disposal. 

Arkansas legislators earned a dubious distinction for being most rabidly anti-abortion. The state enacted more restrictive laws than any other, including a Planned Parenthood defunding measure. Arkansas also passed a bill that forces women to wait 48 hours between an initial consultation and an abortion procedure, and requires doctors to tell patients that medication abortion can be “reversed,” an assertion that isn’t supported by scientific evidence. North Carolina and Oklahoma increased their mandatory waiting periods to a full 72 hours, joining three other states with the country’s longest forced wait between state-mandated counseling and an abortion procedure. 

Kansas and Oklahoma pioneered a new tactic for limiting the window in which abortion is legal, passing laws that criminalize doctors who perform a technique known as “D and E,” which is commonly used to end a pregnancy in the second trimester. The Center for Reproductive Rights calls it the “safest, most effective, and most commonly used” procedure in the second trimester. It’s also the only one doctors use after 14 weeks of pregnancy, and so the ban could effectively make all abortions after that point illegal. Legislators in West Virginia, where only two health clinics provide abortions, overrode the governor’s veto to criminalize abortion after 20 weeks. Wisconsin also passed a 20-week ban. 

Texas managed to put up more red tape for women seeking abortion care: an “abortion ID” law, which requires women to provide “proof of identity and age” to verify that they are not a minor. The measure “could serve as a backdoor ban on undocumented women and low-income women,” the Center for Reproductive Rights wrote, because they are more likely than others to lack the necessary identification.

A number of the legislators who introduced these bills were Tea Party members who swore to their supporters that they were not interested in social issues and instead were focused on lowering taxes and reducing the size of government.

But the truth is that these conservative Republicans are NEVER going to stop attacking a woman's right to choose, and will continue chipping away at the Roe vs Wade decision until either they manage to get repealed or until people stop electing them.

Anybody who thinks any differently has simply not been paying attention.

And as a result I am sure we will see more cases like the Tennessee woman who recently tried to perform her own abortion with a coat hanger. 

But don't worry, now she's in jail for it. Which I'm sure is exactly how the Republicans want it.

Sarah Palin applauds newly elected Senator's guts after he suggests doing away with the Senate. Did I mention he is a newly elected Senator?

'Now that's guts! I also admire electricians who want to do away with electricity."

Courtesy of Glacier Gidget's Facebook page:  

This is why we respect this guy... his guts and gumption in expressing what many Americans recognize as a foundational problem resulting in an insolvent, less sovereign nation - and his commitment to taking action. 

I appreciate him taking responsibility "...to blow the whistle on these problems so Americans are aware of them." 

Thank you, Senator Ben Sasse. 

Now your first instinct after reading that Sarah Palin is impressed with somebody, should be "Oh what stupid thing did this Sasse guy do to deserve that?"

And if it was you have good instincts.

Palin's Facebook page then links to an article on the defunct Breitbart news site, and as it turns out THIS is what Ben "Soon to be out of a job" Sasse said during his maiden speech on the floor of the Senate:  

If the Senate isn’t going to be the most important venue for addressing our biggest national problems, where is that venue? Where should the people look for the long-term national prioritization? Or, to ask it of ourselves, would anything be lost if the Senate didn’t exist? Again, this a thought experiment, so let me be emphatically clear: I think a great deal would be lost if the federal government didn’t have a Senate, but game out with me the question of ‘Why?’ What precisely would be lost if we had only a House of Representatives, rather than both bodies? The growth of the administrative state, the fourth branch of government, is increasingly hollowing out the Article I branch, the legislature, and many in Congress have been complicit in this hollowing out of our own powers. So would anything really be lost if we doubled-down on Woodrow Wilson’s impulses and inclinations toward administrative efficiency by removing much of the clunky-ness of legislative process?

Now Ben Sasse is a former university president and has a Master's degree in Philosophy, so you would think he might know better than to introduce a topic as easily misrepresented as this one.

First he expects folks like Sarah Palin to understand what a "thought experiment" is when they really do not understand the concept of "thinking."

Second he is essentially attacking the very institution that he campaigned long and hard to join, which is never a good thing.

And thirdly, WTF is his point really?

Does he really think that the Congress, now overrun with moronic teabaggers, should be allowed to run amok without the checks and balances provided by the Senate?

What am I saying, this is a guy endorsed by Sarah Palin, of course he wants the government to fail.

I don't know what I was I thinking.

By the way Salon has decided that Palin would be a shoo-in as moderator of the GOP debates:   

Sarah Palin – This one seems so obvious I have to think someone has suggested it already. Palin’s proclivity for speaking in word salad that even the most powerful Star Trek universal translator likely couldn’t make sense of is well known. Anything she says would likely be a stream of babble that would trail off into nothing, leaving the candidates free to just opine about whatever talking points they would have spouted even if asked a coherent question.

They have a point.  If you wanted somebody who would not challenge the candidates with facts, or embarrass them by demonstrating a superior intellect, Sarah Palin would be the obvious choice.

God could you just imagine?

Two hours of Sarah Palin asking ignorant questions and the candidates trying to make sense of them, or just giving up and proselytizing to the flock instead? It would the TV equivalent of receiving a colonoscopy from a doctor who just found out you were banging his wife.

Gun massacres garner all of the headlines, but statistically gun suicides account for far more fatalities.

Courtesy of The New York Times:  

The grisly carnage from mass shootings regularly attracts the nation’s focus as a public safety issue, if only fleetingly. But the highest death toll from guns by far continues to be the far less noticed wave of suicides — nearly 20,000 a year — by Americans whose easy access to guns presents an irresistible temptation in a critical moment of despair. 

Suicide accounts for two-thirds of the 30,000-plus gun deaths each year, as more than half of all suicides are carried out by firearms, according to the latest federal data. 

If it takes a sensational statistic to spur national concern about such self-destruction, consider the latest research showing that 82 percent of teenage suicides by firearms involve guns left poorly secured or foolishly unprotected by members of their families. These young lives are impulsively lost in supposedly safe home environments, where just the presence of a gun has been found to increase the risk of suicide three times, according to a new report by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun safety organization. 

The report also notes that 85 percent of people attempting suicide by gun succeed, while drug overdose, the main method chosen for suicide attempts, is fatal only 2 percent of the time. Ninety percent of those who fail in a suicide attempt embrace their second chance at life and do not eventually die by suicide.

As somebody who has worked the hotline and dealt with people going through depression, I can certainly attest to the fact that surviving suicide has less to do with access to therapeutic intervention than it does to the lack of access to guns.

I have taken the call from a person who took prescription medication and needed help. They lived.

But the person with the gun rarely takes the time to call. And if they do it is often only so that somebody can listen to bang as they end their pain.

I knew a young woman whose first and last day manning the phones involved such an incident.

I am all for making it harder to get assault style weapons (What kind of idiot needs one of those anyhow?), and increasing the number and effectiveness of background checks, but I also would like to see laws passed that held people accountable for injuries and deaths caused by guns that they own.

If you have a gun laying around your house, easily accessible, and somebody uses it to take a life, even their own, then you do jail time. Period.

And yes I know that when people talk suicide that the knee jerk reaction from gun nuts is to start talking for the need to increase mental health services. But let me explain that most gun suicides are due to temporary depression, and NOT long term mental illness.

You could throw trillions of dollars into funding mental illness (And I wish they would because I could use a raise.), and it will do NOTHING to stop people from killing themselves or others with guns.

No you stop gun deaths by reducing the number of guns, and holding gun owners accountable for the violence caused by their guns. In my opinion it is as simple as that.

Andy Parker, father of slain Virginia reporter Alison Parker, appeals to President Obama to fight for gun control legislation.

Courtesy of the BBC:  

The father of Alison Parker, one of two journalists killed live on air, has appealed to US President Barack Obama to push through tougher gun laws. 

"You need to do this... I will help you do this and the press is with you on this because they just lost one of their own," Andy Parker told the BBC. 

"Mr President, you need to do this. Please do it. Please do it for us and for other people so they're not going to lose their Alisons and their Adams," he said in an emotional message.

I agree.

The President needs to continue this fight. As does the next President, and if need be, the one after.

This is not going away. If anything it is only getting worse.

One new study thinks they know why:

And what makes the United States such a fertile incubator for mass shooters? A comprehensive analysis of the perpetrators, their motives and the national contexts for their actions suggests that several factors have conspired to create in the United States a potent medium for fostering large-scale murder.

Those factors include a chronic and widespread gap between Americans' expectations for themselves and their actual achievement, Americans' adulation of fame, and the extent of gun ownership in the United States. 

Set those features against a circumstance the United States shares with many other countries — a backdrop of poorly managed mental illness — and you have a uniquely volatile brew, the new study says. 

......


Perhaps no single factor sets the United States apart as sharply as does gun ownership, wrote Lankford. Of 178 countries included in Lankford's analysis, the United States ranked first in per-capita gun ownership. A 2007 survey found 270 million firearms in US civilian households — an ownership rate of 88.8 firearms per 100 people. Yemen followed, with 54.8 firearms per 100 people. 

The other piece of significant data the study found is that as many as 65% of Americans believe that their right to own a gun is to protect themselves from tyranny.

In other words if they lose their guns they will lose their freedom.

And that belief is aggressively reinforced by the NRA and their political sockpuppets.

Home schooling lobby "Make the anti-vaxxers seem rational."

“I’ve never seen a lobby more powerful and scary,” said Ellen Heinitz, the legislative director for Michigan state Rep. Stephanie Chang, who ran up against HSLDA backlash when she tried to pass home-schooling regulations a few months ago. “They make the anti-vaxxers seem rational.”

The above quote was taken from a Slate article that reports on the struggle that one New Jersey State Senator faced when trying to pass legislation to require parents to notify the state that they were homeschooling their children, submit proof of annual physicals, and to complete the same yearly tests that other New Jersey students had to take.

The response to this bill was quick and incredibly aggressive:

Soon afterward, a small group of home-schooling parents began following Weinberg around the capitol. The barrage of phone calls from home-schooling advocates so jammed her office phone lines that staffers had to use their private cellphones to conduct business. “You would have thought I’d recommended the end of the world as we know it,” said Weinberg. “Our office was besieged.”

Ultimately the state senator, Loretta Weinberg, dropped the bill and has little success with modified versions of it, removing the testing requirements, since.

Slate also reports similar obstacles which halted legislation in other states. Including Michigan which is where we get that quote at the top.

Now for those who simply do not trust the government, and do not want them educating their children, this might seem like no big deal, but there are some very troubling statistics:

• Forty-eight states have no background check process for parents who choose to home-school. Two have some restrictions. Arkansas prevents home schooling when a registered sex offender lives in the home, while Pennsylvania bans parents previously convicted of a wide array of crimes from home schooling. 
• Fewer than half of states require any kind of evaluation. In some of these, including Washington, New Hampshire, and Georgia, home-schooled students are tested, but these tests are not submitted to the school district, and there are no ramifications for failure. Others, like Oregon, require parents to submit the test scores only if the local districts request them. A third category of states, including Maine, requires that test scores be submitted but set no minimum score. 
• Seventeen states have no required subjects for home-schooled students. Of the 33 states that do, 22 have no means of checking whether a parent is actually teaching those subjects. 
• In 40 states, home-schooling parents are not required to have a high school diploma, even if they intend to home-school through 12th grade. 
• Twenty-five states do not require home-schoolers to be vaccinated. Another 12 mandate vaccinations but do not require records. Only five states require home-schoolers to submit proof of vaccinations at any time.

Now I recognize that whenever I introduce the topic of home schooling on this blog that emotions run high, and that several of my regulars have home schooled their children and are advocates of home schooling in general.

However as many of you know I have very strong reservations concerning home schooling, ESPECIALLY religious homeschooling, based on my own experiences and interactions with home schooled children over the years.

So I will simply suggest that you read the article over at Slate and perhaps come back here afterwards to share your thoughts, whether they be pro or con.