Be INFORMED

Saturday, January 11, 2014

A Very Sad Person, Also A Vindictive Petty Lying Thug

  By by Abby Zimet  on January 10,2014

With today's release of a trove of newly incriminating documents, the gaudy, grubby spectacle of Chris Christie's bridge debacle just keeps getting worse. And while it's a dispiriting reflection of the state of our political landscape, it's also been a ripe incubator for what's come in its messy wake: entertainingly merciless put-downs from the likes of the New York Daily News, which concludes Christie is either a petty hack who surrrounded himself with lying vindictive thugs or is himself a lying vindictive thug (we vote for both); video compilations showing that actually, yes, he is a bully; Twitter compilations of the most hilariously skeptical responses to his marathon presser; a raft of brutal cartoons; and one lonesome, defiant, WTF expression of support from the New York Sun, which wonders why everyone's being so mean to Christie when sheesh Obama shut down the whole country and even White House tours, not just a dumb bridge, "for the sole purpose of political payback," so howcum nobody's calling him a bully, huh? The argument that “we get the political leaders we deserve” has been variously attributed to Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Alexis de Tocqueville and George Bernard Shaw. It's alot to ask, but let's hope they're all wrong.  Common Dreams

Friday, January 10, 2014

Friday Funnies: Chris Christie Edition

  Stephen Colbert: "The president of the United States of New Jersey Chris Christie is in hot water. Ok, hold on, I just pictured him in a hot tub. Shake it off."

"New emails link top aides in the Christie administration to a shutdown on the George Washington bridge back in September. It was traffic on a biblical scale, with New Jersey highways backed up  for days, which is slightly longer than normal."

Conan O'Brien: "Chris Christie is being accused of getting back at a political rival by blocking access to the George Washington Bridge. Christie said, 'I never blocked access to the GWB, I blocked access to a KFC.'"

Jimmy Fallon : "Chris Christie is dealing with a scandal after it was revealed that a top aide shut down access to the George Washington Bridge to get back at a Democratic mayor for not endorsing him. Christie was furious when they blocked the bridge because he thought they said they were blocking the fridge."

Jay Leno : "Apparently somebody in Governor Christie's office was involved in that traffic lane closure at the George Washington Bridge that clogged up a major artery and caused a huge traffic jam. But Christie is denying any personal involvement. He said he was too busy clogging his own artery at the time."

"Pundits are saying this could hurt Christie's 2016 presidential campaign. The ironic thing is that now Christie is denying everything, he sounds even more presidential."

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Former Christie aide takes the Fifth before New Jersey Assembly

by Laura Clawson     on Thursday, January  09, 2014
 As New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wrapped up his epic, nearly two-hour press conference asserting that he knew absolutely nothing about his top aides' closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge, one of them was getting set to testify before a state Assembly committee. Or not. David Wildstein, the former Port Authority executive from whom Christie so energetically distanced himself during the press conference, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights. Which is not exactly adhering to the Christie message:

Wildstein invoking the 5th here might not be surprising, but it sure contradicts Christie saying earlier there should be nothing to hide @mmurraypolitics
Good thing Christie barely knows high school classmate he put in charge of Port Authority who’s now pleading 5th, or this would look bad. @jamisonfoser
It sure will be interesting to see the results of a real, extensive investigation into who knew what when. 11:23 AM PT:
Committee holds New Jersey transportation official in contempt for refusing to answer questions on bridge scandal http://t.co/...
@ReutersUS

Wednesday, January 08, 2014

Couldn’t Pass This One up: White guys are an endangered species, and everyone else votes wrong

Daily Kos   Wednesday Jan 8, 2014

Welcome to 2014, yet another critical election year, in a long line of critical election years. Has there ever been a year that wasn't a critical election year? These things matter. Elections have real consequences.

This is an off-year election, so it will be a base election. That also means we have to contend with decreased base Democratic performance. In short, our core constituencies don't vote in non-presidential years—Latinos, Asians, single women, and young voters. African Americans used to be on that list, but their off-year voting patterns have held up over the last several cycles. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe says thanks to that. (Voters aged 18-29 went from 19 percent of the Virginia vote in 2012, to 13 percent in 2013. African Americans amazingly held steady at 20 percent.)

That's not to say that all's well in the black community. Mitt Romney won Georgia by about 370,000 votes. There are 600,000 unregistered African Americans who would be eligible to vote in Georgia, about 400,000 in them in metro Atlanta alone. (There are also 200,000 unregistered Latinos, for good measure.) You can do the math.

Bottom line, if our people turn out, we win. It really is that simple. There are more of us than there are of them. Register our people and get them to the polls, and all the Republican intensity in the world will mean little. But that's the only way we win, because Republicans will have no problems getting their people to the polls.

Indeed, Republicans are seeing their entire worldview crumble. Even though Obamacare was invented at Heritage and implemented by their 2012 presidential nominee, they've convinced themselves that it is worse than Hitler. And yet it is the law and won't be going anywhere.

Getting rid of the filibuster will now allow Democrats to "pack" the courts and agencies by, you know, filling vacancies.

There are married gay people in UTAH! Their innermost stronghold has been breached, and even though the Supreme Court stayed that decision, 17 states now allow unfettered love and commitment, and more will soon follow suit. And what's more, if the courts were to strike down marriage bans, Americans would approve!

Colorado and Washington have legalized pot. More states, from Alaska to Maine to Montana, will soon follow. Getting drunk on Bud Light is totally butch and awesome, even if you kill people or start a pub brawl or get liver cirrhosis. Mellowing out to a joint, however, means the fall of civilization.

White guys are an endangered species, and everyone else votes wrong.

Elizabeth Warren. First she starts that Consumer Finance Protection Board that is holding banks accountable for stuff. Then she gets elected to the Senate despite something something about Native Americans! And people take her seriously!

There's a black guy in the White House. Twice. And if that's not bad enough, the Clintons (the Clintons!) are the most likely successors. How could that be? Don't the American sheeple understand that Benghazi?

Fewer people are buying guns, and fewer people yet are tolerant of dead children as a result of said guns.

We can mock conservative neurosis, and we will, but it's actually very real. They really do believe that the "Leave it to Beaver" America of their fantasies is all but lost. And given how terrible the 2016 Senate map looks to Republicans, not to mention presidential year turnout, 2014 is really a last-gasp opportunity for the retrogrades.

If they lose this year and 2016, they'll have zero choice but to rebrand. They don't want to do that. They want to cling to every last one of their bigotries and hatreds. If they fail this year, they are done, and they know it. They are a rabid animal, backed into a corner, and everyone knows how dangerous those can be.

There's really nothing we can do about that. They're revved up and ready to go. We have to answer in kind. 2014 will come down to one thing: Can we register and motivate base Democrats to hit the polls in November? That's my job, your job, and that of your like-minded friends. Little else will matter.

There are more of us than them. If our people vote, we win.

Monday, January 06, 2014

Stoned State of Colorado

   Once again, we are taking a short trip overseas to see what one foreign country thinks about the legalization of weed in the state of Colorado. That country would be Poland.

From Watching America comes the article in the Polish Gazeta Wyborcza - Original Article (Polish)

By Mariusz Zawadzki
Translated By Natalia Suta
30 December 2013   Edited by Bora Mici
From Jan. 1, in the state of Colorado, it will be possible to go to a store and buy weed in various forms, ranging from dried marijuana leaves for rolling a joint to marijuana cookies and drinks. There will be no need for a phony prescription, as is the case with so-called medical marijuana, which was legalized in 20 states. Colorado is entering the highest level of cannabis debauchery — it is sufficient that you have money in your pocket and that you are over 21. Residents will be able to buy 28 grams (1 ounce) in one go, and incomers from outside the state, 7 grams.
Local media are full of enthusiastic reports about marijuana tourists, who are arriving in Colorado from other states in order to start the New Year stoned or replenish their stock. “We are expecting lines just like those for Pink Floyd tickets,” a shop owner in Denver said joyfully during an interview with Reuters. He was among the first to obtain a license.
However, on their way back home, cannabis tourists have to take extra precautions.
They should avoid Kansas, bordering Colorado to the east, where being caught with 25 grams of marijuana results in a four-year prison term, or even eight years, if one has the bad luck of being arrested within 300 meters of a school. The county sheriff in Kansas will turn a deaf ear to explanations that weed was bought legally, and he will not care about a receipt form the shop in Denver.
To make it even funnier, formally speaking, Colorado's cannabis bonanza that begins on New Year's Day will be completely illegal. U.S. federal law, which theoretically affects all 50 states and Washington, D.C., forbids the manufacturing, sale or possession of marijuana.
If Obama's government treated the law seriously, it would send FBI agents to each shop in Denver to arrest sellers and buyers on a daily basis. According to federal law, possession of marijuana is punishable by up to a year in jail and a fine of $1,000. The penalty for selling less than 50 kilograms is five years in jail and a fine of $250,000. Wholesalers who distribute marijuana to shops in Colorado fall within the strictest paragraph — selling a ton or more of the drug is punishable by a minimum of 10 years in jail to life imprisonment, plus a fine of $1 million.
Formally speaking, a state referendum held in November 2012, when the Colorado residents decided to abolish marijuana bans, was also illegal. States have no right to overrule federal law, but Obama's government announced that it will not go after marijuana-related crimes in the states that rebelled — apart from Colorado, there is also Washington, where legal sales will start in a few months.
This way — as marijuana legalization supporters argue — prisons will not be filled with a host of random young people who would only get demoralized behind bars and then set free as dangerous degenerates. The state of Colorado will earn a pile of money — marijuana is taxed at 25 percent — that will be used for building schools and other noble goals. Additional savings will come from the police not going after weed dealers.
Rebels from Colorado boast that they are trendsetters in this parade of humanity. They are even ahead of Amsterdam, where, in spite of common belief, marijuana is not legal at all but merely tolerated by the government and law enforcement agencies. They predict that in a few months or years other states will follow in Colorado's footsteps.
Maybe in 20 years, hardly anybody will remember that marijuana used to be banned in the United States. Just like nowadays, hardly anyone remembers that oral sex was illegal in the 1990s in the state of Maryland, for example; in general, all practices considered perverse and against nature were illegal. Such practices included "touching with one's lips somebody else's genitals," as precisely and graphically illustrated by the state law. Formally speaking, this sexual behavior was seen as an offense even among married couples enjoying intimacy in their own home.
We are mentioning the forgotten regulations from Maryland not in order to praise oral sex. On the contrary, we consider it a sin, and we strongly advise you against it, just as we advise against smoking marijuana and other ignominies of this type. However, we also discourage outlawing them entirely, as it has turned out to be very impractical in both cases.

Sunday, January 05, 2014

The New Year.........Thus Far

   So, how has your new year been thus far? Better than mine, I'll bet.
   Since this is just one of those lazy Sundays with nothing better to do than to wait for the NFL games to come on the television, I figured that I would give a little bit of insight into my year thus far.  It has not been pleasant.
   The year started out great with the usual New Years Eve parties and all ofthe drinking that goes with it. It was the next day when things began to go south.
  First of, on the 2nd, I awoke in the midst of a low blood sugar seizure from my diabetes. This is never a pretty sight. Picture an epileptic seizure on steroids. Mine are pretty violent and bloody. Only to myself, though.  Between kicking the walls while being down on the floor, and banging my fists into the floor, I ended up with a bloodied big toe along with the one next to it on my right foot. I also ended up with some carpet burns on both of my knees.  This was actually a mild seizure.
  Of course, the year started out cloudy and dreary with rain thrown in for good measure, and it stayed that way up until this morning, pretty much.
  I spent the 3rd day of the year recuperating from the seizure on the 2nd because the muscles are very stiff and sore after having one of these episodes. No big deal.
  Then came this morning. Once again, I woke up in the middle of a seizure, but this one was really mild. Only a little bit of pain from the sore muscles and a headache.
   It dawned on me this morning that yesterday was the anniversary of my getting diabetes. 43 years of injecting insulin into myself to stay alive. So, I guess that the seizure was just a little reminder.
  I may just sleep through the rest of today..