White House tours for fetuses Sorry, it ain't so

What an asinine story.Anti-abortion conservatives are trying to claim that the White House counts fetuses as people for the purpose of White House tours. Now stay with me here, because this is really, really, really, really hard to understand.The White House Visitors Office is asking pregnant women who request tours to make sure to include their unborn child in the total count of how...

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The "Thurmond rule" and the GOP's "heads I win,
tails you lose" approach to government

Say, has anyone checked lately to see if Ol' Strom, that worthless, doody-sucking old pile of puke, is still dead?

The ?[Thurmond] rule,? named for the late senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, posits that, sometime in the summer in a presidential election year, no judges will be confirmed without the consent of the Republican and Democratic leaders and the Judiciary Committee chairman and ranking minority member.

Democrats have refused to recognize the rule and are known to flout it, blissfully confirming Republican presidents? nominees well into the fall ? thus cutting the number of vacancies that an incoming Democratic president might be able to fill.

The Republicans not only adhere to the rule but have been most adept at a fine four-corner stall until the rule might plausibly be invoked.

by Ken

Well, sure, his North Carolina neighbor Jesse Helms was worse, but that doesn't mean Strom didn't devote every ounce of his being to being the vilest, scummiest human being he had it in him to be, right up to the end. Remember those months (years?) when only the people closest to him, who kept him tightly protected off from public scrutiny, knew for sure whether the giant blob of protoplasm was genuinely alive or not?

Now Al Kamen reminds us, in this item from his Washington Post "In the Loop" column, that whatever the present state of his vital signs, the shame of South Carolina continues to befoul the Republic. To make it even more delicious, it's with the complicity of Senate Democrats, but then, what would you have them do? There is a principle involved, after all.

Still, while Senate Dems stand by their modest principle, Senate Republicans get to screw them both ways, no matter which party holds the White House. Brother Al --

Here come the judges

The Senate on Monday confirmed the last three of 17 judges under a deal cut by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell in March. The three nominees ? one to an appellate court, the others to U.S. District Court seats ? had been confirmed unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The three are Jacqueline H. Nguyen for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California, John Z. Lee for a District Court seat in Illinois and Kristine G. Baker for a District Court seat in Arkansas. Nguyen would be the first Vietnamese American federal appeals court judge.

The action leaves 19 judicial nominees awaiting votes on the Senate floor, five of them for appeals courts and 14 for trial or district court slots.

While some observers ? including, sadly, this column ? too often dismiss the district judges as chopped liver, it should be noted that they are the ones who do the heavy lifting in keeping the federal courthouses running and case backlogs as low as possible.

As it turns out, many of those confirmed under the deal are filling seats in courthouses where there are judicial ?emergencies,? meaning there aren?t enough judges to keep up with the work.

So the 19 pending nominees, all of them approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, will sweat it out until the August recess, when the ?Thurmond rule? often shuts down the process.

The ?rule,? named for the late senator from South Carolina . . . .

Which of course is where we came in, dear reader.

One more thing about those district judges "often dismissed as chopped liver." It is, of course, true that "they are the ones who do the heavy lifting in keeping the federal courthouses running and case backlogs as low as possible." They are also the "bench" for those circuit-court appeals judges, who in turn have their shot at positioning themselves for Supreme Court vacancies. The more the Republicans are able to pack the district courts with their scum and the Democrats are unable to get confirmation even for their inoffensive (except to out-of-touch-with-reality zealots) moderates, the more the weight of the judiciary is stacked against judicial reason.

At this point, while it remains theoretically possible, though practically speaking improbable, that the Obama administration may be able to get itself fully staffed by the time its first -- and possibly only -- term draws to a close, it's not possible that the president will succeed in replenishing the dangerously depleted federal judiciary. Imagine how the America-hating vermin who make up the Senate Republican Infestation must be congratulating themselves for successfully Democratic judicial appointments, keeping them to a bare minimum, until the sacred "Thurmond rule" kicks in and lifts the weight of the obstructionist burden from their shoulders.

I'm also thinking, as we take this stroll down memory lane revisiting the ghosts of Strom and Jesse, of the relief many of us felt when the pair of them finally had the decency to depart the Senate. (Strom was finally pronounced officially dead six months later, but Jesse, clinging to his reputation as the country's biggest son of a bitch, hung on for another five years.) Not to mention the same-cycle skedaddling of putrid Phil Gramm. Surely, we thought, the caliber of Republican senators couldn't help but be upgraded with those departures. The joke is on us.
#

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North Carolina Voters Approve Marriage Inequality
Amendment

After months of contentious campaigning on both sides of the issue, the Associated Press is reporting that North Carolina voters have approved Amendment One. The constitutional revision bans not only same-sex marriage, but civil unions and domestic partnerships as well. Voter turnout is expected to break 2008′s primary record of 2.1 million. Opponents received reports earlier in the day that young voters in some areas were given incorrect ballots preventing them from voting on the amendment. Conservatives are celebrating a victory, but the vote count so far seems to mirror polling that consistently found that voters were largely unaware of the full impact of the measure. The majority of people in North Carolina clearly do not support this kind of anti-gay discrimination, but misinformation won the day.

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http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/05/08/480530/north-carolina-voters-approve-mar
riage-inequality-amendment/

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Moderate Republicans Fall Away in the Senate

Most moderate Republicans who served in the Senate just a few years ago will no longer be in the Congress when it meets again 2013.

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http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/moderate-republicans-fall-awa
y-in-the-senate/

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The bigots win: North Carolina passes Amendment
One

Sadly, as predicted, voters in North Carolina passed Amendment One, the law that bans already-banned same-sex marriage and tacks on a gratuitous "and no civil unions, either." As Joan McCarter explained:

There would be no more legal unions between unmarried people, gay or straight. It could take health care benefits away from families, it could take away domestic violence protections, hospital visitation rights, and all the very basic protections of civil unions.

That's why just about everyone?including North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, former President Bill Clinton (and his daughter), Episcopal bishops, hundreds of business leaders, religious leaders, and members of both parties?opposed it. Because it's hateful and wrong. But apparently, the state's voters disagreed.

Way to go, North Carolina. You must be so proud.

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Carolina-passes-Amendment-One

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Live Amendment One Results

Follow the live results of the vote on North Carolina's anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment here.[...]

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GOP Senate Candidate in ND Can't Name Minimum
Wage

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A Republican Senate candidate in North Dakota and his staff found themselves stumped recently by a voter who wanted to know the state's minimum wage.

A video of the exchange between Rep. Nick Berg (R-ND) and a young woman was posted by the North Dakota Democratic Party on Monday.

"I was wondering what is the minimum wage right now in North Dakota?" the woman asked.

"Hmm," Berg replied, pointing at a staffer and adding, "You know, this guy would know."

"I think it's probably seven something," the congressman guessed. "It depends -- they don?t have a minimum wage for waitresses in North Dakota."

Berg then posed the question to a staffer who only knew that it was "same as federal."

"Oh! Put it back on my shoulders!" the candidate exclaimed.

North Dakota is one of about 20 states where the minimum wage is the same as the federal minimum wage, currently $7.25.

As The Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel noted, Berg voted against raising North Dakota's minimum wage in 1999, 2005 and 2007 while he was serving as a state lawmaker.

The Center for Responsive Politics reported in 2010 that Berg had a maximum net worth of over $54 million, making him the 14th richest member of Congress.

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http://crooksandliars.com/david/gop-senate-candidate-nd-cant-name-minimum-wa

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White House tours for fetuses - sorry, it ain't
so

What an asinine story.Anti-abortion conservatives are trying to claim that the White House counts fetuses as people for the purpose of White House tours. Now stay with me here, because this is really, really, really, really hard to understand.The White House Visitors Office is asking pregnant women who request tours to make sure to include their unborn child in the total count of how...

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/2b3cXOc2_Bk/white-house-tours-for-f
etuses-sorry-it.html

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The "Thurmond rule" and the GOP's "heads I win,
tails you lose" approach to goverment

Say, has anyone checked lately to see if Ol' Strom, that worthless, doody-sucking old pile of puke, is still dead?

The ?[Thurmond] rule,? named for the late senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, posits that, sometime in the summer in a presidential election year, no judges will be confirmed without the consent of the Republican and Democratic leaders and the Judiciary Committee chairman and ranking minority member.

Democrats have refused to recognize the rule and are known to flout it, blissfully confirming Republican presidents? nominees well into the fall ? thus cutting the number of vacancies that an incoming Democratic president might be able to fill.

The Republicans not only adhere to the rule but have been most adept at a fine four-corner stall until the rule might plausibly be invoked.

by Ken

Well, sure, his North Carolina neighbor Jesse Helms was worse, but that doesn't mean Strom didn't devote every ounce of his being to being the vilest, scummiest human being he had it in him to be, right up to the end. Remember those months (years?) when only the people closest to him, who kept him tightly protected off from public scrutiny, knew for sure whether the giant blob of protoplasm was genuinely alive or not?

Now Al Kamen reminds us, in this item from his Washington Post "In the Loop" column, that whatever the present state of his vital signs, the shame of South Carolina continues to befoul the Republic. To make it even more delicious, it's with the complicity of Senate Democrats, but then, what would you have them do? There is a principle involved, after all.

Still, while Senate Dems stand by their modest principle, Senate Republicans get to screw them both ways, no matter which party holds the White House. Brother Al --

Here come the judges

The Senate on Monday confirmed the last three of 17 judges under a deal cut by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Republican leader Mitch McConnell in March. The three nominees ? one to an appellate court, the others to U.S. District Court seats ? had been confirmed unanimously by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The three are Jacqueline H. Nguyen for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in California, John Z. Lee for a District Court seat in Illinois and Kristine G. Baker for a District Court seat in Arkansas. Nguyen would be the first Vietnamese American federal appeals court judge.

The action leaves 19 judicial nominees awaiting votes on the Senate floor, five of them for appeals courts and 14 for trial or district court slots.

While some observers ? including, sadly, this column ? too often dismiss the district judges as chopped liver, it should be noted that they are the ones who do the heavy lifting in keeping the federal courthouses running and case backlogs as low as possible.

As it turns out, many of those confirmed under the deal are filling seats in courthouses where there are judicial ?emergencies,? meaning there aren?t enough judges to keep up with the work.

So the 19 pending nominees, all of them approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year, will sweat it out until the August recess, when the ?Thurmond rule? often shuts down the process.

The ?rule,? named for the late senator from South Carolina . . . .

Which of course is where we came in, dear reader.

One more thing about those district judges "often dismissed as chopped liver." It is, of course, true that "they are the ones who do the heavy lifting in keeping the federal courthouses running and case backlogs as low as possible." They are also the "bench" for those circuit-court appeals judges, who in turn have their shot at positioning themselves for Supreme Court vacancies. The more the Republicans are able to pack the district courts with their scum and the Democrats are unable to get confirmation even for their inoffensive (except to out-of-touch-with-reality zealots) moderates, the more the weight of the judiciary is stacked against judicial reason.

At this point, while it remains theoretically possible, though practically speaking improbable, that the Obama administration may be able to get itself fully staffed by the time its first -- and possibly only -- term draws to a close, it's not possible that the president will succeed in replenishing the dangerously depleted federal judiciary. Imagine how the America-hating vermin who make up the Senate Republican Infestation must be congratulating themselves for successfully Democratic judicial appointments, keeping them to a bare minimum, until the sacred "Thurmond rule" kicks in and lifts the weight of the obstructionist burden from their shoulders.

I'm also thinking, as we take this stroll down memory lane revisiting the ghosts of Strom and Jesse, of the relief many of us felt when the pair of them finally had the decency to depart the Senate. (Strom was finally pronounced officially dead six months later, but Jesse, clinging to his reputation as the country's biggest son of a bitch, hung on for another five years.) Not to mention the same-cycle skedaddling of putrid Phil Gramm. Surely, we thought, the caliber of Republican senators couldn't help but be upgraded with those departures. The joke is on us.
#

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http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2012/05/thurmond-rule-and-gops-heads-i-win.ht
ml

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Small Uranium Equities Tempt Major Players: Rob
Chang

The Energy Report: Fourteen months after the fact, the biggest story in uranium is still the tsunami that struck Japan and destroyed four nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Japan is attempting to eradicate its dependency on nuclear energy. Are any plants still operating? Will all reactors be shut down in the near future?

Rob Chang: My numbers indicate that there are 50 reactors in Japan in total with only one still operating, and that last one is scheduled for a regular maintenance shutdown in early May. Since the Fukushima disaster occurred, every … [visit site to read . . . → Read More: Small Uranium Equities Tempt Major Players: Rob Chang

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http://jutiagroup.com/20120508-small-uranium-equities-tempt-major-players-rob-cha
ng/

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