The chart in this article tells us all we need to know about the GOP health care plan that wasn't...

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday March 26, 2017 · 2:18 PM PDT

2017/03/26 · 14:18

Chart detailing who gains and loses under the ACHA. Source document: http://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/89071/2001188-who-gains-and-who-loses-under-the-american-health-care-act.pdf — The "Gift to the 1% Act"

…and why everyone who called it out for what it is was exactly right. In this case, “what it is” is a blatant giveaway to the wealthiest people in America, given on the backs of the people who could least afford it. We all knew it, and many here were screaming it from the rooftops. Well, the Washington Post distilled it down to an excellent summary of what the GOP really wanted from this whole farce, aptly titled, “Why Republicans were in such a hurry on health care.”

The text of the article is very insightful and enlightening, with such gems as

In part, it's because their plan was so unpopular and because it got more unpopular the more people learned about it.

and

...the GOP didn't want to let a detail like tens of millions of people losing their health insurance get in the way of two tax cuts for the rich.

There’s lots of excellent analysis about why this tax cut laid the groundwork for future, more extensive, tax cuts, as well as the rules that govern them, and I encourage everyone reading to check the whole thing out. But what really calls this plan out is a chart about two-thirds of the way down the article. They pulled it from another excellent publication by the Urban Institute, which allows it to be republished as long as attribution is given, so see it above leading off the diary, particularly that big, tall line on the far right. That’s the people with incomes above 200K per year. Also note how perfectly regressive it is, hitting people harder the lower their income. Straight out of the GOP playbook, and obviously not really designed with the working class in mind, however much they brayed about “access” and “choice” and “affordability” it was supposed to bring.

So to everyone who called out this bill for what it was—an attempted giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of the poor—a tip of the hat to you for your efforts.

And you’ve just been vindicated.

Don't you just love it when a story headline from the MSM reads like it was written here?

RightHeaded

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday March 13, 2017 · 2:05 PM PDT

2017/03/13 · 14:05

Bwahahaha! This is too rich! My main page is one of those aggregator sites, where you can add feeds from various sources to see a variety of content that appeals to you on one page. Well, sometimes someone out there is just so ridiculous, unhinged, or just plain crazy that even the MSM can’t resist skewering them with the type of satire that regularly appears in headlines here. When this happens, I sometimes forget which pane I am reading and think I am seeing a headline generated from this site.

Case in point: a CNN story with a headline reading, “Spicer: Trump didn't mean wiretapping when he tweeted about wiretapping.” Zing! Doesn’t that just scream, “kossian satire”? Oh, and it doesn’t end there. The meat of the story written by Jeremy Diamond first refers to the wiretapping claim as “Donald Trump's unsubstantiated allegation” and goes on to include such gems as:

Spicer also said that Trump was referring to the Obama administration broadly -- and not accusing Obama of personal involvement -- when he tweeted that "Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" and accused Obama of being a "bad" or "sick guy."

The author goes on to mock the idea of “wiretapping” referring to just some sort of general surveillance and also include three quoted tweets that show what can only be considered by any reasonable interpretation to be a reference directly to Obama himself, including:

Is it legal for a sitting President to be "wire tapping" a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2017

Yeah, “sitting President” refers directly to the guy himself, not some weaselly interpretation of his “administration.” Besides, we know that the tweet means to imply that Obama is the source of the order, not that he was personally crawling around running wires, so yeah, the fact that others would have necessarily been involved in carrying out the wiretap doesn’t let Trump off the hook here.

The entire article systematically rips apart Spicer’s whole basis for his comment, and does so with just the right context and commentary to maximize how foolish he looks in making it. It even ends with a dig at Conway’s "microwaves that turn into cameras" comment just to provide the cherry on top of exposing the nonsense coming from pretty much anyone speaking for Trump.

It’s almost enough to make me wonder if one of the fine writers here doesn’t have a job moonlighting writing headlines for CNN. Anyone here happen to go by the pen name “Jeremy Diamond”?

Say it ain't so, Alec! Baldwin thinking of giving up his Trump impersonation.

RightHeaded

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday March 07, 2017 · 11:08 AM PST

2017/03/07 · 11:08

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE -- "Benedict Cumberbatch" Episode 1709 -- Pictured: Alec Baldwin as Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump during the "Hillary Clinton / Donald Trump Cold Open" sketch on November 5, 2016 -- (Photo by: Dana Edelson/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) — Are we saying goodbye to this guy?

CNN is reporting that “Alec Baldwin might be hanging up his fake tan and red tie.” Apparently he told Extra that people might be tiring of the character. While I can certainly understand that he might want to “leave them wanting more” rather than work an act past the public’s tolerance level for it, I’m a bit baffled at some of the reasoning he gives for his possible decision:

Trump just overwhelmingly lacks any sportsmanship, he remains, bitter, and angry, and you just want to look at him and go, ‘You won!'

Excuse me? Isn’t that exactly the opposite of what you want to do to an angry, boorish, bully? Don’t you instead want to continue the fight against him, especially if you know that he just hates it? I hope fans reach out to him and tell him how much they love the impression and not to think like this:

The maliciousness of this White House has people worried… that’s why I’m not going to do it much longer, the impersonation, I don’t know how much more people can take it.

SNL ratings are up, according to the CNN article, so that seems to indicate that people are taking it quite well. So anyway, maybe he has personal reasons for not wanting to continue or is just tiring of it, which I can’t blame him for if that is the case. Or maybe he thinks this will keep him off the Enemies List. I just hope he doesn’t quit solely because of underestimating fans’ enjoyment of the character.

Oh well, if he does hang it up, maybe it will pave the way for Rosie O’Donnell or another female actor to step into the role, which he likely will hate even more.

What a difference a night makes (and not a good one, either).

RightHeaded

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday November 09, 2016 · 1:31 PM PST

2016/11/09 · 13:31

I am an early riser due to my work schedule, and in this case it worked to my benefit. I went to bed at 8:30 last night, and I am so glad that I did because that is the only reason I got what sleep that I did. At that time, all was still right with the world. Ohio and North Carolina were blue by at least 5 points, Florida was too close to call but I had read somewhere (I’ll let you guess where) that things were tracking better than 2012 and that we had solid blue counties yet to report. South Carolina had even briefly been a glimmer of hope, although it had already turned red by that point, but hey, that was a pipe dream anyway. The only thing that was troubling at that point was Virginia, a predicted blue state, that was looking pretty red, but I didn’t worry too much about it because the battlegrounds were looking good. Ironically, it turned out to be the one that I actually didn’t have to worry about.

Then, like an idiot, when I was awake briefly at 1:30 (two hours before I would have had to get up), I decided to flip open my laptop and see just how “yuge “ the Trump thrashing had been, and along with that decision went all chances of any sleep for the rest of the night. I don’t remember exactly what I said when I saw the map, but I think it might have started with the words “what” and “the”. The score at that time was something like 244-215, and my first thought was to look at the remaining states and see if maybe there was still hope, maybe the states left were friendly ones. But no, there would be no miracle comeback, and it was obvious pretty quickly. I fired up my desktop and came here first and the despairing headlines told me all I needed to know.

I’ll be honest. I have no idea how every single battleground state except maybe one or two could flip and flip convincingly in that time, not to mention quite a few that were supposed to be “safe”, all this in complete defiance of pretty much every poll out there. Naturally, I wanted to believe the fix really was in, just in the opposite direction, but unfortunately the exit polls seem to confirm this as the real deal. Everyone just thought there was no good choice so they made whatever choice they felt like.

Boy this was a rough day to get started, and not just because of the unexpected loss of sleep. I’m not an extremely emotional person, and I can put aside a lot of negative things and hide my emotions. But there’s no way for this to be easy. I did get a nice pick-me-up when I got in my car to drive in to work, as the first song to pop up on my MP3 player was Cat Stevens' Matthew and Son, almost like it knew I was down in the dumps. (OK that is quite silly but do check out the song—it is my favorite of his by far and it never fails to make me feel good to hear it, at least a little bit.) And further on the bright side once I got to work and got into the routine I was able to mostly forget about things and not dwell on something I can’t control at this point.

I’ve read a lot of comments here from people who are sad, fearful, and worse about what has happened and all I can say is I hope that their worst fears don’t come to pass and I really hope that the people who have talked about taking extreme measures—things that can’t be taken back once done—don’t carry through with them.

I never imagined we’d be here, but here we are. We all have to carry on, somehow. I’m pretty sure I’ll be OK but I worry for people whose lives will be changed forever because of this.

Man, do I need a pootie diary right about now.

And the hits keep coming... MORE charges against Oregon wildlife refuge occupiers.

RightHeaded

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday March 09, 2016 · 5:33 PM PST

2016/03/09 · 17:33

For anyone looking for a little non-election related good news, look no further! The leaders and several followers who participated in the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation are now seeing even more charges leveled against them:

Participants in a six-week armed occupation at a U.S. wildlife refuge in Oregon have been indicted on additional charges, including the carrying of firearms in federal facilities and damaging government property.

The indictment... added charges against protest leader Ammon Bundy and other sympathizers indicted last month for conspiring to impede federal officers policing the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge during a long-simmering dispute over land rights.

Of course, none of this is really a big surprise. We all expected more charges to be handed down as time went on. The fact that the new charges are firearm-related would seem to further increase the chance that these people will never be allowed to carry a firearm again (assuming they see the light of day at all once the final tally of charges is added up), making the world around them just a tiny bit safer place to live.

Finally, since prosecutors are in the business of finding new charges to add to these cases, enquiring minds want to know… when will we see domestic terrorism added to the list?

My top ten obscure or semi-obscure Christmas songs

RightHeaded

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Tuesday December 22, 2015 · 11:22 AM PST

2015/12/22 · 11:22

Anyone out there for a break from the “all Trump, all the time” news cycle? I sure am. And since Christmas is only a few days away, why not a holiday-themed top ten list?

While I certainly enjoy traditional Christmas-caroling type songs, my favorites have always been the non-traditional songs written by popular artists. Over time, I have discovered some real gems, and I decided to compile this list to give some love to a few that you probably won’t hear over the speakers at the department store. Most of them I discovered by purchasing Christmas compilations to get more mainstream songs like Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmastime or Elton John’s Step Into Christmas and was pleasantly surprised by these hidden gems. So, for your holiday pleasure, here we go:

10. Christmas At The Zoo (The Flaming Lips): This quirky song is the only one on the list that I don’t have in my library, mostly because I have never managed to find it on any compilations, and I’ve never purchased one of their albums to get it that way. The song makes absolutely no sense—the singer sees that it hasn’t snowed on Christmas Eve and somehow decides that this means that he should free all the animals in the zoo. Of course, this doesn’t matter because it’s just fun to listen to.

9. River (Joni Mitchell): This song totally sneaked up on me. I own her Hits album but had never heard this song before I bought the CD, and of course nothing about the title suggests that it is a Christmas song. Then one day it popped up on my music player in the car during a totally non-Christmas time of year, and I thought to myself, “Wait… is that Jingle Bells?” Not quite, but on listening, I picked up the Christmas lyrics in the opening verse, and I really liked it (despite the fact that the overall theme of the song is actually about a lost relationship rather than the Christmas season), so I made sure to add it to my Christmas playlist to play later in the year.

8. Christmas Day (Squeeze): I like Squeeze’s music because it is a lot of fun to listen to and has a lighthearted feel, even when the subject might be a bit of a downer. This song is very whimsical, telling the Christmas story as it would happen in contemporary times. Mary and Joseph drive into town, search through hotels, motels, and bed and breakfasts. They watch TV and stay in a place with neon lights and a pool. If you are a fan, you’ll find that this song fits right in with the rest of their work.

7. My Little Drum (Vince Guaraldi Trio): Who doesn’t love “A Charlie Brown Christmas”? This is a sweet little tune from the soundtrack that I don’t remember being part of the actual program. There are no lyrics (although there are vocals) so technically it might not meet the definition of “song” but I don’t really care.

6. The Coventry Carol (Alison Moyet): This song is a departure from the upbeat tunes about jingle bells and Santa Claus, dealing with the Massacre of the Innocents under King Herod. It is very old and has been performed by numerous artists, but Moyet’s version is the one that I have and listen to, and it is positively spellbinding.

5. 2000 Miles (The Pretenders): Another song that you have to listen to in order to realize that it is a Christmas song. It’s an amazing song by an amazing group, but one that rarely seems to make it into popular Christmas playlists, possibly because the connection is not obvious. But it makes it into my playlist easily.

4. The Christmas Song (Angel): Wait! Before you jump out of your chair screaming, “How can that possibly be an obscure song?”, let me assure you that the only thing this song and that “other” one have in common is the title. Originally it was The Winter Song, then the band made a few tweaks to the lyrics and turned it into a Christmas song. Personally, I much prefer this one to a song about roasting chestnuts on an open fire (something which approximately zero people actually do, and I have my doubts about how common it was even when that song was written). It probably suffers from an insufficiently distinctive title along with being performed by a generically named and not very well known band.

3. A Spaceman Came Travelling (Chris de Burgh): This song pretty much defines unconventional Christmas music. Inspired by de Burgh’s reading of Chariots of the Gods?, it tells the nativity story with a benevolent spacefaring alien as the angel appearing to the shepherds and his glowing spacecraft hovering in the air as the Star of Bethlehem. The story might even make more sense that way if you are into that sort of thing, but you don’t have to actually believe in aliens to love this song.

2. Christmas Wrapping (The Waitresses): Probably the least obscure song on my list. You might even argue that it doesn’t qualify as obscure, but I just love this song so much, and besides, it’s my list, so there! It’s such a fun song to listen to, although the lyrics can be hard to follow as the singer flashes back and forth between her current plans for a Christmas by herself at home and her memories over the past year of trying and failing to hook up with a man she first meets in a ski shop. In the final feel-good moment, (spoiler alert!) the happy couple finally gets together when both of them forget a key component of their respective solo dinners and are forced to run to the only grocery store open on Christmas Eve.

1. I Believe in Father Christmas (Emerson, Lake & Palmer): Written by Greg Lake and Peter Sinfield and originally released as a solo effort by Lake, it was later re-recorded multiple times either as a solo effort or by the full group. I slightly prefer the 1993 recording, although all of them are excellent. It is easily misinterpreted as anti-religious, although this was not the writers’ intention. After a full reading of the lyrics, I see it as going from the idealistic world of childhood to the realistic world of adulthood; from Santa Claus and fairy stories to the “true” meaning of Christmas; and while things rarely turn out perfectly as promised, Christmas (and life in general) is just what we make of it. The song did well in its day (#2 in the UK) but sadly isn’t still appreciated for the masterpiece it is.

So there you go. Hopefully, you enjoyed this little diversion. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all Kossacks out there!

Poll

468 votes Show Results

So what do YOU think of this list?

468 votes Vote Now!

So what do YOU think of this list?

Totally nailed it!

72 votes

Good, I agree with most of it.

164 votes

OK. Not quite there.

56 votes

One or two good ones in there.

69 votes

Not even close.

55 votes

I hate ALL Christmas music, so no list could make me happy.

52 votes

Ted Cruz's moment of sanity: Toppling leaders isn't so great, "U.S. should mind its own business."

RightHeaded

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday December 02, 2015 · 3:35 PM PST

2015/12/02 · 15:35

All right, I will start off saying it’s a scary moment when you read something that Ted Cruz said and think, “Hey, I kinda agree with that.” But Cruz seems to have done his best blind squirrel imitation, finding a nut by putting forth the idea that picking and choosing the leaders that we want to remain in power doesn’t always work out quite as well as we hope it will:

“If President Obama and Hillary Clinton and Sen. Rubio succeed in toppling Assad, the result will be the radical Islamic terrorist will take over Syria, that Syria will be controlled by ISIS, and that is materially worse for U.S. national security interests,” Cruz said.

Cruz, who has been gaining some ground in recent polls, also said the United States should not have supported the overthrow of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, or even former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.

Thank you, Captain Hindsight. Now, if you want to actually do something useful, find a way to travel back about a decade and a half and direct this to the administration that actually needed to hear it:

If you topple a stable ruler, throw a Middle Eastern country into chaos and hand it over to radical Islamic terrorists, that hurts America

Like most Americans, I’m far from a fan of Assad, and ideally it would probably be better if he weren’t in power, so if a way can be worked out for a peaceful, stable handover of power then that is probably for the best, depending of course on who the power is handed over to. But, as usually is the case in situations like this, enemies and friends are hard to distinguish, and sometimes the enemy (Assad) of your enemy (ISIS) is maybe not quite your friend but possibly at least the lesser of two evils. So maybe we shouldn’t be rushing to get rid of the devil we know by any means necessary in exchange for the devil we might not.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Ted Cruz is still Ted Cruz so of course he couldn’t get by without being at least a little bit of a moron:

Cruz said he would not commit American ground troops to fight Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq, but instead said he would vastly expand U.S. airstrikes and directly provide arms to Kurds who are fighting ISIL in the region.

Or, in other words, he would do either almost exactly or pretty close to what the President is already doing, depending on whether you consider Special Ops to be “ground troops” or not. In fact, if he’s talking about a strict interpretation of “no ground troops” then what he’s saying could be construed as scaling back operations, at least somewhat, which would seem to amount to GOP heresy. Now, of course determining the relationship between what a candidate says and what that candidate really believes or would actually do given the chance is about as easy as writing a coherent sentence by stirring alphabet soup, but hey, it’s nice to at least hear something that doesn’t further push the envelope of lunacy, even if it is from a source that is hard to picture as having even a tenuous grip on reality.

Jeb Bush wants you to know that he "stood with Terri Schiavo"... if you're a religious conservative

RightHeaded

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday June 19, 2015 · 12:31 PM PDT

2015/06/19 · 12:31

Remember Terri Schiavo? Jeb Bush "might" hope you do--that is, he hopes you do as long as you're the type whose mind clouds over to everything else whenever one of those religious hot-button issues comes up.

"I stood on the side of Terri Schiavo," Bush said at the Faith and Freedom conference.

OK, he's a Republican, so naturally he caters to religious nutjobs who like the government to stay out of our lives... unless of course it is legislating their particular brand of morality to everyone else--then have at it. But what about people who aren't raging hypocrites?

Bush rarely brings up the Schiavo case on the campaign trail but his brief mention of it was made to a religious, conservative audience receptive to his role in the case.

Ah, so that answers that. If you're actually a fairly reasonable person, he's apparently hoping that the whole meddling in Terri Schiavo's medical affairs thing has receded into the dark corners of your mind, presumably along with your memory of his bungling of the Iraqi invasion question... and even his last name, if his campaign logo is any indication. Good luck with that there, "Jeb!"

Director of the National Spelling Bee nails it when dealing with bigot

RightHeaded

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday May 29, 2015 · 4:31 AM PDT

2015/05/29 · 04:31

The 88th Scripps National Spelling Bee has now come and gone and, just like the 87th last year, ended in a two-way tie. And, just like last year (as well as many other recent years), the champions have come from Indian ancestry. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with a certain segment of society, the members of which have made their unhappiness known in predictable social media rants. Apparently, at least one of them has also made it known to Paige Kimble, spelling bee director. Her response, however, was perfect in its simplicity:

The domination of the bee by Indian American spellers over the past 15 years has created some backlash, including an ugly outburst of racial insults on social media last year. Paige Kimble, the longtime director of the bee, said that she was approached Thursday and asked whether any “Americans” made it to the finals. “ ‘Yes, they’re all Americans,’ I told them,” Kimble said. “We obviously still have a long way to go.”

Oops, that's right. They are all Americans. Actually, there are a few contestants from outside the U.S., but that is irrelevant to the story of this years winners, as one hails from Olathe, Kansas and the other from Chesterfield, Missouri. The distinction is likely lost on our poor bigot anyway.

The only thing I might add to that is that if you don't like the fact that children of Indian, or Chinese, or Japanese, or Korean, or whatever other heritage are outperforming those of your own, maybe instead of directing your frustration at the children or their families, you might try directing it at the elected officials who are responsible for overseeing the performance of your own school. Oh, and maybe do your own part while you're at it, if you happen to have children in that school.

RSS