Mitch agrees to debate Grimes, and to do it on public television

Knock me over with a feather. Are Mitch's internal polls showing more vulnerability than external ones?  Or at four points up is he now confident that a debate will be the finishing blow?

Jack Brammer at the Herald:

Kentucky voters will get at least one chance to see U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Democratic opponent, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, debate the issues on statewide television.

Shae Hopkins, executive director of the Kentucky Educational Television network, announced Monday that McConnell's re-election campaign had accepted its invitation to debate Grimes at 8 p.m. Oct. 13 on Kentucky Tonight. Grimes accepted the invitation in June.

The Proper Response to Freakazoid Extortion

Because that's what it is: extortion.  When they say "do it our way or else," that's extortion.

And if you cave and agree, or even if you try to be reasonable, they will double down and demand human sacrifices, too.

So the only proper response is "Fuck you, we're doing it the OPPOSITE of your way, times a thousand."

Steve Benen:

It came as something of a surprise, though, to learn the RNC has also taken an interest in high-school students’ advanced-placement exams. Caitlin MacNeal reported yesterday:

The Republican National Committee on Friday denounced the College Board’s new framework for the AP U.S. History exam for its “consistently negative view of American history.”

 

The committee adopted a resolution during its summer meeting in Chicago condemning the exam’s new framework, according to Education Week.

 

In the resolution, the RNC slams the College Board’s “radically revisionist view of American history that emphasizes negative aspects of our nation’s history while omitting or minimizing positive aspects.”

By way of an example, the RNC believes the AP framework portrays early U.S. colonists as “oppressors and exploiters while ignoring the dreamers and innovators who built our country.”

In other words, the Republican National Committee wants these advanced-placement classes to put a more positive, more deliberately patriotic spin on history.

Repugs and conservatards don't give a flying fuck about the AP History exam.  They care about bashing liberals and making them defy facts and science to kow-tow to jingoistic stupidity.

So instead of having a bunch of history professors trying to rationally explain that the AP history textbook actually does reflect the non-existent Greatness of Murka, this is what the AP should tell the RNC:

"You don't like the current test?  Fine, the new test will be based completely and exclusively on Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States."  (Also known as "How to Force Socialism Down Your Children's Throats.") Now kindly fuck off and die in a fire. Slowly. And painfully."

Still the Klan with Badges

Still letting an unarmed black body rot in the street.

And still being defended with the self-righteous lies of the Plantation Crowd.

Steve M:

In America, right-wingers always get to position the Overton window, on every subject of debate. Right now, they're positioning it between Douthat/Jacoby and Medved. The "left" and "right" in this debate will be: do we get rid of the MRAPs and BearCats and keep the rest of our usual tactics? Or do we keep it all?

It would be lovely to think that Rand Paul, by joining liberals in condemning the racial inequities of our justice system, has helped move the discussion to the left. But as I told you on Thursday, even Paul stressed the military hardware rather than the racism in his Time op-ed. And now those of his conservative brethren who are willing to acknowledge any problems whatsoever in how we deal out criminal justice are going to limit themselves to talking about tanks. So, outside MSNBC, that's all we're going to talk about.

They don't need no military equipment, sah; why, back in the day billy clubs and hemp rope worked just fine, not to mention castrating knives and kerosene.

Zandar:

And now the National Guard will show up.  Will they bring actual tanks, I wonder?

All to protect a cop who executed an unarmed man.

America.  

It's the fucking Klan.  Always been the fucking Klan. Always will be the fucking Klan.

Juanita Jean:

True story:  the first time a met a Texas Ranger, the legendary Texas lawmen not the baseball team, I was wearing a gorgeous hand loomed sarape from interior Mexico.  It was one of my prize possessions because of its beauty and utility in Houston winters.  The Ranger, meeting me for the first time, said to me, “Don’t you know not to wear a poncho around a Texas Ranger?”  I asked why.  

 “Because that’s what we take target practice on. Har. Har. Har.”  My stomach turned.  It was a life-altering moment.

That’s not funny.  Not at all.  And the reason it’s not funny is that there is too much truth in it.

Twenty-five years later, I met the first black female Texas Ranger.  I asked her if I could hug her.  I didn’t tell her why but I think she saw it in my eyes.  She hugged me.

I am in pain over Ferguson.  We’ve fought this crap for my entire life and we still haven’t won.

I still have some fight left in me.  I do.

If you think you don't have any fight left in you, look at these pictures.

"All to protect a cop who executed an unarmed man." Don't let anybody forget that.

Fishing

ummagumma.co:

(Source: libertesedosistema, via my-w-a-n-d-e-r-l-u-s-t)

Years After Broadband Promise, Kentucky Still Stuck in Dial-Up Speed

And we're not talking about people in inaccessible hollers and mountainsides.  I live a mile and a half from I-64 and I can't get broadband for any amount of money.

Tom Eblen at the Herald:

When Dr. Pamela Graber traveled in Uzbekistan and Turkey, she was surprised to find fast, reliable Internet connections. She just wishes she could get that kind of service at her home, 20 miles from Kentucky's State Capitol building.

"I sit here and wait for things to come up" on the screen, said Graber, an emergency physician who lives in the Beaver Lake area of Anderson County.

She and neighbors have petitioned a major Internet provider in their area for service, with no luck. So they use a satellite dish service. With data charges, Graber's monthly bill is more than $100 — much higher than she pays for excellent service in Florida, where she lives and works each winter.

While slow Internet is annoying for Graber and her husband, Melvin Wilson, it's a serious problem for two neighbors who have home-based online jobs. "When there's a wind storm, they can't work," she said.

"Internet's the main infrastructure we're going to need to work in the future," Graber said. "It's going to be a huge issue."
 It already is. Akamai Technologies' quarterly State of the Internet report last week highlighted Kentucky — and not in a good way. It said that while Alaska has the nation's worst average Internet connection speed, at 7.0 megabits per second, Kentucky, Montana and Arkansas are almost as bad, at 7.3 Mbps.

In 2012, Governor Beshear promised to bring high-speed internet to rural Kentucky, and announced with much fanfare the Commonwealth Office of Broadband Outreach and Development, which spends its time sitting around waiting for private companies to provide high-speed internet, which those companies are NEVER going to do.

You know why illiterate peasants in Uzbekistan have high-speed internet and Kentuckians don't?  Uzbekistan's government makes sure it's done. It provides to its citizens the services private companies can't or won't.

Kentuckians won't have high-speed internet until Kentucky's government provides it. That's what our taxes are for, goddammi.

The Real Reason Dems Can't Take Back the House: The Self-Sabotaging DCCC

Bad enough that state legislative Dems allowed repugs to gerrymander congressional districts such that nothing less than 100 percent Democratic voter turnout can elect a Democrat.

But to hand over to repugs without a fight the few swing districts in which real Democratic candidates could win is nothing less than betrayal.

If repugs picked someone to destroy any chance of actual Democratic winning congressional races, they could not have done better than Steve Israel.

Down with Tyranny:

A good red-to-blue program would have strong, progressive candidates running against Republicans in blue-leaning districts. Instead, Israel's personal agenda had him out-right protecting Republicans in many of these districts. These are all districts Democrats should be able to win but that Israel has screwed up-- as he chases impossible districts with revolting Blue Dogs and New Dems in deep red territory.

• NY-02- Peter King (R+1)
• MI-06- Fred Upton (R+1)
• WA-08- Dave Reichert (R+1)
• FL-13- Dave Jolly (R+1)
• FL-27- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R+2)
• WI-08- Reid Ribble (R+2)
• WI-07- Sean Duffy (R+2)
• MN-03- Erik Paulsen (R+2)
• PA-07- Patrick Meehan (R+2)
• PA-15- Charlie Dent (R+2)
• MI-08- Mike Rogers (retiring) (R+2)
• WA-03- Jaime Herrera Beutler (R+2)
• NY-22- Richard Hanna (R+3)
• CA-25- Buck McKeon (retiring) (R+3)
• WI-01- Paul Ryan (R+3)
• OH-10- Michael Turner (R+3)

In each of these winnable districts Israel has either screwed up the recruiting or refused to back the Democratic candidate-- when there is one. Unless the Democrats win these seats they cannot take back the House. Steve Israel isn't even competing in any of them. His reappointment by Nancy Pelosi after his catastrophic loss in 2012 (while Obama and the Senate Dems slaughtered the Republicans), must have been reason for the Republicans to be popping corks on cartons full of Dom Pérignon.

Israel has been tricking grassroots Democratic donors into sending money to the grotesquely corrupt DCCC in the hope that it would somehow prevent the GOP from impeaching President Obama. Pretty disgusting tactic to use against low-info but sincere Democrats who don't know what a scumbag Israel is! Instead of helping with impeachment, the money is being wasted on the horrible Red to Blue candidates with no chance to win. Tell me which of these districts is as good a bet as the districts Israel is aggressively ignoring up top:

• NE-02- Brad Ashford (R+4)
• MI-01- Jerry Cannon (R+5)
• IN-02- Joe Bock (R+6)
• MT-AL- John Lewis (R+7)
• AR-02- Patrick Henry Hays (R+8)
• OH-06- Jennifer Garrison (R+8)
• KY-06- Elisabeth Jensen (R+9)
• ND-AL- George Sinner (R+10)
• WV-02- Nick Casey (R+11)
• AR-01- Jackie McPherson (R+14)
• WV-01- Glen Gainer (R+14)
• AR-04- James Lee Witt (R+15)

And these are basically a bunch of garden variety conservatives with not an ounce of courageousness between them. It's a stretch to even call most of these candidates "Democrats." Many are anti-Choice, pro-NRA and anti-LGBT and the whole bunch of them are corporate shills who would be-- were they to win (none of them will)-- on the wrong side of the battle lines between the 1% and normal American families.

So, yes, Israel has been on track to having the worst batting average of any DCCC chairman in history. That makes perfect sense, since he clearly is the worst DCCC chairman in history. But to be able to argue otherwise after the debacle in November, he's slipped in a few ringers. Ringers? Yes, these are Democrats running in blue districts replacing Democrats who are leaving Congress. I'm saying they don't deserve support (Pat Murphy running to replace Bruce Braley certainly does), but that they have nothing to do with Red-to-Blue except to make the decrepit program look better when most of Israel's wretched actual Red-to-Blue recruits are defeated in November.

• IA-01- Bruce Braley (D+5)
• ME-02- Mike Michaud (D+2)
• NY-04- Carolyn McCarthy (D+3)

And this is a good place to mention CA-31, the D+5 Inland Empire district that Israel screwed up in 2012 and handed to a Republican, Gary Miller, who knew he could never be reelected so decided to retire this year. Israel's pick for the race is a shady conservative ex-bank lobbyist, Pete Aguilar, who not only is a disguised Republican but has already endorsed a right-wing Republican against a Democrat in the neighboring district. Another great Steve Israel recruit (for John Boehner).

Conversation

ummagumma.co:

Filling the Vacuum

ummagumma.co:

Religious Freedom, My Ass

It's about using political power to enforce Bronze Age hatred of women, gays and minorities.

Katha Pollitt at The Nation:

The right uses religion because that’s all it’s got: the secular arguments against LGBT rights are in history’s dustbin. And if the notion that the pill causes abortion wasn’t a religious tenet, it would have no traction, since it is false and known to be so. Religious freedom functions like a giant get-out-of-reality-free card: your belief cannot be judged, because it’s a belief. There are still states where parents can legally let their children die of curable diseases—as long as they have a religious reason to shun medical care. The difference between criminal child neglect and tragedy? Jesus.  

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act needs to be repealed, but it is hard to see where the political will is going to come from. Somehow the separation of church and state has come to mean blocking the state from protecting the civil rights of citizens and forcing it to support—and pay for—sectarianism, bigotry, superstition and bullying. I really doubt this is what Thomas Jefferson had in mind.

The freakazoids have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the only way to ensure a secular government that values and protects the human and civil rights of everyone is to bar from public service anyone who takes marching orders from an invisible sky wizard.

Atheists only in elected office.

Weakness

ummagumma.co:

(Source: thedragoninmygarage)

Greg Stumbo Still Dead Wrong on Renewable Energy

Just stop it, Greg.  Everybody knows Big Coal owns your ass.  Your attempts to pretend otherwise by citing false statistics just makes you look pathetic.

Germany is in fact leading the world on renewable energy and increasing, not decreasing, their investment.

David Atkins at Hullabaloo:

The United States could easily be doing this. But we aren't.

Germany is now producing 28.5 percent of its energy—nearly a third—with solar, wind, hydro, and biomass. In 2000, renewables accounted for just 6 percent of its power consumption.

This is further proof that Germany is, essentially, the world leader in renewable energy. No other country has demonstrated such a dedicated, accelerated drive toward transitioning to clean power—in Germany's case, away from nuclear to solar and wind. It has done so by intensely incentivizing private and commercial solar, aggressively pursuing wind power contracts, and, yes, by raising, slightly, the cost of energy in the process.

A couple years ago, Germany broke a record when, for a day, its wind and solar plants generated enough clean power to meet half the country's energy needs. This year, it broke a new one when they whipped up enough power to meet 75 percent of demand. That's three-fourths of a nation, running on clean energy.

This despite the fact that we get far more sunshine than Germany (Fox News correspondents notwithstanding.)

On a geopolitical level, Germany is also doing its part to reduce Vladimir Putin's power over Europe by reducing its dependency on Russian natural gas. And, of course, there are the climate change impacts.

With our enormous deserts and wind-swept coasts and plains, there is just no reason at all for America not to be getting most of its energy from renewable sources. It's simple stubbornness and greed.

Also, the "natural gas will save us!" idiots are dead wrong. 

Every Street Corner

ummagumma.co;

"For too many families across the country, paying for higher education is a constant struggle"

Higher education in public colleges and universities should be free, Mr. President. That's the only way to solve the education/economy paradox.




Full transcript here.

Parenting

ummagumma.co

:

Mitch Goes Full Monty Freakazoid; Alison Follows in 3, 2, 1 ....

I give Grimes until about 9 a.m. Sunday morning to complete her betrayal of Kentucky's Democratic voters by rejecting the last few values for which they will still turn out to the polls.

From the AP:

Sen. Mitch McConnell talked about abortion, gay marriage and the persecution of Christians in Iraq with three well-known evangelical leaders Thursday, a rare discussion of social and religious issues for the Republican.

SNIP

For about an hour, McConnell talked about his opposition to gay marriage and abortion rights, although he stopped short of saying whether he would support or oppose a Supreme Court justice's nomination based solely on abortion.

SNIP

Grimes has said abortion is a decision a woman should make "between herself, her doctor and her God." She supports gay marriage but said churches should not be forced to recognize anything that is inconsistent with their teachings.

That's what she said as of this morning. She'll be mini-me-ing Mitch before the altar calls on Sunday.

Believing

ummagumma.co:

Satanists to the Rescue

It may be the only thing that saves us from the Domionists. Sign up to join today!

Divine Irony:

Satanists want to use Hobby Lobby decision to exempt women from anti-abortion laws

cognitivedissonance:

"The Satanic Temple set up a website where women seeking an abortion can print out a letter for her healthcare provider explaining why she is exempt from informed consent mandates. 

The letter reads that ‘[a]ll women who share our deeply held belief that their personal choices should be made with access to the best available information, undiluted by biased or false information, are free to seek protection with this exemption whether they are members of the Satanic Temple or not.’”

YES.

Public Funds

ummagumma.co:

(Source: nevertheh3ro)

T-shirt

ummagumma.co:

Of Course Hobby Lobby is Owned and Run by Anti-Worker, Anti-Family Motherfuckers

And thanks to the Roberts Corporate Court, Hobby Lobby's medieval cruelty now trumps your constitutional rights.

Lawyers, Guns and Money:

Hobby Lobby puts its pro-life, pro-child policies into practice:

When a very pregnant Felicia Allen applied for medical leave from her job at Hobby Lobby three years ago, one might think that the company best known for denying its employees insurance coverage of certain contraceptives—on the false grounds that they cause abortions—would show equal concern for helping one of its employees when she learned she was pregnant. 

Instead, Allen says the self-professed evangelical Christian arts-and-crafts chain fired her and then tried to prevent her from accessing unemployment benefits. 

“They didn’t even want me to come back after having my baby, to provide for it,” she says.

And here I thought Hobby Lobby was acting out of very strong principle for life and not because it hates women and wants to punish them for having sex.

There’s also this gem:

When Allen applied for unemployment benefits, she says Hobby Lobby’s corporate office gave the unemployment agency a false version of events, claiming she could have taken off personal leave but chose not to. In the end, Allen says she won her claim for unemployment benefits, but she felt she had been wrongly discriminated based on the fact that she was pregnant. In February 2012 she sued Hobby Lobby, but her lawsuit was swiftly dropped because, like most—if not all—Hobby Lobby employees, Allen had signed away her rights to sue the company. 

Though the multibillion-dollar, nearly 600-store chain took its legal claim against the federal government all the way to the Supreme Court when it didn’t want to honor the health insurance requirements of the Affordable Care Act, the company forbids its employees from seeking justice in the court of law. 

Allen had signed a binding arbitration agreement upon taking the job, though she says she doesn’t remember doing so. The agreement, which all Hobby Lobby employees are required to sign, forces employees to resolve legal disputes outside of court through a process known as arbitration.

Lying so she couldn’t get unemployment is very special, but forcing employees to sign documents waiving their right to sue the company in order to be hired should be as illegal as the yellow-dog contract. I would ask how something like that is even legal in this nation, but of course I already know why–because corporations control our lives in ways they have not in a century.