Bloodstar

But in this case, I’ll point it out. From Politicalwire:

Rep. Steven Palazzo (R-MS) voted against relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy last week, TPM reports, “despite representing coastal Mississippi, one of the regions hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina and a top beneficiary of Katrina disaster aid.”

In fact, Palazzo “was deeply involved in pressing for federal dollars in the fall of 2005. Then acting in his role as a local government official, Palazzo repeatedly appealed for federal funding to help rebuild his battered coastal Mississippi community in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.”

What makes this hypocrisy so unsettling is the guy knows what hurricanes do to a community, He watched the news reports about Sandy. So either he doesn’t care about the damage and suffering upstate, or he’s so worried about being primaried from the right because people in his community put blinders on about the assistance they got from Katrina and view Sandy as a waste, or the people he represents think somehow the north east doesn’t deserve the assistance.

Either way, For this vote, you are an early candidate for the 2013 Hypocrite of the Year award.

Well, here’s the early scoop on Obama’s gun control plan:

The White House is weighing a far broader and more comprehensive approach to curbing the nation’s gun violence than simply reinstating an expired ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, according to multiple people involved in the administration’s discussions.

A working group led by Vice President Biden is seriously considering measures backed by key law enforcement leaders that would require universal background checks for firearm buyers, track the movement and sale of weapons through a national database, strengthen mental health checks, and stiffen penalties for carrying guns near schools or giving them to minors, the sources said.

To sell such changes, the White House is developing strategies to work around the National Rifle Association that one source said could include rallying support from Wal-Mart and other gun retailers for measures that would benefit their businesses. White House aides have also been in regular contact with advisers to New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I), an outspoken gun-control advocate who could emerge as a powerful surrogate for the Obama administration’s agenda.

I’m really not a fan of a gun owner database. Particularly one that is publicly accessible. Why? because it can lead to more complex and confusing laws regarding what is registered, how a private resell is registered, would it be a crime to fail to register a private transaction? Effectively, you can come close to outlawing the sale of guns with increasing red-tape.

And what I mean by ‘increasing red tape’ is regulatory hassle. You don’t have to outlaw something to make it virtually impossible to get. You just have to make it difficult enough and frustrating enough that people give up trying to get it.

If you want an example of that, try applying for social security disability. I don’t think it’s a straw man to say it would be a valid concern.

(Continued after the fold)
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Source: NASA

That a hostage negotiator is giving advice on handling the GOP?

His advice: Obama must have a trump card in his back pocket that will resolve the situation without the GOP’s help, if necessary. One of the most important goals is getting the hostage taker to realize that ultimately, he’s not in control of the situation.

Source: cheezburger.com

Since we all know that’s going to work out great for the country. Boehner plans on simply letting the house pass whatever they want to pass and then work with the senate to send whatever makes it out of reconciliation to the President. Why? because he feels he was burned by the President on trying to get a grand bargain. Seriously, whatever leverage Boehner had went up in a puff of smoke after the failure of ‘Plan B’ showed his inability to get *anything* passed by the house without significant Democratic support.

Sure, he could have gone scorched earth and let the entire system crash down, but Boehner knows that if that happened, the Republicans would find themselves on the receiving end of another shit-storm from the public. Boehner knows he’s in serious danger of losing the speakership, and at this point, he has to hope a tough guy act will save him from the long knives.

Did I miss the memo that the US Government is no longer responsible for Disaster relief in the country? Look, I know there are chunks of Republicans who were demanding spending cuts equal to the amount of the aid package. And there was some graft added to the package (thanks Alaska!), but it’s almost like the Republican party has decided that the North East isn’t even worth their time or effort.

I’m honestly waiting for Chris Christie to step up to the podium, take the mic, declare himself the true Republican, go Independent, drop the mic, and walk off the stage.

I can happily say, I was wrong. The bill passed 257 to 167. It’s not a complete fix by any stretch, but I’ll take it as a start.

More to come later.

Why or how could the House Republicans scuttle the deal and get away with it?

Locked in seats, that’s the biggest problem with the current system. With the Republicans controlling the majority of the state legislatures, they have constructed a systemic advantage that will stick around unless and until the Democrats win the legislature of the state during a redistricting year. The other option is finding a way to create an independent redistricting process. But you have to get a way to convince the legislature to give up their power, which is … difficult.

So the seats are going to be safe, along with the Republican majority in the house, until 2020 at the earliest. Even if there are wholesale defections among the voters, I can’t see many seats flipping. For example, in Pennsylvania, Obama won the state, but the Democrats won only 5 of the 18 house seats. And of those seats won by the Republicans, only one had a margin of victory under 13 points. In Georgia, the Republicans won their 9 seats (out of 14) by at least 25 points. Michigan, another state won by Obama, the Republicans won 9 out of 14 seats, with only one nail biter, (there were two more won by margins of 6 to 10 points).

You can go on and on and on to different states and the story is the same. Seats have been drawn to be incredibly safe for a single party. And those seats are typically held by people with no incentive to compromise. In fact they have a disincentive to compromise, lest they be attacked by someone who is ‘purer’.

The loss of the Blue Dog Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans have stifled any effort to compromise in the US House. And that’s to the detriment of the country as a whole.

Just in time for the new year:

The temperature record from Byrd Station, a scientific outpost in the center of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), demonstrates a marked increase of 4.3 degrees Fahrenheit (2.4 degrees Celsius) in average annual temperature since 1958 — that is, three times faster than the average temperature rise around the globe.

Remember how people were saying there was global cooling in Antarctica? Well, I guess we can dismiss that idea as crap.

And btw, if the west Antacrctic Ice sheet does break up and melt. We will be looking at a 10 foot rise in the ocean levels. And that rise would be extremely rapid, IE in our lifetimes rapid.

I’d say welcome to a new age of tolerance, but I’d be lying. But, let us hope that the new year can push us towards a society that is increasingly tolerant and willing to accept those who aren’t just like us.

Fingers crossed, that you’ll see more posts coming. And the blog will stir to life once more. It’s been something Me and a couple of friends have poked around with off and on the last number of years. and I really would like to see it get back up to speed once more.

Let me be very clear, I know people who are Pro Same Sex Marriage, people who are Anti Same Sex Marriage, and I am friends with all of them. I’m not going to quit being friends because they support SSM, neither am I going to dump friends because they are anti SSM.

But what I do expect from my friends is open minded discussion. Straw men arguments will be slapped down with extreme haste. I’m not here to argue about God, and if your version of God is somehow more accurate than mine. You have your faith, and I have mine. But don’t you dare try to claim my faith is inferior to yours because I don’t believe exactly as you do.

The instant you try to claim your superiority over me or anyone because of how you believe in God, is the instant you cross into dogmatism and an atavistic era of religion that led to death and suffering of millions of people, all because they thought their beliefs meant they could torture, murder, and force people into their beliefs. That… evil, is something that America has been against since it’s inception. And something I will fight with every fiber of my being.

Shh, don’t tell the Obama haters.

Can any of the 2nd amendment advocates agree with this statement?

” I believe these people should not be able to buy, own, or carry a gun anywhere in our nation:

• Convicted felons

• Convicted domestic abusers

• Terrorists

• People found to be dangerously mentally ill”

If you do, then you’re doing better than 525 out of 535 members of our legislative branch, so far only 10 of them have signed this.

And you still think your guns are going to be taken away when the NRA has people so afraid to even mention the idea that maybe some people are too evil to be buying guns.

The irony being, that Convicted Felons have their constitutional right to vote taken away in state after state (Interestingly enough, mostly in states where the Republicans have gained control). So felons can’t vote, but they can own assault rifles.

Somehow this seems rather… odd.

It may not mean much to most people but I find it interesting

Democrat Barack Obama 389 43.6%
Republican Mitt Romney 340 38.0%
Libertarian Gary Johnson 47 5.3%
Not sure 117 13.1%
Total 893 100.0%

Particularly when you consider that it’s the only poll that included Gary Johnson in the last 2 months. It makes you wonder if 5% is enough to stop pollsters from ignoring his candidacy.