Caturday: Walking the Dogs
Posted: August 25, 2012 Filed under: just because 51 Comments
Hill and Bill’s Excellent Vacation… h/t Still4Hill
Morning, news junkies!
Big Dawg is looking something DAYUM, isn’t he? Mmmm.
And, Miss Hillary–heroine in a hat plus big goofy smile? Never anything better than that.
Alrighty, so this was my fav political photo of the week. How about yours?
NEWS TO PERUSE with your morning cuppa:
- The Democrats Prepare for a Post-Election Grand Compromise with the GOP [BAR/Glen Ford] … whee, well, glad we’re all fired up about tribal D’s vs. R’s until November since it makes a huge difference and all.
- BTW, MONA THE WONK Announcement: after FOUR YEARS of careful consideration and tortured lesser of evils logic, I’ve decided to vote Obama in 2012. Like Michelle O. once said, he’s stinky and snores. So I have to hold my nose… 😉 However, Mitt Romney’s pick of Paul “I’ma eat your Medicare” Ryan was enough to swing my vote. Decisively. I don’t find him to be skeery because he’s Republican. I find it scary and completely bizarre that he is in politics period. Go wield your exacto knife on the play-do, P-Ryan. Leave our social safety net alone. Vouchers is gambling…that is not a safety net.
- That said, I think the following read from the WSWS a couple weeks ago deserves everybody’s attention regardless of who you are voting for/against…if anybody in DC cares about unemployment, it sure as frackity-frack doesn’t show…. Washington’s bipartisan class-war policy: No jobs, no benefits:
The expiration last week of one of the two federal emergency unemployment benefits programs marks an escalation in the American ruling class’ attack on working people. Idaho, the last state participating in the federal government’s Extended Benefits (EB) program, made its final extended unemployment payment. Across the country, half a million people have been cut off of extended benefits since the start of the year.
- OH and BTW, Mitt, the reason no one’s asked to see your birth certificate is that most people have concluded you are a zombie. (No, NO SWIPE, Buddy. Just a friendly “joke.”)
- Hit and Run. Saw it last night–LOVED. Bradley Cooper–who I just cannot get enough of, this guy oozes IT–has a really great classic scene that I hope all my fellow animal-lovers out there get to see and enjoy as much as I did…Had me in stitches! GO SEE!
- In what I’ve dubbed “Grow, Colorado!” news, NAACP Backs Marijuana Legalization In CO, Citing Drug War’s Toll On People Of Color [ThinkProgress]
- Saved the best for last:
Where is that America that I know?
It is still here. I find it in my neighborhood where kids of all backgrounds meet on the playground for an afternoon of basketball. It is here, in the hearts and minds of all those who have stopped me in the street, reached out with love, and lent a moment of their time to learn about this turbaned person in jeans who loves life and loves all people.
I see that America. I love that America.
–Balpreet Kaur, age 19, Ohio State University
Alright, Sky Dancers…You know what to do! Have a Copacetic Caturday and fill up those comments with some good discussin’s 🙂
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Reblogged this on Let Them Listen.
Glad to see that Hill & Bill have their dogs on leashes. Ya’ll know that Buddy was hit & killed by a car several years ago.
WOW – glad I didn’t eat breakfast before reading. Both the Pelosi story & the WSW story made me sick to my stomach. With continuing news like this (and Romney’s Energy Plan), I am rejoicing at being 62. The future ain’t lookin’ good, at all.
Dax Shepherd & Kristin Bell, of Hit and Run, are a couple in real life. I LOOOOOOVE Kristin Bell – her show Veronica Mars was fantastic. And, she has several rescue dogs. Re Bradley Cooper, I first saw him in the short lived series Jack & Bobby.(2004/2005). He leapt, deliciously, off the screen.
Welcome back, Mona. I’ve missed your Caturday posts. So, the BIG question – how are those precious girlz of yours? Pictures???
Rue turned 1 on August 17th! My baby love! I will get some pics up here soon. If you’re on FB and/or Instagram, let me know! That’s where all the kitto pics go now.
Yes, LOVE Kristen Bell and Veronica Mars and Dax and Bradley… damn good cast!
Hey Mona, very glad to read your thoughts again.
You know me and “lesser of two evils” choices — we need more options, and more ways / actions to help bring about those options. Working from within and without of the status quo system is required to help with that work.
Agreed!
Moi aussi… excellent comment, Joyce!
Tru Dat!
My instinct suggests that voting FOR Obama is a vote AGAINST radicalism. It’s not full blown affirmation as much as it is a protest against where the GOP is attempting to take us: back into a time when equal rights was just a concept.
So many people are just so “turned off” by the failure of both sides to work on their behalf they plan to stay home. Others are convinced a third party vote will “send a message”. Still another group hates Obama to such an extent they are willing to place the future into the hands of a lying creep affiliated with a party infested with lying creeps with an agenda that works pretty much against their own interests.
Ignoring the fact that the next POTUS will be faced with the opportunity to select not one, but possibly two new SC justices, and factoring in the court that awarded Citizens United the ability to silence the majority of voters, this one act alone could change the face of this nation for the next 50 years.
We are in the grip of fanatics whose desire is to make this nation a theocracy. Dismissing that fact is inviting them to carry their platform to victory. No longer is that plank inserted into the platform something to ignore. The present GOP ticket is firmly in that camp and the last 10 years have seen an active wing of that party advance their role even further into women’s rights in a state by state effort which has succeeded.
The present GOP has no intention to “serve” the public needs. Its aim is to “control” via law.
Disrupting collective bargaining. Reducing women’s access to healthcare. Strangling education funding. Lifting regulations in favor of business interests. Destroying the middle class. Curtailing voters rights.
The separation of church and state has been completely breached. The fundies are focused on replacing the Constitution with the bible.
The seriousness of this election cannot be easily dismissed. It has less to do with issues as it reaches all levels of this current society which has prided itself for decades on its role in progess.
The GOP is not about progress. Its desire to wipe out the history of this nation when inequality ruled.
It has less to do with Barack Obama himself as it does for the halt of putrid ideology.
I agree. It is also a vote against naked aggressive politically-driven obstruction that hurts ordinary people and our country.
Oh, I’m not voting only against. I mean–I’m def voting against the Republican-Roid-Rage-against-the-American-people Rom/Ry twins….BUT I’m also voting FOR Oprecious.
Begrudgingly. I was really looking fwd to casting my vote for HONEYBaDger 😉
But, using Joyce’s wonderful framing in her comment…. A vote within the system for Oprecious buys more time to work from without the system…Cause as another friend told me the other day…Paul Ryan will be more effecient/swift in sacking and pillaging what’s left of our dilapidated decaying li’l city on a hill. If nothing else, Compared to Ryan, Dems are snails at rigging the oligarchy’s every whim.
Also. Obama has actually managed to do something I could vote for. Even though it was essentially symbolic and rhetorical, and even though its more the fruit of grassroots activists building up both the political power base and the political collateral to make homophobia politically toxic….he’s the first sitting POTUS to endorse gay marriage. That is indeed something of lasting consequence. Civil rights, civil marriage….maybe any president at this point in time would have has to concede…at least any ostensibly Dem president. However Obama was the POTUS face of it, no one else. I’d like to not see the political anal-yst bastard set succeed in making the argument that it isn’t politically viable to stand up for a civil right (a civil right that most Americans support, no less).
As an aside: anyone who considers themselves a” liberal/progressive” who would even entertain the thought of voting FOR the Romney/Ryan ticket should reconsider that label.
This ticket, their agenda and the platform they stand upon is as far from that label as one can get.
It’s laughable to say otherwise.
I agree Pat. Even though my redstate vote will not likely make a dent, I feel compelled to cast a vote for Obama as a protest against R/R and to at least have my voice heard in the popular vote. This race is going to be a nail bitter and every vote matters.
I was looking at the latest polls in my State this morning, and there hasn’t been any polling done here since May, still Obama only trails by 7. Last election McCain won my home State by double digits. I don’t hold out much hope for an Obama victory here, but I think it will be closer than it was in the last election
Mona…..I’m eating crow and doing exactly what I said I’d never do, voting for Obama. Although I live in one of those irrelevant dark red states, where my vote makes not even a smidgen of difference, I’m voting for Obama as a vote AGAINST Romney/Ryan. I don’t see how any woman WHO’S PAYING ATTENTION, or any gay person WHO’S PAYING ATTENTION, or any senior WHO’S PAYING ATTENTION, or any Latino WHO’S PAYING ATTENTION, or any AA WHO’S PAYING ATTENTION, or any poor person WHO’S PAYING ATTENTION, can vote for Romney/Ryan. The race is too close to cast a 3rd party vote, so we do what we must do.
And Joe Cannon “Cannonfire” had a post up on Friday that illustrates the madness of the GOP/TP. Joe has also decided to vote for Obama.
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/
The main problem is that Obama was “crowned” as the ultimate answer long before he had taken the oath of office. The expectations were set so high that it was shrouded in a mystical belief that no mortal could ever hope to achieve.
What we got instead was a reasonable thinking academic, trained as a professor, who entered a “classroom” of people who resented the color of his skin, his advancement over a more qualified candidate, and a party determined to oppose him on every front and disinterested in serving the public at large.
The public wanted a “savior” to immediately set the course of “change” while forgetting that the opposition was going on record as the “party of No”.
While he may not have lived up to the hype that surrounded his candidacy, there is no denying that the opposition was focused on turning his policy proposals into confetti.
It is the nation that has suffered under this constant grab for power and those who stand in the way of that progress should not be rewarded.
WRONG — in some states the vote has already been decided — and we have the option of voting third party — to send a message that we need options and politicians who are of the people and who listen to we the people.
I will not be bullied by anyone — know you state and THEN make a decision.
For each state is a winner take all — and the vote the counts is the electoral college.
Know your own state and own your vote.
ANonOMouse: I hear ya! Paul Ryan? BLECH.
New Mason-Dixon poll has McCaskill leading Akin by 9 points.
God, I hope she wins through and thus teaches the lesson that women’s concerns are not to be treated with contempt.
Figures it would take a totally sick ideology/party like this lot of conserva-fricks to do this… get us rooting wholeheartedly for Claire “I wouldn’t trust my daughter with Bill Clinton and I vote for whoever my daughter tells me to” McCaskill again. LOLsob 😉
In know. I can’t stand the woman, but a Democratic Senate with her in it, is a lot better than the alternative.
I’ve never been enamoured of McCaskill either, especially in view of her attitude re the Clintons, but as you both say it’s another case of the alternative is even worse.
“The Democrats Prepare for a Post-Election Grand Compromise with the GOP [BAR/Glen Ford] … whee, well, glad we’re all fired up about tribal D’s vs. R’s until November since it makes a huge difference and all.”
Haha, and yes!, and too true!
I’ve missed you, Wonk!
Back atcha, q.
Wow!! I can’t believe how fast they got on that.
Probably only Pat and I care about this, but the Red Sox are about to make one of the biggest trades in baseball history. The Sox are basically blowing the whole thing up and starting over. Pretty exciting.
bb: I am so happy to see the last of Josh Beckett I would pack his bags and drive him to Los Angeles in my Focus. With or without the dog on the roof: his choice!
Me too. I’m thrilled out this!
Happy bb and pat…that you are happy 🙂
IEn my state I have a CHOICE — and I can vote GREEN. 0bama is still a rotten con man — who will allow the Keystone pipeline which will do major harm and most of the product of the pipeline won’t stay in the US anyway.
0bama will continue the TSA sexual molestation — and so would Mittens.
Anyway I’m so thankful to be in Washington state where I have a choice other than the lessor of two evils.
But Mittens is clearly the worst and I am hoping that in the other 49 states every vote will be counted and everyone can vote. The bad guys have admitted out loud and on the record that they want to limit the vote in any way possible because that is the only way the Evil one can vote.
Does Mittens want to fulfill the prophecy of his cult? Seems like he is willing to say anything and do anything to the point that he appears to have no core values. What if his only core value is to the End Times and the role his cult LDS will play in that myth:
Romney has taken make his first allegiance to the LDS “Kingdom of God.” In the part of the temple rite called the “Law of Consecration,” he swore as follows: (13)
You and each of you covenant and promise before God, angels, and these witnesses at this altar, that you do accept the Law of Consecration as contained in the Doctrine and Covenants, in that you do consecrate yourselves, your time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed you, or with which he may bless you, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for the building up of the Kingdom of God on the earth and for the establishment of Zion.
http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n2226.cfm
Yeah. To me, Mittbot and Granny-starver should be kept in a home, quietly using plastic cutlery. But that doesn’t mean the Big0 is any better. They’re crazy conmen. He’s just a conman, and way better at it than they are. That is not actually a good thing. He’s committed war crimes, crimes of state, shredded the Constitution with the worst of them. I don’t see how one can vote for that without participating in one’s own destruction.
But that’s obviously just me.
See–I think Ryan is the better conman! YIKES. Romney is dumb as hell…O is just PRESENT. But Ryan? Good goddess, getting selected as VP while not just openly touching the third rail of politics but gratuitously shining his DIPPY arse on it?! NO…. just no. And Romney picking him shows that this Republican excuse for a ticket is truly here to dick around and nothing else.
Maybe. But Ryan seems irrelevant as a policy matter. He’d have had more clout as a Rep. As veep? He’ll be ribbon-cutting and looking pretty at state functions. Sure, he’s a granny-starver. But he *says* he’s a granny-starver. Everybody’s horrified about him. Places like TPM would go back to big defense of SS & Medicare. Whether that’d be enough to stop whatever crimes the Repubs plan to commit, who knows. But at least people would try. With Obama it’s just yes-sir-no-sir-three-bags-full-sir. He’ll get whatever he wants with no pushback. And so far, the evidence of what he’s done in terms of shafting the 99% says he’ll do plenty. I fear for Medicare and SS a lot, no matter which of those miserable excuses for politicians get the nod.
I don’t think Ryan would be irrelevant since Romney doesn’t know what he’s doing in the District. I think he’d work on getting the agenda passed while Romney talks to his Wall Street buddies.
Quixote you make some really important points…and I agree with a lot of it. But I agree with dak completely on romney not having a clue policy wise and was just about to say the same thing! Ryan is a Cheney in the making….
If rom-ry were to come to pass, i SO hope your version of him being irrelevant is right q, fwiw 🙂
Ryan would be Cheney on steroids. He’s already ignoring instructions to keep his extreme ideas under wraps. Romney will let him run things. I have no doubt, because Romney wasn’t interested in governing in MA. He won’t be interested as prez either.
Yeah. That is what I think too, bb. Ughhhhh
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Romney camp wanted Ryan to “disobey” those orders…so they can pander to both sides
I think Romney is the one cut out for state dinners and ribbon cutting. I think he wants to delegate the work to Ryan which is just fine by the right. But, that’s my intuition for what it’s worth. I’ve spent plenty of time being the brains to penis jerking senior management types, excuse my prose.
Neil Armstrong passed away.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/neil-armstrong-first-man-to-step-on-the-moon-dies-at-82/2012/08/25/7091c8bc-412d-11e0-a16f-4c3fe0fd37f0_story.html
what a loss. RIP
“We came in peace for all mankind,” Those were the legitimate national sentiment when Neil Armstrong said that after his one small step. Could we say them now without being labelled some kind of traitor to American exceptionalism?
Ralph…. Sad, true.
Ooops, I got my wordpress accounts mixed up when commenting. Both Monas/gravatars are me 🙂 Sorry for any confusion
The Economist rips Rmoney a new one!
So, Mitt, what do you really believe?
On the subject of voting for O blackagendareport has a different take.. very interesting. They call it lame leftist excuses
I saw that… I chuckled.
Problem is this time the Republicans are over the top insane. Crush them first and then turn the jaundiced eye to the Dems.
Really Wall Street’s a big ol’ happy fat cat no matter who wins. But, with Rom-Ry, they’ll get fatter a lot quicker….