THE FIRST 170 DAYS OF THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS:
BY THE NUMBERS
170: June 24th was the 170th day of the 114th Congress
87: Days the GOP House has been in session, including 18 pro-forma days in which the House gaveled in & out in a matter of minutes & no legislative business was completed
1.5 million: Number of private-sector jobs created or sustained by Export-Import Bank since 2007
4: Times House Republicans voted against renewing the job-creating Export-Import Bank charter before it expires on June 30 (2015 Vote #116, 2015 Vote #126, 2015 Vote #371, 2015 Vote #379)
ZERO: GOP jobs bills passed in the 114th Congress
Just 25: Bills signed into law by President, including 2 that were unfinished business from the 113th Congress and 15 noncontroversial modest suspension bills
$610.7 billion: Amount the deficit is increased by the 11 GOP permanent tax cut bills the GOP has already passed in the 114th Congress so far
100: Percent of House Republicans who voted against bringing up the student loan refinancing bill
7: Additional times the House GOP has voted in the past 170 days to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act (2015 Vote #14, 2015 Vote #45, 2015 Vote #58, 2015 Vote #142, 2015 Vote #183, 2015 Vote #375, 2015 Vote #376)
60: Times House Republicans have voted to repeal or undermine the ACA since 2011
241: Republicans voted against bringing the Help Hire Our Heroes Act – a bill to provide training resources for veterans seeking good-paying jobs – to the floor for a vote.
99: Percent of House Republicans who voted to allow predatory lenders on military bases
$251 million: Cut to Amtrak funding passed by House Republican members of the Appropriations Committee one day after a deadly train accident in Philadelphia.
100: Percent of Republicans twice voted against authorizing & funding the Positive Train Control Program which would have prevented the Amtrak derailment, one week after the accident.
6: Times GOP voted against bringing a clean bill to fund DHS to a vote even as a shutdown loomed (2015 Vote #34, 2015 Vote #71, 2015 Vote #77, 2015 Vote #86, 2015 Vote #92, 2015 Vote #100)
2: Times GOP has blocked bigger paychecks and better infrastructure so far in the 114th Congress (2015 Vote #4, 2015 Vote #5)
2.9 million: Number of jobs that would be destroyed under the House GOP FY 2016 Budget
$2,000: More in taxes for middle-class American families with children greenlighted by the final FY 2016 Republican Budget
$200,000: Average tax break for the wealthiest Americans making $1,000,000 or more greenlighted by the final FY 2016 Republican Budget
$269 billion: Tax breaks House Republicans have passed for the wealthiest 5,400 estates - 0.2 percent of Americans - in the country.
99: Percent of House Republicans who voted against allowing a vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act – a bill to ensure equal pay for equal work
You can’t make this stuff up. This is a big old middle finger to everyone but the top 2%. It’s a middle finger to families with kids, veterans, students, women… It’s a middle finger to America.
This is what a Republican-controlled Congress looks like. If anyone asks you what Republicans believe in, show them this. Policy is king.
Friday, June 26, 2015
Monday, June 8, 2015
So Mr. Bush has an uptick in approval ratings.....
George W. Bush is trending on the Internet for a surprising reason.
A CNN/ORC Poll that recently hit yielded some very good news for the former president; for the first time since the months after his reelection in 2004, more Americans have a favorable opinion of him (52 percent) than an unfavorable one (43 percent).
Before you guys start celebrating, it would be wise to remember that most former presidents become more popular in the years after their administrations have ended.
Both Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush were widely disliked when their presidencies ended but are held in much higher regard today. More important, though, there is the simple fact that a president’s legacy is ultimately determined by whether Americans were doing worse or better after he left office.
How does Bush measure up?
1) He failed on September 11 2001
Who will disagree that the September 11 terrorist attacks were a defining moment of Bush’s presidency? As president, his foremost responsibility was bringing the mastermind behind those attacks—al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden—to justice.
Bush failed in this mission. Instead of prioritizing hunting bin Laden down inPakistan, where he was suspected of hiding (and where Obama promised to get him during the 2008 presidential election), In Dec. of 2001, OBL was hiding in Tora Bora, when orders came doewn to Secial Forces troops to let OBL's former allies the Mujageddin guard the passes into Pakistan... Somehow he escaped. So to make up for it, we invaded Iraq, a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with September 11.
In the process, He then went on to tell the press just six months after 9/11 that Bin Laden was not a top priority for his administration.
He significantly damaged America's credibility and standing overseas, and needlessly destabilized the Middle East in ways that we’re still seeing today. Including the creation and evolution of ISIS.
2) His policies caused the Great Recession
When Bush took office, he inherited a strong economy built by President Bill Clinton: unemployment had fallen from 7.3% to 4.2%, creating more than 22 million jobs in the process, and the median family income had increased by more than $6,000.
By comparison, the Bush presidency only managed to oversee the creation of 1.1 million jobs, by far the lowest of any president since Harry Truman, while income inequality expanded at staggering levels. The top 10 percent of American earners pulled in almost half of total wages, the most lopsided wealth distribution since 1917.
Although the economic stagnation became apparent very early in his first term, it didn’t turn into a full-fledged recession until the collapse of America’s financial industry in 2008, after which unemployment shot up from 6.2 percent in September (the month of the crash) to 7.7 percent in January (the end of Bush’s presidency). This was an average increase of 0.3% per month, finally ending in 2009 with a rate of over 10%!
When you Consider that Bush’s policy of Wall Street deregulation and hands off oversight was largely responsible for the reckless practices of the banks that brought the economy to its knees, it’s fair to say that this was one of the two most significant fiscal failures of his administration.
The other, of course, was his squandering of the Clinton budget surplus. When Clinton left office in January 2001, he bequeathed America with a projected $1.9 trillion surplus. By the time Bush handed the economy off to Obama in 2009, the Congressional Budget Office projected $1.9 trillion in debt, due largely to Bush’s $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy, as well as the additional trillions spent on the aforementioned wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
3) His administration regressed American civil liberties to an unprecedented degree.
Peeling back the Bill of rights, creating "Free Speech zones" sometimes miles from the events being protested, brutally arresting journalists, vets and anyone not "Cleared" by th eparty attending speeches....
From torturing suspected terrorists in clear violation of the Geneva Convention to laying the groundwork for the NSA’s unprecedented domestic spying program, Bush’s post-9/11 legislative initiatives ultimately threatened American freedom more than Osama bin Laden’s schemes ever managed to do.
4) He bungled his response to Hurricane Katrina
Believe it or not, it isn’t that difficult for a president to effectively manage disaster relief after a hurricane: Lyndon Johnson famously mastered the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1965, while Barack Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy was so effective that it was erroneously credited for his reelection in 2012.
By contrast, Bush utterly failed when Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast in 2005—a subsequent report by the House of Representatives found that his administration disregarded numerous warnings of the threat to New Orleans, did not execute emergency plans, and neglected to share information between different departments that could have saved lives.
5) When it came to one of the biggest civil rights issue of his time, he placed himself on the wrong side of history
When future historians look back at the early 21st century, there is little question that they will view the campaign for LGBT equality as one of the major civil rights movements of the era. Yet not only did Bush fail to advocate on behalf of the LGBT community (despite his vice president having a lesbian daughter and his party being chaired by a closeted gay man, Ken Mehlman, during his second term), but he actively exploited anti-gay bigotry during his reelection campaign in 2004. This was particularly the case in states like Ohio, where its pull among so-called “value voters” played a considerable role (alongside racially based voter suppression, caging and outright fraud) in Bush’s winning that state—and with it, the general election.
None of this means that George W. Bush is a terrible or evil human being, or even that he set out to cause harm to the nation he professes to love. At the same time, no bounce in his approval rating can overshadow the damage that he did while in office. More Americans may like Bush than dislike him right now, but when his legacy is ultimately appraised, the final verdict will not be a kind one.
A CNN/ORC Poll that recently hit yielded some very good news for the former president; for the first time since the months after his reelection in 2004, more Americans have a favorable opinion of him (52 percent) than an unfavorable one (43 percent).
Before you guys start celebrating, it would be wise to remember that most former presidents become more popular in the years after their administrations have ended.
Both Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush were widely disliked when their presidencies ended but are held in much higher regard today. More important, though, there is the simple fact that a president’s legacy is ultimately determined by whether Americans were doing worse or better after he left office.
How does Bush measure up?
1) He failed on September 11 2001
Who will disagree that the September 11 terrorist attacks were a defining moment of Bush’s presidency? As president, his foremost responsibility was bringing the mastermind behind those attacks—al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden—to justice.
Bush failed in this mission. Instead of prioritizing hunting bin Laden down inPakistan, where he was suspected of hiding (and where Obama promised to get him during the 2008 presidential election), In Dec. of 2001, OBL was hiding in Tora Bora, when orders came doewn to Secial Forces troops to let OBL's former allies the Mujageddin guard the passes into Pakistan... Somehow he escaped. So to make up for it, we invaded Iraq, a nation that had absolutely nothing to do with September 11.
In the process, He then went on to tell the press just six months after 9/11 that Bin Laden was not a top priority for his administration.
He significantly damaged America's credibility and standing overseas, and needlessly destabilized the Middle East in ways that we’re still seeing today. Including the creation and evolution of ISIS.
2) His policies caused the Great Recession
When Bush took office, he inherited a strong economy built by President Bill Clinton: unemployment had fallen from 7.3% to 4.2%, creating more than 22 million jobs in the process, and the median family income had increased by more than $6,000.
By comparison, the Bush presidency only managed to oversee the creation of 1.1 million jobs, by far the lowest of any president since Harry Truman, while income inequality expanded at staggering levels. The top 10 percent of American earners pulled in almost half of total wages, the most lopsided wealth distribution since 1917.
Although the economic stagnation became apparent very early in his first term, it didn’t turn into a full-fledged recession until the collapse of America’s financial industry in 2008, after which unemployment shot up from 6.2 percent in September (the month of the crash) to 7.7 percent in January (the end of Bush’s presidency). This was an average increase of 0.3% per month, finally ending in 2009 with a rate of over 10%!
When you Consider that Bush’s policy of Wall Street deregulation and hands off oversight was largely responsible for the reckless practices of the banks that brought the economy to its knees, it’s fair to say that this was one of the two most significant fiscal failures of his administration.
The other, of course, was his squandering of the Clinton budget surplus. When Clinton left office in January 2001, he bequeathed America with a projected $1.9 trillion surplus. By the time Bush handed the economy off to Obama in 2009, the Congressional Budget Office projected $1.9 trillion in debt, due largely to Bush’s $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy, as well as the additional trillions spent on the aforementioned wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
3) His administration regressed American civil liberties to an unprecedented degree.
Peeling back the Bill of rights, creating "Free Speech zones" sometimes miles from the events being protested, brutally arresting journalists, vets and anyone not "Cleared" by th eparty attending speeches....
From torturing suspected terrorists in clear violation of the Geneva Convention to laying the groundwork for the NSA’s unprecedented domestic spying program, Bush’s post-9/11 legislative initiatives ultimately threatened American freedom more than Osama bin Laden’s schemes ever managed to do.
4) He bungled his response to Hurricane Katrina
Believe it or not, it isn’t that difficult for a president to effectively manage disaster relief after a hurricane: Lyndon Johnson famously mastered the aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1965, while Barack Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy was so effective that it was erroneously credited for his reelection in 2012.
By contrast, Bush utterly failed when Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast in 2005—a subsequent report by the House of Representatives found that his administration disregarded numerous warnings of the threat to New Orleans, did not execute emergency plans, and neglected to share information between different departments that could have saved lives.
5) When it came to one of the biggest civil rights issue of his time, he placed himself on the wrong side of history
When future historians look back at the early 21st century, there is little question that they will view the campaign for LGBT equality as one of the major civil rights movements of the era. Yet not only did Bush fail to advocate on behalf of the LGBT community (despite his vice president having a lesbian daughter and his party being chaired by a closeted gay man, Ken Mehlman, during his second term), but he actively exploited anti-gay bigotry during his reelection campaign in 2004. This was particularly the case in states like Ohio, where its pull among so-called “value voters” played a considerable role (alongside racially based voter suppression, caging and outright fraud) in Bush’s winning that state—and with it, the general election.
None of this means that George W. Bush is a terrible or evil human being, or even that he set out to cause harm to the nation he professes to love. At the same time, no bounce in his approval rating can overshadow the damage that he did while in office. More Americans may like Bush than dislike him right now, but when his legacy is ultimately appraised, the final verdict will not be a kind one.
Friday, June 5, 2015
Creationist still thinks World is 6000 Years old, even after finding 60 million year old fossil
Ahhh, nothing like dyed in the wool willful stupidity!
Imagine the situation of a confirmed creationist, secure enough in his comical delusions to put his money where his mouth is, actively supporting a "creation science museum" -- Canada's first, in Big Valley, Alberta (it opened in 2007), devoted to the "science" of the proposition that the earth is 6000 years old -- who while digging in a basement in Calgary stumbles across the fossilized remains of five fish a mere 60 million years old.
Calgary Sun caption: "An assemblage of fossilized fish was recently found during the excavation of a basement in a new development in northwest Calgary, Alta. Five fish were found in a block of sandstone in the Paskapoo Formation -- a roughly 60 million-year-old rock formation that underlies Calgary and much of the surrounding area. The discovery was made by Edgar Nernberg. Photo provided by the University of Calgary"
Actually, for Edgar Nernberg there doesn't appear to be any problem. The discovery "hasn't changed my mind," he's told the Calgary Sun. "We all have the same evidence, and it's just a matter of how you interpret it. There's no dates stamped on these things."
Which prompted this from the Washington Post's Rachel Feltman:
No sir, no dates. Just, you know, isotopic dating, basic geology, really shoddy stuff like that. To be fair, I'm not any more capable of figuring out when a particular fossil is from than Nernberg is. I'd be one sorry paleontologist, given the opportunity. I've never even found a fossil, so he's got me there. But the science of dating fossils is not shaky -- at least not on the order of tens of millions of years of error -- so this fossil and the rocks around it really do give new earth creationism the boot.
But this can go down as one of the best examples ever of why it's downright impossible to convince someone who's "opposed" to evolution that it's a basic fact: If you think the very tenets of science are misguided, pretty much any evidence presented to you can be written off as fabricated or misinterpreted.
Even if you dig that evidence up with your own hands.
Imagine the situation of a confirmed creationist, secure enough in his comical delusions to put his money where his mouth is, actively supporting a "creation science museum" -- Canada's first, in Big Valley, Alberta (it opened in 2007), devoted to the "science" of the proposition that the earth is 6000 years old -- who while digging in a basement in Calgary stumbles across the fossilized remains of five fish a mere 60 million years old.
Calgary Sun caption: "An assemblage of fossilized fish was recently found during the excavation of a basement in a new development in northwest Calgary, Alta. Five fish were found in a block of sandstone in the Paskapoo Formation -- a roughly 60 million-year-old rock formation that underlies Calgary and much of the surrounding area. The discovery was made by Edgar Nernberg. Photo provided by the University of Calgary"
Actually, for Edgar Nernberg there doesn't appear to be any problem. The discovery "hasn't changed my mind," he's told the Calgary Sun. "We all have the same evidence, and it's just a matter of how you interpret it. There's no dates stamped on these things."
Which prompted this from the Washington Post's Rachel Feltman:
No sir, no dates. Just, you know, isotopic dating, basic geology, really shoddy stuff like that. To be fair, I'm not any more capable of figuring out when a particular fossil is from than Nernberg is. I'd be one sorry paleontologist, given the opportunity. I've never even found a fossil, so he's got me there. But the science of dating fossils is not shaky -- at least not on the order of tens of millions of years of error -- so this fossil and the rocks around it really do give new earth creationism the boot.
But this can go down as one of the best examples ever of why it's downright impossible to convince someone who's "opposed" to evolution that it's a basic fact: If you think the very tenets of science are misguided, pretty much any evidence presented to you can be written off as fabricated or misinterpreted.
Even if you dig that evidence up with your own hands.
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