Welcome to The Moose Pond, where seldom is heard a discouraging word … wait … that’s The Range. Sometimes a discouraging word is heard at the pond but it is mostly words about the weather. 🙂
Week ending Welcomings are here: Weekending Welcomings from Moosylvania: Thursday, July 17 thru Saturday, July 19
The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.
From the White House – Weekly Address
In this week’s address, the President recapped his visits with folks who have written him letters about their own American stories — their successes and struggles. While congressional Republicans are blocking meaningful measures that would strengthen the middle class, the President continues looking for ways to grow the economy and expand opportunity for more hardworking Americans.
The President again urged Congress to join him, as they were elected to do, in working on behalf of everyday Americans – including those the President spent time with this week – by investing in our infrastructure to support American jobs, and ensuring that the Highway Trust Fund does not expire.
It is emblematic of the hyperpartisanship which has our country in a stranglehold that the president has to remind people that the humanitarian crisis on the border is not theater. But apparently, no crisis or incident (BENGHAZIII!), can be addressed without first dousing the follicles set ablaze by the media and their need to fill air time and print to satisfy the 10-minute news cycle.
From NBC News
President Barack Obama on Wednesday said he is not visiting the U.S. border while in Texas because he is “not interested in photo-ops” and urged Congress to approve funding to deal with the surge of minors illegally streaming into the country.
“There is nothing that is taking place down there that I am not intimately aware of and briefed on,” Obama said. “This isn’t theater, this is a problem. I’m not interested in photo ops.”
Obama met with local politicians and religious leaders in Dallas, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to discuss the influx of unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border. The White House has asked for $3.7 billion to deal with the crisis, a request that has been panned by some Republicans who say the president’s policies are to blame for migrant children believing they can stay in the country illegally.
Pardon me, the president’s policies??? The Senate passed a bipartisan immigration reform bill that reflected the president’s policies and which would have helped mitigate this crisis, including some of the money that is now part of an emergency request. But the Republican House of Representatives would not take up the bill because they knew it would pass and that would enrage the nativist wing of the increasingly wingnutty Republican Party. And it is more important to keep their base frothing for the mid-term elections than to solve problems.
In trying to make sense of The Way Things Are in a post-Hobby Lobby world, it is important to peel away the layers and understand what the Hobby Lobby ruling is and, more importantly, what it isn’t.
The Supreme Court ruled that a closely-held corporation can avoid paying for health insurance that covers contraceptive options if the belief about how those methods work offends the religious feelings of the majority stockholders.
Yes, the ruling is a direct assault on common sense in its attempt to assign freedom of religious expression to a corporation.
Yes, the ruling is science-denialism writ large.
Yes, it is a poke in the eye to the separation of powers: where a law passed by Congress and signed by the president can be, not merely ruled unconstitutional, but hacked up and rewritten by a court.
And, it is likely a specific poke in the eye to President Barack Obama who the right wing has become completely unhinged over to the point that they want to nullify the results of two presidential elections and three congressional elections.
What it really is: complete and utter disrespect for women.
Welcome to The Moose Pond, where seldom is heard a discouraging word … wait … that’s The Range. Sometimes a discouraging word is heard at the pond but it is mostly words about the weather. 🙂
The morning herd check-in has been a daily open thread posted to give the moose a place to visit with each other and to build community.
This series has been running non-stop since January 5, 2013 and I am grateful for the opportunity it gave me to meet new people, reconnect with old friends, and chatter about odd bits of news. I hope others feel the same way.
The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.
From the White House – Weekly Address
In this week’s address, President Obama commemorated Independence Day by noting the contributions and sacrifices from individuals throughout the history of this country — from our Founding Fathers, to the men and women in our military serving at home and abroad.
Make sure you let your peeps
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PLEASE Do Not Recommend the check-in diary Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are |
On July 2, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The act outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin and gave the federal courts jurisdiction over enforcement, taking it out of the state courts where justice was uneven at best.
The Civil Rights Act had political ramifications as well. Its adoption caused a mass exodus of angry racists from the Democratic Party in the old south to the Republican Party. And the politics borne of hatred of The Other gave the not-so-Grand Old Party the presidency for 28 out of the next 40 years.
Make sure you let your peeps
know where to find you!
PLEASE Do Not Recommend the check-in diary! Fierces on the Weather Critter Comment are |