Thursday, December 31, 2015
Fambly Values!
‘Family values’ Republican: Men should be allowed to grab breastfeeding women’s nipples in public
New Hamsphire Rep. Josh Moore (R)Assholeville
The comment was made in a squabble over proposed legislation that would make it a crime for women to expose their nipples in public. Currently in New Hampshire, both men and women are free to go topless, reports Slate. A bill sponsored solely by Republican men would change that, if it becomes law. A woman could be charged with a misdemeanor if she “purposely exposes the areola or nipple of her breast or breasts in a public place and in the presence of another person with reckless disregard for whether a reasonable person would be offended or alarmed by such act.”
New Hampshire State Rep. Amanda Bouldin (D) took to Facebook to criticize the bill and call out her male, Republican “small government” colleagues. That’s when things got awkward. Here is Moore’s response, including typos and errors.
“Who doesn’t support a mothers right to feed?” Moore responded. “Don’t give me the liberal talking points Amanda. If it’s a woman’s natural inclination to pull her nipple out in public and you support that, than you should have no problem with a mans [inclination] to stare at it and grab it. After all, it’s ALL relative and natural, right?”
If that wasn’t bad enough, Moore’s fellow Republican, State Rep. Al Baldasaro, chimed in to further harass Bouldin.
“Amanada, No disrespect, but your nipple would be the last one I would want to see,” Baldasaro said. “You want to turn our family beach’s into a pervert show. Liberterians want a nude beach, put your money together and buy one, if you want to expose you kids to nudity, go for it. Some of us liberty minded Reps do beleive in family values.”
Story here.
Funny how these Neanderthals are so afraid of the boobies.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Suuuuuuuure they're for smaller gummit....
Jim Tomes’ (R) Senate Bill 35 would make it a class-A misdemeanor for someone to knowingly enter a restroom designed for use by the opposite sex.
However, Tomes’ bill provides exemptions for janitors, medical personnel and parents accompanying children under 8.
So I guess now child molesters will dress up as janitors, paramedics, or parents. Smart move, Tomes.
~Republican Family Values
Friday, December 25, 2015
Do you still wonder why I consider conservatives to be haters of America?
Perhaps we should have expected the attacks on construction workers’ prevailing wages, and union members contract wages when Republicans took over the West Virginia Legislature. We were warned they didn’t like blue-collar guys making decent money. But I have to admit I am shocked that they are now prepared to attack even the minimum wage in their quest to drive down paychecks and pad corporate profits.
Leading Republican Senator Charlie Trump specifically contemplated getting rid of even the minimum wage, as reported on MorganCountyUSA.org just this week. We are really coming to the point where you have to ask if there is any person in West Virginia earning a paycheck that Republicans don’t want to cut? First they didn’t want painters making $18 per hour, now they don’t want anyone making $8 an hour? How low can they go?
It’s not hard to see where this is coming from when you look closer. The endless millions in campaign contributions from out-of-state corporate groups have done their work on the mind of the modern Republicans. They now simply take their marching orders from billionaires like the Koch brothers, and nothing is sacred, not even the tiny minimum wage. Corporate America says jump, and Jeb Bush, Bill Cole, and JB McCuskey say “how high?”
Moneyed interests brought the party of “longer hours and lower wages” to power and moneyed interests are getting what they paid for. What in the world would make Jeb Bush go on TV and say Americans need to work longer hours when they are already struggling? With so many working people still living in poverty or barely keeping their heads above water, why would Senator Trump and Cole come out for repealing the paltry minimum wage? There’s only one reason: money.
From Home Yesterday.
In a dismally low-turnout election in November, Kentuckians elected Matt Bevin, a Republican Tea Party favorite, to the governor’s mansion, marking just the third time since World War II that the state has elected a Republican governor. Now, safely ensconced in office thanks to the apathy of the electorate, Bevin is taking action to implement his brand of oppressive extremist conservative politics at the expense of the rights of hundreds of thousands of Kentucky citizens.
Preferring unilateral action to reasoned debate or listening to the will of the people, Bevin issued a series of five executive orders yesterday that seek to undo the progress made by his Democratic predecessor Steve Beshear and further oppress Kentucky residents in the name of his twisted Tea Party ideology. In the most devastating move, Bevin reversed an order issued by Beshear that restored voting rights to some 140,000 non-violent felons who have served their time in prison. Kentucky is one of a handful of states where ex-felons have to personally petition the governor to restore their voting and civil rights after completing their sentences, with the result being that almost 200,000 Kentuckians are permanently disenfranchised because of prior crimes.The victims of this injustice are disproportionately poor and African-American, to the degree that one in five African-Americans in the state are disenfranchised as a result of the practice.
Preferring unilateral action to reasoned debate or listening to the will of the people, Bevin issued a series of five executive orders yesterday that seek to undo the progress made by his Democratic predecessor Steve Beshear and further oppress Kentucky residents in the name of his twisted Tea Party ideology. In the most devastating move, Bevin reversed an order issued by Beshear that restored voting rights to some 140,000 non-violent felons who have served their time in prison. Kentucky is one of a handful of states where ex-felons have to personally petition the governor to restore their voting and civil rights after completing their sentences, with the result being that almost 200,000 Kentuckians are permanently disenfranchised because of prior crimes.The victims of this injustice are disproportionately poor and African-American, to the degree that one in five African-Americans in the state are disenfranchised as a result of the practice.
Thus Beshear’s move to restore voting and other civil rights to these ex-cons was a historic move with the potential to reshape Kentucky politics, but of course that wouldn’t do for Bevin, whose disgusting Tea Party ideology preaches that crime stems from personal deficiencies rather than societal factors, despite the fact that ex-cons who are re-enfranchised have significantly lower recidivism rates. In spite of repeated promises made on the campaign trail to uphold Beshear’s move and to stand up to other Republicans on the issue, Bevin has revealed himself to be just as much of a lying, two-timing opportunist as so many other politicians.
In another order with devastating effects on Kentuckians, Bevin reversed Beshear’s move to increase the minimum wage for state workers and contractors to $10.10 per hour, bringing it back down to the federally-mandated $7.25 per hour, a rate at which someone would have to work a nearly 60 hour work week just to safely afford rent on the average Kentucky one-bedroom apartment. Bevin also hinted that he would like Kentucky to join the host of other backwards Southern states that have no minimum wage at all, saying that “wage rates ideally would be established by the demands of the labor market instead of being set by the government,” apparently admiring the dollar-a-day wages set by the ‘free market’ in the third world.
From Occupy Democrats.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Friday, December 18, 2015
LESSONS IN AMERICAN STOOPID
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, the Republican official said that he would “slap” anyone who wished him “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”
“If one more person says Happy Holidays to me I just might slap them. Either tell me Merry Christmas or just don’t say anything,” Miller wrote.
The Houston Chronicle pointed out that Miller had a history of posting controversial remarks on Facebook. In one post, he called for nuking the “Muslim world.” In another post, he compared Syrian refugees to “rattlesnakes.”
HERE.
The controversy started when a lesson in World Geography class asked students to try to copy an example of Arabic calligraphy. The phrase was a statement of Islamic faith but the students were “not asked to translate the statement or to recite it.” Rather, the purpose of the exercise was to give students an “idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy.”
The class covered a variety of religions including Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism.
Some students refused to complete the assignments and several parents protested at a meeting earlier this week. Kimberly Herndon, the parent who organized the protest, called the lesson “indoctrination.”
“She gave up the Lord’s time. She gave it up and gave it to Mohammed,” Herndon said.
Other parents called for the teacher, Cheryl LaPorte, to be fired.
HERE.
Americans are exhibiting Teh Stoopid™ in increasing numbers. I blame Fux Noise.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
The Next Two Posts Are NOT Contradictory... Or Are They?
One post states that 1 in 10 Americans have anger issues and have easy access to guns. The other article states that you should not blame shootings on insanity. These 2 articles are not contradictory in that having anger issues is not mental illness. Period. However, the craziness that has overtaken the right wing in America has many of the hallmarks of mental illness. So, you be the judge as to whether shootings are due to insanity, whether gun nuts are... nuts, etc. I have my own 'pinion on the topic.
Nearly 1 in 10 Americans have severe anger issues and access to guns
Roughly 22 million Americans -- 8.9 percent of the adult population-- have impulsive anger issues and easy access to guns. 3.7 million of these angry gun owners routinely carry their guns in public. And very few of them are subject to current mental health-based gun ownership restrictions.
Those are the key findings of a new study by researchers from Harvard, Columbia and Duke University. "Anger," in this study, doesn't simply mean garden-variety aggravation. It means explosive, uncontrollable rage, as measured by responses to the National Comorbidity Survey Replication in the early 2000s. It is "impulsive, out of control, destructive, harmful," lead author Jeffrey Swanson of Duke University said in an interview. "You and I might shout. These individuals break and smash things and get into physical fights, punch someone in the nose."
Angry people with guns are typically young or middle-aged men, according to Swanson's research. They're likely to be married, and to live in suburban areas. In a recent op-ed, Swanson and a co-author point to Craig Stephen Hicks, a North Carolina man who "had frightened neighbors with his rages and had a cache of fourteen firearms" and who shot three Muslim students earlier this year, as a quintessential example of an enraged gun owner.
"To have gun violence you need two things: a gun and a dangerous person," Swanson says. "We can't broadly limit legal access to guns, so we have to focus on the dangerous people." Taken at face value this isn't a controversial claim. After all, guns don't kill people, people kill people, as gun rights advocates are fond of saying.
Read about it here.
Don't expect anything to change. America's gone nuts.
Those are the key findings of a new study by researchers from Harvard, Columbia and Duke University. "Anger," in this study, doesn't simply mean garden-variety aggravation. It means explosive, uncontrollable rage, as measured by responses to the National Comorbidity Survey Replication in the early 2000s. It is "impulsive, out of control, destructive, harmful," lead author Jeffrey Swanson of Duke University said in an interview. "You and I might shout. These individuals break and smash things and get into physical fights, punch someone in the nose."
Angry people with guns are typically young or middle-aged men, according to Swanson's research. They're likely to be married, and to live in suburban areas. In a recent op-ed, Swanson and a co-author point to Craig Stephen Hicks, a North Carolina man who "had frightened neighbors with his rages and had a cache of fourteen firearms" and who shot three Muslim students earlier this year, as a quintessential example of an enraged gun owner.
"To have gun violence you need two things: a gun and a dangerous person," Swanson says. "We can't broadly limit legal access to guns, so we have to focus on the dangerous people." Taken at face value this isn't a controversial claim. After all, guns don't kill people, people kill people, as gun rights advocates are fond of saying.
Read about it here.
Don't expect anything to change. America's gone nuts.
Don’t Blame Mental Illness for Gun Violence
Those who oppose expanded gun-control legislation frequently argue that instead of limiting access to guns, the country should focus on mental health problems.
“People with mental illness are getting guns and committing these mass shootings,” said Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, after the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., early this month. And Republicans in the Senate backed mental-health legislation even as they rejected bills to require universal background checks and bar people on the terrorism watch list from buying guns.
But mass shootings represent a small percentage of all gun violence, and mental illness is not a factor in most violent acts. According to one epidemiological estimate, entirely eliminating the effects of mental illness would reduce all violence by only 4 percent. Over all, less than 5 percent of gun homicides between 2001 and 2010 were committed by people with diagnoses of mental illness, according to a public health study published this year.
Blaming mental health problems for gun violence in America gives the public the false impression that most people with mental illness are dangerous, when in fact a vast majority will never commit violence. Still, some legal changes should be made to reduce access to firearms among the small percentage of people with mental illness who are dangerous to themselves or others.
Estimates of the percentage of mass shooters who are mentally ill vary widely, as both “mass shooting” and “mental illness” can be difficult to define. One recent analysis of murderers who killed or intended to kill four or more people found that 22 percent of male killers exhibited evidence of mental illness (the share was higher among women, but the sample was much smaller). Another analysis, by the group Everytown For Gun Safety, found that in about 11 percent of shootings between January 2009 and July 2015 in which four or more people were killed, concerns about the killer’s mental health had been reported to a doctor or other authority before the crime took place.
Under federal law, people who have been involuntarily committed because of mental illness are prohibited from buying guns. The federal government relies on the states to submit records of such commitments to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, so that would-be gun buyers who have been committed will fail a background check.
Continue reading the main story
“People with mental illness are getting guns and committing these mass shootings,” said Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, after the shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., early this month. And Republicans in the Senate backed mental-health legislation even as they rejected bills to require universal background checks and bar people on the terrorism watch list from buying guns.
But mass shootings represent a small percentage of all gun violence, and mental illness is not a factor in most violent acts. According to one epidemiological estimate, entirely eliminating the effects of mental illness would reduce all violence by only 4 percent. Over all, less than 5 percent of gun homicides between 2001 and 2010 were committed by people with diagnoses of mental illness, according to a public health study published this year.
Blaming mental health problems for gun violence in America gives the public the false impression that most people with mental illness are dangerous, when in fact a vast majority will never commit violence. Still, some legal changes should be made to reduce access to firearms among the small percentage of people with mental illness who are dangerous to themselves or others.
Estimates of the percentage of mass shooters who are mentally ill vary widely, as both “mass shooting” and “mental illness” can be difficult to define. One recent analysis of murderers who killed or intended to kill four or more people found that 22 percent of male killers exhibited evidence of mental illness (the share was higher among women, but the sample was much smaller). Another analysis, by the group Everytown For Gun Safety, found that in about 11 percent of shootings between January 2009 and July 2015 in which four or more people were killed, concerns about the killer’s mental health had been reported to a doctor or other authority before the crime took place.
Under federal law, people who have been involuntarily committed because of mental illness are prohibited from buying guns. The federal government relies on the states to submit records of such commitments to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, so that would-be gun buyers who have been committed will fail a background check.
Continue reading the main story
Friday, December 11, 2015
The Secret Rush Limbaugh Keeps From His Feces-Throwing Listeners...
Read all abouddit here.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Benghazi Republicans Furious As Democrats Flip Them A Giant Middle Finger
What? You didn’t think the GOP had dropped this yet, did you? Silly rabbit! They’re going to beat that dead horse forever! And there’s no bottom to the barrel of dirty tricks they’ll resort to, either. Ever since Republicans started their
serious investigation pointless witch hunt over the tragedy in Benghazi, one of their favorite tactics has been to leak as much information as possible with as little context as possible. They weren’t really subtle about it, either.
Here’s how it works: They would take an innocuous statement like “Hillary wishes to personally convey her condolences to the families of the murdered Americans in Benghazi” and redact parts of it to turn it into “Hillary ♦♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦ personally ♦♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ ♦♦ ♦♦♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ murdered Americans in Benghazi.” The “liberal” media, hungry for a scandal, breathlessly repeats the lie without a second’s worth of investigation. A day or two later, they’ll quietly get around to mentioning it was a lie or, more likely, pretend that it’s a “He said/She said” story and refuse to “take sides.”
It’s been a great set up for the Republicans (at least until Kevin McCarthy accidentally admitted it was all a scam); they get to use millions in taxpayer money to attack a political opponent. But on Wednesday, the Democrats on the
Destroy Hillary Benghazi committee decided throw a giant middle finger at Republicans. After a right wing outlet altered an email obtained through a court order to make it look nefarious, the Democrats went ahead and released the unaltered version to prove how blatantly dishonest conservatives are:
The Democrats released their email a day after conservative legal group Judicial Watch released a slightly redacted version, which it had won access to under the Freedom of Information Act. At the time, conservative outlets such as Fox News said that the email was a “smoking gun” that undermined testimony from former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.But the unredacted version of the email makes clear that the forces under discussion to move to Benghazi were the same ones that previous investigations had claimed were on the move: a Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Teams (FAST) and a special operations force out of Croatia.
In other words, the right wing media was trying to resurrect the repeatedly debunked “Hillary told the military to stand down and let Americans die” myth by — shocker, lying about it. Republicans were more than happy to sit back and let it happen until the Democrats ruined it. Repu –licans were not happy about it:
The decision to release the email “is further proof that Democrats are focused solely on playing politics and protecting Hillary Clinton,” committee spokesman Matt Wolking said, “not on conducting a serious investigation and getting the truth for the families of the four Americans who lost their lives.”
Mind you, the unredacted email proves that the redacted email was being used to propagate a lie but somehow it’s the Democrats who are playing politics. Because of course that’s how a Republican would spin it.
As they say, reality has a liberal bias. Source: Addicting Info
Tuesday, December 8, 2015
We Have A Winner
This is what the Republican party has now become -- a grotesque cesspool
of illiterate inbreds who have gained notoriety by appealing to the
worst aspects of humanity -- and we must be aware of this cancerous
growth in American society in order to dissolve it.
Here.
Here.
Monday, December 7, 2015
"America Is Afraid" ~ CNN
Hay, CNN. I am not afraid. I will not alter what I do every day. I will not change where I go, who I talk to, what I write on the interwebs. I will not load up with an arsenal of big ole boomsticks just to feed my paranoia.
I will keep my wits about me, be aware of my surroundings, lock my doors at night, be judicious about my nighttime activities, as always.
No, I am not afraid. I am smart. So don't speak for me, 'k?
I will keep my wits about me, be aware of my surroundings, lock my doors at night, be judicious about my nighttime activities, as always.
No, I am not afraid. I am smart. So don't speak for me, 'k?
What has Barack Obama done that gets so many people angry?
"He had the un-mitigated gall to be a Black man who beat two Republican candidates. Furthermore, he had the bad sense to be articulate, a faithful husband and good father. Moreover, he unpatriotically was able to stop our soldiers from being killed in the Middle East while saving us 30 - 50 billion dollars a month. It was bad form for him to kill Osama bin Laden seeing as how the previous Administration was unable to do it. In addition, he made the mistake of saving the economy from falling into depression. But worst of all, he took Jesus at his word and treated all people, including gays, women, latins, Blacks and whites the same as he would have wanted to be treated. It was clearly a major transgression for him to try to fix the broken health system in America. In addition, he foolishly gained the respect of our Allies, something the previous administation worked assiduously to destroy. Finally, he made the unforgivable error of trying to protect the environment and save the planet from climate change, something we absolutely CANNOT have. The Republicans are correct -- this madman MUST be stopped." ~ Jay Bassinotti
Here.
Is gunslinger Christianity even actually conservative?
I’m not sure what the right adjective is for the kind of Christianity espoused by Jerry Falwell, Jr, and his adoring fans in the student body of Liberty University. In case you missed it, Falwell gave a speech at a school-wide convocation in which he said, “If more good people had conceal carry permits, then we could end those Muslims before they go out trying to kill us… I just want to take this opportunity to encourage all of you to get your permits… Let’s teach them a lesson if they ever show up here.”
The students went wild like it was a pep rally. Indeed, it felt more like a speech being given about a rival football team than an incitement of violence against people from another religion. I don’t think the students were saying let’s go kill us some muslins. They were saying hell yeah, our college president is a bad-ass who carries a gun in his back pocket. He’s not a stuffy bureaucrat. He probably goes muddin’ in his jeep just like us. Perhaps I’m being overly charitable, but I really think they were applauding Falwell’s lack of giving a f*** more than his targeting Muslims per se.
I’m not sure what any of this has to do with Jesus. I don’t think Jesus is thrilled about a bunch of twenty-year old guys getting conceal carry permits so they can play Clint Eastwood in between classes at Liberty if somebody brown and suspiciously Arab-looking shows up. For a Christian college president to encourage all of his students to go out and buy a bunch of guns is at best tremendously irresponsible. To my conservative evangelical friends who say #NotAllConservatives, you need to rein in your gunslinger friends because their witness is your witness, whether you like it or not.
I’m not sure what any of this has to do with Jesus. I don’t think Jesus is thrilled about a bunch of twenty-year old guys getting conceal carry permits so they can play Clint Eastwood in between classes at Liberty if somebody brown and suspiciously Arab-looking shows up. For a Christian college president to encourage all of his students to go out and buy a bunch of guns is at best tremendously irresponsible. To my conservative evangelical friends who say #NotAllConservatives, you need to rein in your gunslinger friends because their witness is your witness, whether you like it or not.
More at MERCY NOT SACRIFICE
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
There Comin' For Are Gunz! Naw....
Typical right wing lie:
The truth:
1) Hitler passed no such law, as Germany already had legislation strictly regulating gun ownership in place from long before the Nazis came to power - 1928, to be precise
2) The Nazis *did* pass gun legislation in 1938, but this expanded gun ownership throughout Germany, lowered the minimum age for gun ownership from 20 to 18, and lifted existing restrictions on all gun types except handguns
3) Nazi atrocities against the German Jewish population were carried out with at least the agreement if not the whole-hearted support of the vast majority of the German people, who had been conquered by a weapon far more powerful and insidious than mere guns - propaganda.
4) Most of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust were not German, but came from other European nations that had been conquered by the Wehrmacht. They had not just had guns to protect them, they'd had entire armies and air forces, for all the good they did them.
5) Large numbers of Jews (and others opposed to the Germans) *did* have weaponry, and significant amounts of it, during the war. They were called the Resistance, but even the most powerful resistance units could only have been a minor nuisance against a powerful army such as the Wehrmacht. They were far more valuable in clandestine operations such as cutting telegraph wires to hinder enemy communications, placing radio markers to direct allied bombing raids or parachute landings, or passing on information about enemy movements and strengths, than they were in direct action.
6) A large number of Jews did, once, get their hands on large numbers of weapons and fought back against their German oppressors. It was called the Warsaw Uprising. It did not end well. Google it.
7) The meme is also really, really badly worded, as it would appear to say that between1938 and 1944, Hitler did nothing, then all of a sudden started rounding up and exterminating the Jews. But then, the person/people who made the meme probably don't have that nuanced an understanding of the English language, so that's probably to be expected.
Thanks to Michael Perkins
Another Day, Another Massacre In America (This Time In San Bernardino, California)
Platitudes won't stop the violence.
Just A Thot...
I find it odd that so many peeps who say the state is so dang evil and is tramping on our rights are all OK with state-sponsored executions. When you give the state the right to execute its citizens, you run the risk of the state overstepping their bounds. It's happened before.
Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Working class voters: why America's poor are willing to vote Republican
2nd in the series of why people vote against their own interests...
There is nothing more vexing to liberals than poor Republicans. Their very existence rankles. It turns their world on its head and their assumptions inside out. The effort to explain them is understood not just as a political paradox but a psychological disorder. They have been duped. They must have been. How else would one explain putting your cross next to the man who derided them as "victims" among the 47% "I don't worry about". To many liberals these are turkeys voting for Christmas or lemmings off for a leap; the condemned tying the noose for their own execution.
At times the contradictions are striking. In August 2009, when opponents of Obamacare were disrupting town hall meetings with claims of death panels, Kenneth Gladney and other members of St Louis tea party got into a fight with Democrats at a public meeting. He had to go to the emergency room with injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face and ended up in a wheelchair. It turned out Gladney, who had recently been laid off, had no health insurance. He appealed for donations.
There is nothing more vexing to liberals than poor Republicans. Their very existence rankles. It turns their world on its head and their assumptions inside out. The effort to explain them is understood not just as a political paradox but a psychological disorder. They have been duped. They must have been. How else would one explain putting your cross next to the man who derided them as "victims" among the 47% "I don't worry about". To many liberals these are turkeys voting for Christmas or lemmings off for a leap; the condemned tying the noose for their own execution.
At times the contradictions are striking. In August 2009, when opponents of Obamacare were disrupting town hall meetings with claims of death panels, Kenneth Gladney and other members of St Louis tea party got into a fight with Democrats at a public meeting. He had to go to the emergency room with injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face and ended up in a wheelchair. It turned out Gladney, who had recently been laid off, had no health insurance. He appealed for donations.
More at The Guardian.
Why Poor People Vote For Republicans
5 Reasons Why Poor People Vote For Republicans
Have you ever wondered why so many poor people vote for Republicans, even though Republicans do very little to help them? Here in Louisiana, Republicans have taken every state-wide seat in government, and they couldn't have done it without convincing the poorest people in the state to vote against their self interests. Over…
Studies Show The Transportation System Harms The Poor, Limbaugh's Answer: Eh, Lib'ruls
At the easternmost edge of Lake Erie, where the lake meets the Niagara River, the Peace Bridge connects the United States and Canada. The two-thirds-of-a-mile-long bridge is one of the busiest border crossings between the two countries, connecting Canada’s Fort Erie with Buffalo, New York. Every day, an average of more than 15,000 vehicles, about 3,400 of which are trucks, drive over its steel girders.
In the shadow of the bridge sits a small neighborhood called the West Side, where the asthma rate is more than four times the national average, and residents report a host of other health issues. Advocates say the thousands of trucks driving overhead spew harmful diesel emissions and other particulates into their community. The pollutants hover in the air, are absorbed into buildings and houses, and find their way into the lungs of neighborhood residents, who are primarily people of color. “It’s constant asthma problems on the West Side,” says Sharon Tell, a local resident.
In the shadow of the bridge sits a small neighborhood called the West Side, where the asthma rate is more than four times the national average, and residents report a host of other health issues. Advocates say the thousands of trucks driving overhead spew harmful diesel emissions and other particulates into their community. The pollutants hover in the air, are absorbed into buildings and houses, and find their way into the lungs of neighborhood residents, who are primarily people of color. “It’s constant asthma problems on the West Side,” says Sharon Tell, a local resident.
Far from addressing the community’s concerns, plans are now afoot to expand the Peace Bridge. A proposed expansion of the bridge’s on- and off-ramps will further encroach into the neighborhood’s streets. Residents say their concerns about the constant truck traffic and its deleterious health consequences are being consistently ignored. “We have to move past the point where your zip code determines the quality of your life,” says Virginia Golden, a Buffalo resident and activist.
Thoughtful article continues here.
The relationship between transportation and social mobility is stronger than that between mobility and several other factors, like crime, elementary-school test scores or the percentage of two-parent families in a community, said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the researchers on the study.
Read the rest here.
Buses reach a relatively narrow geography around the heart of Greenville — 227 square miles of the county’s 785-square-mile footprint. Stops fall miles short of where industrial and manufacturing jobs are concentrated. And buses stop running in the early evening on weekdays, earlier on Saturdays and not at all on Sundays.
Between 30 and 50 percent of United Ministries’ employment readiness program participants rely on the bus to get to work, said program manager Amanda Warren.
“It affects what shifts of work people can look for, apply for, accept. It affects what companies they can apply for,” she said.
Davison said her search for a new job is frustrated by her reliance on the bus.
“I need to go to work, and I need to be able to work late if I have to,” she said. “I’m just stuck.”
Read the rest here.
3 articles that paint specifics regarding transportation needs in America, and the facts they present, based upon actual studies, fail to impress that grumpy curmudgeon of conservatism, Rush Limbaugh, who in a brief commentary this morning, gave his reason for poverty in America: Lib'ruls. He thinks that since so many cities with poor folks in 'em have lib'rul gummits, that is proof that lib'rulism causes poverty. That's the type of simplistic "thinking" that Limbaugh's followers love to adopt as their own. Well, my thinking is that these cities' residents vote lib'rul because of the problems they're facing. Right wing gummits simply cannot get past their policymaking that benefits wealthy folks, who do very little actual "trickle downing" to the masses, and voters note that and vote lib'rul. Meanwhile, smaller rural areas, who tend to vote conservative, also have problems that aren't being addressed. Why those people don't vote lib'rul has recently been addressed elsewhere. I'll try to find that info and pass it on.
So, we see studies by experts that show how flaws in our transportation system work to keep poor folks poor, and we have bloviations by right wing "entertainers" downplaying actual facts. America, wake the hell up!
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