cassandra_m
"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm
cassandra_m's Latest Posts
Saturday Open Thread [5.31.14]
![Saturday Open Thread [5.31.14]](http://images.dailykos.com/images/86367/large/image.jpg?1401379000 "Saturday Open Thread [5.31.14]")
It is a gorgeous Saturday! What are you doing on this near perfect day? There’s lots of house projects going on here.
Over at the Daily Kos, we discover an interesting recent poll done by the Robert Sage Foundation. This poll purports to have surveyed the 1% as well as the 99% to compare attitudes to various government and political programs. (NOTE: I can’t find the actual poll results, so no idea what the internals look like. Meaning I have no idea how they define the 1%, or how the screened for this, or even the sample size. FYI) But take a look:
Are Progressive Politics Being Redefined?
There’s a great article in Vox magazine about Andrew Cuomo — Governor 1 Percent — the Governor of New York who is seen in many circles as the future of the Democratic Party. What this article does well (I think) is show the strategy of the so-called moderate Democrats — fight for socially liberal causes and values, but spend your legislative time and energies catering to the 1%. This glances by the question of whether these Democratic politicians who are proudly Blue for marriage equality, but looking to provide tax cuts and special subsidies to the 1% are actually becoming the face of what passes as progressive in this country.
#YesAllWomen
This is the twitter hashtag that has been trending since Elliott Roger’s violence spree and since his misogynistic writings and videos came to light. It is worth spending time reading through them (there are some people — men — who refuse to take this seriously and some are angrily trolling the hashtag, but in the main, these tweets documenting the misogyny that women live with Every.Damn.Day are powerful and heartbreaking. Some will make you angry and others will make you sad. It is an amazing ourpouring from women all over the world making sure that everyone knows that misogyny like Rogers’ is something women need to constantly be prepared for — including the violence. There are a few Storifys of these tweets (and if you know of better ones, please post them up):
Memorial Day Open Thread [5.26.14]
![Memorial Day Open Thread [5.26.14]](http://obamadiary.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/ad8124a092824714550f6a7067003f22.jpg?w=860&h=483 "Memorial Day Open Thread [5.26.14]")
Hope all of you are enjoying this Memorial Day and are giving some thought to the purpose of the day.
Memorial Day: Sean Barney Talks About His Iraq Experience
We all know that Sean Barney is challenging Chip Flowers for the office of State Treasurer. Sean is a veteran of the Iraq war — one who signed up to serve after 9/11. I’m a big fan of Sean and his leadership — this video is his interview yesterday with Patrick Murphy on the MSNBC show Taking the Hill:
Sunday Open Thread [5.25.14]
![Sunday Open Thread [5.25.14]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Mental-Health-Guns600-240x180.jpg "Sunday Open Thread [5.25.14]")
On Friday, there was another shooting spree — this time at UC Santa Barbara — 4 dead from gunshots, 3 from knife wounds and some of the 13 in the hospital were also shot. The shooter apprently shot himself, and had more mayhem on his mind:
Congressman John Carney’s Fraudulent Fiscal Conservatism
On Friday, Congressman Carney took to Facebook to burnish his cred in the Fiscal Austerity Games, to tell us all that he was named as one of the “Fiscal Heros” of the front group Fix the Debt (Senators Carper and Coons are in this group, too):
I’m humbled to have been named one of Fix the Debt’s Fiscal Heroes, but there is much more work to be done. For far too long, both Democrats and Republicans have spent trillions of dollars the nation didn’t have. I will continue to work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make the tough decisions necessary to put the country on better fiscal footing.
Unfortunately, Congressman Carney just voted YES to authorize the FY 2015 National Defense Authorization bill — a bill that specifically INCREASES the budget for the DoD. Increases DOD programs over the objections of the DoD:
QOD — Where’s the Best BBQ in Delaware?
Actually, let’s make it this question — where’s the Best BBQ in two hours driving distance from Wilmington? Feel free to recommend places further away though — I was talking to a friend this morning about a day trip for BBQ.
Late Night Video — Common Core and Standardized Tests Make Kids Gay
So this is the end of the argument right? I mean, somehow this has to be the equivalent of Godwin’s law — As the discussion of Common Core and standardized testing grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving homosexuals approaches 1. How does that work for you? Because we have Rep. Charles Van Zant saying that the testing company providing FL standardized tests (and Common Core!) promotes homosexuality (approx 3 mins long):
Same Sex Marriage is Legal is PA!
This just doesn’t get old. It is completely glorious that all of these barriers to same sex marriage are falling like dominoes. Today, Pennsylvania’s ban on same sex marriage was struck down by a Federal judge :
The Scam of Wilmington Property Tax Increases
You may have heard that the Mayor’s office and the City Council have reached a compromise on the city budget. I think that it is the Mayor and Council President Theo Gregory who have reached the compromise, since no Council votes have been taken yet. Forgetting that detail, the 9.9% Hair on Fire increase (this was the one that if they didn’t get it, they wouldn’t be able to maintain city services — even though this tax increase would cover the current budget shortfall enough to produce an almost $3M budget surplus. Now, the “compromise” is a 5% property tax increase that leaves the city with a $1.4M surplus. The Water and Sewer rates are being reduced to 5% increases each (from 8% and 7% respectively), and the City will still not be paying its share of these bills.
Late Night Video — A Nun on the Bus Raps Dinesh D’Souza on the Knuckles
Sister Simone is the leader of Nuns on the Bus, and she was on Bill Maher recently when Maher brought up the topic of Mitt Romney’s newfound support for a higher minimum wage. D’Souza tried trotting out the BS talking points and Sister Simone shows him that his talking points on poverty wages were a masked support for corporate welfare. I was on my feet and applauding at the end of this:
Mother’s Day Open Thread [5.11.14]
Happy Mother’s Day!
I’ve been following this lastest round of Benghazi bullshit from the wingnuts (apparently their All Obamacare, All of the Time strategy is bombing), and was intrigued by this story from Major Garrett (former Fox Noise WH reporter) on CBS. Apparently the Republicans changed the quotes from the email that they point to as a smoking gun — meaning that they lied to re-ignite this thing and get the attention of the media. Of course, the media will bypass the fact that they were lied to in order to get their front seats to all of the falsified spectacle (It doesn’t appear to me that CBS even tweeted out their own story on this.) Take a look:
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